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CAMERA: BDS: A Smokescreen for Delegitimizing Israel.

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The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement afoot on college campuses and research institutions around the world claims to promote human rights. According to the website of one campus group, BDS advocates for the “global campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction (BDS) the State of Israel until it complies with its obligations under international and human rights law.”

If indeed BDS is concerned with violations of international and human rights law, it is notable that they focus none of their attention on known human rights violators and oppressive governments such as exist in:

· North Korea, where hundreds of thousands of political dissidents have been imprisoned and tortured, where the citizens are deprived of the basic freedoms of speech, religion, and movement, and where the government diverts food aid from the literally starving citizenry.

· China, which the U.S. State Department calls “an authoritarian state” that practices “discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities; a coercive birth limitation policy, which in some cases resulted in forced abortion or forced sterilization” among many other grave human rights abuses.

· Sudan, where security forces subject citizens to “unlawful killings” and “torture, beatings, rape, and other cruel, inhumane treatment,” where dissidents are tortured and imprisoned, and where government or government-aligned forces perpetrate “violence and discrimination against women, including female genital mutilation; child abuse, including sexual violence and recruitment of child soldiers.” Homosexual activity in Sudan is a criminal offense.

· Iran, which, even the United Nations noted, persecutes minorities and “human rights defenders, in particular women’s rights activists, journalists and Government opponents,” where citizens are subject to “torture, arbitrary detentions and unfair trials” and where “there was a noticeable increase in application of the death penalty, including in cases involving political opponents and juvenile offenders.” Homosexuality is a crime in Iran, punishable by death.

· Pakistan, which, according to the British government, has “a particularly high rate of violence against women, and discrimination enshrined in law,” where “millions of children work as bonded labour,” where religious and ethnic minorities “have been the target of many violent attacks,” and where many people “do not have adequate access to justice or an effective rule of law.” Homosexuality activity in Pakistan is punishable by up to life imprisonment.

· And others.

If BDS is specifically focused on the oppression of Arabs, then it is curious that they are not decrying the governments of:

· Syria, which the U.S. Department of State says is under an “authoritarian regime,” has seen thousands of citizens killed by security forces, many under torture, and tens of thousands of others “disappeared.” Syria severely restricts civil liberties, freedoms of speech and press, freedoms of assembly and association, and freedoms of religion and movement. Violence and discrimination against women are pervasive, as are sexual exploitation of refugees, including minors, and discrimination against minorities. Homosexual activity in Syria is a criminal offense.

· Lebanon, where there are unlawful killings, detention and the widespread use of torture, where the government restricts freedoms of speech and press, limits freedom of movement, discriminates against minorities, and where violence and discrimination against women persists, as does violence against children and child labor. Homosexual activity in Lebanon is a criminal offense.

· Saudi Arabia, where violations of human rights laws are enshrined in the Kingdom’s legal code, including the systemic discrimination against women and minorities, where citizens are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of fair and public trials, torture and abuse, restrictions on freedoms of speech, assembly, association, movement, and severe restrictions on religious freedom. Homosexual activity in Saudi Arabia is punishable by flogging or death by stoning.

· Bahrain, where international organizations contend that human rights abuses rise to the level of “‘crimes against humanity’ under international law” due to the systemic use of torture, and that the state violates the rights to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and freedom of thought, conscience, opinion, expression, assembly, and religion.

· Yemen, where even prior to the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the attempted suppression of which involved human rights violations, government human rights abuses included arbitrary and unlawful killings, politically motivated disappearances, torture of civilians, arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of fair public trial, restrictions on freedoms of speech, the press, assembly, and religion, pervasive discrimination against women, child labor, and child trafficking. Homosexual activity in Yemen is punishable by flogging or death by stoning.

· And others.

And if BDS is even more particularly disturbed by the oppression of Palestinian Arabs, then one wonders why they are not protesting the governments of:

· Jordan, where Palestinians have encountered discrimination and many are treated as foreigners and required to pay fees in foreign currency, making it difficult to enroll in Jordanian universities. Career options of Palestinians are limited to the private sector, access to decision making circles and state institutions is denied. Many Jordanian citizens of Palestinian descent were recently stripped of their citizenship, and with it numerous rights.

· Gaza, under the authority of Hamas, where political freedom, religious freedom and freedom of association are severely curtailed, women’s rights are limited, militant activity is located in civilian centers transforming residents into human shields and often causing them injury and death, human rights activists are targeted, and homosexuality is a criminal offense.

· Syria, where Palestinian Arabs fair comparatively well, but where houses in refugee camps are of mud or crude concrete blocks, the water supply is not constant, most streets are unpaved, and the water and sewage systems, where they exist, are in need of upgrading and repair. Palestinians are not allowed to vote or run for office, nearly half of Palestinian families live at or below poverty levels, property ownership is restricted and Palestinians are forbidden to own farm land.

· Lebanon, where basic human rights are denied to Palestinians, where they are legally prohibited from high-status professions including law, medicine, pharmacy and engineering, excluded by law from owning real estate, denied civil identity registration and with it access to basic health services, education, civil, social and economic rights, registration of marriages and registration of newborns. The Lebanese army severely restricts Palestinian refugee camps where curfews are in place, where residents pass through military checkpoints, and where walls are being constructed, isolating them from their surroundings. Palestinian Arabs have been subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture and denied legal representation.

· And others.

Upon any serious consideration, it becomes clear that BDS actually has no problem with oppression, no problem with oppression of Arabs, and no problem with the oppression of Palestinian Arabs.

It becomes clear that BDS actually has a problem only with Israel and it can only be deduced that their problem is truly with Jews. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., incisively stated, “When you are talking anti-Zionsim, you are talking anti-Semitism.”

This is the reality behind BDS: the BDS movement is simply a smokescreen for the delegitimization of Israel and an effort to undermine the self-determination of the Jewish people. As BDS proponent Ahmend Moor said, “Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending the Jewish state itself.”

IDF Arrests Hamas Speaker of PA Parliament Who Met UC Irvine Students

by Jerry Gordon     

New English Review       Saturday, 21 January 2012

On Thursday, the IDF arrested the Hamas Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, Aziz Dweik near Ramallah.  Dweik had been detained by the IDF in 2006. Dweik had figured prominently in the controversial Olive Tree Initiative at U.C. Irvine, when students had met students had met with Dweik during a visit to the West Bank  in 2009.  Orange County Jewish activist, Dee Sterling of Ha-Emet, the Truth had discovered through a California Public Records search evidenced that a Jewish Federation of Orange County (JFOC) affiliate, the Rose Project, had funded the Olive Tree Initiative program at U.C. Irvine.

