Temple Univ. Jewish Student Punched In Face And Called ‘Kike’ In Anti-Semitic Attack
“Before this I just thought Students for Justice in Palestine was crazy but I didn’t know it would lead to violence.”
Truth Revolt Daniel Mael 8/20/14
A Jewish student on the campus of Temple University was assaulted on Wednesday afternoon and called “kike” and “baby killer” by members of the anti-Semitic student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Daniel Vessal, a Camera on Campus fellow and a member of the Jewish fraternity AEPi, was punched in the face by a violent member of the anti-Israel organization SJP at “Templefest” which is organized for students on campus to gain new information about campus clubs a week before the start of classes. Vessal is a managing information systems major at the Fox School of Business at the university.
“I’m walking down Polett Walk, one of the main walkways through Temple University and I see the SJP table,” Vessal told TruthRevolt from a local area hospital. “I go up to them and I really just wanted to see what angle they were coming from. I went up to the table and started talking to them. I said, ‘listen, you shouldn’t be protesting Israel- if anything protest the terrorists.’” Continue reading →
Several hundred Members of the Pro Israel Community turned out to counter protest a pro-Hamas rally on August 10th near the Federal Building on Wilshire Blvd. The short notice counter protest was organized by concerned community members who wished to openly and publicly show their concern about the continued attacks against Israel and to support her right to self-defense. The pro-Israel supporters outnumbered the pro-Hamas supporters who allegedly called for shutting down and occupying the street from the Federal Building to the Israeli Consulate.
Vassar College was the battleground this week for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and pro-Israel advocates in a war waged through social media — and media stunts.
The small liberal arts college 75 miles (120 km) outside New York city has fewer than 2,500 students, but according to its website, hosts some 1,500 clubs and activities. Among them are a Hillel house recently gone rogue as an Open Hillel chapter demanding an open discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, the more militant Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Vassar Conservative-Libertarian Union (VCLU).
Set in an idyllic oasis in Poughkeepsie, the college has long been a hotbed of radical liberal thinkers. For some former students, however, the radical has crossed the line into irrational in SJP’s recent use of Nazi propaganda to illustrate the alleged pervasiveness of Zionism in the halls of power.
SJP’s Tumblr account recently published a Nazi propaganda poster by Norwegian artist Harald Damsleth captioned “Liberators” in which a many limbed monster decorated with the US flag, holding a money bag grasped by a long-nosed banker, and wearing a Star of David as a loin cloth, stomps on houses of the innocent.
Vassar President Catherine Hill released an email Wednesday stating that SJP’s status as a campus organization is called into question. Continue reading →
Candidates running to serve as officers in the undergraduate student government at UCLA are being asked to sign a pledge that they will not go on certain free or sponsored trip to Israel, a prerequisite that one pro-Israel group is calling “bigoted” and “absurd.” According to the UCLA newspaper the Daily Bruin, the majority of candidates have signed the pledge.
The Joint Statement on Undergraduate Students Association Council Ethics to which the candidates have signed was drafted by the pro-Palestinian groups Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Armenian Students’ Association, the Bruin reported on Tuesday.
The Muslim Students Association has also expressed support for the initiative.
The Students’ Association Ethics statement would require council members to refrain from going on trips paid for or partially-sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League and Hasbara Fellowships, all groups with a pro-Israel stance, the Bruin reported. Continue reading →
The Muslim Student Union presents a week long series of events during Week 5 (April 28th-May 1st) that are aimed at raising awareness and creating discourse, around the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, for the campus and community.
The events will highlight the history, significance, modern impacts, and much more information surrounding the injustices of the conflict through informative discussions, creative expressions, and interactive displays.
Topics include the following:
Monday: Borders and Racism
Tuesday: BDS
Wednesday: Sexual Violence
Thursday: Environmental Degradation
More details will be posted shortly. See you there! Do share and spread the word, and bring your friends.
Note:
In Syria, entire cities have been reduced to rubble, women and children have been murdered with chemical weapons and millions displaced in refugee camps. In Saudi Arabia, Jews are forbidden and conversion to Christianity can carry a death sentence. In Egypt, Christians are persecuted and ancient churches have been reduced to rubble. Where is the outcry over the degradation of women and so called “honor killings” in many countries? Just look at the human rights records of most Middle Eastern countries. Many of these countries are ancestral homelands of the people involved in this obnoxious and hypocritical BDS farce.
