Open thread on Palestinian awareness week

I returned to UC Irvine today for the final day of Palestinian awareness week. Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who, days after the terror attack on a Jerusalem yeshiva, stood in front of the Israeli consulate in L.A. and called Zionists the new Nazis, delivered a lunchtime tirade about America the imperialist, in bed with the Zionists, and the quick death that would soon befall one and then the other. I agree Rome is burning and worry about what that would mean for Israel, but I try not to undercut my argument by praising Hamas and Hezbollah as freedom fighters.

The scene at UC Irvine, however, was a lot tamer than in years past, and I'll be writing more about that later. For now, I just wanted to share one of the photos I snapped, this of a torn and bloodied Israeli flag.

The comment board is open.

The pink gorilla and me

It's difficult to explain to a big pink gorilla why as a journalist you don't want to mug for the camera, so I indulged Zack Sher last week at UC Irvine. He and his fellow Anteaters for Israel were celebrating the Jewish State's 60th anniversary with iFest, a week long festival that preceded and partially overlapped Palestinian awareness week, for which I'll be heading down south again this week.

Torture, Jews and Finkelstein's 'fact-finding'

It's hard to not set aside your mental faculties when sitting down for a lecture from Norman Finkelstein.

Probably American Jews' least favorite American Jew, Finkelstein first made his name with "The Holocaust Industry," in which he accused Jews of exploiting memories of the Holocaust for financial and political gain, and for Israel's sake; it was well-reviewed by a few, such as Noam Chomsky and Raul Hilberg, and panned by the guy Finkelstein said inspired it, Peter Novick, who said it made "egregious misrepresentations" and "absurd claims."

Last year, Finkelstein re-entered the spotlight with a beautiful pissing match with Alan Dershowitz of Harvard. With a little assistance from campus activists like StandWithUs, Dershowitz helped push DePaul University into denying its infamous academic tenure.

When I last heard Finkelstein speak, at Cal State Northridge in February, he was booed and hissed for about an hour by leaders of the Jewish Defense League (a group that, to be fair, might be able to make an anti-Semite out of Abe Foxman). His audience last night at UC Irvine was quite a bit more receptive. Having been invited by the Muslim Student Union, whose members have called for the destruction of Israel, Finkelstein kicked off Palestinian awareness week, which this year carries the theme, "Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust."

"Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic" was the title of Finkelstein's speech, but he didn't get to that topic until minute 83 of his 101-minute address. Instead, he spent most of the time talking about the controversy surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he said is "contrived, fabricated" to "deflect attention from, and sown confusion about, the documentary record" -- one that he claims indicts Israel on just about every human-rights account.

Listening to Finkelstein, you get the impression that Jews really do run the world, and that, as Kevin MacDonald argues, anti-Semitism is just what they had coming. Of course, Finkelstein repeatedly reminded the audience that Jews like he were cast off like chaff for challenging the establishment.

I was drifting in and out, thankful to have a tape recorder, when he said something that caught my attention. On the topic of civilian casualties, Finkelstein indulged a criticism of a familiar target.

There is this journalist writing for The New Yorker magazine, now he writes for The Atlantic magazine; his name is Jeffrey Goldberg. And recently he came out with a book called "Prisoners," and it was his account of his life in Ansar Three prison camp during the First Intifada. He was a guard in the camp. He also tortured Palestinians, which is to say he is the perfect expert for The New Yorker on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Finkelstein went on to discuss a scene from the book in which Goldberg snaps at a Hamas official that at least Israeli soldiers don't try to kill children. (You can hear more of the audio here.) Finkelstein claimed that, in fact, they do. But that is not the point I want to discuss.

I read "Prisoners." In fact, I really enjoyed "Prisoners," which I discussed here last summer. Though a mission of hope, the book is, in the end, a lamentation of Israel's unresolved future and of Goldberg's time at Ketziot (AKA Ansar Three), where he served as a guard after making aliyah and living on a liberal kibbutz. What I couldn't recall in his penance was any discussion of torturing Palestinian prisoners.

A good two hours later, as Finkelstein was being hurried from the podium to a book signing for his fellow travelers, I asked him where he had discovered this information. His answer: In Goldberg's book.

"He said he sent people to the zinzana; he sent people to the refrigerator," Finkelstein said. "That is an accessory to, or a, torture."

Such deduction says a little something about Finkelstein's insights into human-rights reports. Previously, Finkelstein had claimed that Goldberg was at least aware of the torturing that must have gone on at the prison camp.