Here is the Jerusalem Post report on Dweik’s arrest, “IDF nabs head of PA parliament” near Ramallah:

IDF soldiers arrested senior Hamas official, Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Authority parliament on suspicion of involvement with terrorist groups on Thursday, the IDF and Hamas said. Hamas said Dweik was taken into custody at a checkpoint near Ramallah and it accused Israel of trying to prevent rival Palestinian factions from completing a unity deal. Dweik was arrested by Israel in 2006 and spent two years in jail.

Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a brief civil war a year later, since when parliament has been inactive. Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah faction agreed a reconciliation deal last year, but it has yet to be implemented.

We noted the encounter between Dweik, the UC Irvine students and the involvement of the JFOC in a July 2011 NER investigative article, “Does the Olive Tree Initiative Lack Credibility?”

JFOC loses its Credibility- the smoking gun letter. The JFOC’s credibility problem surfaced from a response to a California Public Records Act (PRA) request by local activists from Ha’Emet. That information surfaced a “smoking gun” letter sent by JFOC President Elcott to UCI Chancellor Drake in October, 2009 revealing a meeting between OTI students and Hamas representative Dweik. The JFOC leaders seized upon this letter as evidence that they had brought this to the attention of UCI administrators seeking an investigation. The JFOC leaders never informed the community.

In the JFOC letter the authors wring their hands about the fact that Jewish students on the 2009 OTI trip inadvertently met with a Hamas leader of the West Bank, Aziz Dweik, on September 16^th. The students were told by an unidentified person, presumably, the field co-coordinator for the OTI program, to say nothing while passing through Israel or upon arrival back in California, as it might look as if under our laws they were giving material assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Here are some excerpts of the JFOC letter to Chancellor Drake:

On Sunday, September 20, 2009, the second class of the Olive tree Initiative (OTI) returned from their travels in Israel and the west Bank. As its largest funder, Jewish Federation has strongly supported the concept and development of OTI from its inception.

{. . .}  We expected, and believed we had received, full disclosure about program details. This is why we were quite surprised to learn, following the recent return of the OTI group, that they conducted an unapproved, off-itinerary meeting on September 16^thwith Aziz Dweik, a notable Hamas figure.

One UCI faculty member and two UCI doctoral candidates were in charge of arrangements on the ground. [Name redacted] was well aware of Jewish Federation’s ‘redlines’ – what could or could not be done on an OTI trip. Taking UCI [students] to meet a Hamas leader crossed those red lines, and put the University and Jewish Federation in a precarious position. We are deeply troubled that this incident could potentially derail the substantial progress we have made together in building multicultural bridges at UCI.

Elcott goes on to wring his hands about the untoward consequences of this OTI Hamas meeting:

We expect that many in our Jewish community – in Orange County, nationally and around the world – - will be astonished and furious that a Jewish organization would sponsor any program that directly exposed students to a leader of a recognized terrorist organization. Our community’s relations with the Israeli government may be affected, and there may be cause for action by our parent organization, United Jewish Communities.

Towards the end of this letter to Chancellor Drake, the authors  try “to connect the dots” between September, 2009 OTI Hamas meeting on the West Bank with the May, 2009 George Galloway Viva Palestina MSU fundraiser on the  UCI campus that we wrote about in an NER investigative article, “Coming to a Mosque Near You: “Pimping for terrorists”.

The ZOA has reason to believe that this fundraiser may have provided material support to Hamas in July, 2009. While this is an entirely separate issue from the OTI concerns, you should take into account the possibility that both issues involving Hamas could be linked in any media story.

If JFOC President Elcott and Rose Project co-heads Margolis and Weiss wanted to inform Chancellor Drake and preserve the OTI program, why did they write this letter, instead of personally arranging a meeting with Drake, presenting the facts and getting the situation squared away quietly? Because the letter has so many co-authors we suspect that the counsel for JFOC suggested this approach so as to put the onus on the University. The existence of this letter was like a ticking time bomb in the JFOC’s files. They knew it was only a matter of time before someone would discover and disclose it. Then there was the matter of whether the Rose project provided funds to the OTI. From the PRA discovery documents secured by Ha’Emet it appears that JFOC donated nearly $60,000 to the OTI over the period from 2009 to the present. Moreover, UCI provided $10,000 in support of the 2010 OTI trip in November, 2009 just weeks after the exchange of the JFOC letter with Chancellor Drake. As noted in a recent FrontPageMagazine article, “The Patrons of Anti-Israelism”, U.Cal Chancellor Yudoff also provided funds to OTI:

. . . only a matter of weeks after the Hamas meeting was made known to Drake, University of California Chancellor Mark Yudoff donated $5000 to the OTI via the Lumina Foundation for Education. This was followed in May 2010 with a $2000 award to the STUDENT LEADERS OF OTI by Yudoff for the university’s Presidential Leadership Award.

These PRA disclosures began the unraveling of a conspiracy by JFOC and the Rose project to cover up the truth about the OTI.

Several Jewish Federations across the US have engaging in programs like the OTI that conflicted with Israeli government policies regarding encounters with Hamas representatives or sponsoring programs with anti-Israel groups like Jewish Voices for Peace and B’Tselem that espouse Boycott, Divestment Sanctions against the Jewish State. Then there is J Street which alleges it is pro-peace and pro-Israel while pro-Zionist Z Street has accused it of seeking an immediate declaration of a Palestinian state. Some Federations like the Sarasota- Manatee County Federation in Florida have adopted pledges against such activities.  Groups like the Jewish American Affairs Committee of Indiana, JCC Watch in Manhattan, and the newly created National Council on Jewish Affairs have engaged in combating, “ what Harvard Medical School Psychiatrist, historian and author Dr. Kenneth Levin called The Oslo Syndrome: delusions of a People under Siege.”

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/40138#CurDomainURL%23/blog.cfm

Many were disturbed at a recent video of young Jews — the hope of the next generation — “occupying” a Birthright event and spewing noxious anti-Israel rhetoric in and outside the gathering. But considering the competition Birthright is up against, it’s not difficult to see how such a scene was produced. The fact is, not only have anti-Israel activist made 21st century blood libels fashionable, but they have found a way to turn a profit from them in the process. More and more, sojourners to the Holy Land are falling into the orbit of the growing “alternative travel” or “justice tourism” industry, which specializes in politicized tourism to Israel and adjacent territories. As the name indicates, alternative travel is entirely focused on exposing tourists, not with mainstream, commonly accepted information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but with an “alternative” account predicated on needless Palestinian suffering at the hands of their brutal Israeli oppressors.

