Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Yossi Olmert event

Several police officers (I would say 10) were inside and outside the lecture room and the Social Science Plaza A building. A barricade was set up blocking direct access to the elevator that led up to the lecture room, which housed about 100 - 125.

Only one door to the lecture room was open - the other three were closed and locked, with the windows papered over the two rear windows that faced the lectern.

All of the seats were taken and it was beginning to go SRO before the 2 pm start, at which point they shut and locked the 4th door - I'm assuming due to fire rules.

Audience appeared to be 2/3rds Caucasian, 1/3 MSU members. The MSU members sat clumped together in the first 3 rows on the right of the lectern.

Yossi spoke for about 30 minutes; it was a great speech.

Then he took questions, alternating between the MSU students and everyone else in the room. Yossi was very combative with the MSU students.

The MSU members were very adamant about making speeches themselves, not asking questions. At one point, amidst some boos and "sit down!" calls from the audience, the administrator on hand (I'm assuming he's one of the powers that be in the Political Science department) had to step in and tell the MSU student to get to her question so others might have a chance to ask a question.

The MSU students, after reading their last statement during the Q&A session, left en masse rather than wait around for a reply.

The MSU students did not hold their "History of Palestine" event as they had mentioned on their weekly calendar - apparently a class was in that room at that time. Instead, they milled around outside the SSPA building with the two Neturei Karta members who had come to campus to speak at the event earlier that day.

About 5 minutes later, all of the MSU students and the Neturei Karta members shifted around to the other side of the building, down to the roadway, walked along there a bit, and then headed back to their "wall".

1 comment:

Ice Gavin said...

I am a Jewish journalist. I wish to discuss this event with you for an article.

Please email me at williamscottadler@hotmail.com