On Monday April 29, Mark Regev from the Israeli Embassy spoke at Cabot Auditorium. After his talk, the floor was opened, and several students asked very challenging questions. However one student stood up and told Mr. Regev that he was racist for explaining that Israeli incursions are responses to attacks against Israeli
civilians. There's going to be a person like that in every crowd; but then many students clapped loudly, rewarding a cheap and unfair verbal attack. Everyone is of course free to disagree with everything that Mr. Regev said, but applauding a completely unjustified
charge of racism does nothing but stifle political debate and freedom of speech. Instead, that group of students should have applauded when Mr. Regev stated that suicide bombings against civilians are morally wrong.
Jeremy Warren
Engineering '97
