Earlier this week, a resolution sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) passed calling for the University of California at Davis to divest from “corporations that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories.” The fact that this resolution passed at UC Davis is not a surprise. There are similar divestment resolutions that have passed at other University of California campuses, also sponsored by SJP. What was surprising about this event was a tweet by the group’s student senator, Azka Fayyaz. She wrote captioning a photo on Facebook that:
“Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis. Brb crying over the resilience.”
Hamas is an internationally recognized terrorist organization with the goal of murdering Jews. SJP is viewed as mostly Muslim and antisemites. But for one of their leaders to actually step out and say they support a terrorist organization along with the implementation of Sharia Law on American soil, that is quite bold, to say the least. In my opinion, it is the school’s responsibility to classify SJP (and its other derivatives) as a hate group that should be banned from campus. I feel any group that supports terrorists is dangerous and has ulterior motives around converting and influencing young adults. Let’s not forget that less than a year ago, a UT Austin student was arrested on charges of supporting terrorists. UT Austin is my alma mater and its SJP equivalent, Palestinian Solidarity Committee, preaches hatred regularly on the West Mall and in front dormitories. With the recent passing of MLK day, I think the following quote from him is in order:
“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvard University 1968.
I think universities and colleges around our country should re-evaluate not only SJP like student organizations, but also their professors in terms of what they are teaching and their ethics. I just looked at the university Gabriel attends, Cal Poly SLO and found a teacher that is virulently anti-Israel, her teaching is biased and includes questionable material. Some student comments that I gleaned are:
- The course is not hard, if you want to believe the Jews stole Israel from the innocent Palestinians by means of Jewish terrorism against innocent Arabs. Professor Foroohar is simply full of crap.
- Dr. Foroohar is definitely passionate about issues in the Middle East, however History of the Middle East was basically just a way for her to shove her opinions down everyone’s throats.
- Not only was the lecture material influenced by Arab sentiment but all of her assigned readings for so-called “Book Reports” (which by the way were bullshit because she doesn’t passout a rubric or even have a comprehensive explanation of the assignment) all ignore the Jewish diaspora and dispellment from the region that occurred for hundreds of years prior to this.
- This professor has an agenda. Her classes are nothing but propaganda to support her cause.
- Dr. Foroohar is biased. She admits this openly in the beginning; her lectures on the Middle East is a linear argument about why the US sucks and Israel is the worst thing to ever occur to human rights.
While I know my son will stay away from this teacher, my concern is “do we want her or similar teachers instructing such biased hatred to our students, especially when they are naive and impressionable?” Nevertheless, her activities with the California Faculty Association were in my opinion unethical. Naturally, she is the primary professor who assists Cal Poly’s Students for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, which is basically the SJP with a much softer name. What surprised me most with her history of antisemitic history, somehow California State University system put her in charge of an academic senate on tolerance and anti-semitism training.
Pardon me, while I pick my jaw off the floor. I just can’t believe CSU would put an antisemite in charge of tolerance and anti-Semitism training. That’s like having the fox guard the henhouse. For now, I’ll leave you with Pat Condell’s rant about Palestinian supporters. I hope the folks sending me hate mail enjoy it!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=s1V3Ix9p06g
Matti Friedman’s article The Ideological Roots of Media Bias Against Israel not applies to Journalism, but also to what we expose our children to at University, see below:
The Jews of the Middle East are outnumbered by the Arabs of the Middle East 60 to 1, and by the world’s Muslims 200 to 1. Half of the Jews in Israel are there because their families were forced from their homes in the 20th century not by Christians in Europe, but by Muslims in the Middle East. Israel currently has Hezbollah on its northern border, al-Qaeda on its northeastern and southern borders, and Hamas in Gaza. None of these groups seek an end to the occupation, but rather openly wish to destroy Israel. But it is naïve to point out these facts. The facts don’t matter: We are in the world of symbols. In this world, Israel has become a symbol of what is wrong – not Hamas, not Hezbollah, not Great Britain, not America, not Russia.
I believe it’s important to recognize the pathologies at play in order to make sense of things. In this context it’s worth pointing out that I’m hardly the first to identify a problem – Jewish communities like this one, and particularly organizations like Bicom, identified a problem long ago, and have been expending immense efforts to correct it. I wish this wasn’t necessary, and it shouldn’t be necessary, but it undoubtedly is necessary, and becoming more so, and I have great respect for these efforts. Many people, particularly young people, are having trouble maintaining their balance amid this ideological onslaught, which is successfully disguised as journalism or analysis, and is phrased in the language of progressive politics. I would like to help them keep their bearings.
A couple of states have taken the first step of passing legislation against BDS, namely Tennessee and Illinois. Also, there are anti-BDS clauses under consideration in regards to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) legislation with the EU. I hope we see more.
Nevertheless, I still see conversations/ articles questioning whether calls to boycott Israel are anti-Semitic. Sometimes they will state that because there are a few Jews part of the movement, then it is not anti-Semitic. Such a thought was expressed in The Economist on 12-MAY-2015. A more balanced and academic discussion can be found on Inside Higher Ed by Elizabeth Redden.
In my opinion, the BDS supporters are a mixture of low brow thugs/ wannabe Jihadis who wear their anti-semetic views on their arms and high brow lefties who are uninformed or don’t apply critical thought. The goal of the BDS movement is simply the replacement of the one and only Jewish State in the world. I strongly feel the BDS movement is anti-Semetic and so are many of its supporters. Whether they are Jewish, Christian or whatever is irrelevant, supporting such a goal is black and white.