In the post-Holocaust era, many had predicted, mistakenly, that the world’s oldest hatred would recede, even anticipating that anti-Semites would soon become an extinct species.
Participants at the fourth conference of the Global Forum for Combating anti-Semitism, held under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry this week in Jerusalem, will be provided with data highlighting the accelerated global erosion of the status of Jews and Israel.
In the post-Holocaust era, many had predicted, mistakenly, that the world’s oldest hatred would recede, even anticipating that anti-Semites would soon become an extinct species. Instead, defaming Jews has emerged as the greatest global political growth industry – a virtual tsunami. In fact we are witnessing a resurrection of the medieval paranoia which effectively blamed Jews for all the disasters of mankind.
The most concentrated venom is relentlessly directed against “the state of the Jews” (anti- Israelism) which is now the principal vehicle employed to demonize Jews. It dominates debates at the UN and other international organizations where rogue states and barbaric regimes seek to delegitimize the state of the Jews.
The bias and double standards against Israel became so intense that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) decided to explicitly define such behavior as anti-Semitic.
The escalation of Jew-hatred in recent years has been greatly accelerated by the economic meltdown and surge in unemployment throughout Europe. Such an environment breeds xenophobia which, since time immemorial, was always directed against Jews, exploiting them as scapegoats.
The era of the Internet and electronic global communications has been a boon to Jew-baiters, enabling them to globally disseminate their hatred instantly and effectively. New varieties of Judeophobia have emerged and integrated with the traditional anti- Semitism which had been temporarily muted due to revulsion at the horrors of the Holocaust.
The new blend fuses traditional right-wing religious, racial and economically inspired hatred of Jews with leftist varieties which now dominates indigenous Western anti-Semites. Ironically, the Left bases its demonization of the Jewish state on bogus Israeli human rights violations while avoiding condemnations of Arab anti-Semitism and abdicating its traditional long-standing role of purporting to champion rights of the oppressed and condemning human rights violations – an area in which the Arab world excels.
The greatest outpouring of anti-Jewish hatred emanates from the newly empowered Muslim countries, with their combined population of 1.6 billion. In conjunction with their diasporas in Western countries, they frenziedly promote a devilish brew of unique Islamic anti-Semitism combined with the traditional Western varieties. They depict Jews as vampires; descendants of apes and pigs; evil creatures disseminating AIDS; the masterminds behind 9/11; etc. Their incitement is at least as potent as the worst Jew-hatred promoted during the Nazi era. In addition, the jihadist component has been the principal element stoking the escalation of global violence, terror and murder against Jews. Continue reading →
(JNS.org) The University of Manitoba Student Union (UMSU) in Canada has become the first student group in North America to ban the anti-Israel “Israel Apartheid Week” and strip the anti-Israel “Students Against Israel Apartheid (SAIA)” group of official status.
The motion, which passed 19-15, bars SAIA from receiving student funding or using student activity space on campus, the Winnipeg Jewish Review reported.
Pro-Israel students argued that the anti-Israel student efforts violate university policy which protects the “dignity and self-esteem” of its students and prevents them from “discrimination or harassment.”
“According to the UMSU policy, I didn’t have to prove that IAW has actually incited hatred, but that it is likely to undermine the dignity or self- esteem of students on campus who are Zionists,” pro-Israel UM student activist Josh Morry told the Winnipeg Jewish Review.
The move at the University of Manitoba comes amid recent battles on North American college campuses between pro-Israel and anti-Israel students.
Last week, the student government at the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara rejected a resolution to divest from Israel, joining several other California schools—UC Riverside, UC Berkeley and Stanford University—who have rejected Israel divestment resolutions. But the student union at Toronto’s York University, Canada’s largest, recently endorsed an Israel divestment resolution.
They meet in small groups on campus; funded by foreign money. They understand that this method of operation gives them more influence than any act of physical violence would. They are young people who convince others; they are builders of public opinion. Step by step they take control of the leaderships of student unions and organizations; pro-Palestinian activists join extreme left-wingers in activism against Israeli elements.
This is the new intifada. You won’t hear about in the next news update; it is not an uprising within Israel’s borders, and it stopped being just about the settlements, occupation and peace treaties a long time ago. It is far away from us; it is influential, exhilarating; it speaks in a new, young language and has one goal: The annihilation of Israel as a Jewish state.
