Israel's Consul General visiting UCI this Monday

Anteaters for Israel at the University of California, Irvine present:

ISRAEL
The Current Situation

A Town Hall Forum
at the
University of California, Irvine

With
The Honorable Ehud Danoch
Consul General of Israel

Monday, September 25th, 2006
Social Sciences Lecture Hall 100
8 p.m.
Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
(Get there earlier than later, because the room can only fit so many people)

Sponsored by Anteaters for Israel
For more information, please email eshaaya@uci.edu

Texts of Pope Benedict XVI's "Controversial" Speech

I haven't had time to look at these yet, but given the reaction to the Pope's September 12th speech, I thought it would be good to get the full text out.

Hat tip: Multiple commenters on UserFriendly.org

From the Vatican: The original German version

From MSNBC: An English translation

From BBC: A PDF of an English translation

UPDATE

I found this hillarious, though I should warn those who click on the image that the site itself has a bit of a hateful bent to it:

Amnesty International accuses Hezbollah of war crimes

This was LGF's Flying Pig Moment of the Day

Yahoo coverage

JihadWatch, though, called it "A late, belated, too-late, utterly phony, half-hearted "symmetrical" condemnation"

Hezbollah's reaction

An interesting blog post that tries to answer the question: what is a war crime? (with a quotation of an analysis by Professor Alan Dershowitz of why Israel appears to be inproperly accused)

Quote of the Day

( copied from Israellycool.com )

"Learn from Israel what human dignity means. Human dignity is a primary value in Israel."

- Israeli Arabs protesting outside the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv against what they perceive as Egypt's failed handling of the traffic accident in Sinai which left 12 Israelis dead.

Brought to you from the Zionist, racist, apartheid State of Israel. (TM)

Update: Funny how this story is not being reported elsewhere, nor are pictures of the protest (including pictures of protesters with the signs that included "State of Israel – doesn't abandon injured and killed citizens") being published by Reuters, AFP, AP, and the like.

Dick Cheney's remarks today at the Pentagon

Probably the best way of defining the situation at hand:

As President Bush has said, this nation has defeated tyrants and liberated death camps, raised the lamp of liberty to every captive land. We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power.

Read it all

Cox and Forkum Cartoons for 9/11

I will always remember having the radio wake me up as normal at 6 am that morning 5 years ago, and hearing the substitute radio-show host briefly say that a plane had hit the first tower of the World Trade Center and then cutting to the national breaking news. After turning on the television in disbelief, I reached for the phone and woke up a whole bunch of people on this coast.

Cox and Forkum have done a good job illustrating that terrible tragedy:

Six cartoons from the Iranian Holocaust cartoon exhibit published in Danish newspaper

Anybody speak Danish?

BBC News is reporting that a Danish newspaper by the name of "Information" has reprinted six of the Holocaust cartoons.

The Information newspaper's website: http://www.information.dk

"It is unfortunate that some people don't have the moral compass to condemn evil."

So sayeth Harvard University Rabbi Hirschy Zrachi in response to Harvard's invitation to former Iranian president Khatami. Similar statements can be made about the UCI administration.



By the way, if you're trying to figure out why people are against Khatami coming to the US, let me help you:

Info from Cox and Forkum

Info from Vital Perspective

The Forward has been covering UCI

Susan Tuchman of the ZOA - bless her heart - brought to my attention that the Forward newspaper has been covering UCI. Here are two articles that they've put out in the past six months:

May 26, 2006: College Chief Hit Over Anti-Israel Events

August 11, 2006: ZOA Brings Civil-rights Education to Campus

September 1, 2006 (apparently not yet available on the Forward website):

Salute Irvine Students

Most people would agree that Jewish students should not have to tolerate verbal threats or insults, physical assaults or the destruction of property (“ZOA Brings Civil-rights Education to Campus,” August 11). But it’s important to understand that when Israel is demonized as a brutal, murderous state, when it is obscenely compared to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, or when claims are made that the State of Israel has no right to exist – these are also manifestations of antisemitism that can have a devastating impact on Jewish students, and they shouldn’t be tolerated.

As Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, you are talking antisemitism.” The United States Civil Rights Commission also appreciated that anti-Zionist and anti-Israel actions can amount to antisemitic harassment. This is part of what the ZOA hopes to make clear to college students and administrators alike in our public education initiative, so that they will understand their respective rights and obligations under these new federal guidelines.

