Just when you you thought it was safe for your Jewish Student at UC Irvine

Muslim students shut down pro-Israel event at UCI

Peter FrickeInvestigative Reporter@FrickePete

Campus Reform

Today at 5:33 PM EDT

• The protesters reportedly consisted of members of the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine.

• UPDATE: UCI released a statement responding to the incident, saying it is investigating “whether disciplinary or legal action is appropriate.”

An event held by a Jewish student group at the University of California, Irvine was disrupted Wednesday night by a crowd of Muslim students chanting anti-Semitic and anti-police slogans.

Ariana Rowlands, president of the College Republicans club at UCI, told Campus Reform that her group had just wrapped up its weekly meeting Wednesday night, and were gathered outside the building preparing to hang posters advertising an upcoming appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos when they heard a commotion nearby.

[RELATED: Milo quotes spark ‘homophobia’ scare at UC Irvine]

Wandering over to investigate, the CR members encountered a large group of students—Rowlands estimated there were perhaps 50 in total—holding signs and screaming in unison to protest a movie screening being held by Students Supporting Israel (SSI).

Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member who was on campus to address the CR meeting, posted a video on Facebook depicting a portion of the demonstration.

“Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada,” the protesters shout at the start of the video, following that up with a call-and-response chant of “displacing people since ‘48/there’s nothing here to celebrate!”

For video click http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7605

The Wall of Hate Suffers A “Rain Out” This Morning

The so-called “apartheid wall”,  erected year after year on the UC Irvine Campus by the Muslim Student Union, never looked better or more truthful.

ZOA Criticises UCI Faculty Members

ZOA Criticizes Some UCI Faculty For Bias, Hypocrisy, Falsehoods In Urging DA Dismiss Charges Against Anti-Israel Muslim Students For Free Speech Violations

February 15, 2011

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the 100 faculty members at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) for signing a letter to Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, urging him to drop the criminal charges against the 11 students who violated two California statutes by planning and then repeatedly disrupting a speech on the UCI campus by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on February 8, 2010.  These students tried to deprive Ambassador Oren of his free speech rights, shouting him down with screams that he is a “mass murderer” and a “war criminal committing genocide.”  The screaming was so unrelenting that the Ambassador had to stop speaking twice and canceled the planned question-and-answer period.  The faculty members’ letter was sent in response to the District Attorney’s announcement on February 4, 2011, that 11 defendants – eight students from UCI and three students from UC Riverside – were charged with one count of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and one misdemeanor count of the disturbance of a meeting.  In a statement issued about the charges, District Attorney Rackauckas said, “This case is being filed because there was an organized attempt to squelch the speaker, who was invited to speak to a group at UCI.  These defendants meant to stop this speech and stop anyone else from hearing his ideas, and they did so by disrupting a lawful meeting.  This is a clear violation of the law and failing to bring charges against this conduct would amount to a failure to uphold the Constitution.”

OCITF: “Keep in mind that until the appeals process has been completed, it is premature to draw any conclusions about the outcome.”

Reut Cohen graduated from UCI, where she ran a blog to document the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American incidents on campus.

Irvine Community and Jewish Groups React to Muslim Student Union Suspension

By Reut Cohen June 24, 2010

Pajamas Media

The University of California, Irvine (UCI) is the second youngest campus in the California state university system. UCI has made its mark ^[1] among prestigious American universities, steadily rising in the U.S. News & World Report ratings of “America’s Best Colleges.” Following the al-Qaeda terror attacks on September 11, 2001, however, the prestigious and relatively subdued Orange County campus began drawing attention and earning a reputation as a breeding ground for anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic sentiment.

UCI MSU appeals suspension

UCI MSU Appeals Recommendation to Suspend MSU

June 14th, 2010

In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

UC IRVINE MSU APPEALS RECOMMENDATION TO SUSPEND MSU

(Irvine, CA – 6/14/10) — The Muslim Student Union (MSU) at the University of California, Irvine, announced today that it has filed an appeal to the recommendation by the Senior Executive Director of Student Housing to revoke the student group’s charter for one year, following allegations that the MSU violated sections of University policy.

Decision letter to suspend MSU

The decision letter alleges that interviewees asserted their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Click for the  UCI Galloway Investigation.

