Posted on 02/15/2008 9:58:06 AM PST by Nachum
(IsraelNN.com) A local task force has advised Jewish students not to enroll at the University of California's Irvine campus "until tangible changes are made" to combat growing anti-Semitism. The Newport Beach and Costa Mesa Daily Pilot reported that a community task force stated, "The acts of anti-Semitism are real and well documented. Hate speech has been unrelenting. There is no indication that the university is at all concerned about the disconnect between campus values and the values of the greater society."
The State Department issued a report two months ago that the university does not discriminate against Jews, but the task force's report, based on interviews with faculty, students and local residents, asserts that "Jewish students have been harassed" and that faculty members cannot speak out against anti-Israel speakers because of the pressure to be "politically correct."
And yet, some places are worse than others. Some are a lot worse.
I was threatened with assault there back in the '70s, but it wasn't because of my religious belief. It was because of the color of my skin. And no, my skin isn't black or brown.
Ain’t that the truth!
This, (and similar stuff at UCSF University of San Francisco) is simply outrageous.
We need to have people who haven’t been neutered, to stand up and put an end to this garbage.
What would the American soldiers who liberated the Nazi death camps, think of this happening here in the US?
They would be outraged.
Why would Jews want to attend UCI anyway? Anteaters aren’t kosher!
The problem is also pretty prevalent at San Francisco State University (yes, in the heart of that bastion of enlightenment and tolerance). The pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian, anti-coalition student organizations are given the run of the place whit what appears to be full indemnification for any acts of aggression, intimidation and anti semitism. The only difference between them and al Qaeda is the choice of tactics, the ambitions and goals are the same. The left is in a twist on this. To paraphrase Orwell, they believe “white bad, brown good” and have to go through major logical contortions to explain it all away.
They would be outraged.
I had the great privilege of knowing just such a soldier (OSS) and yes, he would be outraged, to say he least. I have Jewish relatives living in CA. Yikes!
YES! Perfectly stated!
The difficulty, for the Jewish students, is that the incidents complained of involve speech and speech-related activity and cannot realistically be suppressed without interfering with free speech. On the one hand, the report applauds the school administration's commitment to free speech, but at the same time wants the administration to crack down on "hate speech." This is exactly the sort of demand that leads to speech codes, which become primarily tools of the left.
The lamentable fact is that there are now lots of radical Muslims in this country. They say and do the things that radical Muslims say and do. They are disruptive, unassimilable and very dangerous. We made an awful mistake when we let them in our country, and I don't know what we're going to do about it. President Bush says we're "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here," but the policy of open borders means that we get to fight them here regardless of what we do over there.
It would be a good idea to do a little critical thinking and fact-checking before claiming links between alleged anti-Semitism on the part of Dr. Rice and anything in this article.
See link at post #2. The report mentioned in the article has nothing whatsoever to do with the US State Department (not surprising, since the State Department has no responsibility for monitoring US universities). It’s a report issued by the “Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism at the University of California, Irvine”, a group which, per the report itself, was formed by the Hillel Foundation of Orange County. The US Department of State is not mentioned anywhere in the entire 34 page report.
If the State Department had any reason to issue a statement to the effect of “The State Department issued a report two months ago that the university does not discriminate against Jews”, it would have been in response to an inquiry from another nation’s government, and would only have transmitted the official position of the University. The State Department does not in any way, shape, or form issue opinions on the political or religious atmosphere of US institutions of higher education. Note that this IsraelNN.com piece offers no citation for its non-quoting description of what some “State Department” report said, and for that matter doesn’t even identify what “State Department” it’s talking about — could be the California State Department of Education, which would also only transmit information about the official policy of the University.
Fact one: Dr. Rice is the first SOS to use the term "occupation" or "occupied territory" when referring to any land that Israel conquered in the 1967 war.
Fact two: Dr. Rice is the first SOS to refer to Israeli settlements around Jerusalem as "illegal".
She has, perhaps with this administrations blessing, adopted the language of the Arabs in their perpetual war on Israel. If you wish to call that political, that is your perogative, but considering her academic background, I have a different name for it. Her statements are eerily reminiscent to Bush Sr.'s comments on Israel's defenders when he said, "I'm only one guy up here". She's just a little more polite.
The intro to the vid says it’s “sick, perverse stuff,” and I am not in the mood for it just now.
I keep seeing more veiled and hooded women in the OC; I hope we have a lot of interest in the huge mosque there. I hope we are keeping our eyes open.
Anteaters are not kosher, but you can use them as bait to trap a moose or giraffe, both of which are perfectly kosher.
Perhaps she’s noted that using language which angers the Arabs who need to be negotiated with — the approach used by a long parade of Secretaries of State prior to Rice — has proved singularly ineffective, and thought that a different approach should be tried. At any rate, positions re land disputes are not de facto evidence of “anti-Semitism”, though obviously anti-Semitic sentiment underlies SOME people’s anti-Israel positions re the land disputes.
What bothered me here is that the article’s reference to the “State Department” is extremely misleading, as evidenced by Diogenesis’ post clearly showing he believed there was some connection between the Rice-headed State Department and the information in this article. I copied you because I imagined that you’d be concerned that readers of the article you posted were being led to patently false assumptions about the State Department having somehow defended UCI re complaints of its tacit encouragement of widespread anti-Semitic activity on the campus.
When people believe misinformation such as this, and then unwittingly repeat it in the course of their efforts to address a political issue, they lose credibility for both themselves and their cause, when their opponents can easily and quickly show that they are including false claims in their arguments.
So she adopts the terminology of Israel's enemies to avoid angering them? She has redefined the discussion by giving the propaganda legitimacy. This is a foreign policy failure for the position that the US has held since 1967.
What bothered me here is that the article’s reference to the “State Department” is extremely misleading, as evidenced by Diogenesis’
Not at all. She is the figurehead of the State Dept. It and her language is quite clear. The administration, and by proxy its directives to its state dept. have done nothing about an ongoing documented problem with the Muslim associations on a number of campuses in the states. Most notably at the University of San Francisco and UC Irvine. People have been threatened with their lives, speakers forced to leave by police escort, vandalism of Jewish centers, and verbal attacks on those who are openly Jewish.
There is no misinformation here. The Muslims on these campuses sense a reluctance by our federal government, by state university governance, or even by local law enforcement to respond to an obvious problem. Instead, there has been a modification of our language in the hope that unreasonable violent people will somehow make a deal. If you wish to say the emperor has no clothes, go right ahead, but don't expect others to follow.
You are missing the point. There was ZERO involvement in, or comment on the matters discussed in the article by any representative of the US Department of State, yet the article is written so as to imply otherwise (perhaps inadvertently), and is being misinterpreted by readers here as reporting that the US Department of State did have some involvement and comment.
PING.
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