My Response to the Orange County Register Article

The below article appeared today in the Orange County Register (11-3-08). It was written by Register reporter Marla Jo Fisher, who has been following the on-going controversy at UC-Irvine between Muslim and Jewish students. Specifically, her article concerns a 2-week trip taken by 15 UCI students, Jewish and Muslim, to Israel in September. Last week, they reported on their experiences to a packed hall at the UCI campus.


Jewish and Muslim UCI students come together
MORNING READ: Students on both sides of issue trek to Israel to investigate first-hand what they've been arguing about.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register


"IRVINE: It was a trip people said could never happen.

Jewish and Muslim student leaders from UC Irvine, whose feud over Israelis and Palestinians has sparked national headlines and even a federal probe, set aside personal misgivings and the lack of any official sanction to explore together the issues over which they'd been sparring.

"It was so profound and so eye-opening, I can't even put it into words," said Sepi Termechi, a UCI student leader with the Jewish group Hillel, in a short video students produced about the trip.

Flying, driving, sleeping and eating together throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories, the 15 Irvine students met people whose children had been killed by Islamic suicide bombers – and those whose children were slain by Israeli snipers.

They heard from politicians, taxi drivers and people in the street.

And, as they told a full-house crowd of 450 at UCI's Crystal Cove auditorium last month, they returned with a new take on an argument they thought they knew well.

"I learned it was OK to disagree and it was OK to not have the same viewpoint as everyone else, said Sameera Ali, a UCI senior who belongs to the Muslim Student Union.

"And you can still have a discussion and not hate each other."

Bad reputation

Muslim and Jewish students have clashed at UCI for years about the Israeli government and the way it has dealt with Palestinians. While similar clashes have taken place at campuses around the nation - and controversial speakers on both sides of the issue have stirred tempers - UCI has gained a reputation in the blogosphere as one of the nation's most anti-Semitic campuses.

Officials at UCI deny this, as have students on both sides of the question. But frictions remain.

Outside groups with their own agendas have added fuel to the fire, culminating in a federal investigation that found no wrongdoing on the part of UCI officials, but remains a sore spot for some Jewish observers.

And the atmosphere has only fueled tension between campus student groups.

Carter sparks idea

The idea for an Israel trip was sparked in May 2007 by ex-president Jimmy Carter, who came to UCI to talk about his controversial new book on Israel and the Palestinians.

During his standing-room-only speech at the Bren Center, Carter challenged feuding students to go see the situation first-hand. He even promised to find them the money to go.

After the speech, some students immediately began discussing how they could take such a trip, but decided against accepting Carter's money. His positions on Palestinians had angered supporters of Israel, potentially making any trip sponsored by his foundation seem politically motivated.

Instead, the students decided to raise the money on their own.

However, they were disappointed when the University of California - citing a U.S. State Dept. warning against travel to Israel's West Bank and other territories - declined to offer money or any official sanction for the trip.

And that turned out to be a good thing, says graduate student and Middle East expert Daniel Wehrenfennig, who helped organize the project.

Without UC money, Wehrenfennig says, students had to turn to their own communities to raise the $60,000 they needed - and that including making requests of polarized groups that opposed each other politically.

Students come together

Campus activists from both sides of the Palestinian issue, who angrily faced each other down at annual events such as UCI's Zionism Awareness Week, sponsored by the Muslim Student Union, were invited to come along.

Some were initially loathe to participate.

"We called them out and said, 'You're so passionate to defend your position, but you have not really been there'," Wehrenfennig said. Even students who had been to Israel, he said, had not seen both sides of the issue.

Wehrenfennig, a doctoral student from Germany, used contacts from some of the 100 interviews he's conducted in Israel to help the students design an agenda. He also accepted suggestions from friends and supporters here.

As they planned the trek, Wehrenfennig said he saw loud, showy antagonists begin to show something new - mutual respect.

While the political demonstrations remained as controversial and strident as ever, he said they would end with students involved on opposite sides shaking hands and talking.

"The way things were before, they would scream at each other and go away, but would not engage," he said.

"There was no communication between the groups."


The full tour

For two weeks in September 15 UCI students from a variety of groups, and students of the Middle East, toured Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilyah, Nazareth, Ramallah and Haifa.