The alternative tourism industry in and around Israel is a multifarious, interconnected web, whose many avenues invariably lead back to terrorists and their supporters. One of the trailblazers of the alternative tourism industry in Israel is the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG), which is located in Beit Sahour, a hotbed of Palestinian activism, including during the murderous First and Second Intifadas. According to the ATG, the organization was formed as a “non-profit tourist agency” in 1995. Tours focus on a number of lies, including insinuations that “Palestine” was and is a “country”; that Israelis “steal” land and commit war crimes, and that Israel has erected a “segregation wall” for racist purposes. What the ATG refers to as the “segregation wall” is, of course, the defensive wall put into construction to stop terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians — which have been reduced by 90% since the construction of the wall began. Anti-Israel activists commonly demonize this barrier, despite its obvious necessity and effectiveness, deviously twisting the situation into a race issue, so that the killing spree may resume.

The ATG collaborates with a number of groups who are loosely joined in the Palestinian Initiative for Responsible Tourism (PIRT). PIRT, for which ATG is listed as a sponsor, is a consortium of local tourism entities joined together to help Palestinians benefit from the lucrative Holy Land travel industry. The purported objective of the initiative is to branch the tourism market into local Palestinian communities so that they may economically benefit from it, while at the same time cultivating an interest in Palestinian culture and building awareness among pilgrims of political problems in the area. Other groups in the initiative include the Arab Hotel Association, Bethlehem University, the Holy Land Incoming Tour Operator Association, the Holy Land Trust, the International Center of Bethlehem, the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center, the Joint Advocacy Initiative, the Network of Christian Organizations in Bethlehem and the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies.

Another initiative member is the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which has reported a huge increase in tourism to the Holy Land. This translates to an increase in capital to the Palestinian territories and into the hands of “justice tourism” activists, not to mention an increase in the sheer number of travelers exposed to their propaganda. Honing in on the allure of travel to the Holy Land, it’s no surprise ATG and other PIRT members consort with the more virulently anti-Israel (and borderline anti-Jewish) Christian organizations like the World Council of Churches and the Kairos Palestine movement, which are connected to an enormous pipeline of Christian pilgrims.

Another prominent organization in PIRT is the Holy Land Trust. Based in Bethlehem, the Holy Land Trust (HLT) is a virulently anti-Israel organization that supports Palestinian terrorism. The organization’s executive director, Sami Awad, believes that non-violent demonstrations are “not a substitute for armed struggle.” HLT has also worked with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which endorses and abets Palestinian terrorism. One of the board members of the HLT, Abu Aita, was a former member of a terrorist organization, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (serving from 2000-2003) and was incarcerated in an Israeli prison on accusations that he was involved with shooting Israeli soldiers. The HLT offers a number of traveling programs, some of which are marketed specifically to students and Christian pilgrims.

Of particular note, the HLT features a travel program centered around indigenous olive cultivation called the Olive Harvest and Cuisine Tour. This is significant for the following reason: There are two well-known Palestinian activists, both named George Rishmawi, who have worked in the Palestinian alternative travel industry for many years. Both men are co-founders of the ISM. In the mid-2000s, one of the Rishmawis was involved in a HLT program similar in theme to the Olive Harvest and Cuisine Tour called the Olive Harvest encounter. This encounter offered tours of the Holy Land, which showcased alleged Palestinian suffering at the hands of the Israelis. Currently, one of the Rishmawis is a coordinator for the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies, based, like the ATG, in Beit Sahour. As coordinator, Rishmawi plays a large role in the alternative tourism functions of the Siraj Center, whose trips particularly appeal to Christian travelers.

It should be no surprise, then, that the Rishmawis have, for most of the years of its existence, played a large part in the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), a student program now operating in several University of California schools that offers alternative tourism programing. Through the program, American students are taken on trips to Israel and adjacent areas where they are given tours by and commune with some mainstream individuals, but also a hugely disproportionate number of leading anti-Israel activists. The number of unseemly associations of the OTI is almost too extensive to list (click here for a draft of just the 2011 itinerary). They include: the Rishmawis; economic warfare (BDS) godfather Mazin Qumsiyeh; Sam Bahour; the terrorism-defending Muslim Public Affairs Council; B’Tselem; Al Haq; BDS supporter Zoughbi Zoughbi; ultra-wealthy Palestinian Munib R. Masri, who was a part of Yasser Arafat’s inner circle; and even a leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, Aziz Duwaik (students were also told to cover up this particular meeting). In at least one incident during an OTI trip, it was reported that one of the Rishmawis advocated violence and relayed a lie about Israelis shooting unprovoked at Palestinian civilians. This was reportedly demonstrated false onsite by one of the students. The technical auspices of the Olive Tree Initiative are unclear, as it is closely intertwined with UC Irvine, while also being claimed as a “project” by a Swedish-based NGO called the Centre for New Diplomacy (CfND). One of the board members for the CfND is a Swedish member of parliament who participated in the anti-Israel flotilla of 2010, which was designed to delegitimize Israel’s blockade of the terrorist safe heaven of Gaza.

Following the “olive” motif, there is another alternative travel company called “Green Olive Tours,” which used to go by the name “Tours in English.” As it happens, Green Olive Tours cooperates with the Siraj Center, which employs one of the Rishmawis, as well as the Alternative Tourism Group and the radical, ISM-linked Birthright Unplugged, the antithesis to the traditional Birthright travel program. Green Olive Tours was founded and is administered by activist Fred Schlomka, who formerly directed the highly controversial Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAH). The ICAH worked alongside the ISM in the groups’ mutual crusade against IDF housing demolition, claiming that houses are primarily destroyed for illegitimate purposes unrelated to defense. In fact, Schlomka worked for the committee at the time of infamous activist Rachel Corrie’s death, committed accidentally as Corrie was trying to prevent a bulldozer from destroying a “home” that concealed a weapons smuggling tunnel. The ICAHD promotes the idea that the Israeli government destroys these structures maliciously and arbitrarily because they are “built without a permit.” They also portray Israel as an “apartheid” state, or on the verge of becoming one. Like Green Olive Tours, ICAHD also conducts its own tours.

