"Um, I might be ignorant here...but what's the big deal with Ithaca?"
It's the Finsbury Mosque of liberal nutjobs. When I lived there in the 1990s, people were still pissed off that Reagan had been elected. One of the writers at the local weekly paper did a story about "chemtrails" -- i.e. contrails -- which he claimed were germ warfare conducted by the Air Force. The folks there were demonstrating against the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq.
Sandy Wold, the lady whose article equating Israelis and Palestinians, is a leading activist in Ithaca.
It's a lovely town which would be much nicer if the Air Force actually did spray it with deadly germs.