CORRECTION TO CAMPUS WATCH PARTIAL POSTING OF AN DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN WEB REPORT ON A SPEECH BY MFI PRESIDENT I. AHMAD AT UNIV. OF PENNSYLVANIA


The article [posted on the Campus Watch website] mischaracterizes my speech at the University of Pennsylvania, a fact that was noted on the Daily Pennsylvanian website by the event organizer Ben Herzig
. I am particularly concerned that the original article, in attempting to simplify my complex explanation of why I supported recognizing the state of Israel, gives a misleading reading of what I said. It certainly does not represent what I meant, and the fact Mr. Herzig got the point suggests that the article does not adequately represent what I actually SAID, either. In any case, my point was that governments are legitimized only by the consent of the governed. Thus, Israel is delegitimized by its self-definition as an apartheid state, a Jewish state in a land whose people are mainly not Jews. (Expelling or killing the indigenous people is not an acceptable means of legitimization.) If, however, Israel would agree to abide by International Law, then, we should set aside doubts as to whether the United Nations had a moral or legal right to establish the state in the first place, and recognize Israel as a pragmatic means to attain the peace that most Israelis and most Palestinians earnestly desire. I dismissed HAMAS' arguments that all of Palestine is a trust for the Muslim people just as I dismiss the Jewish National Fund's claim that all of Eretz Israel is a trust for the Jewish people.

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