The prospect of Schlomka or the ICAHD overseeing tours is deeply troubling. NGO Monitor has criticized Schlomka and the ICAHD for supporting a one-state solution without Israel and appearing with Naim Ateek who heads Sabeel (which also offers tours) and “uses anti-Semitic themes, such as referring to ‘the Israeli government crucifixion system’.” Schlomka himself has said, “The world helped create this problem, the United Nations helped create this problem through helping establish the state of Israel” and “Anyone who still thinks that there will be a Palestinian state with contiguous territory free of Jews is indulging in some wishful thinking.”

Extremist rhetoric to be sure, but do not be lulled into the misconception that “alternative tourism” is sequestered to the anti-Israel fringe. Far from it. Simply explore the site Visit Palestine or their available literature and see how popular and mainstream-oriented the travel site seems. Indeed, the outfit seems to be primarily devoted to non-political, benign tourism and one can see how many ordinary travelers would be drawn to the site for vacation purposes. But scratching the surface, we see that not only does Visit Palestine exploit the “solidarity/alternative tourism” market, but the organization was in fact formed by extreme anti-Israel activists. Visit Palestine is the project of Alternative Business Solutions, the parent of ABS Tourism, whose primary associates include Yusef Daher, a Christian BDS advocate (an extremist movement proposing boycott, divestment and sanctions on racist, human rights-abusing Israel) and was also the former director of the Arab Hotel Association (a member of PIRT); and Rami Kassis, who worked as executive director of the ATG until at least 2010 and purports to be one of the founders of PIRT. Kassis’s interviews show that his interest in tourism is predominately political, and he spouts conspiracy theories about the Israeli government strangling the tourism sector in Palestine, and purposefully impoverishing Palestinians, as if the Israelis, not continuing Palestinian warfare, violence and instability, are responsible for Palestinian inability to break into the mainstream tourism market.

Enmeshed in a highly interconnected web of deception, the organizations outlined above are only the tip of the alternative tourism industry’s iceberg. For those activists engaged in it, and indeed, probably ever more dependent on it for their livelihoods, the objective is much more than “awareness building,” as their radical connections show, but the indoctrination of converts to the cause to dismantle the Jewish State.  Millions of unwitting travelers, particularly religious pilgrims, are anxious to visit the Holy Land each year, and we must only expect that the movement’s ranks will continue to swell, while the industry grows in financing and influence.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/04/justice-tourisms-dangerous-agenda/2/

November 14, 2011

NEW YORK (JTA) — The family of a 14-year-old Ohio girl is suing school officials in the state for allowing bullying and anti-Semitic attacks aimed at their daughter.

The lawsuit alleges that officials at Green High School did nothing to curb years of bullying by classmates, which included being called a “dirty Jew” and told she would “rot in hell” for not believing in Jesus Christ, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

The parents brought the case to U.S. District Court last month after transferring their daughter to another public school district. The name of the family is being withheld to protect the identity of the girl.

In the lawsuit, a bus driver, guidance counselor, two principals and two superintendents are identified as doing nothing to stop the bullying or acting to punish the aggressors.

In 2008, the girl reportedly was called a “[f---ing] Jew” by several boys and was spat on while riding a school bus, the Akron newspaper reported. The lawsuit maintains that the bus driver neither disciplined the boys nor filed a report with the district about it.

“She’s been victimized for a number of years because there’s very few Jewish people in that district and there’s a lot of people apparently who have a problem with Jews,” said the family’s Cleveland attorney, Kenneth Myers.

Other instances of bullying described in the lawsuit involve being assaulted by a boy in the choir room, being stabbed in the leg with a pencil and the creation of a Facebook page devoted to disparaging the girl.

The lawsuit also accuses Mark Booth, the principal of Green Intermediate School, of telling the girl’s mother that her daughter “enjoyed the attention.” He reportedly told the girl to fight one of the boys who was bullying her.

Green Superintendent Michael Nutter said of the lawsuit, “Our lawyers at the insurance company are reviewing it and we’ve been advised from them at this point not to comment on it until they’ve reviewed all of it. We have our [bullying] policies, they’re all online, but that’s all I can say right now about it.”

Green is a northeastern Ohio suburb of nearly 26,000 located midway between Canton and Akron.

On Tuesday evening, October 26, 2011, members of the Orange County Independent Task Force on anti-Semitism attended an event called ”Conflict and Identity”  hosted by the Olive Tree Initiative at UC Irvine. It was billed as an opportunity to “meet the students who just came back from their trip to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank.” The presentations contained precious little of the students experiences “on the ground.”   Instead, in our view this program was a decidedly skewed, and a thinly veiled political diatribe against the State of Israel which included selective historical revisionism and simplistic conclusions.  During the presentations,  most of the students blamed or intimated that Israel was responsible for the “breakdown in the peace process”.  One of the more troubling aspects of this program came from a female presenter who appeared to justify suicide bombings, by suggesting that we need to understand why they occur.  Even more troubling was the continued endorsement of the OTI, by the so-called ”Rose project” of the Orange County Jewish Federation and Family Services some whose leadership was in attendance.

On December 28, 2010, The Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism,  formally asked  the Orange County Jewish Federation, Hillel and the Rose Project to adopt the Jewish Community of San Francisco’s guidelines for funding. Among other things, the guidelines prohibit funding for any activities that “advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the [BDS] movement, in whole or in part.” On March 21, 2010, we published the Pledge in memory of the Fogal Family.  To date those entities, The OC Jewish Federation, Hillel and the Rose Project have not bothered to respond.

October 2011

Press release:

(New York) Jewish civil rights group Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center has
launched the “Campus Hotline,” a manned telephone switchboard to assist
university students in the United States who are subjected to
anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attacks at their schools. Students and
faculty are being encouraged to call the Campus Hotline at (718)
907-9258 to report to Shurat HaDin any incidents of anti-Semitism,
discrimination, intimidation or harassment arising from anti-Israel
activities on American college or university campuses. Shurat HaDin is
also soliciting information and updates via the Hotline on BDS (the
boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign to delegitimize Israel)
activities on campus and organized efforts to provide support for
terrorist organizations.

Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center (http://israellawcenter.org/) is an
international human rights law organization dedicated to enforcing basic
human rights through the legal system and to representing victims of
terrorism in courtrooms around the world. The organization is based in
Tel Aviv and has a newly established American office located in New York.

Recently, Shurat HaDin sent letters
(http://israellawcenter.org/uploadimages/image/Letter%20to%20Columbia%20U.pdf)
to college and university presidents around the United States warning
that their schools may be subject to civil and criminal liability if
they do not take necessary measures to ensure the educational rights and
safety of Jewish students and faculty on their campuses. The schools
were also cautioned concerning their duty to reasonably prevent
university funds from being diverted to unlawful activities that are
directed against the state of Israel and to be particularly vigilant in
funding student organizations that may have ties to terrorist
organizations or that may engage in unlawful activities abroad.

