After six months in Glasgow, arts columnist still assumes there's bagpipes in everything.

No fair: Columbia students can love their bodies -- or have eating disorders -- just like everyone else!

As it turns out, major declaration is not as dramatic as Harry Potter would lead you to believe.

"Bullen said she thinks that the 'giant letter B' on her Barnard stationery is 'stark and ugly. What does a big B mean? The big B is the big bitch.'"

As it turns out, when a story about Columbia and Israel is reported by the Sun, and their only source is a right-wing blog, that story is often a big pile of crap.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning Arab-Israeli journalist and correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, delivered a presentation last night to a crowd of a little less than 50 students in Lerner Cinema. On a lecture tour sponsored by Hasbara Fellowships, Abu Toameh had also recently spoken at other colleges in the northeast including UPenn, Harvard, and Brown. Here, he was sponsored by LionPac, the Pro-Israel Progressives, and the Republicans.

Playfully identifying himself as an Israeli-Arab-Muslim-Palestinian living in Jerusalem, Abu Toameh described his long career as a journalist, which interestingly began at a newspaper sponsored by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). During his studies at Hebrew University, he decided to leave the PLO-sponsored papers and become a "real journalist" by joining the international and Israeli media. His feelings on the issue were quite clear, as he spent the first half of his presentation sharply criticizing the restrictions on media in the Palestinian Authority, citing both the direct lack of free press as well as poor security for journalists. Stating that foreign journalists face no restrictions while working inside Israel, he celebrated his freedom at the Jerusalem Post to write, he said, whatever he wants.

Besides Chipotle and cute guys, other Things of Consequence have occured in the world of the Heights over the last few days. Here's a bit of context.

PrezBo issued a statement condemning members of a British teachers union who decided to boycott their Israeli counterparts because of their "complicity" in the Jewish state's oppression of Palestine. Courageous stand or no, PrezBo's getting a lot of props with the Jewish community, both at home and abroad. Hail Sir Bollinger, defender of the righteous.

Meanwhile, the Manhattanville project steams ahead--the city just certified Columbia's rezoning plan for the area, giving the community 60 days to comment and vote on the propozed changes. Bollinger says the new campus will be "fundamentally diff erent" from the Morningside fortress, but that hasn't satisfied neighborhood agitators, who contend that no amount shiny, expensive retail (or cool environmental architecture, which we're sure had nothing to do with us complaining about how it originally didn't exist) will make up for the lack of affordable housing. SCEG wants you to protest, and Renzo couldn't give a damn. Surprises on all sides.

UPDATE, 2:17 PM EST: More info from the Times' city blog, and for a significantly longer read, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement itself (which Spec has already ably covered).

- LBD

A few who knew that LionPAC had reserved the Sundial for the same time that Lucha and Filasteen were planning a human wall across Low Plaza anticipated a showdown - but would have been disappointed, as the event went down without incident. About 50 people (very roughly speaking), including many of the New York Magazine pantheon, members of BSO, SPeAK, MSA, ISO, Chicano Caucus, and other components of Columbia's brimming alphabet soup of activism spanned the plaza in an event meant to draw a connection between the Israeli security fence and the Mexican border wall, which organizers view as racist and oppressive. James Brown, Arabic pop music, and short-lived chants of "Free Palestine!" filled the awkward hush between speeches by professor Noha Radwan, students, and a representative of ANSWER, and some of those who stopped by couldn't help but dance to the largely upbeat music.

It wasn't supposed to be a red-rover style line. Originally, Filasteen had planned an actual wall, festooned with information and student art. According to an e-mail obtained by Bwog, they ended up $400 short of the the $700 that would cost, and appealed to MEALAC professors for donations to fill the gap. No dice. UPDATE: Sources say that Filasteen actually did get the money together, but they're saving it for another event.

Of the speeches we managed to catch, one took the philosophical/anthropological stance, linking the walls on the Mexican border and the West Bank to the tendency of dominant powers to seek to block out the "other," in these cases with physical walls of separation. Filasteen speaker Veli Yasin pointed out that "this is not about undermining Zionism or the Holocaust, this is about... people who are oppressing other people," and added "thanks...Shalom". Johanna Ocana of Lucha led Spanish chants for amnesty while the wall disintegrated, and longtime Puero Rican activist Carlito Rovira proclaimed that "these walls will be tumbled down by the will of the people! Walls have been created by racist police in our communities."

Meanwhile, LionPAC manned the sundial, handing out cards that said "Israel =/= Apartheid". President Ari Gardner commented: "We're here not to protest, but to present facts... The motivation is not so much an anti-apartheid event, but an anti-wall event... They don't believe that states should delineate borders."

- KER & LBD, Photos by Sara Vogel

On Friday, lecture hopper extraordinaire Josh Mathew took the walk down to St. Mary's Episcopal church in Harlem to hear two scholars duke it out on the question of Israel and Palestine.

After making my way past the numerous activists handing out fliers condemning the war in Iraq and the U.S.'s conceivable Iranian escapades, I grabbed a seat in one of the old wooden pews of St. Mary's Episcopal Church on 126th in Harlem.

