NEW YORK -- Its proponents, including Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger and the Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, contended that having Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak on campus would be a big step in the direction of mutual understanding.

Instead, Bollinger and Columbia University stepped into a black hole of shame, from which there is no escape.

What has the passage of a year wrought?

Only a better understanding of just how misguided Bollinger, John H. Coatsworth (the SIPA Dean), Richard W. Bulliet (the professor who initiated the A-Jad invitation) and the entire Columbia University Board of Trustees were.

Columbia University was played to the max by Ahmadinejad, who basked in the credibility his appearance provided for his gay-bashing, women-stoning, anti-American, destroy-Israel agenda. Bollinger and Columbia University have been accessories to every action of A-Jad since September 24, 2007. And, Bollinger and Columbia University will go down in history as having been duped by one of the 21^st Century's most evil leaders.

What else has time revealed about the 2007 A-Jad speech at Columbia? Like a politician who serves his or her entire career with distinction, and then is caught in a lurid scandal, Columbia’s biographers and obituary writers will forever associate the school with a man who openly calls for Holocaust II against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

We strongly suspect that Columbia has paid a financial price, as well, for its embrace of A-Jad. We know alumni donors who’ve cut or eliminated their contributions to the school in the wake of the September 24^th blasphemy. And really, there is no way to know which major domo donors who might have once considered a major gift to Columbia have reconsidered.

One year later A-Jad and his hate-filled regime are stronger and more menacing than ever. As for Bollinger, Coatsworth, Bulliet and the other vermin who disgraced themselves and their university, we see no signs that they’ve managed to redeem their tarnished reputations even an iota.

In Jewish tradition, one remembers those who have died each year on the anniversary of their deaths by saying a special Yizkor prayer and lighting a candle. This September 24^th, many Columbia University alumni and friends of the school will be lighting a candle for Columbia University to commemorate the day its morality perished.

The following is reprinted in its entirety with permission from www.deanrotbart.com.  Rotbart is one of the founding members of Bnai Haman and remains active with the group. 

I HAVE A STALKER: THE LATEST 21st  CENTURY PROFESSIONAL ACCESSORY

I have a stalker (or perhaps more than one) complete with a freshly opened FBI case file.  My stalker is posting threats on a website to which I contribute and using Wikipedia and perhaps other venues to generate misinformation about me.

I guess I should be honored.  In 2008, if you are a journalist or you are outspoken on any topic -- I am both -- then I guess you are not doing your job unless the FBI is investigating at least one of your stalkers.

Mine is particularly disturbed by the fact that as an alumnus of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, I have helped organize a group of alumni and other concerned citizens to conduct an ongoing protest of the University's decision to invite and permit Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus last September 24th.

I've made no secret whatsoever of my involvement with this group, which calls itself Bnai Haman.  Indeed, I have posted at the Columbia Spectator and other sites using my real name, unlike most of my critics and most Ahmadinejad-Bollinger supporters.

As anyone who knows me well already knows, most of my father's family perished during the Holocaust and he was interred at Auschwitz, so I'm quite familiar with the potential consequences of letting Ahmadinejad speak unchallenged at my alma mater.

My stalker seems to feel that my affiliation with Bnai Haman is sufficient reason to make threats against me and to try and rewrite my role in the group.  Some people will believe my stalker.  Many people believe Ahmadinejad and share his view that this world would be a better place without Israel, which the Iranian leader wishes to wipe off the map.

I take my stalker serious.  That is why I have provided the FBI with full details concerning his/her threat and why I believe my stalker stands a very good chance of being caught and prosecuted.

Although he/she may wish we lived in an Islamic state such as Iran, where force and terror rule, we still live in the United States where speech is free, except that which threatens the well being of another or libels him.

My stalker has done both.

Just to let him/her know that the FBI and I are very serious, we already think we have two of the IP Addresses he/she is using to make threats:  67.102.0.169 and 67.101.192.4.  If these are your IP addresses, don't be too surprised if you get a knock on your door in the near future from an FBI field agent.  These folks are very good at what they do.  As am I.<< MORE >>

Bnai Haman has been in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation following receipt of an email threat against it and one of its founding members.
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New York, NY (March 16, 2008) --  Craigslist, the popular online classifieds and forums site, has removed a post from its local news forum after some Columbia University professors flagged it as inappropriate.

The post, which can still be viewed at www.ahmadinejad-bollinger.com, attempted to alert Columbia University and its controversial president, Lee C. Bollinger, as to how history is likely to judge them in the wake of last September's speech on campus by Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It is a bit ironic, wouldn't you say, that Ahmadinejad was allowed to speak freely on campus before a worldwide television audience, yet some at Columbia have moved rapidly to silence us?" says Rachel Smith-Bard, a human rights activist and volunteer spokeswoman for Bnai Haman.

Smith-Bard said her group posted the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger item on the Manhattan-Upper West Side forum of Craigslist on Thursday evening, March 13, and that by Friday morning, March 14th, it had already been flagged for removal. 

"Our post contained nothing libelous, nothing that violated common decency, nothing that infringed on anyone's copyright, no foul language, no disparagements of minorities or religious groups," Smith-Bard noted.  "It merely showcased how much Columbia and Bollinger have permanently damaged their reputations because of the Ahmadinejad event."

Smith-Bard said that Bnai Haman has received direct complaints from some at Columbia as well.

Rodolfo O. de la Garza, Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science, emailed Smith-Bard about Bnai Haman's Craigslist post saying:  "This isn't funny or creative.  It does not achieve being sophomoric."

Bnai Haman works to remind the world of the lessons learned by the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech and to forewarn other universities and academics about the price to be paid for permitting dictators, terrorists and other villains to user their institutions as a platform for promoting hate speech.

The group maintains various informational websites, including www.ahmadinejad-bollinger.com.

New York, NY -- Lee Carroll Bollinger, the controversial president of Columbia University and a distinguished legal scholar, died yesterday afternoon of a massive coronary attack as he prepared to meet with the school's Board of Trustees.

Paramedics worked feverishly for more than one hour to resuscitate the 61-year-old educator, but he was pronounced dead on the scene before he could be transported to the nearby Columbia University Medical Center.

In a statement, William V. Campbell, chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, said that "all of us at Columbia have lost a great leader and friend in Lee." Campbell added that "although Lee's tenure here was enveloped in controversy and acrimony, the Board always supported him and felt he had his best interests at heart in all of the decisions he made."

Bollinger become president of Columbia in June 2002, after serving as president of the University of Michigan since 1996.

While the Santa Rosa, California native had been involved in various legal and policy controversies throughout his professional career -including standing at the center of two cases before the United States Supreme Court - Bollinger became a global figure only after he permitted Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus on September 24, 2007.

Ahmadinejad's speech, and Bollinger's biting introduction of him, made Bollinger the target of criticism from many quarters.  Jewish groups and others felt Bollinger should not have permitted Ahmadinejad to speak on campus, given the Iranian's record of gross human rights violations and Holocaust denial.

Others were outraged by Bollinger's introduction, which they said was unbecoming, given that Ahmadinejad was speaking at the express invitation and with the approval of Columbia and Bollinger.

While others at the University also took heat for the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech, as it came to be known, Bollinger alone bore the brunt of the blame.

Maynard G. Krebbs, a theologian and Oxford University scholar, said in a telephone interview from Bath, England that he believes history will judge Bollinger harshly. "Lee wanted it both ways. He wanted to show his academic tolerance for speech he didn't agree with and he wanted to damn that speech," Krebbs said. "He really either should have banned Ahmadinejad or he should have kept his introductory remarks civil."

At the time of his death, Bollinger was also facing heavy opposition from community groups over his plan to expand the campus onto a 17-acre development in adjoining Harlem, a move these groups contend will displace the culturally mixed, lower-income population that currently lives there and runs businesses there.

Richard W. Bulliet, a professor of history who also took heat as the liaison between the campus and Ahmadinejad, said in an interview that Bollinger was not deaf to the complaints of those who felt his actions were disrespectful to Jews, gays, women, African Americans and other minorities.

"Lee heard their cries and weighed their arguments," Bulliet said. "He just didn't want to let these self-interested groups interfere with his own highly-prized professional aspirations."

Bollinger is survived by his wife, Jean Magnano Bollinger, and two grown children. Details concerning his funeral and viewing have not yet been set.

p.s. The above account of Bollinger's passing is greatly exaggerated. In fact, it never happened. But we wanted Bollinger and his fans to get a taste of how his actual obituary is likely to read, since when the real one is printed, he won't be there to enjoy it. Happy Purim, Lee!

