My friend Debra Glazer has written a very cogent piece for Pajamas Media on the Olive Tree Initiative at UC-Irvine (now spreading to other UC campuses). This misguided venture is proving to be much more than a slanted project in favor of the Palestinian narrative. It is a disaster and a tragedy waiting to happen. And when it does, the lawyers will be standing by licking their chops.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/olive-tree-initiative/
You see, everybody involved in the OTI has been warned and put on notice. This goes much farther than whether the program is balanced between the Israeli and Palestinian narrative. The involvement of figures like International Solidarity Movement co-founder, George S. Rishmawi and the recent revelation that in 2009, OTI participants met with a top Hamas operative in the West Bank have pretty much settled that argument.
The recent slaughter of the Fogel family in the West Bank right down to a three-month-old infant, the kidnap and murder in Gaza of an ISM activist from Italy are just two examples of the violence that these college kids can be exposed to. And just in the past 24 hours, we have seen a fatal shooting at Joseph's Tomb by a Palestinian Authority Policeman.
Also keep in mind that the Palestinian Authority allows all kinds of anti-Jewish imagery n their media that go far beyond the Israeli question. The PA leadership promises there will be no Jews in their territory. This is a region where Jews are hated with a passion. In my view, it is just a matter of time before one of these kids gets harmed or killed.
If and when that happens, those responsible for the program, both in the university and the organizations that have funded and supported this program, will have no legal defenses against the resultant lawsuits. They have ignored documented warnings about this program. For them to go forward with more trips is beyond irresponsible. I would urge those in positions of responsibility to have a long talk with their legal counsel about the obvious risks associated with these trips.
I have forwarded Ms. Glazer's excellent piece to a "risk Manager". She warns of disaster of historic purportion. With this in mind, I forwarded her article to an excellent "Risk Manager", who is Jewish. His reply to me is quite colorful, as he was writing to me. It is the message, from this risk manager, that is most important.
ReplyDeleteHere it is:
"Risk management can’t do anything in the face of rampant stupidity. I don’t think even Lloyds would insure these assholes! If these moronic Jews, etc. don’t know by now that the risk is unacceptable they aren’t worth saving!"
Squid
I suppose the Rose Project and the OC Federation have heightened liability risk if they induced the students to go on the trips by financing them.
ReplyDeleteIt is not only the organized or spontaneous kidnappings, shootings, and beheadings that Debra wrote about it is also the random act of violence.
When I was in Israel a year or so ago the soldiers frequently warned me about the "quick stab and run" the Arabs try to do, even in large shopping malls. There are the rocks that are thrown at cars, sometimes through the windshields of cars or buses.
It is one thing to take these episodic risks personally, but to be liable for risks they should have known about, for groups of 20 or more students at a time, is something only people ideologically intent and committed to presenting the Palestinian narrative.
Hellooo, J-Streeters.
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