The Issue: An upcoming left-wing CUNY conference that attacks Israel for its toleration of gays and lesbians.
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I applaud Alan Dershowitz for bringing to our attention the “pinkwashing” allegations against Israel (“The Next Hate Fest,” PostOpinion, Feb. 25).
It’s an absurd notion that a country that has had a female prime minister — and accepted gay rights in its military well before the United States — only did so to make its neighbors look bad.
Certainly, its neighbors have done nothing to make themselves look good in this arena.
Michael Salzhauer
The Bronx
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The recently held Israel-bashing conference at Brooklyn College and another one to be held at CUNY in April are the result of the takeover of higher education by radical leftists from the Vietnam War era.
They are now tenured professors who have indoctrinated several generations of students with their anti-Americanism.
New York taxpayers shouldn’t have to support CUNY institutions staffed by radical professors who teach their students to hate this country and its one ally in the Middle East: Israel.
George Rubin
The Bronx
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I am grateful for Dershowitz’s piece.
It is terrifying to learn that rabid, anti-Israel raving is being promoted under the aegis of CUNY and the guise of academic freedom.
The “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing” conference claims that Israel’s good conduct is really a cover for anti-Palestinian actions.
By this logic, anything good that Israel does is really a cover for evil in another area. That just sounds like the same old anti-Semitic stuff to me.
Is there no moral leadership left at CUNY?
Rabbi S. ZimmermanThe Jewish Centerof the Hamptons
East Hampton
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Whatever happened to being fair and balanced?
Post scribes always follow the line that Israel can do no wrong — it’s always somebody else at fault.
That could be true, but we sure don’t need another one-note MSNBC in the media.
Gary Cella
Cos Cob, Conn.
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It’s not just anti-Semitism on display here — it’s also the bigotry of low expectations.
I guess the CUNY conferences on the deadly issue of homophobia in the Arab and Muslim world escaped my attention.
The doctrine of “pinkwashing” is simply an attempt by Sarah Schulman and her ilk to disguise their own racist assumptions about third-world peoples.
They don’t expect them to be as enlightened as we are — and as some Israelis are — on this issue.
I’ll say this for the “pinkwashing” crowd: They disguise their racism more effectively than they disguise their anti-Semitism.
David Rabinovitz
Brooklyn
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How can anyone take seriously the charge that Israel’s tolerance for gays and lesbians is a smokescreen to mask its treatment of the Palestinian Arabs?
Can’t Israel get credit for anything it does?
Must it always be the target of attacks?
We just finished battling the BDS campaign at Brooklyn College, where officials claimed that “academic freedom” allows everything and anything.
Can’t our universities return to being centers of learning and scholarship, rather than incubators of hatred and ignorance?
Helen Freedman
Executive DirectorAmericans for a Safe Israel
Manhattan
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Dershowitz’s attempt to take CUNY to task was weak.
Instead of staying on message and calling out those he intended to, he went on about the history of anti-Semitism, even alluding to the Brownshirts.
That’s history. Dershowitz’s argument today is with CUNY’s Gay and Lesbian Studies Center and its activist leader, Sarah Schulman.
If he means to defend Israel, then do it.
If his fight is with Schulman, that’s where he should aim his venom.
But Dershowitz wants both to criticize and pander to the gay community.
One fight at a time.
Michael Sara
Scranton, Pa.