Fixing the problem of campus antisemitism requires bringing it out in the open. That’s why Jewish students like those at the University of California , Irvine , deserve our respect and applause. They made repeated efforts to resolve informally the harassment and intimidation they faced on their campus, by seeking the help of college officials and trying to engage in constructive dialogue with the perpetrators of the hate.

When all these efforts failed, the students courageously came forward and provided detailed information to the ZOA about their experiences and the problems they were facing, which formed the basis of our civil rights complaint on their behalf and led to the first-ever investigation of campus antisemitism by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Though they had school, work and many other obligations, these students subjected themselves to time-consuming interviews with federal officials and have never backed down from their ongoing effort to improve the campus environment for Jewish students.

African Americans, women and the disabled are prime examples of aggrieved groups that have effectively used not just education and negotiation, but also the legal system, to secure their civil rights. Our community should likewise support the use of all those tools, which will provide the best chance of redressing antisemitic harassment, in all its forms, on our campuses.

Susan Tuchman
Director, Center for Law and Justice
Zionist Organization of America
New York , NY

Irwin Cotler nails it on the head

Former Canadian Federal Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler wrote a great piece in the Toronto Star:

The notion of being even-handed between terrorist groups sworn to Israel's destruction and a democratic country defending itself from armed attack is a moral absurdity, a "perversion of our traditions" as The Globe and Mail put it.

In fact, the foundational principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East as affirmed by successive governments require us to "take sides," to eschew even-handedness and to raise our voice as a moral interlocutor in a principled way.

Hang on a sec...lemme re-word this a bit...

The notion of being even-handed between (a) anti-Semitic student groups at UCI sworn to Israel's destruction and the debasement of all Jews, and (b) Jewish students who - according to the USCCR - UCI is required to protect, is a moral absurdity, a "perversion of our traditions" as The Globe and Mail put it.

In fact, the foundational principles of UCI require it to "take sides," to eschew even-handedness and to raise our voice as a moral interlocutor in a principled way.

Read the whole thing here

Dershowitz: Amnesty International Redefines "War Crimes"

Copied from LGF

The two principal “human rights” organizations are in a race to the bottom to see which group can demonize Israel with the most absurd legal arguments and most blatant factual mis-statements. Until last week, Human Rights Watch enjoyed a prodigious lead, having “found” - contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television - “no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.”

Those of us familiar with Amnesty International’s nefarious anti-Israel agenda and notoriously “suggestible” investigative methodology wondered how it could possibly match such a breathtaking lie.

But we didn’t have to wait long for AI to announce that Israel was guilty of a slew of war crimes for “widespread attacks against public civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports, and Beirut’s international airport.”

There are two problems with the Amnesty report and conclusion. First, Amnesty is wrong about the law. Israel committed no war crimes by attacking parts of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.

In fact, through restraint, Israel was able to minimize the number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, despite Hizbullah’s best efforts to embed itself in population centers and to use civilians as human shields. The total number of innocent Muslim civilians killed by Israeli weapons during a month of ferocious defensive warfare was a fraction of the number of innocent Muslims killed by other Muslims during that same period in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and other areas of Muslim-on-Muslim civil strife. Yet the deaths caused by Muslims received a fraction of the attention devoted to alleged Israeli “crimes.”

This lack of concern for Muslims by other Muslims - and the lack of focus by so-called human rights organizations on these deaths - is bigotry, pure and simple.

Read the whole thing

Mel Gibson's SIGNS of anti-semitism

HatTip: IsraellyCool

Time for a brief bit of humor while we wait for all heck to break loose the moment school begins about two weeks from now.

LGF: Extremist Groups Recruiting at UK Schools

“If you go to freshers fairs at University College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies and the London School of Economics next month, you will find Hizb ut-Tahrir undercover. Vice-chancellors have been wilfully blind to the problem. Recruitment of students is going on. That is categorical. Universities are not on top of this.”

Never could happen here. Not in the USA. Not in California. Not at UCI. Nope. Simply impossible. We shouldn't even consider it.

Read the whole thing

Humor: How to Negotiate with Terrorists

Disclaimer: This is HUMOR! If you don't like it, to quote Salt-N-Pepa, "Press stop, pick up the needle, or turn the radio off."