Accompanied by Professor Paula Garb and UCI Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez, who asked to come along as an observer, they visited mosques, churches, synagogues, checkpoints, terror victim burial sites and refugee camps. The group met with Holocaust survivors, negotiators, business people, soldiers and politicians.

Last month, the group made its first public appearance to talk about the trip. Their audience included UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, Irvine Mayor Beth Krom and philanthropist Susan Samueli.

Gomez said his proudest moment came when Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel, one of the largest Israeli settlements on the West Bank, told the students what he thought of them.

"He looked us over and said, 'I'm impressed with you guys,' " Gomez said. " 'I invited (U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice here and she was afraid to come.

"You guys," he added, "were not afraid.'"



My response dated the same date (November 3, 2008)

"As one who has been teaching part-time at UCI for 10 years, it is a hopeful
sign if the Muslim and Jewish students who took a trip to Israel have come back with
greater understanding of both sides of the issue. I do take issue, however with
some of Marla Jo Fisher's comments in her article of November 3, 2008.

Ms Fisher states that "UCI has gained a reputation in the blogosphere as one of
the nation's most anti-Semitic campuses." She goes on to state "that outside
groups with their own agendas have added fuel to the fire."

It should be stated that 99% of the students at UCI are not involved in the
controversy whatsoever and are certainly not anti-Semitic. The problem is that
the Muslim Student Union, for years, has been bringing in virulently
anti-Semitic, anti-America, anti-Israel and, yes, anti-Jewish speakers to the
UCI campus on a regular basis who engage in what could only be called hate
speech. That is what has brought UCI its dubious reputation. Let me offer a
couple of examples:

Amir Abdel Malik Ali is an Oakland-based imam who regularly speaks at UCI. He
openly calls suicide bombers in Israel "heroes and martyrs".

Mohammed al-Asi is a Washington DC-based imam who has appeared on more than one
occasion at UCI. On one occasion at UCI, he stated, "Jews are low-life
ghetto-dwellers" and, "You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't
take the ghetto out of the Jew."

In addition to the Israel and Jew-bashing, these speakers regularly condemn
everything about America.

All of which is conveniently ignored by Ms Fisher as she blames "outside groups
with their own agenda" for fanning the flames."

Well, I am not an outsider. I work (part-time) at UCI, and my "agenda" is
standing up to and reporting on the hate speech that is brought to UCI by a
small minority of students and their speakers. I have personally heard the
words of these radical haters sponsored by the Muslim Student Union. I have
spoken out in the school newspaper, the UCI EEO office and the Orange County
Human Rights Commission, the latter of which was a complete waste of time.

As stated above, I welcome any endeavor that will bridge the gap between our
Muslim and Jewish students over the Israel-Palestinian issue. The real test of this trip will be the next time the MSU hosts a week of speakers on campus. If the same speakers and the same rhetoric comes back, then what will it have accomplished?"

Gary Fouse


At this point, I don't know if the Register will print my reply. It seems that Ms Fisher has her own agenda, which is to pooh-pooh the idea that there is anti-Semitism at the campus on the part of the MSU. She also seems to be a supporter of the university administration, which has been severely criticized for their unwillingness to condemn the hate speech by MSU speakers. Notice also that there was gratuitous slap at Condoleeza Rice as Fisher quoted Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez, who in turn quoted the mayor of the town of Ariel (an Israeli settlement on the West Bank), "I invited US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice here, and she was afraid to come. You guys were not afraid".

Of course, Ms Fisher conveniently failed to mention that a US Secretary of State might be reluctant to visit an Israeli settlement in the West Bank because of the diplomatic message it might send. That would be a consideration that visiting university students would not be concerned about.

Finally, Ms Fisher appears to be very selective in choosing her sources for information. For example, she has brushed off the Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism, whose findings are apparently contrary to her own. Why would a reporter trying to get the facts not get input from all interested sides?

As I stated in my response to the OC Register, I hope that this visit to Israel will lead to greater understanding between Jewish and Muslim students on campus. The proof of the pudding, however will be the next MSU-sponsored week of events on the campus. If it's the same speakers with the same rhetoric, then the trip will have failed to achieve its purpose.