Ben-Shahar encourages campus watching, and enhancing censorship between colleagues. Hence, he must understand that transforming a student into a surveying agent is extremely far away from the objectives a university is build to achieve. His "campus- watching" seems to be a rich subject for his magazine "The ObjectivistCenter", which
promotes "free speech" and cares a lot about the "liberty of mind". He has to know that implanting hatred and mind terrorism between students brings us to a new "version" of the Gestapo era in the dictatorial NAZI system. Thus, the application of such regime of campus surveying to shut up all pro-Islamic and pro-Palestinian voices on American campuses is directly in breach of the liberal principles of the American Revolution.
Ben-Shahar shows his disappointment at Harvard University for permitting an Egyptian senior "Zayed Yasin", to give a speech on the graduation ceremony, on the noble meaning of Jihad. He interprets it as sympathy to the Palestinian resistance or the "Jihad" against Israel. Refusing to just hear the opponent's opinion, the author considers the direct dialogue between pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians as a harmful kind of "exposure to ambiguity and doublespeak". Ben-Shahar tries to draw a parallel between Islam, Jihad, terrorism, Palestinian militants, and Zayed Yasin's speech. In addition, Ben-Shahar says that the "form" of Jihad overwhelmingly supported by the Muslim world today is synonymous to murder. He makes a great contradiction then when he says, "We must teach our graduates that good is good, bad is bad, and Jihad is Jihad!" Then, he doesn't show really whether Jihad is moral or immoral. Moreover, he gives an irreplaceable judgment when he says, "Jihad is Jihad", and while accepting that there are many "forms" of Jihad. It is now probable to think that such a man totally approves Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and on the contrary, he totally disapproves Jihad against the Israelis in Palestine. To say then that Ben-Shahar is seeking for "freedom of expression" or "intolerance" - as a reporter at the "ObjectivistCenter" - is quite unthinkable.
One can respect the tolerance of Lev Grinberg, the director of the Humphrey Institute for Social Research at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, when he says, "Suicide bombs killing innocent citizens must be unequivocally condemned; they are immoral acts, and their perpetrators should be sent to jail, but they cannot be compared to State terrorism carried out by the Israeli Government". It is important to mention both sides - including the Palestinians - to have a tolerant, fair and acceptable argument. However, Ben-Shahar continues to prove his ignorance and his unfairness when he gives chilling facts about Islamist groups in particular and Muslim societies in general. He tries to draw a terrible picture of Muslims; they "fly planes into buildings", they support "indiscriminate suicide murders in Israel" and they kill and enslave Christians in Southern Sudan under the title of Jihad! The hideous objective desired by Ben-Shahar here is to create hatred of Muslims, and outrage at Islamic Jihad among Christians and none-Muslims. Furthermore, he tries to gain some more allies who will accept the survey of any Muslim activity on American campuses.
Ben-Shahar benefits from the suicide mentality of the Palestinian "Mujahedeen" to rely the responsibility for the US attacks on the principle of Jihad. He must then realize that he can't take Adolf Hitler with his German cross, his Holocaust Campaigns, and his concentration camps, as a symbol of Christendom. If he realized that, he would never burden the responsibility of a "mysterious" attack - like the one on September eleventh- on Jihad or Islam. The careful searcher in Islam finds that the word "Jihad" refers to that action of struggle, when Muslims defend their land, money or dignity with every possible mean, which is considered as "The small Jihad". Moreover it refers to the "struggle" against the evil temptations of the human spirit, which is considered as "the Great Jihad", as mentions Eqbal Ahmed, the Pakistani writer in his essay "Terrorism, theirs and ours". On the other side, Ben-Shahar's interpretation of Jihad is judged as poor and biased. Nevertheless, he still doesn't want to understand that Zayed Yasin gave his speech about the first type of Jihad, which is synonymous to resist occupation. Ben-Shahar doesn't take in consideration that the United Nations declared Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza strip as occupied territories-as described in the United Nations declaration 242 in 1967. It is important for him to read well about the Universal Declaration on Human Rights signed after world war II by more than 100 countries including Israel and the United States, and which ensures the inalienable right to all nations under foreign occupation to use any possible means to resist.
Tal Ben-Shahar wonders why the Organization of the Islamic Conference doesn't condemn the suicide attacks on Israeli people. Some civilians may die in these attacks, but on the other side, a massive population of Palestinian civilians are murdered and ethnically cleansed in the most terrifying bloodbaths and war crimes by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) under the title of "destroying the terrorism infrastructure", and without any complain or regret form the western governments. Hence, the entire world has to understand that the "terrorism infrastructure" is created inside the human mind, that isn't changeable unless we end unjust and indiscriminant policies, including "campus watching".
The first action that has to be condemned is injustice in judging a particular action, as does Mr. Ben-Shahar when he describes Yasin's speech as an "evil triumph". The first people who have to be condemned are those writers and intellectuals -such as Ben-Shahar- supporting war criminals who don't find it difficult to kill defenseless people and occupy their own land. The first policy that must end is the consideration of people defending their property as "fanatics" and "terrorists". The most atrocious activity that must end immediately is the "campus watching" xenophobia held by Daniel Pipes, the campus-watch leader, and his followers including that Tal Ben-Shahar. In fact, Pipes and his supporters believe that their unwarranted survey of institutions aims at the sabotage of pro-Islamic activities, but in reality, Pipes and his assistants are not doing less than implanting fear and anxiety between students who support Arab and Muslim cases. This restriction on the freedom of speech may induce some students to commit excessive violence as an only form of expression. Therefore, the legacy of campus watching won't be effectively anticipated.
Drawing a similarity between the Palestinian nation that has no army to defend its lands from the IDF occupation and between Islamic fundamentalism is the weakest point of Ben-Shahar's essay. This unfounded point of view reminds me of the famous speech of the Marshall Seymour of Great Britain in June 1882, -after his naval forces shelled, crippled and burned the Egyptian port of Alexandria leaving a massive destruction all over the city, and starting the British invasion of Egypt-, when he said to his European allies that he considered that battle as a great victory over "Islamic fundamentalism"! One can observe that ungracious ideology towards Islam shared between Ben-Shahar and the Marshal Seymour.
In conclusion, instead of adopting the system of "mind terrorism" and censorship, universities should allow the freedom of thought, the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of dialogue between different mentalities, through an atmosphere of tolerance and respect of the other. Supposedly open-minded university students have the ability to separate between right and wrong, they shall compare between different ways of thinking, and decide for themselves which is moderate and which is extremist. They will know when can an action be judged as terrorism, and when it can be judged as a rightful struggle. Through that path, history won't be written by the dominant powers, but it will be seen through the clarity of facts provided by that useful multi-mental freedom of expression.
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