Campus Hatred
The battle for America / Tzipi Shmilovitz
Special: Israeli, Jewish students fighting back as hostility grows on leading campuses in America
Full Story
Anti-Israeli elements have reached the conclusion that burning an Israeli flag does not make for good photos. It is too extreme, too controversial, and too barbaric; it doesn’t do the job anymore; the world has changed. They found that burning the Zionist idea rather than the flag is much more effective.
Over the past few months this campaign has been taken to the next level. At the University of California public university system, at the University of California, San Diego, at Brooklyn College in New York, at Oxford University in Britain and on other campuses there are calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and activists also disrupt lectures of Israeli representatives – it is all part of a broad campaign to delegitimize Israel.
It is not coincidental that a significant part of the delegitimization campaign against Israel is talking place on campuses. The arena was carefully selected. Campuses have always been fertile ground for exchanging ideas, for activity aimed at fomenting social change and for calls for universal ideals because it is easier to plant the seeds of unruliness in the minds of 18 year olds, who are more open to innovative and revolutionary ideas. Within a decade millions of young, influential people within government, the economy, the arts, culture, the judicial system and research – those who have been inculcated with the anti-Israel idea – may adopt the notion that Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state. ‘Why do the Jews need a state of their own?’ They will wonder. Continue reading →
by Lee Kaplan
FrontPage Magazine
December 11, 2012
Does appointing an advocate of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to chair a committee aimed at combating anti-Semitism in the California State University system make sense? That’s exactly what happened in the case of Manzar Foroohar, a well-known anti-Israel activist who teaches modern Middle Eastern and Latin American history at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The Iranian immigrant was placed in charge of an Academic Senate 2012/2013 CSU committee charged with implementing the “Governor’s Task Force on Tolerance and Anti-Semitism Training,” an effort that originated in 2010 under former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Foroohar does indeed have extensive experience in training students and faculty members—in how to delegitimize and demonize the state of Israel, an activity that hardly promotes an environment of “tolerance” for pro-Israel CSU students.
When asked about Foroohar’s appointment, Diana Guerin, chairwoman of the Academic Senate CSU (ASCSU) who oversees committee selections and appointments, offered the standard bureaucratic response, making sure to include politically correct praise for the professor’s “divergent” point of view:
The Executive Committee of the Academic Senate makes appointments each year based on senator interest in serving on the various committees. With over forty senators eligible to serve and approximately fifty committees to staff, this is a very involved process. We note that sometimes committees do their best work when there are divergent points of view that lead to careful consideration and thorough discussion of issues. Senator Foroohar has been elected by her peers at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo multiple terms and has served the Academic Senate of the CSU with distinction.
After further questioning, the chairwoman explained that at a 2010 meeting with the Governor’s task force at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “Concern arose about the potential blurring of the lines between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which are two separate issues [emphasis added]” and that, “It was important for faculty to have a voice on this type of training for our students.” This sheds light on the ASCSU’s true agenda: using the committee to promote the idea that campus anti-Zionism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Foroohar’s appointment to “train” faculty effectively ends any meaningful attempt by the Governor’s task force to battle campus anti-Semitism.
It is said that “its better late than never”. The Orange County Independent Task Force on anti-Semitism was copied, this afternoon with a letter from UC President Mark Yudof. The accompanying email stated: “I thought you might be interested in the attached Open Letter to the UC Community.”
In the letter Yudof denounced the repeated disruption of a presentation by Israeli soldiers at UC Davis during which one of the hecklers accused the speakers af being a rapist and a murderer. At UC Riverside, vandals defaced an Israeli flag displayed by Hillel with the word terrorist scrawled across it. We applaud President Yudof for finally gathering the courage to speak out against what has been years of harrassment and intimidation of Jewish students on UC campuses. To read the letter, click this link: https://octaskforce.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/open-letter-3-8-12.pdf
Posted By Nichole Hungerford On January 4, 2012 @ 12:02 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage
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. Continue reading →
Back in April, I wrote to take issue with a statement written by Kenneth Stern of the American Jewish Committee and Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors. The duo contended that a number of recent troubling incidents involving Jewish students on American college campuses did not rise to the level of a “working definition” of anti-Semitism. Even worse, they sought to dismiss efforts to fight back against the vicious anti-Semitism that masquerades as criticism of Zionism as an unscrupulous attempt at censoring anti-Israel speech. Their stand undermined the campaign to get the government and universities to take the issue of anti-Semitism seriously. Continue reading →
The following is an excerpt from a comment posted by a Jewish member of the Olive Tree Initiative in response to our post Olive Tree Initiatives “nefarious”connections? His entire comment can be read by scrolling down to the bottom of the post to the comment section. Are these the words of a student who has become overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, or do they belie the naive notion espoused by proponents of the Olive Tree Initiative, including Jewish Federation Leaders? :That Jewish students become overwhelmingly pro-Israel by belonging to an organization which gives a platform to those who unambiguously wish to harm Israel and the Jewish people.