Although admitting that he personally sent prisoners to the zinzana, and although liberal in his outrage at the "cruelty" of the tortures Palestinians inflicted on each other, Golderg rejects (albeit indirectly) the insinuation that he himself might be an accessory to torture, if not a torturer himself. When the guards needed "someone to go solitary" for a minor infraction of prison rules, Goldberg recalls at one point , "twenty Arabs immediately volunteered." He processes this not as a demonstration of their solidarity and courage but rather as vindication that the "Arabs want to be our victim" and "the Geneva Convention said nothing about prisoners who asked to be punished."

But this was a new indictment.

The zinzana, for that matter, was not described as a room where Palestinians were waterboarded. Translated in rough Arabic, the word means solitary confinement -- something you would find at most any prison in the world.

Finkelstein's scholarship has been discredited before; here are criticisms from the London Review of Books and the right-wing pro-Israel, some would say hawkish, groups CAMERA and StandWithUs. So I e-mailed Goldberg with the subject, "Finkelstein accuses you of torturing Palestinians," and he immediately called my cell.

"That is just ridiculous. I never laid a hand on anybody," Goldberg told me. "One of my principle roles there was making sure the prisoners had fresh fruit.

"Norman Finkelstein is a ridiculous figure and he is lying and purposely misreading my book. The dishonesty is stunning, but we've come to expect it. He is a malignant fantasist. I'd expect nothing less from Hezbollah's foremost Jewish American spokesman."

A baker's dozen of anti-Semitism at UC Irvine

Not pleased by the credence given to recent statement by five Jewish student leaders that UC Irvine's administration is not to blame for the campus' anti-Semitic atmosphere, the Red County blog took issue with a recent report in the OC Register (there was another last year) stating all is well -- which we know that, at least when students are calling for the destruction of Israel, it is not. Here is the treatment Red County says a Jewish student could to face.

1. The desecration of Israeli flags with swastikas and blood stains.

2. Intimidation and abuse while practicing student journalism and protest during Muslim Student Union events. This has included the use photo capture of the faces of Jewish or pro-Israeli students for the use of future intimidation; pushing, shoving, and shouting in the faces of Jewish or pro-Israeli students; and assault with hurtful objects such as rocks by Muslim Student Union Members.

3. Muslim speakers who express their desire for Israel to be wiped off the map.

4. Muslim speakers who express their hatred towards Jews involved in politics.

5. Muslim speakers who blame Jews on undesirable social conditions.

6. Muslim speakers who tell Jews to get out of their ghettos.

7. Muslim speakers who boast that Jews are afraid to get on buses in Israel out of fear of the "freedom fighters" who strap bombs to their bodies.

8. Muslim speakers who assert that "Jews are the new Nazis."

9. Depictions of Jews with hooked noses in exhibits.

10. Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty meant to demonize Jews.

11. The intimidation of Jewish and pro-Israeli speakers by members of the Muslim Student Union.

12. Programs hosted by the Muslim Student Union titled: "Holocaust in the Holyland," "Genocide in Gaza," and "Israel: The 4th Reich."

13. Posters on campus suggesting that Israeli soldiers target Arab children to shoot on sight.

To be sure, the students' press release did not state anti-Semitism was a myth at UCI. What it said was, despite the visits by Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Mohammed Al-Asi, pro-Israel students feel safe and Jewish life is thriving. This was a point three of the signatories emphasized to me at the Hillel Summit in Washington that ended the day they issued the release -- the same Hillel event at which UCI Chancellor Michael Drake was cornered by ZOA's Mort Klein, whose question -- roughly, "Why don't you condemn the anti-Semitic speakers who come to your campus" -- Drake is responding to below.

UC Irvine student: 'Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth'

Fast forward to the 5:40 mark of the above video and you will see a number of Muslim students at UC Irvine interrupt a lecture by Daniel Pipes. After they are escorted out, the crowd marched through the dark, chanting:

"Anti-Israel!" "Anti-Israel!" "Anti-hate!" "Anti-Israel!" "Anti-racism!" "Anti-Israel!" "Anti-occupation!" "Anti-Israel!"

The crowd moved to a plaza and then quieted. After a few moments and a word from one student, another student thanked the protesters, claiming that it would depress the Zionists who witnessed the act.

"They are going to go out and try to make it look like they are powerful," the young man said. "But they're going to go home and go, 'Crap, we are in the middle of America, in Irvine, at a public campus, and everybody hates our guts.' They have no future, and it is just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth."

The crowd rejoiced and shouted: "Allahu Akbar!"