A humorous look at how to negotiate with terrorists

Hat tip: The Sanity Inspector on LGF

A writer for The Ali G Show comments on anti-Semitic humor in the UK

I caught this op-ed today, written by Jamie Glassman, a writer for The Ali G Show, about anti-Semitic humor at the Edinburgh Arts Festival. The section below was especially of interest. Reading this op-ed made Edinburgh sound exactly like UCI.

One was a left-leaning angry Australian conspiracy theorist, Steve Hughes, whose show The Storm is an assault on all things Western. “I want to bash Condoleezza Rice’s brain to bits and kill that f****** Jew Richard Perle.” Hughes is the one at the Pleasance Courtyard while Perle is an adviser to George W. Bush as he was to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton on foreign affairs.

The second was a far more charming African-American comic who for much of the show was thoughtful, funny and even quite sweet. But he seemed to have a problem with Jews, too. Reginald D. Hunter is doing sell-out shows in the new E4-sponsored venue, the Udderbelly. Three hundred come along every night to see Hunter’s Pride and Prejudice and Niggas. You should see the poster.

I was laughing along until he announced that he was about to be extremely controversial and break the last taboo of stand-up comedy. Long silent pause. "Jeeeeews" Another long pause with some giggles from the audience. "You see, you’re not allowed to say that."

He went on to say how its illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria. He has a good mind to go to Austria, stand in the street and say the Holocaust didn’t happen so that he could get arrested and tell the judge he was talking about the Rwandan holocaust. Whether or not he thought there should be a law against going to Rwanda and denying that genocide, he didn’t say.

By claiming that making a joke about Jews is the one last, great comic taboo, he simultaneously provides the moral justification for a crack at the Jews and he silences them from the right to complain, as this would only confirm the unspoken premise: that Jews are overprotected in society or even worse that Jewish media controllers are obsessed with silencing any criticism of their own.

His joke is essentially one about freedom of speech and selective Jewish control of that freedom, but he gives the lie to his true feelings by his choice of example. Of all the possible targets, of all the things he might wish to say, his complaint is that he is not permitted to parrot the greatest anti-Semitic slur of the last hundred years — that the Holocaust never happened. As a believer in free speech, I am not convinced by the criminalisation of Holocaust denial, but that does not mean I am confused about the motives of those who wish to utter it.

Read the whole thing here

'Silence Begets Evil Actions'

So says Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem.

UCI's silence - refusing the appropriately label the anti-Semitism that appears almost weekly on campus - only encourages the anti-Semites to increase their intensity with every visit. Perhaps the UCI administration works in this fashion:

Statements from those who liberated the concentration camps

In response to the following quote from the Reuters article on the current Holocaust Cartoon Exhibition in Iran (looking for a link to those cartoons if anybody has it):

“We wanted to challenge European taboos. Why should questioning the Holocaust be a taboo?” he said. “Why should anyone who talks about it (the Holocaust) be fined or jailed?”

CrimsonFisted brought to my attention a great link with lots of information on the Holocaust - good to use against the Holocaust deniers:

A Teacher's Guide To The Holocaust-Liberators

I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency...I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.

--General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, Europe, Letter to Chief of Staff George Marshall, April 12, 1945

Tell Chancellor Drake that anti-Semitism at UCI is not acceptable!

Chancellor Drake's lack of even a public acknowledgment of the anti-Semitism at UCI as wrong (imitating his predecessor's similar actions) says very clearly that UCI recognizes that attacks on Jews and Judaism are a fully-acceptable form of civil debate at the University.

Please follow Ted Bleiweis's lead and print this Microsoft Word version or Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the following letter, sign, and mail or fax (1-949-824-2087) it to Chancellor Drake.

We need YOU to tell the Chancellor that things need to change.

Thank you for your support.

____________________
Today’s Date


University of California, Irvine
The Chancellor's Office
Irvine, CA 92697-1900


Dear Dr. Drake,

The University of California, Irvine (UCI) has for year’s hosted events on its campus whose participants have utilized inflammatory and hateful speech towards the State of Israel and the Jewish people as a whole.

