Thursday night I attended the above titled lecture by Daniel Pipes. The event was well attended, with the too-small lecture hall unable to accommodate he number of people who showed, leaving many sitting in the aisles. Unfortunately, the majority were non-students. Those students who did show got a treat if they were paying attention. Pipes is always thoughtful, with a raft of good insight, whether you agree with him or not. There were no disruptions.

It's funny that one of Pipes' more controversial assertions is that the Palestinians need to be defeated, and most importantly feel defeated, before you can proceed with a meaningful peace process. This need not involve solely -- or even primarily -- military means (see the talk for more on this). This seems like perfect common sense to me. But more, this is, in fact, exactly what the other side has been doing for years and making no secret of (although in their case the goal is not a peaceful and co-existential end-game, but the peace of Jewish graves). In fact, the BC campus itself was and is partner to an aspect of this effort having just held a number of "Israel Apartheid Week" activities, and sending students to the area under the tender mercies of professors like Eve Spangler. The boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) 'movement' is simply the palatable and exportable version of what Hamas, Fatah, Hizballah and the various other terror groups pursue by other means. This is what they export to get Westerners involved. The goal is identical and coordinated. Iran's pursuit of nukes is part of the same effort to demoralize Israel so Israelis and Jews simply decide it's no longer worth it to go on.

Here is the video. Part 1 is Pipes' talk. Part 2 is the Q & A. Sorry for the shaky camera. That should only be in the first couple of minutes until I found a good position. You may need to crank the sound a bit. I may have an mp3 to post later: