Should the Community Come to Campus to Counter Israel Apartheid Week?

Aaron Elias, a Jewish student at UC-Irvine, has written an article criticizing the local community (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who have come to the UC-Irvine campus the past couple of years to counter the Muslim Student Union's Israel Apartheid Weeks. It was written on the website of UCI Hillel. The below link is a response from the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism

http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/rumors-and-nonsence/

Aaron, I know, is a supporter of Israel. He has written often to counter the charges leveled by the MSU and their supporters. I think I can well understand his position as a Jewish student. However, I must respectfully disagree.

As I have written before, there are many counter-points to his opinion. First of all, as an adjunct teacher for the past 13 years, I strongly feel that I myself have every right to come to the MSU events and challenge their speakers. I work at UCI. Whether Jewish students on campus choose to do the same is a matter of personal choice. Those students are very diverse in terms of their religious identification, support or non-support for Israel, and tendency to get involved in the issue.

Secondly, the public pays taxes to support the University of California system. They have a right to know what is happening on campus, a right to attend speaking events, and a right to make their voice heard. They also have a right to hold their university officials accountable.

In addition, the comments by the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism have effectively responded by pointing out the fact that over the past few years, Jewish faculty and students have complained about anti-Semitism on UC campuses-specifically relating to the disruption of the Israeli ambassador's speech, anti-Semitic comments made by MSU-sponsored speakers, and incidents of harassment and intimidation of Jewish students over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also connected to Israel Apartheid Week events. Last Thursday, there was a confrontation between an MSU student and a Jewish student after the afternoon event. (I am not assigning blame for the incident to either student.)

Finally, I would point out to Aaron that UCI is just a microcosm for what is going on on campuses all over North America, and, indeed, all over the world. It is part of a larger problem that concerns us all-Jewish and non-Jewish. Many of the speakers who come to speak at UCI have a radical agenda. They need to be confronted, challenged, and someone needs to inform the community as to what they are saying. A few Jewish students at UCI and other universities have chosen to do that. Most have not. In addition, Hillel and the Orange County Jewish Federation have been caught in a myriad of conflicts of interest vis-a-vis the university that has caused them to sweep the whole issue under the rug.

So I must say to Aaron with all due respect that his call for others to stand down must be ignored. What is going on at UCI and other universities is of concern to the entire public. Anti-Semitism is resurgent. The effort to deligitimize Israel is rampant and organized world-wide. And where is the focus of all this?

On our university campuses.

Thus, I will continue to speak out and support the community that wishes to get involved.

The University of California belongs to all of us.