The scene was captured by Reut Cohen, an Israeli-born student who graduated last fall. It serves as the closing scene of a story I have in this week's Jewish Journal about anti-Israel rhetoric that has become synonymous with the UC Irvine brand. A report last week by a task force that was created by Hillel (and later cut loose) blames the administration for not doing more to prevent speeches by radicals like Muhammad Al-Asi and Amir Abdel Malik Ali; the report encourages Jewish students to attend other colleges. Religion aside, with my beard, curly hair and square, black glasses, I know I would.

ZOA expands its enemies list

Speaking of the Bintel Blog, they've got an interesting post about a pair of university presidents who have made the Zionist Organization of America's hit list.

The right-wing group is criticizing Hillel for inviting two university chiefs — Amy Guttman, president of the University of Pennsylvania, and Michael Drake, chancellor of the University of California at Irvine — to speak at a summit that it’s is holding on universities and the Jewish community. According to the JTA, the ZOA is calling for the pair to be disinvited.

Guttman, the ZOA says, is an inappropriate invitee because in 2006 she posed for a picture at a Halloween party with a student dressed as a suicide bomber. The ZOA’s issue with Drake is that U.C. Irvine has been the site of “anti-Semitic speakers and programs” that have caused “Jewish students to feel threatened, harassed and intimidated.”

Never mind that Guttman has said that she didn’t grasp the nature of the student’s costume as the photo was being taken, and that she later called it “clearly offensive.” Even if one is skeptical about her explanation, only an extremely ungenerous person would assume that she’s guilty of anything worse than a momentary lapse of judgment.

In Drake’s case, it is true that the main Muslim student group at U.C. Irvine has repeatedly held viciously anti-Israel events on campus — events where the rhetoric often crosses the line into antisemitism (not to mention anti-Americanism). And some have argued that U.C. Irvine’s administration could be more sympathetic to Jewish concerns on this matter. But ultimately, there’s also a free speech issue in play, so it’s not as if the university can simply prohibit such events.

The irony is that the ZOA wants Hillel to effectively boycott two individuals who have actually weighed in against campaigns to boycott Israeli universities. Guttman and Drake are both signatories to an American Jewish Committee-sponsored statement strongly condemning anti-Israel academic boycotts.

Hillel, for its part, has declined to follow the ZOA’s advice.

I plan on attending the Hillel event. The ZOA letter should make for good conversation with the accused.

Muslim run-down at UC Irvine

Just when it seems religious tension at UC Irvine can't get any higher ...

Last week, the Muslim Student Union held a series of rallies centered around the theme "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected," and on Monday night, Yasser Ahmed claims he was followed by an unmarked sedan as he drove a moving truck from a parking lot to UCI's Free Speech Zone. From the LA Times:

Ahmed, 21, said he got out of the truck, walked to the car and asked the driver why he was following him. The driver did not respond, Ahmed said, and he tried to snap a photo of the license plate with his cellphone camera. At that point, Ahmed said, the car nudged him with its front bumper and he got out of the way. He was not injured.

The man behind the wheel drove off but was stopped almost immediately by a campus police officer, who had responded to cries for help from Ahmed and other students. The driver identified himself as an FBI agent "who was doing surveillance," Henisey said.

On Friday, Ahmed, an economics major and lifelong Orange County resident, said he was still reeling.

"He didn't open his window and didn't let me know who he was. He never said anything," Ahmed said. "All he had to say was that he was FBI or law enforcement and this wouldn't have happened. I was frightened. He pushed me with the car, which had tinted windows and then tried to drive away. What's one supposed to think?"

The incident, which is under investigation, comes a year after an FBI agent was quoted telling a Newport Beach business group that the bureau was "monitoring" Muslims at UCI and USC.

In other anti-Israel campus news: This morning at UCLA, "a diverse group of Southern California activists, both secular and from all religions, and including Arabs and Israelis" will host an event called Israel, Zionism and Apartheid.

UC Irvine safe for Jews

Martha Mecartney, chairwoman of UC Irvine's academic senate, was surprised recently to hear her daughter relay a school friend's fear: "Since she and some of her friends were Jewish, it was not safe for them to walk around the UCI campus."

"Why in the world," Mecartney asked in an op-ed in today's OC Register, "would this untruth be spread around Orange County?"

The simple answer is that, among its growing stature as a premier institution, UCI has become the bad boy of collegiate Jewish-Muslim relations. I blogged last month about California campuses' reputation as "Hotbeds of Anti-Israel Rhetoric." The article from the Forward focused on UCI and the cadre of rabble rousers, like Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who are invited to campus by a small group of MSA students to praise suicide bombers and rail on the "Zionist Jews."