ZOA: UC Irvine’s 8 month investigation of MSU Hamas/Galloway Fundraiser “whitewash”

ZOA Condemns UC Irvine For Continued Whitewashing of Muslim Student Union’s Wrongdoing, Despite Evidence of Fundraising For Terrorist Group Hamas

UC President Yudof Supports

Irvine’s Whitewash

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) condemns the University of California, Irvine for once again irresponsibly whitewashing the misconduct of the Muslim Student Union, a registered student group on campus – despite the University’s finding that the Muslim Student Union engaged in unauthorized fundraising on campus on May 21, 2009, and despite evidence that the funds may have been illegally provided to the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.  The ZOA also criticizes UC Irvine for absolving university employees who attended the Muslim Student Union’s fundraising event, even though the employees knew or should have known that the fundraising was unauthorized and nevertheless did not stop or report it.

UPDATE: No Police at UC Irvine today at anti-Israel Rally. No response by university officials

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.

Update: Over 900 UCI students have thus far applied for refund of Student Fees for funding Hate speakers

The following procedure for obtaining refunds was initiated by a  U C Irvine Student:

* 1. UCI campus policy 83.20 reads: “Chancellors…shall establish procedures to allow a student to seek a refund of that portion of his or her fee which he or she believes continues to support political, ideological, or religious organizations or activities.”

“ADL calls on UCI to denounce anti-Semitic speaker and Pull the Muslim Student Union Charter”

“How long must we hear Malik Ali support terrorism, express hatred of Jews and call for the destruction of the State of Israel before the University is willing to denounce him and those who invite him and sponsor his speech at Irvine?”  ADL Regional Director Kevin O’Grady

For the press release  by the Orange County Anti Defamation League Regional Director click  here

Malik Ali: “You Jews…y’all the new Nazis!!”

(Thanks Rabbi Drew)

Notice he said Jews, not Zionist Jews.

More video:

Hate Week Headliner: Malik Ali

In this 2006 video, courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center ,  Malik Ali blames  “Zionist Jews” for the infamous Dutch cartoons.  Anti-Semite?

Finkelstein: Ambassador Oren “played a key role in aparatus of death in Gaza”

(In his typically boring style.)  Click “more” for Norms May 11 evening presentation.   (Thanks Rabbi Drew)

Retiring Manuel Gomez on Oren disruption: “I need to restrain myself because I am the last appeal once the deliberations are completed at the Dean of Students level.”

Here is what  the “restrained “outgoing Vice Chancellor Gomez said in an interview in  this weeks New University

“Q: The Michael Oren incident seems to be a recent example of this. Could you comment on how the campus has chosen to deal with it?

ZOA Letter to UCI: “The University’s continuing failure and refusal to enforce its own rules…”

The attached letter, copied to the OCITF and dated April 9, 2010  to UCI’s Chief Campus Counsel Diane Fields Giocaris was received today.  To read the letter click  here

Jewish Students to ASUCI: “When will the student government stand up for me?”

(The OCITF applauds the Jewish students for speaking out against censorship and “years” of anti-Semitism at UC Irvine)

Jewish Student Leader addressing the UCI Student Council:

….The same powers that oppressed my mother and the Jews of Egypt, have followed us here to this campus…”

“How many members of this council understand the history of anti-Semitism on this campus and the history of the Muslim Student Union on this campus?”

Note: Only one member of the Student Council that unanimously voted for resolution R45-66 Resolution condemning academic repercussions for nonviolent protest, was present at the disruption of Ambassador Oren’s Speech.

UCI’s “internal review” into alleged Hamas fundraising enters its sixth month

On October 2, 2009 , the Orange County Independent Task Force on anti-Semitism  (OCITF)  received a carbon copy of a response to concerns raised by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) from Diane Fields Geocaris, UCI’s Chief Campus Counsel. (To read the letter, click here.)  According to the ZOA, “the Muslim Student Union (MSU) a registered student group on campus, may have illegally used the University of California, Irvine (UCI) as a base for fund-raising for the terrorist group Hamas.”

Assemblyman Chuck Devore: “It’s not contributing anything of value to the campus.”

Assemblyman DeVore seeks ban of Muslim Student Union from UC Irvine

8:11 p.m. | KPCC Wire Services | KPCC     Feb 23, 2010

IRVINE — Assemblyman Chuck DeVore sent a letter to UC Irvine’s chancellor asking him to ban the Muslim Student Union from campus following several of the group members’ arrests while disrupting a speech by Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

DeVore, R-Irvine, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., also accused the Muslim Student Union of “passing the hat” for Hamas at a fundraiser for the “terrorist organization” last year.

Disciplinary letters from the UC Irvine Office of Judicial Affairs.

Disciplinary letters sent to UCI protesters

BY ALEX BERGJANS

2010-02-19 18:21:49

The UC Irvine students who were arrested after protesting a Feb.8 speech by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren have received disciplinary letters from the university office of judicial affairs.

UCI sent the letter to the eight Irvine student protesters early last week.