Gaza -- Advisors close to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas say his Fatah movement is facing a critical shortage of hyperbole and that unless fresh analogies can be found, his very government could crumble.

Drawing down on his rapidly dwindling stock of shockingly over-inflated accusations, today Abbas called Israel’s targeted killing of four notorious Arab terrorists a “barbaric crime.”

Abbas went on to repeat statements from earlier this month equating Israel’s attacks on rocket launchers in the unoccupied Gaza territory to Hitler’s systematic murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.

In a statement today, March 12, 2008, the Palestine Authority complained that Israel ignores its “bogus pledges from Annapolis andother international events in addition to the barbaric holocaust it has carried out against our people, women and children in the Gaza Strip.” [Isn't that redundant or don't Palestinians count women and children as people?]

Independent observers note that despite their furtive imaginations, the Palestinians have used up almost all available hyperbole pertaining to being persecuted and face the very real prospect of having to either make up words or simply go silent.

“The same folks who daily lob rockets from free Gaza into the civilian centers of Sderot, Ashkelon and other Israeli cities without provocation – and celebrate widely when Jewish school children are gunned down as they study, are having a hard time finding sufficient words to described their own feigned suffering,” says linguist, Dr. R. U. Kidding, a professor at the University of Toronto Teachers Extension of Ridyah in Noncents, Saudia Arabia, also known as UTTER Noncents.

Kidding, who has kept count, says these words have already been used by Abbas and the Palestinians in their effort to liken Israel to the Nazis and hence are no longer available: abominable, barbaric, bloodthirsty, brutal, cold-blooded, cruel, depraved, heartless, inhumane, merciless, monstrous, murderous, pernicious, ruthless, sadistic, sinful, vicious, vile and wicked.

“It’s hard to fight a global public relations battle when you’ve already used up all the best words,” Kidding says. “If at his next news conference to blame the Israelis for killing some of his bomb makers Abbas attacks the Jews as ‘sissies’, or ‘pansies’ or ‘party poops’, it just won’t have the same impact.”

What the Palestinians really need, say sources close to Abbas, are some fresh acts of human depravity that they can then paint Israel with. “We are sending an emissary to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran to see what kinds of torture and intimidation he is using on his own people, so we can possibly accuse the Israelis of the same behaviors,” a spokesman for Abbas explained.

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They are now only memories. Eight Yeshiva students whose only crime was that were Jewish, they were Israeli and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eight young lives snuffed out by one lone follower of the ideals and tactics of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a man given the honor of being invited to lecture on the once-proud campus of Columbia University.

More than 2,000 people have requested Purim masks depicting Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others involved in his speech last September 24 on the campus of Columbia University. Bnai Haman, which plans a Purim Ball on March 20 featuring modern Purim masks, says it has received requests from as far away as India, Japan and Kazakhstan.

Las Vegas (PRWEB) March 8, 2008 -- People from as far away as the Republic of Kazakhstan have written or called Bnai Haman seeking to obtain masks for this year's Purim celebration.

The requests began pouring in on February 19, when Bnai Haman, a not-for-profit volunteer group of Columbia University alumni and concerned citizens, announced that it is planning an Ahmadinejad-themed Purim party to mark the September 24, 2007 speech by Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on campus.

At modern Purim carnivals, it is customary for children and adults alike to dress up as characters from the biblical book of Esther. Purim commemorates the reversal of fortune for the Jews of 6th Century Persia, who were facing extermination at the hands of evil Haman, a trusted adviser to the King. Thanks to the intervention of Queen Esther and her cousin, Mordecai, the King protected the Jews and instead hung Haman on the gallows he, himself, had constructed to kill Jews.

Last month, Bnai Haman said at its 2008 Purim Ball, to be held the evening of March 20, 2008, revelers will have the opportunity to dress like the biblical Purim figures or to wear masks representing those Columbia University officials most closely involved in the Ahmadinejad speech. Like Haman of ancient times, Ahmadinejad has publicly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"No one was more surprised than us when the requests started arriving, because we aren't selling or giving away masks," says a spokeswoman for Bnai Haman. "Our members are making their own masks for their own personal use."

Among the most requested masks are those of Columbia University's President, Lee C. Bollinger, who introduced Ahmadinejad last September, and Richard W. Bulliet, the Columbia professor who first invited the dictator to campus. Many requests have also been received for Ahmadinejad masks.

