“Send them to Iran” is the sort of thing you normally hear from grumpy old men like me, not temperamentally moderate and strictly rational men like Jonathan Turley, who is far more measured and thoughtful than most of us.
But in this case, he has a moderate case to make. It’s not that he would revel in watching the moral midgets who are simultaneously lecturing us about peace as they call for the genocide of the Jews; he just thinks the students need an education about the real world.
…Some universities clearly have space after students were arrested for protesting the death sentence given a rapper. That includes Shiraz University where the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) arrested students for protests.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 2, 2024
Iran has offered the protesters free scholarships to attend a university there, and Turley thinks they should take up the offer. There they can learn about the cause for which they are protesting.
Now this could truly be educational. Students protesting on our campuses have been offered free scholarships at Shiraz University in Fars. So, while Northwestern has reached a settlement to give scholarships to Palestinian students and positions to Palestinian faculty, U.S. students can now go to Iran for their education.
Mohammad Moazzeni, head of Shiraz University told media that “students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies at Shiraz University and I think that other universities in Shiraz as well as Fars Province are also prepared [to provide the conditions].”
This could be the single most transformative educational experience of their lives. Of course, Iran is better known for floggings than free speech.
Iran is particularly prone to such contradictions like executing homosexuals while denying that there are any homosexuals in Iran or objecting to the treatment of protesters in the West while jailing, beating and killing protesters.
Warning: vegan meals are not available at Iranian protests. Instead, it has ordered the arrest and killing of writers and artists while holding such fun events as a cartoon competition on the Holocaust.
Perhaps Turley is being facetious. He certainly sounds disdainful of the students.
But there is more than a bit of seriousness to the proposal. Some of these students really should take Iran up on the offer, if only to learn about the reality of the radical Islamism they support.
If you didn’t read my post about the hard Islamist turn in some of these protests, you should. Not just because I write beautifully and clearly–I do–but because it, too, provides an education about how Islamism has taken root in these protests. Actual Islamism–complete with chants in Arabic and students learning the curses against the Jews.
Turley’s suggestion makes sense because the students are utterly ignorant not only about the Israel-Hamas conflict but also about the movement of which Hamas is an important part. No Islamist would tolerate the antics of these students, and they would relish the opportunity to torture and murder many of them.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest a Queer nonbinary vegan who is allergic to bananas go visit Iran, but perhaps one of the few straight students who might survive the process without winding up in jail or being executed.
They could witness the horror. The utter depravity of the Islamists. The murderous rage they have for anybody who lives in the 21st century and not the 12th.
Iran is a regime in which raping women who refuse to wear a hijab and tossing away their lifeless bodies is not abnormal.
I would be thrilled to see some of these students who demand their revolution be catered to get a real education instead of the Marxist drivel they drink in.
I would even be willing to chip in for a plane ticket or two.