Another "Unbiased" Conference at UCLA

UCLA Middle East Seminar


My colleague Eric Golub has written a great piece for Frontpage Magazine on the last Middle East seminar held at UCLA. I am pleased to cross-post it.

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/30/excuses-for-islamists/

Fousesquawk comment: I'm surprised the pseudo-professor Norman Finklestein wasn't present. He's giving the keynote address tonight in Garden Grove for an al-Awda weekend bash-with the same theme.

I can't help going back to my posting of March 26 regarding a UC regents meeting when UC regent Sherry Lansing suggested that UCI chancellor Michael Drake visit UCLA if he wanted to see a balanced presenting of the Middle East conflict. In my comments on that whopper, I referred back to a previous UCLA seminar that Eric had attended.

"Regent Sherry Lansing challenged Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake on the topic, asking whether Oren had been permitted to finish his speech -- he had, Drake said -- and noting the history of Muslim-Jewish tensions at the university.

Fousesquawk comment: The ambassador was only able to finish his speech after the protesters marched out. At one point, he had to withdraw from the room and it was not clear he would return.

Pointing to UCLA, which recently inaugurated an Israeli studies program “to educate people about the Middle East in a fair and balanced way,” Lansing urged Drake to visit the Los Angeles school and learn about the program.


“It’s only an hour away,” noted Lansing, a former film studio executive.

Fousesquawk comment: Is she referring to the same UCLA which hosts anti-Israel bashes and where any defense of Israel is met by jeering and derision? I am thinking about the "forum" that was held January 2009 during the Gaza fighting where a Jewish blogger from LA named Eric Golub spoke up in defense of Israel and was told by one of the panelists-a UC professor- that he had "his Zionist hat on too tight". Yeah, UCLA is the model."

Amazing how things keep coming around.

Of course, UCLA is not unique in being a hotbed of radical-supporting Middle Eastern academics, joined by the tired old academic leftist professors who hate Israel and the US as well.

So tell me, Ms Lansing; did you invite Chancellor Drake to attend this latest one-sided dog and pony show masquerading as a "conference"?