The Campus Hotline will assist Shurat HaDin in monitoring activities on
college campuses and in protecting the rights of Jewish students and
faculty and the security of the state of Israel. The organization is
currently investigating the alarming connection between anti-Israel
activists, organizations and activities in the United States and Middle
East terrorism. Many extremist groups operate and recruit on college
campuses. Direct contact with the students will keep the organization
constantly aware of unacceptable activities and will allow it to rapidly
respond with appropriate legal action. An immediate, effective legal
response will have a deterrent effect on harassment, discrimination, and
potentially on terrorism. Shurat HaDin’s new American office will be
devoting significant time and resources to responding to calls to the
Hotline. By taking advantage of its world-wide legal network, Shurat
HaDin will be a formidable force in combating the ever-increasing threat
to Jewish students on campuses nationwide.

Attorney Kenneth Leitner, the law center’s Director of American Affairs,
said “we want Jewish students to know that there is a number to call
when they are victimized by extremist groups promoting anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic hate on American college campuses. Jewish students should
be made aware that they have the full support of a large community of
Jewish and non-Jewish advocates who will not tolerate their continued
intimidation and harassment. We want to encourage pro-Israel students to
stand-up for their rights and beliefs without fear.”

Mr. Leitner further stated, “it is time for us to go on the legal
offensive. In the same way that Shurat HaDin pioneered the use of the
courtroom to bring terrorist organizations and their state sponsors to
justice, we will employ the legal system to take down campus hate groups
and their off-campus financiers. We would like American college campuses
to be safe and secure for Jewish students, without distraction,
intolerance, antagonism and most importantly, violence. We expect that
the schools share our goals; if not, we will legally compel them to.”

Shurat HaDin is also in the process of creating a “Report Card” to rate
campuses based on their commitment to the U.S. Department of Education’s
civil rights guidance and to providing a safe and welcoming environment
for Jewish students and faculty and for pro-Israel viewpoints. The
organization expects administrators at poorly-ranked campuses to become
more actively aware of both their legal obligations and their social
responsibilities in responding to hostility and discrimination against
Jewish students.

Contact:

Kenneth Leitner, Esq.
kleitner@ShuratHaDinUSA.org
(718) 855-3627

Media Contact:

Suzanne Balaban
BMM Worldwide
Suzanne@bmmworldwide.com
(212) 796-5895

SEE ALSO:

Dear University of California President Yudof: Thanks for nothing!

Letter from UC Irvine Student to President Yudof concerning November 4th Presentation

Yudoff: “Whenever one of these vile acts occurs, we will act”… Will the regents continue to “act” like they are doing something or will they actualy do something about it?

“University administrators would do well to read the writing on their campuses’ bathroom walls”

UC Berkeley student:  “I don’t feel safe”

In May 2010 over 63 UC Irvine  faculty members issued a public statement saying in part: “Some community members, students, and faculty indeed feel intimidated, and at times even unsafe.”

Posted by  Frank Crimi Bio ↓ on Oct 6th, 2011  Frontpage Magazine.

The danger of sending American college students on Olive Tree Initiative trips to the West Bank was underscored by the recent discovery of 13 Hamas terror cells and a foiled suicide bombing plot in Jerusalem.

Since its founding in 2007, the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), a self-described non-partisan educational program, has been a lightening rod of controversy.

With chapters already operating on four UC campuses and more scheduled to open, the OTI has steadfastly maintained its mission is to bridge differences among college students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through what it calls “civil discussion” and “open minds.”

To facilitate that effort, the OTI provides its Christian, Jewish and Muslim (and unaffiliated) student members a purportedly “balanced” speaker’s forum as well as an annual student “diplomatic mission” to Israel and the West Bank. Once there, students are called to “actively engage politicians and leading experts on many sides of the conflict and develop a more comprehensive view.”

Of course, it should be noted that some of the leading experts the students have met with include representatives of terrorist organizations. On a 2009 trip, the OTI student itinerary included a meeting with senior Hamas leader, Aziz Duwaik, an encounter in which students were later encouraged by OTI leaders to cover up.

Yet, despite its high-minded public aspirations and commitment to “neutrality” the reality is that the OTI has promoted a rabidly anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish agenda. The program creates a dangerous moral equivalency between speakers who seek to destroy the Jewish state and support terrorism and speakers supportive of mainstream Israel issues. Moreover, the OTI’s efforts have been aided by the support of a collection of overtly anti-Semitic, anti-Western groups, many with known links to terrorist organizations.

Chief among OTI’s nefarious terrorist supporters is the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and its various affiliates, such as the Al Awda, Palsolidarity, SUSTAIN, Wheels of Justice Tour and the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

Co-founded by George Rishmawi, a leading figure in the OTI and likely one of its founders; Huwaida Arraf; Adam Shapiro; and Neta Golan in 2001, the ISM touts itself as a “peace group” that advocates “nonviolent resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.” In reality the ISM is dedicated to the destruction of Israel through aiding terrorist attacks and other efforts by terror organizations to destroy Israel. They also endorse Palestinian terrorism.

To that end the ISM has openly admitted to working with Hamas; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ); Fatah; the PLO; and the Palestinian Authority.

Of course, the ISM leadership isn’t shy about admitting to the true nature of its agenda. ISM co-founder Adam Shapiro has recently said:

What we’ve been doing over the last ten years with the International Solidarity Movement, Free Gaza, and all the other outgrowth organizations and movements is to … ramp up the resistance. This is all part of a Palestinian movement to transform this conflict between the rest of the world and Israel.

In its efforts to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ISM has been linked to a terror attack in Israel in 2003 that killed three people and wounded 60, as well a series of suicide attacks in London in 2005 that killed 52 people and wounded over 700.

Senior ISM leaders have also been accused of harboring Islamic militants, including members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Yet, the ISM’s most trusted and effective policy is recruiting activists to act as human shields for terrorist groups battling Israel by interfering with anti-terror operations of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

As such, the ISM was a prime organizer behind the May 2010 “Free Gaza Flotilla” in which ISM and other activists and militants provoked a confrontation with the IDF, a confrontation that left nine activists dead and seriously wounded 10 Israeli commandos. Most recently, the ISM was behind the unsuccessful July 2011 “Flytilla,” an effort to fly several hundred high-profile militant activists into the West Bank and which involved the participation of two OTI members.

