OC Rabbi Comments On This Weeks Olive Tree Initiative Events at UC Irvine

The following comment on this weeks  Olive Tree Initiative events come from Rabbi Dov Fischer:  See also:(Meanwhile, The Olive Tree Initiative Sponsors Debate Which Questions The Existence of Israel)

This program and these students are not as important as they might hope to be.  They do not deserve special attention.  I oppose the program – particularly Jewish organizational support for the program – because it is premised on idiocy (the notion that students with limited background can grasp the truth by meeting with genius propagandists who can fool even trained diplomats), foolishness (the premise that these students can be peacemakers in this encounter between Jewish citizens trying to live and murderers hoping to murder), and falsehood (the premise that, by bring Jews to hear murderers and their proponents, the UCI Administration somehow is responding creatively and ingeniously to the problem of Arab Moslems at UCI disrupting speakers like Pipes and Oren, while promulgating Jew-hatred during Hate Week).

 

It would seem that it is beneath us to rush to UCI every time the sponsors of this idiotic, foolish, and false program decide to get our attention.  Yes, if they are bringing to campus a major Jew-hater like Rishmawi, that can justify a presence.  But not for every single thing they do, for which they subsequently report to the Ford Foundation how many people their programs drew.

 

Rabbi Dov Fischer

Rav, Young Israel of Orange County