Judge for yourself:
“….each side believes they know the truth, and takes unprecedented steps towards disseminating such truths. Additionally each side perceives themselves in the right, and expects international solidarity against the “other”. The conflict has evolved into an international industry, a media enterprise whose sole concern is to gain popular support at the expense of civilians. Each side has engineered a campaign so clever, so manipulative and self-destructive that its intention to sway the international community ends up cultivating deep resentment and entrenched hatred.”
Note: Falk has taught UC Santa Barbara, at Chapman University and has appeared as a speaker at numerous anti-Israel events on Southern California Campuses including UCLA.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration, joined by U.S. Jewish groups, called for the United Nations to dismiss Richard Falk, its rapporteur on Palestinian rights, after he posted an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog.
“I am deeply disturbed that once again U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has used his personal blog to publish abhorrent material,” Joseph Torsella, the U.S. representative for management and reform to the United Nations, said in a statement on Friday. “His shameful and outrageous behavior is an embarrassment to the United Nations. Someone who publishes such vicious images has no place in the U.N. system.”
The cartoon, posted by Falk, depicts a dog wearing a shirt labeled “USA” and a yarmulke marked with a Star of David devouring a bloody human carcass. Lady Justice stands by blindfolded, holding the dog’s leash as it urinates on her foot. Continue reading →
While the Middle East and North Africa continue to roil in blood shed with governments in Libya and Syria gunning down civilians on a daily basis, the Muslim Student Union, fresh from its “suspension”, presents this years edition of hypocrisy and hatred :
Efforts stalled Wednesday to pass an A.S. Council resolution that called for the UC system to divest funds from non-neutral corporations currently providing technology to the Israeli Defense Forces. This is the second year the resolution, proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine, has been brought before council.
“Kauft Nicht Bei Juden” The BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) Movement. Is there any difference?
Those who wish to harm the Jewish People and destroy of the State of Israel have designated March 30, 2011 as “Boycott Israel day”. You can help counter this world wide threat from haters and hypocrites by going to your local retailer and requesting and purchasing Israeli products. To find a list of Israeli Products in your city click this link
The UN Declaration of Human Rights defines free speech as: “Everyone having the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontier.” Continue reading →
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) 2011 is underway in cities and on college campuses worldwide. This cynical anti-Israel activity, based on the campaign to falsely label Israel as an “apartheid state”, is part of a larger “Durban strategy” adopted at the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
To help students and faculty, NGO Monitor developed and is distributing the “BDS Sewer System” to partner organizations and campus activists throughout the world (see the Jerusalem Post story below). Promoting BDS is a central goal of IAW, and the BDS Sewer System provides detailed information on the sources of delegitimization campaigns against Israel.
* Read NGO Monitor’s report on IAW, including useful fact sheets on NGOs and activities.
* Learn about the legal fallacies inherent in the apartheid analogy.
* To order print copies of the BDS Sewer System, please email mail@ngo-monitor.org.
Israel Apartheid Week, and efforts to combat it, begin
By JORDANA HORN
Exclusive: NGO Monitor announces efforts to combat Apartheid Week with “BDS Sewer System” to detail sources of delegitimization campaigns.
NEW YORK – Israeli Apartheid Week, an effort by groups and activists supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to discredit it and label it an “apartheid state,” kicked off Monday in many cities and college campuses worldwide. Continue reading →
KPCC has learned that the Orange County grand jury is investigating the Feb. 2010 disruption of an Israeli diplomat’s speech at UC Irvine.
