Faculty Denounce ‘Right-Wing Attack’

Re: “Faculty Denounce ‘Right-Wing Attack,’ ” Jacob Gershman, New York, April 5, 2005. Would-be “scholar” Joseph Massad is not content to lower his profile after all the trouble he has caused Columbia. Instead, he dubs all his accusers liars. Interesting that we, his accusers who equally despise the abhorrent views of Professor Khalidi and the late Professor Said, should pick on him. There’s a reason; unlike the other two, Professor Massad’s scholarship is specious. Yes, that is our ammunition. This, of course, doesn’t excuse the nasty and slanted atmosphere encouraged by so many other professors that permeates the campus.

Indeed, Professor Massad is to Columbia what Leonard Jeffries was to my beloved CUNY, before we stripped him of his chairmanship for his poor scholarship and administration of the African Studies department. Would that earlier trustees had sought to deny him tenure at CUNY altogether. And that’s the rub at Columbia: Professor Massad is up for tenure right now. If he is not denied tenure for his “flat-earth scholarship,” that will be a greater travesty than what has already transpired.

JEFFREY S. WIESENFELD
Trustee
City University of New York
Manhattan

‘Condoleezza Clinton?’

Re: “Condoleezza Clinton?” Editorial, March 28, 2005. It seems as if the definition of what is “Jerusalem and its suburbs” keeps growing all the time. In a small country like Israel, calling “four-and-a-half miles east” a “suburb of Jerusalem,” doesn’t consider that another 15 miles east is the border with Jordan.

No matter how many housing units they build at Maale Adumim, the inevitable two-state solution will someday require our telling those residents, “You don’t have to dismantle your houses. You don’t have to move to ‘Israel proper.’ But you do have to face the reality that you are now living in a foreign country, no longer under the protection of the state of Israel. “Then what will they do?

EDWARD BELLING
Manhattan

If our government is going to demand that Israel put a freeze on Jewish settlements then we must also demand that the Palestinians put a freeze on Arab settlements. What the Arabs are now doing is encroaching on land adjacent to Maale Adumim, thus attempting to cut it off from Jerusalem.

This must stop. Contiguous territory applies to Jews as well as Arabs and, therefore, it is unacceptable for the Arabs to build on land that will cut off the Jewish towns from Jerusalem.

MICHAEL GARKAWE
Madison, N.J.

‘Lindsay Legacy’

Re: “Lindsay Legacy,” Andrew Case, Letters, April 4, 2005; “Lindsay Legacy,” Andrew Wolf, New York, March 24, 2005. The 1969 election was a watershed election in New York City. The large field of candidates in the Democratic Primary for mayor led to the implementation of the 40% runoff rule just four years later.

John Marchi’s challenge to John Lindsay from the right in 1969 ultimately failed in November because the winner of that Democratic primary, Mario Procaccino, was himself viewed as very conservative. Had a more progressive candidate, say, Robert Wagner or Herman Badillo, won the primary, there would have been two liberals and one conservative in the race, and here Mr. Marchi might have had a chance to win.

So, it was not really Lindsay repositioning himself so much as an independent, rather it was the mayor positioning himself as the only liberal candidate in the three-way contest. Remember, together Procaccino and Mr. Marchi polled more than 50% of the vote. Also, people had no qualms about voting for Lindsay on the respectable Liberal Party line. Would voters in 2005 want to vote for Michael Bloomberg if his only ballot line were to be that of the dubious Independence Party of Lenora Fulani?

The Democrats running for mayor are all progressive, liberal types. They repeatedly try to paint Mr. Bloomberg as a conservative Republican, but they are wrong and they know this. This, then is the possible Thomas Ognibene victory in November scenario:

He must win the Republican primary, Mr. Bloomberg then runs on the Independence line,and the Democratic nominee is Fernando Ferrer or C. Virginia Fields. Mr. Ognibene can then position himself as the only conservative running against the liberal Democrat nominee and the liberal Mr. Bloomberg. The liberal vote is split between the Democrat and the mayor and Mr. Ognibene wins. Not likely, perhaps, yet entirely possible.

EVAN EDWARDS
Republican State Committeeman
69th Assembly District
(Upper West Side)
Manhattan

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