In order to swell its ranks of activists, the ISM recruits worldwide, including at American universities. Once having established their presence on campus, the ISM and its affiliate groups then target unsuspecting or naïve college students. The students are mislead into thinking they will be participating in nonviolent demonstrations, unaware that the real purpose is to get them hurt or killed in confrontations with the Israeli Defense Forces.

In fact, frequent OTI campus speaker and ISM co-founder George Rishmawi (there are in fact two George Rishmawis involved in the OTI and both are co-founders of the ISM) has explained that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian Movement because “if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.”

That certainly was the case with American college student Rachel Corrie who, in March 2003, was accidentally killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza as she acted as a human shield for a weapons smuggling tunnel that was being demolished by the IDF. Other ISM activists have been maimed or killed, in some cases by Palestinians themselves.

In 2004 British activist Tom Hurndall was shot and killed in Gaza, and in April 2011 Italian Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and later hung to death by a group of Palestinians in Gaza.

While ISM leaders publicly mourned all their deaths, a more accurate description of their feelings has come from ISM co-founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf who have written in the past:

The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent.  Yes, people will get killed and injured, but these deaths are no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation.

So, the question arises, if those allied with the ISM cause can be openly kidnapped and murdered, then what is the fate of innocent American college students traveling around the West Bank — led around by ISM activists like Rishmawi — to dialogue with a diverse collection of nefarious individuals and organizations?

These dangerous individuals even lurk in some networks in Jerusalem; networks which are likely connected to the ISM. Early in September, Israel’s Shin Blet security service foiled a suicide terrorist attack only 24 hours before the planned strike in a Jerusalem neighborhood. Discovery of the plot was part of a larger-scale operation carried out by Shin Bet against Hamas terrorists in the West Bank, an operation that led to the arrest of 13 separate Hamas terror cells.

The main Hamas cell, which was in charge of the planned suicide attack, was also responsible for a March attack in Jerusalem that killed a British tourist and wounded 47 others. Another terrorist cell exposed by the Shin Bet was operating from within Israel’s Ketziot prison where it had recruited around twenty militants whose prime objective was to kidnap an IDF soldier.

These arrests followed a similar operation in June by Israeli security forces in which they uncovered a terror cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). In addition to planning the abduction of an Israeli soldier, the PLFP cell was also planning a series of shooting attacks in Israeli settlements around Ramallah; placing explosive devices in Jerusalem; and murdering those they determined to be Israeli sympathizers.

Unfortunately, the OTI’s links to groups that aid and abet such terror organizations has only served to heighten the potential danger students face when going to the Middle East on an OTI sponsored trip.

Yet, sadly, the OTI’s purposeful misuse of American students has been amply rewarded, not only through funding from the UC System but also through community support from various Jewish, Christian and Muslim organizations. Moreover, that support has enabled the OTI to garner numerous awards and honors, including from the US State Department.

So as the dangers continue to mount in the West Bank and Gaza, perhaps, some of these benefactors may want to revisit their support of the OTI before the next student trip takes place in 2012.

For in depth information on the Olive Tree Initiative and how you can stop support for the organization, please visit Ha-Emet.com.

IPT News
October 3, 2011

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas pushed backlast week against critics of his successful prosecution of 10 students who tried to shut down a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren last year at the University of California, Irvine.

Since a jury convicted the 10 who stood trial on two misdemeanor counts Sept. 23, Islamist groups and their allies have decried the case as an assault on the First Amendment sure to chill political speech. The students were charged criminally solely because they are Muslims, the argument goes, and because they dared challenge an Israeli official.

Rackauckas’ response? Bunk. In a column published by the Orange County Register, he said the case stands in defense of free speech, no matter how hard critics spin.

“History tells us of the dire consequences when one group is allowed to shout down and intimidate another or a group of people so as to not allow them to have opinions or be heard. History requires us to draw a line in the sand against this sort of organized thuggery.”

One man’s organized thuggery apparently is another man’s basic right.

The verdict is “a sad day for democracy when nonviolent protestors are criminalized by their government and are found guilty for exercising a constitutional right,” said Muslim Public Affairs Council President Salam Al-Marayati. “You can heckle the President, you can heckle high ranking government officials, but if you heckle an Israeli diplomat you will be prosecuted. These are Americans exercising their freedoms. This is a democracy not a dictatorship.”

“I believe the heart of America has died today,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

The Islamic Circle of North America echoed that sentiment, calling the verdict “a blow to the civil rights of Americans across the country.” In a statement, it said, “the guilty verdict undermines the very foundation of non-violent protest, which has been an integral part of America’s history and is continually promoted by America across the globe.”

“The censorship of dissident voices cannot be accepted in the United States, yet today we witnessed just that. This case was a selective application of justice, and this verdict is a blow to the civil rights of Americans across the country.”

Hyperbole aside, California has a specific statute which makes it a crime for anyone who “willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character.” If your state doesn’t have a similar law, a copycat protest is less likely to end up in criminal court.

Nevertheless, Hussam Ayloush, who runs the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Los Angeles office, called the students “true American heroes” in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. “They peacefully and courageously stood up against injustice, and they defended our collective freedom of speech. No topic should be off limits and no public official or country should be above criticism.”

Rosa Parks famously refused to get out of a bus seat. She never tried to silence anyone. Martin Luther King never got 10 friends together to shout down Bull Connor. The Civil Rights movement used non-violent, often passive acts of civil disobedience. What’s more heroic – orchestrating a plot to disrupt a speech or knowingly risking savage beatings and incarceration to showcase the fundamental injustice of Jim Crow segregation? But that martyrdom narrative has been embraced by the media and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If allowed to stand, this will undoubtedly intimidate students in Orange County and across the state and discourage them from engaging in any controversial speech or protest for fear of criminal charges,” said Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The Orange County Register editorialized that the state was correct that a “heckler’s veto” stifles speech. But it was still wrong to prosecute the students because it amounted to selective prosecution.

“We wonder if the same group of UC Irvine students had interrupted a campus lecture on chemistry or biophysics, would the District Attorney’s Office have filed criminal charges?”

That is the point. No one orchestrates a campaign to stop someone from speaking about chemistry, or biophysics, or even other hot-button issues of the day. The selectivity is by the students from the UC Irvine Muslim Student Union (MSU), in deciding that anything Oren had to say was null and void and should not be heard.

“[O]ur goal should be that he knows that he cant (sic) just go to a campus and say whatever he wants,” MSU meeting minutes show. Members were advised to “push the envelope,” in order to “realize our role as the MSU of UCIrvine.”