Members of UCI’s Muslim Student Union have been called to testify before the grand jury about the organization’s role in the disruption of a speech by Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine’s law school, says he does not believe the students who disrupted Oren’s speech should face the risk of criminal charges.
The Orange County District Attorney’s office says the law prevents it from confirming or denying any activities related to the grand jury.
Kenneth L. Marcus is the director of The Anti-Semitism Initiative at the Institute for Jewish & Community Research and author of “Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America,” Cambridge 2010. He also teaches at Baruch College of the City University of New York.)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Buried in the recent policy statement on bullying in the public schools, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced a major policy on anti-Semitism: For only the second time in its history, OCR pledged that it would use its civil rights enforcement powers to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment.
The landmark ruling bolsters the 2004 policy that I issued while heading OCR during the first George W. Bush administration but which had been abandoned or ignored in the intervening years. The new policy is a big deal for students on many college campuses, where anti-Semitism has made a startling return. However, it is hardly clear whether OCR will enforce it fully.
The new policy is certainly timely. Some say this is a “golden age” for American Jewish college students, pointing to the proliferation of Hillel houses, Jewish studies departments, Israel studies classes, and Jewish college presidents and faculty. There is some truth to this opinion.
But if it is the best of times, it is also the worst of times. The long steady progress against anti-Semitism since the end of the World War II halted nearly a decade ago at the start of the second intifada. Since then many campuses, especially on the West Coast, have seen a resurgence of anti-Jewish animosity. In many cases we see old school European-style stereotypes of greedy, conspiratorial Jews. Continue reading →
(JTA) — A Jewish organization is on the Anti Defamation League’s top 10 list of anti-Israel groups in America.
Jewish Voice for Peace, based in Oakland, Calif., was on the list released Oct. 14 by the ADL of the most influential and active anti-Israel groups in the United States.
It was joined by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), the Al-Awda Council on American-Islamic Relations, Friends of Sabeel-North America, If Americans Knew, the International Solidarity Movement, the Muslim American Society, Students for Justice in Palestine and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. “While there are hundreds of groups that organize and participate in various anti-Israel activities, we have identified the largest and most well-coordinated anti-Israel groups,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director. Continue reading →
The OCITF expressed concern to University officials that during today’s anti-Israel rally, there was no police present except for an officer stationed in front of the administration building. The police officer remarked that “nothing will get done until somebody gets actually gets hurt”. It is unconscionable, given the level of overheated emotions, rhetoric and near violence that has already taken place worldwide that UCI Officials did not deem it necessary to provide an adequate police presence in what could have been a potentially volatile situation on campus.
Subject: The Gaza Flotilla and the Maritime Blockade of Gaza
The Gaza Flotilla and the Maritime Blockade of Gaza
Israel regrets all loss of human life and injuries which came as result of the unfortunate events aboard the vessel Mavi Marmara on Monday, May 31. Continue reading →
SFVoice4Israel — May 02, 2010 — A rash of swastikas recently appeared at UC Berkeley. A multi-cultural group of students and community members decided to mobilize in solidarity against hate speech on campus and organized the “Anti-Semitism is Hate” rally. Prof. Andrew Gutierrez (CASAS) repeatedly heckled the rally and insulted the participants. Why would anyone protest a rally against hate speech? We can only wonder…. Continue reading →
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee officials said Friday that they will investigate whether student conduct rules were violated when Muslim and Jewish students clashed during a protest of a Jewish-sponsored event on campus Thursday. Continue reading →
[1]UCSD is embroiled in another cultural controversy. (Photo by Alex Hansen / Wikipedia Commons)
Recent news that organized groups of students at the University of California, San Diego have criticized the nation of Israel and called upon the university to divest itself of economic ties to corporations and groups that do business with the Jewish state is proof positive that the culture of intolerance exposed several months ago, then against African-Americans, has far from abated.