This year a week-long program, entitled “Holocaust in the Holy land,” had been presented. It featured speakers calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, touting an acknowledged terror organization, Hamas, as the “people’s choice” and called Israel “the Fourth Reich”. Woven into the speeches were age old anti-Semitic themes. The perpetrators constructed an “apartheid” wall, and stationed intimidating guards dressed as Israeli soldiers nearby. The title itself denigrates the Jewish people, and contains an implied denial of the Holocaust during which over six million Jewish people were murdered.

The University’s stated policy has been, and remains that these campus activities are protected speech under the First Amendment. While this may be legally correct, it gives the appearance of official sanction by UCI.

In your May 30, 2006 message you stated “Hate speech is difficult to define precisely. It is largely defined by the individual hearing it…” Make no mistake; the annihilation of over two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population began with hate speech. The University and its leadership must recognize that it has a duty, and an obligation, as educators to denounce anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, and repudiate those whose demonstrations seek incitement against, or call for the destruction of, other human beings.

As a resident and a taxpayer of Orange County, I therefore call upon you as Chancellor of UCI to exercise your first amendment rights: that is, to take immediate and appropriate steps to publicly distance the University from those individuals who spew anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, or any form of hate speech.

Sincerely,





cc: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamonte

OC Jewish Life Article: Getting Proactive in Tackling Anti-Semitism on Campus

In August 2006, OC Jewish Life published Ted Bleiweis's follow-up article to his July 2006 article.

The text and printable versions of letter to UCI referred to below is available here.

Last month, I did little kvetching in this column. Author Michael Wex, wrote a book that said we Jews were Born to Kvetch. I only kvetched a few paragraphs.

I kvetched about three important points: 1. Our community needs to be kept better informed by its leadership. 2. Community organizations must channel more funding for Jewish education on campus, especially in the area of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. 3. “Ordinary” community members must take an active role in challenging anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in our communities and on our campuses.

You might say, “So, Mr. Monday morning quarterback, it’s easy to give advice. What are you doing about this?” Fair enough! I remember how my grandparents used to yell at the television, when a news report came on that they didn’t like. Then it hits me like a bolt from the blue! I won’t just kvetch! I’ll write a column! I’ll write a letter! I’ll speak to anyone willing to listen. Better yet, I’ll arrange an event or two of my own!

I telephoned Jewish friends to hear what they knew. They didn’t know much at all. (Most were relieved that I wasn’t yet another person soliciting a donation) Next, I phoned various synagogues and organizations that I attend. Finally, I contacted the alphabet soup of Jewish community organizations in Orange and LA counties. I focused on those that were intimately involved in with the UCI situation. My “gripe” was that I had heard about the “Holocaust in the Holy land” farce (sponsored by the UCI Moslem Union) from a radio talk show.

After spending many hours of telephone and face-to-face conversations with key Jewish organizational people, I began to understand the problems more clearly. Everyone comes from a different political, religious, philosophical, you-name-it point f view. It works the same way with Jewish organizations. This one wants to show a movie; that board member says, "No it's too controversial!" This one schedules a meeeting with the chancellor; that group doesn't get invited. This organization says it's protected speech; the other says, "No, it isn't." So it goes. This isn't to say that they're not working earnestly.

I phoned Kevin O’Grady, associate director of ADL; then I called Rabbi Keiffer at Temple Beth Emet. Both were to very eager to participate in a community forum. Rabbi Keiffer suggested June 30, Shabbat evening services. I said “great idea”, never hinting that I feared no one would be in town. It was July fourth weekend. Dr. O’Grady invited Jeffrey Rips, Executive Director of Hillel O.C. Surprisingly, the turnout was wonderful.

Both Speakers gave informative insights into the UCI problems. They noted that the UCI administration has never publicly acknowledged that anti-Semitic activities occurred on campus. A woman who attended classes CSUF said many of her professors were clearly teaching biased and revisionist history about Zionism and Israel. Dr. O’Grady said that was a problem on many campuses across the nation, including UCI.

Before the event a letter adopted by Temple Beth Emet was distributed to all attendees. Both speakers publicly endorsed the letter and encouraged everyone to mail it to Chancellor Drake. The temple president officially sent a copy to UCI, Rabbi Keiffer forwarded copies to his colleagues on the O.C. Board of Rabbis, and Dr O’Grady forwarded it to more than 1,000 people. Several other shuls and organizations have endorsed the letter.

