On
Wednesday, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein appeared at UC Irvine during the Muslim Student
Union’s anti-Israel week of events. (Epstein was born in Germany and was part
of the so-called Kinder Transport whereby thousands of Jewish children were
sent to England during the late 1930s. Her family remained in Germany and died
in the Holocaust.)
As in
previous years, Epstein told her story about surviving the Holocaust and later
in life becoming involved in the Israel/Palestinian conflict after the Shaba and Shatila massacres in Lebanon during the 1980s. She
told of her first trip to Israel with Palestinian activists and having to
endure Israeli checks –including a strip search at the airport in Israel. Epstein, of course, an ardent critic of Israel and says that she and her family
have opposed Zionism since she first heard about it as a child.Epstein began her talk by mentioning a petition that is being circulated demanding UC president Mark Yudof’s resignation in response to a letter he recently issued deploring racist and anti-Semitic incidents on UC campuses. (He didn’t mention anything about Islamophobia.) After her presentation, she signed the petition.
Epstein also brought us up to date on her recent activities including her participation in a flotilla boatlift to Gaza a couple of years ago, in which the boat she was on was stopped by the Greeks just after leaving harbor.
During the Q and A, a gentleman identified himself as the child of Holocaust survivors and politely told her that she was sharing a platform (other sponsored speakers, specifically Amir Abdel Malik Ali from the previous day) who supported Hamas and Hezbollah and thus, supported people who wanted to destroy Jews-I am paraphrasing.) In her response, Epstein said that she condemns all violence, but that the violence carried out by Palestinians pales in comparison to that carried out by Israel and the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). She also reminded the questioner that Hamas was elected by the people of Gaza.
Afterward, as Epstein was leaving, I greeted her, and we spoke for a few minutes in German (about Germany). We had spoken a couple of years previously about Germany after her talk. I did not try to engage her in debate out of respect for her advanced age. I thanked her for her presentation and visit to UCI and wished her a good day.
7 comments:
Okay, so far the MSU has had Malik Ali (denies Jews have a right to a state), Eptein (oppposes Zionism - she doesn't believe Jews have the rights of self-determination and a state) and White who supports the one state solution (no Israel).
I think I see a pattern here.
Of course, the MSU will say they want to get all viewpoints heard and blah blah.
Anyone who has studied the conflict knows the best hope to a resolution to the conflict is the two state solution — a Palestinian state created through negotiation that will serve as a homeland for the Palestinians that will co-exist with Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. It will look something close to the Clinton Parameters.
The Palestinians want freedom and rights of self-determination. The Israelis want to feel secure that the newly created state won’t be used to attack Israelis.
The Palestinians need to give up on “Right of Return” and Israel will have to give up East Jerusalem, most of the West Bank and Gaza. Jerusalem will serve as capital for both states. Both sides need to prepare their people for what is going to be sacraficed for peace. The Old City should probably be run by some international agency. It is really pretty simple what is needed, but it is difficult to get there.
It is disappointing that is seems that the MSU decided to invite speakers that reject what most reasonable people see as the best chance for peace.
There are two peoples with national ambitions. The only deal that makes sense would be to recognize that fact.
Please stop calling Hedy Epstein a "survivor". She is not a survivor in any way. She was rescued because there were people who tried to save Jews. What she doesn't tell people is that if Great Britain threw open its borders or allowed open immigration to British Palestine, her family would not have died.
Personally I wish she hadn't been rescued because of the dishonor she brings upon her family.
Findalis - this is a disgusting comment. You should be ashamed of yourself for writing something like this - and Gary - for allowing to have this on your blog!
Anonymous,
If you are going to lecture me on how I should be ashamed of something, you shouldn't do it anonymously.
Different anonymous here.
I personally believe it's better for a blog owner to allow any comment to go through, unless it's nothing but a stream of insults. So, I do not fault Gary for letting the comments of Findalis through.
With that said though, one has to wonder if Gary agrees with her or not when he doesn't comment on statements like that one way or another.
Anonymous (different anonymous),
It seems I accidentally lost a comment by a different anonymous regarding my comment posting policy and Findalis' comment about Epstein. While I would not go as far as Finadalis did regarding Epstein, I have a very libberal policy of posting comments and have rarely deleted a dissenting comment except when the person is really insulting and using slurs etc.
When someone suggests that Gary's level of censorship is lax, I always chime in to support his firm belief in freedom of speech. His private blog is not the public square, so he has no obligation to allow all speech -- its more akin to his living room or front yard. It is private property. However, posting comments and even the original post would have precious little significance if a moderator excluded all views not shared by the moderator.
I like to think that my own comments add some savor to the site, and some opportunity for Gary, Miggie, Squid, and Findalis to sharpen their own points of view. They certainly do that favor for me. If Gary barred anything he personally thought a shameful opinion, I would be among the first to go. We would all miss each other.
I'm a little mystified by his purge of Lance Christian Johnson, who sometimes agreed with Gary more than I did (e.g. about Ayan Hirsi Alli). He is one of the few on blogger to use his full name, up front, proudly. Must have been a particularly bad day or something.
There is no factual basis to dispute Findalis's point that if there were somewhere safe for Jews to go during the later 1930s, and early years of WW II, a lot more Jews would have survived. That basic survival instinct is precisely what motivated migration to the British Mandate of Palestine, partition of the territory of that mandate, and the emergence of Israel as a nation.
Unfortunately, as with most mass migrations in human history by one people terrorized by another people into the territory of a third people, the arrival of large numbers of Jews into terrain where a significant population was already leaving provoked serious problems. To the Arabic-speaking people already living there, it looked sort of the way some people in California, Arizona, and other states look upon the arrival of massive numbers of Hispanics who didn't even go through the proper customs procedures, or even the settlement of tens of thousands of Somalis who were officially admitted by the State Department as refugees from persecution.
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