Someone should post the whole statement but Bloomberg also said:

“If you want to promote views that you find abhorrent, this is exactly the way to do it. What the protesters have done is given a lot of attention to the very idea they keep saying they don’t want people to talk about!”

“They just don’t think before they open their mouths. The best way to popularize an idea or book or a movie is just to get someone to ban it . . . Now they’ve created the very monster that they say they’re opposed to.”

“Well look, I couldn’t disagree more violently with BDS as they call it, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. As you know I’m a big supporter of Israel, as big a one as you can find in the city, but I could also not agree more strongly with an academic department’s right to sponsor a forum on any topic that they choose. I mean, if you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea.

The last thing that we need is for members of our City Council or State Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public universities run, and base funding decisions on the political views of professors. I can’t think of anything that would be more destructive to a university and its students.

You know, the freedom to discuss ideas, including ideas that people find repugnant, lies really at the heart of the university system, and take that away and higher education in this country would certainly die.”

I am Far from being a partisan of Mayor Bloomberg, but I have to say: “Heeluva of a job, Mayor!”

Israeli leaders still avoid visiting Britain because they fear they will be (rightly) arrested as war criminals.

Israel as a secular enterprise whas very admirable.

Israel as a religious crusade is..less than admirable.

Socialism @69, “draining blood”? (eyeroll)

I have no strong position on BDS (some of my friends support BDS, some oppose it; I stand by my friends!) but I wholeheartedly support Brooklyn College, Corey Robin and colleagues, and the department in this matter.

Considering every other country in the world treats Israel like a pariah (except China, which treats it as a source of U.S. military secrets…), you really have to wonder how valuable it is for Israel to own the the weaker of the two U.S. political parties.