The UC Riverside’s student conduct office is reviewing video footage and materials from the speech and demonstration but has yet to make a decision regarding the three UCR students who were arrested. Administrators have sent inquiry letters to the students in question.

Orwellian Logic?

Muslim Public Affairs Council defends students’ “right” to shout down an Israeli speaker

February 12, 12:20 AMLA Middle Eastern Policy Examiner

Paul Kujawsky

Examiner.com

One doesn’t want to invoke George Orwell lightly. But there is something positively Orwellian about defending, in the name of freedom of speech, a gang’s attempt to shut down a speech.

The facts are these:

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, was invited to speak at the University of California Irvine. The invitation came from the Law School and the Political Science Department. Now, UC Irvine has an active–some would say, aggressive (others would say, obnoxious)–chapter of the Muslim Student Union. The UCI MSU has a, shall we say, controversial history, ranging from allegedly fundraising for Hamas to hosting virulently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic speakers.

Enter the double standard. The MSU feels perfectly free to bring to campus speakers that Jews, friends of Israel, and others consider absolutely repulsive. And it has the right to do so (aside from providing material support to terrorists, which is forbidden by federal law). But when the MSU considers a speaker not to be kosher (as it were), it seeks to disrupt his appearance.

Is UC Irvine “dragging its feet”?

This week the Orange County Independent Task Force on anti-Semitism  (OCITF) received a carbon copy of a letter from the Zionist Organization America (ZOA) to UCI  Chief Campus Counsel Diane Giocaris. The letter suggests that UCI is “dragging its feet”, with respect to an investigation of alleged fund raising  for Hamas by British MP George Galloway and his Viva Palestina organization at  a May 21,  2009 , Muslim Student Union (MSU) sponsored event.  Hamas has been designated as a  Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department. To read ZOA’s letter click here

In a letter dated September 30, 2009 to ZOA and copied to the OCITF, MS Giocaris stated  “…With regard to your allegations regarding the conduct of University employees and that MSU violated University policies, we have initiated an internal review of these matters, and will proceed as expediciously as possible…” To read Ms. Geocaris letter click here

Congresswoman Sue Myrick’s (R. North Carolina) letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner concerning Viva Palestina

To read the January 10, 2010 letter click here

JTA:Did US group raise funds for Hamas? “Congressman Brad Sherman Urges Probe”

Dec. 8, 2009
JTA , THE JERUSALEM POST

A US congressman is the latest to call for a Justice Department investigation into whether a pro-Palestinian group has been raising money on college campuses for Hamas.

In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) urged a probe into Viva Palestina USA, a humanitarian aid convoy led by British lawmaker George Galloway that brought medical supplies to Gaza last July.

Both the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Anti-Defamation League in recent months have urged Holder to investigate reports about the convoy’s links to Hamas.

The groups made their requests after Galloway and other Viva Palestina USA members appeared and reportedly raised funds at some college campuses in the spring and summer.

“Clearly, people and organizations in the United States cannot be allowed to solicit funds for foreign terrorist organizations,” Sherman wrote in his letter to Holder.

“That such solicitation is occurring during the middle of the day at a public university is truly frightening,” he said, referring to the University of California, Irvine.

Sherman wrote similar letters expressing concern about the reports on Viva Palestina USA to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, University of California, Irvine chancellor Michael Drake and Internal Revenue Service commissioner Douglas Shulman.

Viva Palestina USA was launched after the Viva Palestina group that Galloway set up in Britain sent a convoy to Gaza in March. It did not respond to requests for comment.

ZOA Responds to MSU Charges

UC IRVINE’S MUSLIM STUDENT GROUP LIES, ATTACKS AND THREATENS ZOA, ADL, OTHER ZOA “AFFILIATES,” SEEKING TO SILENCE US – BUT DOES NOT REFUTE ZOA’S CHARGES OF WRONGDOING

In response to the troubling concerns that the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) recently raised about the questionable and disturbing conduct of the Muslim Student Union at the University of California, Irvine, the Muslim Student Union sent a hateful, rambling letter to Diane Fields Geocaris, UC Irvine’s Chief Campus Counsel, filled with threats, name-calling and false accusations against the ZOA, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other so-called ZOA “allied affiliates.”  Yet the Muslim Student Union never refuted the ZOA’s charges.  The group posted its letter, dated October 13, 2009, on its Web site.

These actions followed shortly after the ZOA sent letters to UC Irvine and the U.S. Department of Justice, raising concerns about whether the Muslim Student Union, a registered student group at UC Irvine, solicited funds on campus in violation of University policy, and used the campus as a base for fundraising for the terrorist group Hamas in violation of federal law.

