Professor William Robinson (UC Santa Barbara) Speaks at UC-Irvine

Professor William Robinson, UC Santa Barbara
"Where's my lesson plan?"

Thank God today is the last day of Israel Apartheid Week at UC-Irvine. It's getting awfully tiresome listening to the same old speeches which essentially say the same thing. I think even the folks in the Muslim Student Union will be grateful when this is over. But onward and downward! Remember that UC Santa Barbara professor William Robinson, who got into a stink last year after he was e-mailing his students his personal views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

"Uhhhh...yeaaaah."

Well, he spoke at UCI last night. As Robinson was preparing a few minutes before his speech, he expressed concern that there might not be many people coming to hear him speak. As it was, the auditorium was about half full.

If you think Norman Finklestein is tough to listen to, meet William Robinson, who is Finklestein at 78 rpm. The guy drones, but unlike Finklestein, he drones really fast. This guy tried to cram the history of the world into an hour plus of a disjointed lecture. Somebody please give this man a lesson plan! He was so bad that about 10 minutes into his presentation, I looked around the room and noticed that many of the MSU members were starting to glaze over. Toward the end, twice they began to applaud assuming-hoping-that he was finally done. Not so.

But it's what he said that was truly astounding.

First, he talked about his ordeal last year when some people were calling to be fired. He painted himself as a victim-standard operating procedure on the left where the world world is divided into victims vs "oppressors" like the US and Israel.

He then launched into a discourse on something he called the "Globalization Process" in regards to Israel. That's where he started to lose his audience.

He also -not once, but twice- quoted that great world authority, Naomi Klein, to bolster his arguments.

"And that's a quote from Naomi Klein", said Professor Robinson.


Who is Naomi Klein, you ask?

You don't wanna know.

One of his more memorable lines was comparing Palestinian life to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. I didn't realize that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were having elections and had their own elected leaders.

As I said before, this man really needs a lesson plan. Even though the title of his presentation was "UC Israel", Robinson began talking about Honduras.


That's right.

What is the connection between Honduras and Israel, you ask? Well, it seems that after the Hondurans threw that guy Zelaya out last year, they brought in Israeli commando-types to train Honduran death squads.

That's right.

Robinson also had something to say about those terrorists in Arizona.

You didn't know there were terrorists in Arizona, did you?

Twice, Robinson referred to the terrorism being carried out against (illegal) aliens in that Nazi state with cacti.

That's right.

Finally, Robinson came up with the biggest laffer of all; the "Climate of Fear" on US campuses directed toward those who "dare" to criticize Israel.



The truth is that professors like Robinson, who indoctrinate their students against Israel, grow like weeds on our campuses. Try speaking up for Israel on a college campus and see what happens. Ask some of our Jewish students what's it's like to defend Israel on a college campus.

Along those lines, Robinson derided the idea of "the farce of the new Anti-Semitism" and resorted to the party line that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. Fair enough, Professor, but is it not anti-Semitic to yell, "Jews back to the ovens", "Long live Hitler", "You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew"? Please tell me, professor, what those statements have to do with Israel? (I am referring to demonstrations in Ft Lauderdale, Los Angeles and the words of Imam Mohammed al-Asi at UCI respectively. I could go on and on.)

Climate of fear. Gimme a break!

Finally, Robinson paid homage to the "Irvine 11" and justified their actions in disrupting Israeli Ambassador Oren's speech in February.

Q&A

Prior to my non-question, a Jewish student asked a couple of polite questions of Robinson and was greeted by a few chuckles from the audience, 90% of whom were MSU members. Some laughed at me as I sat down to play the piano-no-ambled up to the microphone. (I guess that's their new intimidation tactic.)

I really didn't have a question, rather a comment. (I guess I broke some kind of rule). I told Robinson that I was a teacher at UCI and that I never discussed my personal political views in the classroom because I respected my students' own life experience and knowledge; my job was teach them English-not what to believe about the world. I closed by telling him that I did not consider him a professional nor an educator-rather I considered him to be an indoctrinator.

The audience went, "ooooooh" as I returned to my seat and the moderator cautioned us to ask questions not make speeches. Sorry.

To that what was Robinson's response/rebuke?

Silence.

So ended another torturous day and night at UCI Hate Week. Today, it's Amir Abdel Malik Ali and some graduate student from Georgetown University whose name I don't recall.

This is what's teaching our kids, folks.