Those internal minutes and emails, first exposed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism last year, show that the students rejected more traditional forms of protest and made silencing the ambassador their goal. In addition, and this is something their allies ignore, the students agreed to lie about the role the Muslim Student Union played in orchestrating the plot.

Even though MSU officials devised the plan, wrote the script for what protesters would say and identified who would participate, one email entered into evidence instructed MSU members to deny the organization’s involvement.

For their deception, they are lauded as heroes.

More than 200 people attended a town hall meeting Sept. 25 at the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim. The audience heard from the students themselves and a series of speakers who heaped praise on them.

Host Shakeel Syed, a member of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, asked for a standing ovation, saying “we honor the 10 young men of the United States of America who made history in U.S. Irvine 18 months ago.”

Yet Muslim community leaders have said they are willing to silence speakers they disagree with, regardless of the consequences.

Taher Herzallah, one of the convicted students, is the national campus coordinator of American Muslims for Palestine. “I feel no shame in what I did,”Herzallah said in an interview published last week. “On the contrary, I feel I was performing my civic duty by speaking truth to power and would be willing to do it again in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.”

Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said during a sermon on Friday that as Muslims “we will remain committed to speaking the truth no matter what the price may be.”

At the town hall meeting, Ameena Qazi, deputy executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles office, blasted the prosecution as inherently corrupt. “I don’t know how else to describe what they did. If it’s not corrupt to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on two misdemeanor offenses, I don’t know what corruption is,” she said. “If it’s not corrupt to suppress free speech for these students, our community because they oppose inhumane Israeli practices, I don’t know what corruption is.”

It is unclear what Qazi based her multimillion dollar prosecution price tag on, or what message it sends students to encourage their attempted cover-up.

After the verdict, Qazi lamented its effect. “Already at UCI there’s an intense level of anti-Muslim sentiment,” she told Reuters, “and this verdict chills free speech and activism and sends a message around the country that Muslim students are going to be treated differently from other students who protest.”

But the verdict does no such thing. Students still have the right to protest, provided they do not violate the rights of others in doing so. They can picket. They can engage in silent protest or ask speakers they don’t like the most challenging questions they can devise.

“The successful prosecution of the ‘Irvine 10′ will not ‘chill’ free speech rights of hecklers,” wrote Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. “No one should or would be prosecuted for simply booing the content of a speech, leafleting a speaker, holding up signs in the back of the auditorium, conducting a counter event or demonstration. It was these young criminals who were trying to chill, indeed freeze, the constitutional rights of the speaker and those who came to hear him. They should not be treated as heroes by anyone who loves freedom and supports the First Amendment.”

Related Topics: Free Speech, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

Read More: UC Irvine. Muslim Student Union, Salam al-Marayati, Shakeel Syed, Hussam Ayloush, Tony Rackauckas, ACLU, Free Speech, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

See Also: Rebuttal: (Tony Rackauckas) Drawing a line against organized thuggery–OC Register

By VIK JOLLY and LARRY WELBORN / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A jury Thursday found 10 Muslim university students guilty of
disrupting a speech by an Israeli diplomat at UC Irvine last year, in a case
that focused on free speech.

The six-man, six-woman jury found  the students guilty on all counts of
misdemeanor disturbing a public meeting and conspiracy in connection with the
Feb. 8, 2010, talk by Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United
States.

The prosecution said the defendants used a “heckler’s veto” to thwart the
free speech rights of the speaker and others in the audience, while the defense
countered that what the protesters did was a lawful expression of their free
speech.

After months of pretrial motion, the trial lasted eight days, including about
two days spent on closing arguments by one prosecutor and six defense attorneys
earlier this week.

Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner told jurors the protesters’ actions
amounted to censorship when they planned to disrupt Oren and tried to cover it
up.

The right to free speech is not absolute, he said, and it does not include
canceling out the speech of others.

“If heckler’s veto was allowed, then no one would have the right to free
speech,” he said. “Freedom does not mean that no one can tell me what I can do.
That’s not freedom; that’s anarchy.”

The prosecutor urged jurors not to buy into the “alternate reality” created
by the defense, saying the defendants “convicted themselves.”

Defense attorneys for the students – seven from UC Irvine and three from UC
Riverside – said their clients intentionally disrupted the speech, but they
believed they were conducting a peaceful protest that did not break any
laws.

University officials’ zero tolerance for protest kept students from
exercising their rights to free speech, defense attorneys argued.

And, it they told jurors in Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson’s court
officials were prohibiting the content of the protesters’ statements at a
controversial political speech and not simply their conduct.

One of the elements the prosecution needed to prove for the jury to find the
students guilty was the students’ conduct and not the content of their message
disrupted the speaker.

“It was the message that was being targeted by administrators,” defense
attorney Lisa Holder said, “The university was prohibiting (the students’)
unpopular pro-Palestinian message.”

Both sides saw some of the same evidence presented at trial through different
lenses.

Defense attorney Jacqueline Goodman referred to the students as “heroes” who
acted in the “tradition of the finest American political activists.”

“On a college campus we’re going to let them criminalize dissent?” she said
in her closing arguments. “What are we doing?”

“There was a disruption,” Goodman acknowledged. “But it was not substantial
in the context of a political speech.”

Wagner argued it would not have mattered if the defendants had read from the
phone book or shouted “Mickey Mouse” during Oren speech, because it was their
conduct – and not the content – that forced Oren off the stage.

Defense attorneys, however, insisted that Oren left the podium on his
own.

The “intent of the conspiracy was to rob the speaker of his free speech
rights,” Wagner told jurors, adding that a planned Q&A would have given
students ample opportunity to have their say, not yelling out “something
non-responsive that violates the rules we all live with.”

When in an emailed “game plan” before the event students expressed
willingness to disrupt regardless of what the university officials and police
would do, that Wagner said was proof of conspiracy and the unlawfulness of the
plan.

Contact the writer: 714-834-3773 or vjolly@ocregister.com

How I was the subject of anti-Semitic abuse in Cairo

By Thomas Dinham

BBC News,  Cairo

Relations between Israel and Egypt
have become increasingly strained in recent weeks, and in the Egyptian capital
there is a mounting sense of tension, including incidents of anti-Semitism.

Suspicion is a feature of everyday life in Egypt, and a fondness for
conspiracy theories is as much a part of the landscape here as the constant
traffic jams and their accompanying symphony of blaring car horns.

With the democratic certainties that greeted the immediate aftermath of
January’s revolution having faded, however, the climate of mistrust and unease
about the hard-won gains of the revolution is becoming increasingly palpable.