If UCSD is to repair its damaged reputation and be considered a campus that respects the humanity, dignity and rights of all people, UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox will refuse to overlook bigotry of any kind and will speak out forcefully against this reckless display of anti-Semitism at her school. Continue reading →
Talya Lador-Fresher, Israel’s deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in London, had to be shuffled out a side door and into a “get-away” car by Manchester police on Wednesday, following a lecture she was gave at the University of Manchester that was crashed by pro-Palestinian student protestors. Continue reading →
(Note: The ASUC (Berkeley) Senate did not finalize the 2010-11 budget at last night’s meeting, instead steering its full attention to determining the fate of a vetoed bill targeting companies involved in alleged Israeli war crimes. Read the Daily Cal story HERE) Continue reading →
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and a fellow leader of the Civil Rights Movement, wrote in a 2002 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, “During an appearance at Harvard University shortly before his death, a student stood up and asked King to address himself to the issue of Zionism. The question was clearly hostile. King responded, ‘When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism.’” Continue reading →
Proponents say the measure is meant to condemn human-rights violations worldwide.
An A.S. resolution demanding that the university stop working with companies associated with human-rights violations has come under fire from members of the pro-Israel campus community. Continue reading →
Following more than two hours of deliberation in closed session, the ASUC Senate failed Wednesday night to come to a consensus on whether to override President Will Smelko’s March 24 veto of a bill targeting alleged…Read More»
Following a nearly nine-hour discussion that began at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday evening and lasted into Thursday morning, ASUC senators have yet to reach a decision on whether or not they would uphold or override President Will Smelko’s March 24 veto of a controversial bill urging the student government and the UC to divest from two companies that have supplied Israel with materials for alleged war crimes.
I was at the senate meeting on the night of March 17 but had to leave around 1 a.m. to take my son home because he has AP exams at his high school this week.
I must be na�ve, as I left believing by far the majority of you had seen that the Israeli-Palestinian issue was far too complex for you ASUC senators to pass a resolution recommending divestment from one side. Continue reading →
By Brian Maissy
Special to the Daily Cal
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Editor’s Note: This piece was written as a letter to the UC Board of Regents.
As you are probably aware, bill 118, passed by the ASUC senate, vetoed by the ASUC president, and currently before the senate again for the veto to be overturned, calls upon you, the UC Regents, to divest UC funds from General Electric and United Technologies, which conduct business in Israel, including selling defense technology to the IDF. Continue reading →
The fate of a divest-from-Israel resolution passed by the U.C. Berkeley student senate and vetoed by ASUC’s president a week later will likely be decided at a student senate meeting Wednesday, April 14. Continue reading →
In your open letter published in the New University, you propose a return to UC Irvine in order to “dialogue” with those whose views juxtapose yours. We willingly take you up on that offer. But to clarify, our willingness does not stem from any delusional notion that your words can right the decades of wrong and injustice. Continue reading →
OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement today:
“On university campuses across the country this week, Israeli Apartheid Week will once again attempt to demonize and undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state. It is part of a global campaign of calls for divestment, boycotts and proclamations, and it should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely. Continue reading →
In a rant that reeked of old-fashioned anti-Semitism, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that the “Zionist regime” was seeking to control the world.
Addressing the International Conference on National and Islamic Solidarity for Future of Palestine, Ahmadinejad said that the existence of the “Zionist regime” is an insult to all of humanity, asserting that it had lost its raison d’être. Continue reading →
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — (Marketwire) — 12/16/09 — Canada is putting a renewed focus on the new anti-Semitism, one predicated on the notion that the Jews alone have no right to a homeland, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said today in Jerusalem.
“Canada is not content to be an observer on the world stage. Rather, Canada is playing a leadership role in combating the new anti-Semitism,” said Minister Kenney, speaking at the Global Forum for combating anti-Semitism.
The Minister noted that among other things, Canada was the first country in the world to announce it would not attend the Durban 2 conference. The Governments of Israel, the United States, and much of the European Union later followed Canada’s lead and boycotted the conference. “Canada’s fears that Durban 2 would, like its predecessor Durban 1, descend into an anti-Semitic hatefest were fully vindicated,” said the Minister.
“Rather than combating racism, Durban promoted it. Our government will not allow Canada’s good name to be sullied by association with a conference whose sole purpose, it seems, is like that of the first Durban”, said Minister Kenney.
Among recent measures Canada has undertaken on the world stage to lead in the combat against the new anti-Semitism, Canadian officials walked out on a speech by Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and at a summit of francophone countries, Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to sign a one-sided draft statement criticizing Israel.
“In addition to our leadership in combating anti-Semitism on the world stage, we have taken a hard look at Government of Canada programming as part of our zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism” said Minister Kenney.