After recognizing a few familiar faces amongst this unusual congregation, I saw sitting up at the altar Dr. Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, and his cospeaker Dr. Tanya Reinhart, Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University and the University of Utrecht.

Massad and Reinhart's co-lecture "Channeling Israeli Apartheid" capped off Israel Apartheid Week's series of lectures, which focused on topics like divestment, marriage laws, and the media.

Although Massad's lecture began with an acknowledgment of Israel's "substantive and psychological" desire for peace, he soon added that Israel has simply requested that the world recognize its "right to be a racist state." Followed by a round of laughter, the phrase became the central rhetorical device of Massad's speech, serving as the semi-sarcastic tagline to many of his sentences. Massad criticized all existing solutions proposed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as having accepted Israel's racist nature, racist laws, and system of apartheid. For example, after the 1993 Oslo Accords, the late President of the Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat recognized Israel's "need to be a racist," and following Arafat's death, his successor Mahmoud Abbas has also been persuaded to recognize this "right to be racist." In his conclusion, Massad, rejecting the proposed two-state plan, and recommended a "decolonized, binational state" as the only acceptable solution.

Last night, panelists held a discussion at the Law School regarding what may be an emerging political and cultural alliance between India and Israel. Bwog dispatched not one but two correspondants to the event in order to give readers as well-rounded a perspective as possible. Below, in the second and last part of our series, Josh Mathew presents his take:

Bwoggers, lend me your ears.

I write to you in between classes so brevity must be the soul of wit. What brings India and Israel together? According to last night's discussion lecture "India, America, Israel: Emerging Relations," it's the terrorists...and the post-lecture free kosher Indian buffet...but...but mainly the terrorists.

United Nations Development Program specialist Ms. Mandakini Sud began the series by emphasizing the importance of connections amongst common men and the necessity of philanthropy. Her message of good will deteriorated, however, when she later suggested that the Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence has become obsolete in an age of terror when the enemy utilizes fear and violence without any desire for dialogue. I guess the Mahatma had it easy with British colonial armies.

Former Indian Army major and current SIPA student Probal DasGupta was the most blunt of the speakers when discussing the nature of the Indo-Israeli relations. He celebrated the military assistance Israel has presented to India, whether it be counter-insurgency training, intelligence, or Galil sniper rifles. While it seemed easy to get lost in his long list of arms transactions, he concluded his speech with a series of poignant yet disturbingly false analogies comparing Israel's conflicts with Palestine, the Arab states, and Iran with India's own clashes with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. His suggested justification for a close military partnership between the two countries wasn't lost on the audience as a close friend wondered aloud afterwards whether he was actually missing MSA's sponsored event on Islamophobia.

Last night, panelists held a discussion at the Law School regarding what may be an emerging political and cultural alliance between India and Israel. Bwog dispatched not one but two correspondants to the event in order to give readers as well-rounded a perspective as possible. Below, in the first part of our series, Armin Rosen presents his take:

Monday is the dreariest day of the week, and Israel is generally on the drearier end of frustrating geopolitical issues. Imagine the dual misfortune of another spiritually dehydrating Monday and another discouraging panel discussion on how Israel and the greater Middle East is completely FUBAR, and it would look nothing like last night's forum on the "emerging" relationship between Israel and India. The discussion, which included representatives from Jewish and Indian organizations as well as the former Indian ambassador to Israel (and current ambassador to the United States), ended with a surfeit of popadoms and potato curry.

For those who haven't tried it yet, veggie Indian food is the shit. But no foodstuff, no matter how delicious, can allay the piercing skepticism of one who has just been subjected to two mind-erasing hours of Asian Hum. It can only give him the taste for meat...or, in this case, curry powder.

Some explanation: the event, entitled "India, America, Israel: Emerging Relations" explored the strong and somewhat counterintuitive bilateral relationship between India and Israel. According to the evening's panelists, Israel and India conduct almost $3 billion worth of trade with one another, and cooperate in virtually all areas of security and defense. Ambassador Raminder Singh Jassal provided interesting reason for this: both countries are democracies that face unique social and economic challenges, they share similar strategic interests, particularly regarding security, and they have followed similar historical trajectories.

This being the sixth anniversary of the Al-Aqsa intifada, a bunch of Palestinian sympathizers have gathered on the sundial, wearing kaffiyehs and angrily puffing on cigarettes.

Socialists, Palestinian nationals, and Mealac majors/TA's are all in full force.

Also, overhead, the sweet sounds of political/cultural hatred:

"Your prime minister is a war criminal!"

"You're a fucking racist!"

After the jump, some blurry photos.

Subscribers to the listserv of the Columbia Student Solidarity Network (a liberal umbrella group rejuvenated in the wake of this February's Ashcroft visit) were treated yesterday to two oddly contrasting invitations. One, forwarded by College Dems president Mike Nadler, exhorts readers to sign a pro-Israel petition that Hillel will send to Kofi Annan. Another promotes an "emergency forum" this Saturday to address Israel's "barbaric campaign of destruction against the Palestinian and Lebanese people," endorsed by (among others) the International Socialist Organization.

Bwog holds out the sincere hope that at least some of these people are friends with each other.