UC Berkeley Whitewashes Kadhim
Charles Johnson
Sat Aug 23, 2003 at 7:14 am PDT • Views: 354
This will come as no great surprise; UC Berkeley has absolved Arabic instructor and anti-American polemicist Abbas Kadhim of all blame for claiming that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is factual—and is considering taking action against Susanna Klein, the student who reported the incident: U.C. rebuffs claim that instructor was anti-Semitic. (Hat tip: db.)
In an account first posted last week on the pro-Israel DAFKA.org and well-traveled since, 22-year-old Susanna Klein claimed U.C. Berkeley graduate student Abbas Kadhim proclaimed on Aug. 6 that “Protocols” was written by “Zionist Jews” and explains the state of the world today.
Kadhim, however, claimed it was Klein who steered classroom conversation toward “Protocols,” which he told her most Iraqis believe to be true. Six of the eight students in the Arabic 15 class signed university documents supporting Kadhim’s version of the day’s events.
An official statement from the university this week concluded that, following a probe, “there appears to be no basis” to Klein’s charge. Professor Daniel Boyarin, the dean of the Near Eastern studies department, took it further than that.
“This complaint has been investigated by the deans and they have concluded that it is a lie,” Boyarin wrote in an e-mail to the Bulletin.
“…The department has no need to go anywhere from here, except perhaps to consider disciplinary action with respect to a slanderer.”
In a lengthy interview with the Bulletin, Kadhim said he could not have possibly espoused a personal view on “Protocols” — a czarist police-created forgery purporting to be the transcript of a cabal of Jews trying to take over the world. Why? He doesn’t have one.
Perhaps the “Protocols” was written by Jews and perhaps it was written by Russian secret police, said Kadhim, adding that he hasn’t done the research to know for sure.
Disgusting.
Frank says: