The crowd of students and faculty responded with roaring applause after Columbia University president Lee Bollinger called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator" during Ahmadinejad's visit yesterday. However they also applauded Ahmadinejad's calls for peace, substantiating fears that giving Iran's leader a platform would legitimize him.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger giving Ahmadinejad a scathing introduction
"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Haaretz quoted Columbia President Lee Bollinger as saying to Ahmadinejad about his Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"
Ahmadinejad avoided giving a direct answer, and refused to refer to the Jewish state by its proper name.
"I'm not saying it didn't happen, but granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?" the Iranian president asked, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Ahmadinejad addressing the audience at Columbia University
However, according to the Jerusalem Post, Iran's leader was applauded when complaining about Bollinger's unfriendly introduction. He was applauded at the end of he outlined his stance on Palestine. There was even approving laughter when he deftly evaded the demand for a "yes or no" answer to the question of whether he sought the ddestruction of Israel as a Jewish state.
Iran's president also dodged confronting his numerous calls for Israel's destruction.
Instead, Ahmadinejad said that to solve the "60-year-old problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide its future itself," adding that the Palestinians should not have to pay for the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, Israel's Foreign Ministry condemned Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for participating in a rally against Ahmadinejad's visit to the university.
"By taking the lead on this we are sending the wrong message. The average American viewer will see a demonstration of Jewish organizations with the participation of the foreign minister of Israel and ask, 'Is this whole thing any concern of ours?'" an official from the ministry said.
Tzipi Livni was reportedly driven to participate out of frustration and concern that the international community is not doing enough to prevent a nuclear Iran.
"Where is the world?" she said at the protest. "Where are its values? Why does it hesitate, while Iran casts its dark shadow of terror across the globe? While its president mocks the Holocaust and markets hate? We are here to tell the world - to demand from the world - to wake up before it is too late."
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.