Charles Jacobs, President of The David Project, today deplored Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s invitation to Iranian President, Ahmadinejad:

“It is a clear failure of judgment; it is demeaning of academic standards, it continues a disturbing pattern of bias at Columbia against Israel, and it is emblematic of the failure of so many of our universities to distinguish right from wrong, truth from lies,” said Dr. Charles Jacobs, David Project President.

“ Bollinger’s justification for providing a prestigious platform to a raving anti-Semite, whose agents are killing American soldiers and whose nation is covertly developing nuclear weapons, is nothing less than astonishing,” said Jacobs.

“Bollinger says Columbia is “committed to confronting ideas,” but surely universities do not need to invite tyrants to teach students the evils of tyranny,” Jacobs noted. Bollinger’s lesson instead seems to be that American students should give platforms to would-be mass murderers so they can show off their debating skills.”

Jacobs said, “What we need from a university president is a noble defense of civilization and decency. What we are getting here instead is another attempt to “understand” evil and not to defeat it. Bollinger is treating this terrorist like some in the media treat suicide bombers, by trying to ‘understand’ them, denying all the while that this is the same as justifying their acts.”

“Debating Ahmedinijad in the halls of one the West’s most prestigious universities supports the notion that there is something to debate about his stated intention to murder Jews en masse, about the reality of the Holocaust, or about Iran’s practice of stoning women or executing gays. Some ideas are not worth “debating” – they must be defeated through action.” Jacobs said.

“Bollinger says that by listening to ‘ideas we deplore does not imply our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas.’” “But,” Jacobs said,” Ahmedinijad is not a policy wonk or a philosopher: He is a man of action, murdering Americans and planning to slaughter the Jews of the Middle East.. He is not an “idea” to be debated. He is a man to be stopped.

Giving him this prestigious platform is not, as Bollinger says, “America at its best.” It is American academia at its worst.”