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No Hirsi Ali, but Brandeis has Iranian Lobbyist as Commencement Speaker
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On April 9, 2015 @ 4:13 pm In The Point | No Comments
Brandeis is sticking to its mission. It’s just a question of what the mission is.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to be given the boot [1] because she threatened the viewpoints of some Muslim students. But an Iranian lobbyist is just fine.
When asked why Brandeis chose to honor Pickering, a known anti-Israel public official, a member of the Brandeis Communications team came back – after requesting two extensions – with a woefully shallow response.
Bill Schaller, Brandeis’s “executive director of integrative media,” emailed back that Pickering has had a “long and diverse career, which has often included staunch advocacy for Israel.”
Schaller may have misspelled [2] Iran as Israel.
The problem is that Pickering has ties to the pro-Iran Islamist front group known as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC lost an important defamation case in federal court last month in which it unsuccessfully argued the group was not a tool of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Pickering is a member of the advisory board [3] of NIAC.
One of the most prominent names among AIC’s board of directors that reappears repeatedly in legitimating
positions elsewhere in the Iran Lobby network, is that of Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering. A career diplomat,
Pickering served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from May 1997 through the end of 2000. He subsequently was a senior vice president with the Boeing Company until 2006. Currently he is vice chairman of the
international business consulting firm, Hills & Co. and co-chairman of the board of directors of the International
Crisis Group (whose executive committee includes, interestingly, George Soros).
…at least Brandeis didn’t fly in Ahmadinejad. Yet.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine:
http://www.frontpagemag.comURL to article:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/no-hirsi-ali-but-brandeis-has-iranian-lobbyist-as-commencement-speaker/URLs in this post:
[1] Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to be given the boot:
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/its-official-justice-brandeis-wants-his-name-back/2015/04/08/[2] Schaller may have misspelled:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/obamas-benghazi-investigator-an-iran-sympathizer/[3] is a member of the advisory board:
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/media/center%20publication%20pdfs/Clare%20Lopez%20-%20Iran%20Lobby.pdf