The Muslim Student Union Reportedly Solicited Funds for

the Viva Palestina Convoy to Gaza

Last May, the Muslim Student Union sponsored radical Israel-bashing British politician George Galloway on campus to talk about his group, Viva Palestina, which organizes convoys of vehicles, goods and supplies to Hamas-controlled Gaza.  According to several witnesses and a videotape of the event, the Muslim Student Union and Galloway solicited funds from the audience for Viva Palestina.

There is evidence that these convoys to Gaza furnished material support and resources to Hamas, a group that the U.S. State Department has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which would violate federal law.  Based on records produced by the University, the Muslim Student Union and Galloway solicited funds for Viva Palestina without University approval and without complying with numerous University policies regarding fundraising on campus.  In fact, University documents show that the Muslim Student Union misrepresented in writing to UC Irvine that the Galloway/Viva Palestina event was not going to be a fundraiser.  Several University officials were present at the event and knew or should have known that the solicitation of funds had not been authorized.  None put a stop to the misconduct and – at least according to records produced by the University – none reported the misconduct to senior UC Irvine officials.

The ZOA Reports Concerns about the Muslim Student Union’s Actions to

UC Irvine and the U.S. Justice Department

The ZOA provided UC Irvine and the U.S. Justice Department with detailed evidence supporting the ZOA’s claims, including a 31-page report about Viva Palestina recently issued by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).  The IPT’s Executive Director, Steven Emerson, is one of the foremost experts on domestic terrorism in the U.S.

The IPT report debunked the claim that Viva Palestina’s goal is to provide for the needy.  The report states that “Viva Palestina’s most visible leaders call for the elimination of the State of Israel . . . They treat Hamas leaders as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and provide both material and moral support to the terrorist organization.”

The ZOA also furnished UC Irvine and the U.S. Justice Department with information from a participant in the Viva Palestina convoy of July 2009, for which the Muslim Student Union reportedly solicited funds at UC Irvine.  The participant confirmed that the convoy’s resources went to Hamas.  Given the seriousness of the alleged wrongdoing at UC Irvine and the possibility that a federal anti-terrorism law was violated, the ZOA sent copies of its letters to several public officials, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Congressmen Brad Sherman and John Campbell of California, California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, and leaders and members of several U.S. congressional committees who would be particularly concerned about the possibility that American college campuses are being used as a base to solicit funds for U.S.-designated terrorist groups like Hamas.

The Muslim Student Union Responds by Publishing a Letter to UC Irvine’s Chief

Campus Counsel, Lodging False and Malicious Accusations and Threats against the ZOA

Significantly, in its letter to UC Irvine’s Chief Campus Counsel, responding to the concerns raised about its conduct, the Muslim Student Union never refuted the ZOA’s allegation that the Muslim Student Union may have used UC Irvine as a base of fundraising for the terrorist group Hamas.  In its letter, the Muslim Student Union never refuted the ZOA’s allegation that the Muslim Student Union solicited funds for Viva Palestina in violation of University policy, and that in fact, the Muslim Student Union misrepresented to the University that the Galloway event was not going to be a fundraiser.  Indeed, the Muslim Student Union ridiculed the University’s protocol for fundraising, calling the detailed policies “university technicalities” – which the Muslim Student Union acknowledges having likely breached, both now and in the past.  In its letter, the Muslim Student Union never refuted the evidence that the ZOA provided to the University and to law enforcement – that the convoy to Gaza in July 2009, for which the Muslim Student Union reportedly solicited funds, provided support and resources to the terrorist group Hamas.

Instead, the Muslim Student Union launched a baseless and vicious attack on the ZOA, the ADL, the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism, StandWithUs, and nameless “others,” all of whom the Muslim Student Union has called the ZOA’s “allied affiliates.”

OC Task Force Applauds OC ADL’s May 14, 2009 letter to UCI Chancellor Drake

The Orange County Independent Task Force on anti-Semitism applauds  ADL Regional Director Kevin O’Grady for taking a firm stand against anti-Semitic and racist hatred at UC Irvine:

“….We firmly believe that your unwillingness to specifically condemn the anti-Semitic comments that were spewed on your campus last year in conjunction with MSU’s activities sent a signal that they were acceptable and led to the escalation of hate this year. In such circumstances, it is your responsibility as Chancellor to exercise your own First Amendment rights and use your bully pulpit to denounce Amir Abdul Malik Ali by name, to remove the offensive display from the entrance of your campus and to restore the integrity of U.C. Irvine as a place that promotes a civil, respectful and welcoming academic environment. There is no legitimate excuse for inaction now – enough is enough!…” Read the letter here: