Pro-'Palestinian' students whine to the media at UCSD
At last year's 'Palestine week' at the University of California San Diego, a Muslim student admitted in a public forum that she wanted to see all the Jews in Israel wiped out. This year, there are counter-demonstrations against the 'Palestinian' hatefest by pro-Israel groups. And the pro-'Palestinians' are
whining to the media (Hat Tip:
Sunlight).
The students’ complaints segued from the firing of Baiz-Torres to the administration’s handling of the annual Justice for Palestine Week on campus and then veered back and forth between the two issues.
Eyad Nasla, a member of the Muslim Student Association, which sponsors the event, said the university should have responded to pro-Israel faculty members who took out an ad in a campus newspaper calling the event a “hate-fest” and suggesting the student groups that support it favor the destruction of Israel.
Nasla said it was inappropriate for faculty members to be “attacking student groups on campus.”
He also said pro-Palestinian students have been subject to “hate emails” and “racist remarks” and confrontations in front of their display on Library Walk.
“We would have appreciated more support from this administration,” he said.
Penny Rue, vice chancellor of student affairs, and other administrators said they had deployed a number of university employees, including uniformed police officers, to ensure there would not be problems around the event.
Rue told Nasla that administrators are on “a tightrope” balancing free speech concerns among student groups on contentious issues like the Middle East.
No one representing Tritons for Israel, which staged a counter display on Library Walk this week, spoke at the meeting.
Lior Abramson, president of the pro-Israel student group, was manning its display near the room where the committee was meeting.
She said that in the past, Jewish and pro-Israel students have felt threatened during Justice for Palestine Week.
The decision this year to mount a counter-display help combat those feelings, she said.
“When you see something like this, you feel a lot more welcome, students working to make our community feel safe.”
It's high time that more pro-Israel campus activists took similar actions.
Labels: Palestine week, University of California at San Diego
'Palestine week' at UCSD
Do you remember this woman? If not go
here. That week - '
Palestine week' - is happening again at the University of California at San Diego (Hat Tip:
Sunlight).
Justice in Palestine Week routinely heightens tensions on campus. But this year, Jewish faculty and students have resolved to do more to counter what they see as the false and hateful premise of the weeklong event — which begins Monday — put on by the UCSD Muslim Student Association.
“What we have seen over the years is a growing level of distortion and venom in the portrayal of the situation in Israel,” said Dr. David Feifel, a professor in the psychiatry department.
Organizers insist the event is not hateful and is simply meant to educate UCSD students and the public about the Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinians.
“It’s time for accountability,” said Sarmad Bokhari, 21, president of the Muslim Student Association. “We’re concerned that the U.S. government has unconditional support for the policies of the government of Israel, which increasingly by international standards is seen as an apartheid state similar to South Africa in the ’80s.”
Feifel is one of 28 faculty members who signed a letter, published last month as a full-page ad in the campus newspaper The Guardian, calling the event a “hate-fest” and suggesting the student groups behind it support the destruction of Israel.
Feifel said anti-Israel faculty at UCSD have long been outspoken.
“Pro-Israel faculty have mostly been on the sidelines,” he said. “But last year, the situation just became intolerable. There was a sense that we need to organize and put forth a voice.
“We have been hearing from students about how marginalized and fearful they are during these events, and year-round at UCSD. For us, hearing this from students was the most motivating thing.”
Read the whole thing. It sounds like some
other campuses in the California system. Maybe the 'Palestinian' side can invite Tony Kushner to speak. He's really good at
suppressing dissent.
But why is this happening so late in the year? Don't these kids have exams in May?
Labels: Palestine week, Tony Kushner, University of California at San Diego
Hypocrisy at UCSD
Many of you remember the David Horowitz tape in which a Muslim student at the University of California at San Diego admits that she would like to see all the Jews in Israel so that they can (God forbid) be
wiped out together. This week, an attempt to call out anti-Israel groups at UCSD nearly fell apart when the local campus newspaper, the UCSD Daily Guardian,
refused to publish an editorial that was signed on by 28 professors on the campus. Fortunately, StandWithUs and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East came up with the money to pay for the editorial to be published as an advertisement.
Here's some of that editorial (the full editorial is at the previous link).
The current maelstrom in the Mideast has laid bare for all to see the reality that, by any objective measure, the greatest human rights abuses suffered by the greatest number of Muslims and Arabs have been inflicted by the despotic regimes of the Mideast’s 17 Arab countries and Iran, and not, as the MSA, ASU and SJP would have us believe, by Israel, the only country in the entire region consistently rated by Freedom House International as bestowing full civil and political liberties upon its Jewish and Arab citizens.
So, if hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims have suffered severe, long-standing repression throughout the Mideast, as is now highly evident, why then have those students who relentlessly pounce on every action and policy of Israel—which comprises 0.04% of the Mideast—been deafeningly silent all these years regarding the egregious injustices occurring in the other 99.96% of the Mideast? Why haven’t the websites and Facebook pages of the MSA, ASU and SJP been abuzz with plans for social activism and moral outrage over the murder of civilians who are fighting to gain liberty in Arab countries as they always are when Israel exercises self-defense by striking at Palestinian terrorist groups who launch rockets at its civilians from Gaza or when it erects barriers to block suicide bombers? Are those students simply less moved by injustices carried out by Arabs and Muslims against their own people? Or is it possible that human rights and social justice have been hijacked by these groups for use as expedient intellectual weapons in the service of a culturally driven agenda—to bludgeon the Jewish state? In this regard we do well to heed the assertion of Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, “What is happening on the U.S. campuses is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state” and “ending the existence of Israel.”
Critical debate is a cherished mainstay of universities, and Israel should, by no means, be above reproach. As a small and isolated democratic nation in a highly volatile geopolitical environment, some of its actions and policies will surely be considered misguided by fair-minded citizens of other nations, as they are by many Israeli citizens—a fact reflected in Israel’s vibrant free press. However, as pointed out by Natan Sharansky, the respected Israeli human rights activist and former Soviet political prisoner, one test of malevolently motivated criticism of Israel is the “double standards” test—criticism of Israel that is applied selectively.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: BDS, Israeli apartheid week, University of California at San Diego
At last year's 'Palestine week' at the University of California San Diego, a Muslim student admitted in a public forum that she wanted to see all the Jews in Israel wiped out. This year, there are counter-demonstrations against the 'Palestinian' hatefest by pro-Israel groups. And the pro-'Palestinians' are whining to the media (Hat Tip: Sunlight). 