Bnai Haman said about 80 percent of its 2,000-plus requests have come from the United States; 10 percent from Israel and the remainder from countries throughout the world, including Australia, India and Japan.

"The Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech was broadcast around the globe and its lasting impact can't be overstated," the Bnai Haman spokeswoman said. "The fact that individuals in the former Soviet East Block want to share in our Purim festivities demonstrates that the fight against evil knows no boundaries."

Bnai Haman works to remind the world of the lessons learned by the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech and to forewarn other universities and academics about the price to be paid for permitting dictators, terrorists and other villains to use their institutions as a platform for promoting hate speech.

The group maintains various information websites, including www.september242007.com.

New York, NY (February 19, 2008) -- Costumes are a traditional part of the festivities that surround the annual Jewish holiday of Purim.

Purim commemorates the reversal of fortune for the Jews of 6th Century Persia, who were facing extermination at the hands of the evil Haman, a trusted advisor to the king. Thanks to the intervention of Queen Esther and her cousin, Mordecai, the king protected the Jews and instead hung Haman on the gallows he, himself, had constructed to kill Jews.

At modern Purim carnivals, it is customary for children and adults alike to dress up as Esther, Mordechai and other characters from the biblical story, including Haman.

This year, however, to mark the September 24, 2007 speechby Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, a group of Columbia alumni and concerned citizens - known as Bnai Haman - are planning an Ahmadinejad-themed Purim festival.

"Ahmadinejad and Haman have a lot in common in that both men plotted to exterminate all the Jews," says a spokeswoman for Bnai Haman, a not-for-profit group of volunteers.  "And just as Haman found those in ancient Persia who would listen to his incitements, so too did Columbia University provide a platform for Ahmadinejad to espouse Israel's destruction to a global media audience."

At its 2008 Purim Ball, to be held the evening of March 20, 2008, revelers will have the opportunity to dress like the biblical Purim figures or to wear masks representing those who were most closely involved in the Ahmadinejad speech. 

In addition to Ahmadinejad costumes, Bnai Haman said its members plan to dress as Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, who introduced Ahmadinejad; Richard W. Bulliet, the Columbia University professor who first invited Ahmadinejad; and John H. Coatsworth, an acting Dean at the University who defended the Ahmadinejad speech, telling Fox News that he would have invited Hitler to speak on campus had the Nazi leader been available.

"Judaism often finds modern parallels to biblical stories," the Bnai Haman spokeswoman noted.  "We believe that history will record the reign of Ahmadinejad on the same evil scale as that of Haman and others who have sworn to destroy the Jews over many, many centuries."

Bnai Haman works to remind the world of the lessons learned by the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech and to forewarn other universities and academics about the price to be paid for permitting dictators, terrorists and other villains to use their institutions as a platform for promoting hate speech.

The group maintains various informational websites,including www.leebollinger-bnaihaman.com. 

Las Vegas, NV (February 15, 2008) --  Bnai Haman, a group of Columbia University alumni and concerned citizens, has posted a new statement on its web sites condemning the assassination of Hizbullah’s special operations chief Imad Mughniyeh.  Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb that detonated this past week in Syria, where he was in hiding.

Free-speech advocate Imad Mughniyeh (covering the mouth of TWA pilot.)

Unlike Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had the honor of speaking at Columbia University last September, Mughniyeh had not had the opportunity to address students and the media at a major American university before his death.  Had he, Bnai Haman believes, the Hizbullah operative most certainly would have faced the same kinds of academic inquiries that Columbia’s students and faculty posed to Ahmadinejad.

“As Columbia made clear, students and faculty at democratic, free-speech schools can learn so much about the mind of terrorists by inviting them to speak on campus,” says Jed Christianson, a spokesperson for Bnai Haman.  “Mughniyeh's credentials in this regard were impeccable and with his untimely death, Columbia and its community are robbed of the opportunity to hear from this influential Middle East leader.”

Unlike Ahmadinejad, who has openly called for the destruction of Israel, Mughniyeh worked behind the scenes, quietly, to achieve much the same ends.  “Here we have two similar spirits using different methodologies to achieve their purposes,” Christianson said.  “How instructive it would have been for students to have the chance to compare these two anti-Zionist, anti-American leaders and their methodologies.”

Among topics Mughniyeh might have addressed was the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.  Mughniyeh continued to be sought for his role in the attack until the day he died.

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