“Our Government is working to dismantle the client relationship that existed between the Government of Canada and organizations whose priority is seemingly to advocate for the legalization of banned terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as deny the Jewish people’s right to a homeland,” the Minister added. “We have also taken a leadership role in condemning anti-Semitism on Canadian university campuses.” (emphasis added) Continue reading →
TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a lie Friday, raising the stakes against Israel just as world powers try to decide how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of an Iran in political turmoil.
“The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim,” he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel “Qods (Jerusalem) Day” rally.
“Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty.”
Ahmadinejad’s anti-Western comments on the Holocaust have caused international outcry and isolated Iran, which is at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear program.
The hardline president warned leaders of Western-allied Arab and Muslim countries about dealing with Israel.
“This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it … This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end,” he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.
Germany said Ahmadinejad was a “disgrace to his country.”
“This sheer anti-Semitism demands our collective condemnation. We will continue to confront it decisively in the future,” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Continue reading →
” …Hate speech is difficult to define precisely.” It is largely defined by the person individual hearing it: what some or many might find hateful or offensive, others may not….” UCI Chancellor Michael Drake ” Message on hate speech” May 26.2006.
“..One persons hate speech is another persons education” — UCI Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez October 18, 2006.
“We have 1,000 guest speakers on campus every year. Could I evaluate them and say this one is anti-Semitic? I could not. What I could say is that as a person and a campus, we abhor hate speech, period.” — UCI Chancellor Michael Drake May 30, 2007.
“…I do agree there were certainly instances of boorish and intimidating behavior. Some of this behavior involved people not associated with the University. Neither the University nor the Police Department has the means or ability to control such rude or obnoxious behavior…” UC Irvine Police Chief Paul Henisey—January 20, 2009
“…UC Irvine did experience instances of racist, hateful and anti-Semitic speech on our campus last month. The Chancellor has stated on many occasions that he personally finds this type of speech abhorrent, offensive and counterproductive…” Ramona H. Agrela, UCI Associate Chancellor–June 12, 2009
Student David Elmaleh discusses how the college campus has become a hub of anti-semitism
Shouting, anti-religious slurs, evil glares and anti-Semitic rhetoric often get thrown my way as I walk through the halls during one of the countless anti-Israel demonstrations at York University. Am I a walking target? I often wonder if I am drawing a bull’s eye for myself when I dress in a way that identifies me as a Jew on campus. Indeed, the distinction between anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish is becoming increasingly blurred.
In several cases, these rallies have deteriorated into soapboxes for Jew bashing. I have been called names and been insulted for simply wearing my kippah. One day, while hurrying to a class, a few individuals stopped me in the hallway and began berating me about Israeli policies.
The campus newspaper has not been very helpful; it consistently presents editorials and articles that blast Israel, while very few pro-Israel pieces make it into the paper. Last year, after the fatal terrorist attack at the Mercaz HaRav yeshivah in Jerusalem, a York student wrote an op-ed for the campus paper entitled “Jewish Attack Not a Surprise,” which defended the massacre and called on continued resistance in order to end the occupation in Gaza. Jewish students of all walks of life felt outraged and hurt that their paper had printed such a hate-inspired editorial. It sparked intense debate among all factions of students, and, as usual, Jews were targeted.
NEW YORK (JTA) — New York University canceled an anti-Israel event disguised as an event about climate change. The event, originally slated for May 4, was titled “The Hidden History of Zionism: The Road to Gaza’s Killing Fields,” and its organizers promoted it with flyers around the campus that some decried as anti-Semitic, Ynet reported. University officials confirmed the cancellation of the event but stressed it was because of its fraudulent nature.
“…The global Zionism is the complete symbol of racism, which with unreal reliance on religion has tried to misuse the religious beliefs of some unaware people and hide its ugly face. But what should be seriously considered are the goals of certain superpowers and those in possession of major interests in the world; those who try their best through economic power and political influence and wide media means, to lessen the crimes and ugliness of the nature of the Zionist regime….”
