Anti-Israel Protest at UC-Irvine

UC-Irvine aerial view. If you look closely, you can see the MSU/SAS students marching around Ring Road under surveillance of Israeli F-16s supplied by the American Empire.



Today, the Muslim Student Union (MSU) and Society of Arab Students (SAS)at UC-Irvine held an hour long rally on campus to demonstrate against the Israeli military action in Gaza. I am happy to report that there were no unfortunate incidents, nor was there any hate speech. At least I didn't hear any.

I am also happy to report that the local Jewish community turned out to show their support of Israel. There were plenty of Israeli flags handed out (yes, I carried one.) Pro-Israel posters were everywhere including one held by a lady that said, "Proud Mom of an IDF soldier". It was clear that on this occasion, the pro-Hamas people were outnumbered. Yet, we didn't not attempt to disrupt the program. We let the speakers have their say.

As they always do, the MSU opened up the program with a prayer in Arabic and a reading from the Koran. Two or three students who apparently had family in Gaza spoke about their perception of the situation. Thankfully, there were no Amir Abdel Malik Alis, Alim Musas or Mohammed al-Asis present to spout their venom.

Of course, it would not have been complete without the obligatory talk by a university professor. His full name escapes me and I don't know him, so I won't bother with a partial name. Suffice to say, his 15 minute talk was laughable. One would think that a teacher would have some sort of a lesson plan to work with-you know, introduction, body, conclusion. The gentleman began his rambling talk by describing a situation in the Holy Land in the 1940s where Arabs and Jews were working hand-in-hand. Then he made a reference to how it was "all swept away by the events of the 1948 war". Of course, he conveniently left out any mention of how in 1948 the whole Arab world declared war when Israel declared itself an independent state. (I guess he didn't want to bore us with details.)

But bore us he did as he rambled on to talk about imperialism and the "Big Empire", which as it turns out was that certain empire that supplies the F-16s that Israel uses to.........well, you get the message. You gotta hand it to the lefties on our university campuses; they can't talk very long about Israel without launching into an attack on the bad old USA.

At any rate, the good professor mercifully cut short his "speech" because he had a 12:30 class to teach, so he left to go bore his own class. (even the MSU students were left in a daze.)

After an hour, the MSU/SAS formed into a line, shouted something in Arabic and proceeded to march up and around Ring Road that circles around the campus. That's a long march, so nobody bothered to follow them.*

Thanks and kudos to members of the local Jewish community-many of them senior citizens who had been informed about the event and took the trouble to come and show their support for Israel.


* According to a post-comment by "Anonymous", apparently some pro-Israel marchers did, in fact, follow the MSU/SAS demonstrators around Ring Road. If that is true, then I stand corrected on a minor point. I am not aware that any incidents occurred.