As disquiet sets in, so does the fear of foul play, backroom deals and,
increasingly, malign foreign influences.

I noticed this tendency towards cynicism while enjoying some of the
incredible food on offer in Cairo.

The streets here are dotted with makeshift, roadside restaurants where in the
mornings you can pick up a veritable feast of quintessential Egyptian dishes
that, thanks to a weak Egyptian pound, will only cost you around $0.80 (50p).

As dishes of seasoned aubergine, heavily spiced beans, salad, fermented
cheese, chips, tamea [falafel] and gorgeous wholegrain Egyptian bread were laid
out before me, I realised I was beginning to attract attention, and not just
because of my appetite.

A group of old men slurping tea mixed with incredible quantities of sugar was
studying me.

My answers met with furrowed brows and clearly dissatisfied shakes of the
head, when suddenly, raising his hand in front of his mouth in a conspiratorial
gesture one man shot, “I bet he’s from Israel” into the ear of his friend so
quickly as to be barely discernable.

I was shocked. In nearly six months of living in Syria, where orchestrated
hysteria about Israel is integral to the very identity of the state, I had never
heard the accusation surreptitiously levelled against me.

Neither am I from Israel, nor am I Jewish, but as someone of unmistakably
European appearance, I have found myself constantly associated with Israel in
Egyptian eyes.

‘Conspiracy theorists’

A few days later, while sitting with the same group of men in the cafe, a
bridge in a nearby neighbourhood collapsed with an incredible “boom”.

State media reported five people killed. My new friends
exchanged knowing glances, apparently linking my appearance in the neighbourhood
a few days earlier to an otherwise inexplicable calamity nearby.

Israel is just one of a panoply of worries that exercise the conspiracy
theorists that frequent Egypt’s cafes.

The standard fare of political gossip tends to revolve around the trial of
[former President Hosni] Mubarak, internal corruption, and the causes behind the
dire economic woes Egypt is currently experiencing.

A prosecuting lawyer at Mr Mubarak’s trial even introduced the novel idea
that the ex-president had died years ago, and that the man on trial was none
other than an impostor.

I would hazard a guess that Israel struggles to make it into the top-five
political issues discussed in Egypt.

Israel has probably been less of a concern than the
rising power of Shia Iran in the region, which apparently worries many in this
overwhelmingly Sunni country, partly thanks to a constant stream of stridently
sectarian rhetoric broadcast from Saudi Arabia.

In the Byzantine politics of the region, hearing strident opposition to
Israel and its greatest regional foe, from the same person, almost in the same
breath, is commonplace.

Nevertheless, a strong and sometimes violent dislike of Israel is a fact of
Egyptian life, something I was unfortunate enough to discover after a
cross-border raid by Israel killed several Egyptian security personnel.

The Israelis had been chasing a group of gunmen who had attacked an Israeli
bus close to the border between the two countries.

Turning around, I found myself surrounded by five men, one of whom tried to
punch me in the face. I stopped the attack by pointing out how shameful it was
for a Muslim to assault a guest in his country, especially during Ramadan.

Relieved that a seemingly random assault was over, I was appalled by the
apology offered by one of my assailants. “Sorry,” he said contritely, offering
his hand, “we thought you were a Jew.”

Shaking his head in disbelief on hearing the news, an Egyptian friend
sympathised: “That’s stupid, you are obviously not a Jew.”

The chilling implication I was left with was that, had I been Jewish, the
assault would have apparently been justified.

By Haaretz

Commenting on the subject of minority rights in the potential Palestinian state, PLO envoy to the U.S. says past experience shows the two people should ‘be separated.’

The future independent Palestinian state will not include a Jewish minority, a top Palestinian official told USA Today on Wednesday, adding that it was in the best interest of both peoples to “be separated.”

Maen Areikat, PLO Ambassador to the United States, made the comment just as the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, was preparing to offer up Palestinian statehood to a vote in the United Nations General Assembly later this month.

Answering questions on minority rights in a future state, Areikat was quoted by USA Today as saying on the possibility of a Jewish minority: “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated.”

Former U.S. National Security Council official Elliot Abrams responded to the Palestinian official’s comment, saying to USA Today that the Palestinian demand was “a despicable form of anti-Semitism,” adding: “No civilized country would act this way.”

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had been openly opposing the planned Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations, arguing that a unilateral recognition of Palestinian independence would severely injure attempts at a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Obama indicated that Washington did not feel “think that it would actually lead to the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution.”

Last week, the State Department said the U.S. would veto a resolution for Palestinian statehood in the council, but Obama had yet to comment directly on the matter.

“What we’ve said is that going to the UN is a distraction, does not solve the problem,” he said. “This issue is only going to be resolved by Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to something.”

by IPT News  •  Sep 13, 2011 at 10:13 am

SANTA ANA – Emails detailing plans by Muslim Student Union (MSU)members to interrupt a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren last year were entered into evidence Monday in the misdemeanor trial of 10 University of California, Irvine students.

The emails outline how the group actively developed a plan to silence the Israeli ambassador, while dishonestly maintaining that the organization had no involvement. “We will be staying for the majority of the program and disrupting it throughout the whole time,” one email said.

Witness Rhoda Harris, a Holocaust survivor, described a scene of chaos as the students interrupted the speech multiple times. Oren could not be heard over the cheering that followed each disruption, she claimed, shutting down the event an hour before scheduled.

“One can voice opposition, but not at the expense of someone else’s voice,” she said.

Jurors were not informed of Harris’s life history, though, after an order by Judge Peter Wilson. He also demanded that there be no references to the defendants’ religion.

While the internal emails showed that the MSU did not believe that the ambassador had a right to spread “Israeli propaganda” on their campus, MSU’s leadership lied to press and university about its intentions. The exhibits show that the goal was a disruption that would serve as an example to future pro-Israel speakers: Their presence was not welcome and that they would not enjoy freedom of speech on American campuses.

The emails showed that MSU members formed a detailed plan to disrupt the speech. A general meeting of the group introduced the idea of breaking up the ambassador’s speech, which was followed up by a series of emails between the group’s leaders. Ultimately, the speech organized several groups of student to disrupt the speech while reading speeches from note cards, while sympathetic audience members cheered them and drowned out the ambassador’s words. The organization even suggested included visiting high school students, to give them a taste of the MSU.

The MSU is a chapter of the national Muslim Students Association, considered among the most extreme in the country.

Anticipating a weak response from campus police, the protesters jeering accomplished their goal and led to an early end to the Israeli politician’s speech. Eleven students were arrested at the event, but 10 are charged in the case.