*Note the disturbing similarities to the anti-Semitic hate speakers and who are regularly presented on the UC Irvine campus by the Muslim Student Union. Continue reading →
The fifth annual Israel Apartheid Week, which ended on Sunday, was a more popular, better attended, and more aggressive series of anti-Israel rallies and lectures than ever before. Continue reading →
Mar. 9, 2009
ABRAHAM COOPER and HAROLD BRACKMAN , THE JERUSALEM POST
Neutral Sweden’s mixed World War II legacy is still debated by historians. On the one hand it supplied Nazi Germany with iron ore and ball bearings and allowed the Wehrmacht to use the Swedish railway system to transport soldiers. On the other hand, spurred on by the Danes, it accepted Danish Jews marked for mass murder by the Nazis. Continue reading →
ICan Ad Targets Student Boycotts of Israel
In the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza, anti-Israel rhetoric and anti-Semitism have once again flared up at some American universities. Now, as “Israel Apartheid Week” is being held on college campuses, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is fighting back with an ad campaign focusing on all the Israeli innovations that college students love: cell phones, instant messaging, Intel processors.
The ICan campaign was announced last Friday at a press conference featuring Judea Pearl, the UCLA professor and father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Judea Pearl, a columnist for The Jewish Journal, recently drew attention to a symposium of anti-Israel scholars at UCLA that included audience chants of “Zionism is Nazism,” “Free, Free Palestine” and “F…, f… Israel.”
“The verbal abuse is there, the intimidation is there, the feeling of helplessness is there, not only among students but among faculty,” Pearl said at the press conference at the Wiesenthal Center’s West L.A. office.
The Wiesenthal Center, Anti-Defamation League and other agencies have reported an explosion in anti-Semitism during and following Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza that began in late December. A protest outside the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles featured a now-infamous sign that depicted the Israeli flag with a Magen David twisted into a swastika and the words, “Upgrade to Holocaust Version 2.0.” On college campuses, some student bodies passed resolutions condemning Israel’s military actions; what for many crossed the line into anti-Semitism, though, were anti-Israel symposiums and lectures. Continue reading →
TORONTO (JTA) — Toronto police quelled tensions between Jews and anti-Israel activists at the campus of one of Canada’s largest universities for the second time in two weeks.
Hillel@York, the on-campus club for Jewish students at Toronto’s York University, said that anti-Israel activists “isolated and threatened Jewish students” during a Feb. 12 news conference on the fallout from a three-month-long strike that ended recently at York.
Jewish students allegedly were subjected to anti-Semitic slurs and physically intimidated. The anti-Israel activists allegedly barricaded Jewish students in Hillel’s office. Continue reading →
Sunday, September 14, 2008 – By: Gerstenfeld, Dr. Manfred
…….The academic year 2007-2008 saw ongoing anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incidents in various countries. Among them is Israel Apartheid Week, which has become an annual ritual in a number of cities on several continents. So have the calls of the University and College Union (UCU) in the United Kingdom for discriminatory measures against Israeli universities and academics. In several universities, such as on some campuses of the University of California, anti-Israelism is endemic…….
Investigations at the University of California-Irvine
In 2006 the Hillel Foundation of Orange County set up a task force to investigate anti-Semitism on the UC-Irvine campus. They interviewed people about incidents that had occurred there. Officials from the school, however, including the chancellor, refused to be interviewed claiming it was against school policy. The interviews began in February 2007, but by August of that year Hillel decided the task was too extensive and discontinued its association with the project.[32]
The investigation was later continued by members of the Jewish community of Orange County. They published their report in February 2008. This document is of major importance as it examines the structural problems of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli hate at one American university in their totality rather than dealing only with a number of incidents. It can serve as a model for similar investigations at other universities, Columbia and UC-Santa Cruz being among the prime candidates.
The new group’s report states that “acts of anti-Semitism are real and well documented. Jewish students have been harassed. Hate speech is unrelenting.” Furthermore, “Some faculty members have used their classroom as a forum for their anti-Israel agenda.”[33]
The authors also assert that: “The Muslim Student Union…allies itself and identifies itself with terrorist groups that are enemies of the Unites States.” About the administration they note:
The Chancellor has failed to exercise his moral authority as an educator and leader by abrogating his leadership responsibilities. The boundaries of rational and reasonable discourse by constituencies that have differing positions on emotional issues have not been established. There is no indication that the University is at all concerned about the disconnect between campus values and the values of the greater society.[34]
The report also mentions that the Jewish community as a whole has not been proactive. It even includes a suggestion that Jewish students should not attend school at UC-Irvine. Continue reading →
Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism 
You must be logged in to post a comment.