Last spring, Ali gave a notorious speech at U.C. Irvine during a week of activities sponsored by the campus Muslim Student Union under the rubric “Holocaust in the Holy Land.” Speaking on a campus plaza behind a sign reading “Israel, the 4th Reich,” Ali noted that Israelis are “reluctant to get on buses and things, or go to the café,” adding, “It’s about time that they live in fear.” He said that whereas Israelis are “coming to live,” they are opposed by “people who are ready to die, who say either victory or martyrdom. You can’t fight against that.”

“We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious,” he said. “That’s how we look at it. And they know that that’s how Muslims believe.”

Mecartney takes issue with these speakers and says it is unfair to broad brush UCI a hostile place for Jews.

It appears that the goal of these speakers and their supporters on our campus is not to foster discussion and bring attention to possible solutions for the plight of the Palestinians but to demonize Israel and American Jews who support the existence of Israel. This I find highly repulsive and against what I believe in, which is tolerance and respect for all and a peaceful and productive solution to a long-term political and religious challenge in a land claimed by many peoples for many centuries.

But to equate a few individuals who visit the campus each year and spout vitriolic speech (which is their constitutional right) with UC Irvine being unsafe for Jewish students is a horrible misrepresentation of the truth. There has been vandalism of signs erected by both pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions, but there have been no documented cases of physical violence against any Jewish students. The campus is safe for all students – in fact, UCI is one of the safest campuses in the entire UC system. Jewish students must know this since they have been coming to UC Irvine in increasing numbers each year, and this past fall UC Irvine had the highest-ever number of Jewish students enrolled.

'Hotbeds of Anti-Israel Rhetoric'

The Forward published a lengthy article last week titled, "California Campuses Gain a Reputation as Hotbeds of Anti-Israel Rhetoric."

It opens with a January protest in Irvine sparked by a lecture from Daniel Pipes, a polarizing Middle East expert and a visiting professor at Pepperdine University:

The lecture topic was “The Threat to Israel’s Existence.” The speaker was Daniel Pipes, a Middle East analyst known for his hawkish pro-Israel views and sharp denunciations of Islamic extremism. The setting was the University of California, Irvine, a campus with a national reputation as a hotbed of anti-Israel rhetoric.

Students wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs clustered in the center of the auditorium.

The stage was set for confrontation.

Sure enough, 15 minutes into Pipes’s speech, just as he had built up to one of his main points — “The Palestinians must have their will crushed so that they will no longer be trying to eliminate Israel, so they will tend to their own affairs and leave Israel alone” — dozens of Muslim students interrupted him with hostile shouts, before promptly marching out of the lecture hall, chanting “anti-Israel, anti-oppression.”

Afterward, the student protesters gathered outside, where they listened to a speaker vow, “It’s just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth.”

Here's the nut:

U.C. Irvine though is only the most recent in what can seem like a rotation of California campuses to emerge as the focus of Jewish communal concern. At a number of California public universities, Jewish students have long faced particularly inflammatory rhetoric from anti-Israel activists — a state of affairs that predates even the most recent intifada. While at any given school, such activity tends to ebb and flow, established Muslim student groups in California repeatedly have brought fiery anti-Israel speakers to campus, including one who regularly praises suicide bombers, expresses support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and rails against “Zionist Jews.”

“I think the tenor and the tone of the debate and the shrillness of identity politics is meaningfully different in California,” said David Harris, director of the Washington-based Israel on Campus Coalition. “There are different challenges on campuses across the country, to be sure, but at some schools in California — especially large state schools — Israel’s supporters on campus are confronted with distinct challenges, including strongly heated rhetoric and a lack of respect and common civility.”

Surprisingly, the article offers no voice of moderate Muslims. Only this from Oakland cleric Amir Abdel Malik Ali (pictured):

Last spring, Ali gave a notorious speech at U.C. Irvine during a week of activities sponsored by the campus Muslim Student Union under the rubric “Holocaust in the Holy Land.” Speaking on a campus plaza behind a sign reading “Israel, the 4th Reich,” Ali noted that Israelis are “reluctant to get on buses and things, or go to the café,” adding, “It’s about time that they live in fear.” He said that whereas Israelis are “coming to live,” they are opposed by “people who are ready to die, who say either victory or martyrdom. You can’t fight against that.”

“We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious,” he said. “That’s how we look at it. And they know that that’s how Muslims believe.”

I called Shakeel Syed, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, which overseas area mosques, to see if, in fact, Ali spoke for all Muslims.

"I categorically would dispute the myth that all Muslims feel that way," Syed said. "I don't think anybody speaks for all Muslims to beign with. And it is not right for Forward to say that all California campuses -- the only controversy that exists on this is at the UC Irvine campus. Both Hillel and the Muslim group are unable to reconcile and both have been quite hostile to each other."