What’s the moral of the story? Don’t be a Monday morning quarterback! Get informed! Get involved! Write letters, talk to your friends. Encourage your shuls and Jewish organizations to be more vocal and proactive in stamping out anti-Semitism. Our schools and universities should be centers of knowledge understanding, not hatred.

Ted Bleiweis, a business owner in Orange County, is a concerned member of the Jewish community.

OC Jewish Life Article: Allowing Anti-Semitism on Campus is Dangerous

Thanks to Ted Bleiweis for publishing the following article in the OC Jewish Life in July 2006. I would have linked to it earlier, but the publisher refused to even respond when I emailed him asking him to put this on his website. With the permission of the article's author, here is the text of the article:

In the past, public Holocaust denial was espoused by a relatively few (nevertheless dangerous) bunch of hate-filled "crazies". The situation has changed drastically today. Holocaust denial and trivialization have become ever more acceptable and commonplace in our society. It is one of the vilest forms of anti-Semitism. The president of Iran engages regularly in it. He has also stated that “Israel will be wiped off the map”. Newspapers in “moderate” Moslem nations continually mock and trivialize the Holocaust.

Several weeks ago, a program took place on the UCI Campus sponsored by a well-financed Moslem Student Union. An “apartheid wall” was erected with a “checkpoint” manned by Moslem “students” dressed as Israeli soldiers. Above the “checkpoint” a sign read “Holocaust in the Holy Land,” the title of the week long program.

Similar demonstrations have taken place at UCLA, UCSD, and other tax-supported niversities throughout the state recently and over the past several years. The source of funding for these “events” remains a mystery.

Through out the week passersby were subjected to hate-filled speeches calling for the destruction of Israel. One of the speakers proclaimed Hamas as “the people’s choice,” while another called for an “Islamic” Jerusalem. Also on hand were two well-known traveling anti-Israel, anti-Zionist Jews. Rounding out this three-ring circus of haters was a Moslem speaker whose topic was entitled “Israel: the Fourth Reich.”

A handful of Jewish organizations were on hand to distribute accurate information to students many of whom have no knowledge of the reality of the Holocaust. Jewish demonstrators marched with signs denouncing the lies perpetrated by the organizers of the event.

One of the more troubling aspects of this whole UCI affair was the response issued by UCI Chancellor, Michael V. Drake. It read in part “…the first amendment provides great latitude regarding our freedom of expression. The university has a legal obligation to assure the free exchange of ideas, however infuriating we may perceive particular views with which we disagree…” I believe that it is his obligation, as an educator (and his right under the first amendment) to clearly and unequivocally denounce hate speech of any kind. I believe that it is his public duty as chancellor to distance the university from such reprehensible activities.

Sadly, over the past few weeks, I have spoken with leaders and members of various congregations and men’s clubs. Most knew nothing about these events. I found out, coincidentally, by tuning into The Larry Elders talk show. He was outraged at the events going on at UCI and other California campuses.

People are frightened about this. Friends whose children have been accepted to UCI opted to attend other universities, because this has gone on unchecked for many years. An official of a campus Jewish organization privately told me that he wished that he was attending another university.

Such characterizations of the Holocaust attempt to equate the calculated murder of millions of Jews with the unfortunate casualties of a war not of our making. It is an insult of monumental proportions to the memory of those who perished and a slur on the entire Jewish nation. It attempts to diminish the Jewish people by casting us as the perpetrators rather than the victims.

It is time for each and every member of the Jewish community to act. We need to call or write Chancellor Drake, the UC Board of Regents, and Governor Schwartzenegger and demand that they publicly repudiate hate speech of any kind, particularly on our university campuses. We need to hear more from our community leaders and organizations about how they are effectively dealing with this. Finally, we need to channel more funding from these Jewish agencies towards better education and support for Jewish and non-Jewish students on our campuses in dealing with anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

We no longer can afford to sit quietly and witness the alarming rise of anti-Semitism around the globe. European nations have reported a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic acts, including violence against Jews and Jewish property. We must not allow those that hate us to erase the memory of the six million, especially in our schools and universities. History has taught us that silence only encourages our enemies.

Ted Bleiweis, a business owner in Orange County, is a concerned member of the Jewish community.

Read Ted's follow-up article here.