On May 10, the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine held their noon event and featured Osama Shabaik, a former UCI student, member of the Muslim Student Union and one of the so-called “Irvine 11”, arrested for disrupting Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren during his 2010 speech at UCI. Shabaik spoke about his own personal experiences in the Holy Land region prior to the Oren incident. Then he told the audience of about 50 students and others how he and his fellow MSU members planned the disruption. (Keep in mind that one of the original defenses the defendants claimed after the event was that it was a spontaneous reaction by individuals and not part of an MSU planned event.) Of course, in his view, the prosecutions were not justified and he spoke of the right to speak out in protest.
Their right to speak.
Shabaik was
followed by a graduate student and member of the Students for Justice in
Palestine (I am withholding his name because he is a student.) He told the
crowd that when he was a student at the University of Minnesota, he and his
friends completely and continuously disrupted a speech by Bill Richardson. He added that the university took absolutely
no action against them. This was to draw a comparison between his experience
and the prosecution and disciplinary measures by UCI against the Irvine 11.
Comment:
Shame on the University of Minnesota.
That was
followed by a female MSU member who talked about protesting and read an
impassioned poem referring to Palestinian victimhood. (Again, I am withholding
her name.)
Then a
former Palestinian student named Mustafa (I didn’t get his name) came up and
spoke about the situation in Gaza. More
suffering and victimhood, if you will.
He talked about all the children in Gaza who suffer from post-traumatic
stress syndrome as a result of Operation Cast Lead. Of course, nobody mentioned that there are no
Jews, no Israelis, and no Israeli forces in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas.
During the Q and A, a questioner asked Mustafa about the post-traumatic stress
syndrome suffered by Israeli children in Sderot, southern Israel as a result of
the thousands of rockets launched by Hamas. He was also asked if he condemned
Hamas for doing that.
“No.”
In his
explanation, Mustafa basically blew it off as a response to Israel’s aggression
(my word-I am paraphrasing.)
As is
typical, I had to struggle to get my question in. You see, the first speaker,
Shabaik was back seated in the audience and he was the specific one I wanted
address my question to. The moderator said that if anyone had a question for
Shabaik, they should come that evening for the later event. I was interrupted
when I said I specifically wanted to address Shabaik then said I would address
it to all the speakers (including Mustafa, who was standing at the podium-I
could have cared less about him.) So I
asked that since all 4 speakers were able to give their presentations without
any disruption, why could they not
extend that courtesy and that right to those with whom they disagree.
Apparently, some thought the question was not clear enough so I had to return
to the microphone and repeat it. (I thought it was simple.) Eventually, Shabaik
returned to the podium and gave me his answer. It was predictable. He said that he had (in the past) been
disrupted, but that it was not criminal to be disruptive. He described Oren as
a war criminal. He conceded that they were rude, but that he was proud of being
rude, and that there was nothing shameful about being rude to injustice.
They just
don’t get it.
10 comments:
Talking to supporters of the “Irvine 11” is like talking to six day creationists. They see the world in a different way and rational thought, logic and evidence won’t make them see things in a different way. They are living in a world without reason. And they make up their own facts. And grossly distort the event to make it fit into their perspective.
You are correct. Not only do they not see that others have the same right of free speech as they, they try to limit dissenting comments from the audience by their little tricks of regulating how and what people in the audience can say, They don't want a dialogue-they want their own monologue. They proved it during the Oren event, and they proved it when they walked out of the IDF event a few weeks ago. Don't forget, this is the same organization that lied to the UCI when they stated they were not planning a protest then lied after the event when they said it was spontaneous and individual-not a group (MSU) effort.
Thank you Gary, for pointing out the big lie (Taqiyya). This UCI/MSU group is full of lies. I recall the MSU hosting George Galloway, who had made the event a big fund raising extravaganza to deliver the money to Hanayyah, the leader of Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization, so fund raising for Hamas is illegal and a Federal offense. But Holder, of the DOJ, who's law firm, prior to the DOJ, provided "pro-bona" work for Islamists who were accused of terrorism. So George got a "get out of jail free card". In addition, the paperwork for the George Galloway presentation, filled out by the MSU group, indicated that it was not going to be a fund raising operation. Was this a lie? The UCI Administration covered that one up.
Getting back to the MSU-hate week, it is very important to understand that they will present one side of an issue and ignore the other, if it does not fit there Islamist agenda. It was noted by the speaker, "Mustafa" that the children in Gaza were suffering PTSD from Israelis who were destroying Hamas rocket launching sites and storage facilities. The PTSD is an unfortunate situation. But it is Hamas that initiate the rocket fire. When asked by one of the individuals in the audience about agreement that PTSD is bad for any child, and does he condemn HAMAS for creating this situation in Israel, he would not condemn HAMAS, as pointed out your post.
The "skewed" perception of the MSU, Muslim Brotherhood, Jihadists and Islamists comes directly from the texts they read, the Koran, Hadith and Reliance of the Traveler". Hatred is built into the texts and they read these texts on a regular basis.
Learn to expect more of this "Skewed" thought.
Squid
I thought the below article in the New University did a good job summing up my position. I didn't think criminal charges should have been filed.
http://www.newuniversity.org/2011/03/opinion/peaceful-protest-or-free-speech-violation/
"No court sentence will purge their leadership of that undeveloped form of thinking.
These students — and let’s not forget their club’s leadership orchestrated the entire thing — don’t deserve a court trial. They don’t deserve the status of ‘criminals.’
And they certainly don’t deserve all the press that comes with it. No, their actions, born of an immature and undeveloped inability to listen to a dissenting opinion without trying to make theirs louder, only deserve to be forgotten. To fall so far into obscurity that in a year’s time, no one will even remember what they did.
We don’t need a court sentence to understand the short-sighted machinations of the MSU leadership"
But once the DA did press chages....here is a well explained legal analysis of the case -
http://volokh.com/2011/09/23/uc-irvine-students-convicted-for-disrupting-speech/
It is really hard to present a convincing arguement that they did not substantially impair the conduct of the meeting.
I didn’t see this presentation, so I cannot comment on it. However, I'll comment on other talks I have seen.
I have seen plenty of Irvine 11 supporters try to defend these miscreants. Their defenders and Shabaik are not intellectually honest. Their arguments pray on people’s ignorance and emotions.
There is no doubt there are anti-Muslim bigots in Orange County but the Irvine 11 defenders believe that Orange County is a giant hotbed of hate of all Muslims.
They read anti-Muslim bigotry where it doesn’t exist. I have seen Shabaik claim the jury wasn’t a jury of his peers.
After the trial, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said, “Today, an Orange County jury sent a strong message that 1st Amendment rights belong to every American and we will not tolerate a small band of people who want to hijack our freedoms.”
Shabiak claimed that using the term hijack while talking about group of Muslims that people would think of terrorists - that Rackaukus was trying to appeal to anti-Muslim bigots with this statement. Shabiak also made a point of the use of the term “our”. He believes he was being excluded. That even though he is an American he is not part of the our. It made me scratch my head. But I don’t suffer the persecution complex he seems to suffer.
Susan Schroeder from the DA office said the charges against the students were not politically, religiously or racially motivated.
She was quoted as saying:
"If you change the names of who the players are, it wouldn’t have made a difference. If it had been a Martin Luther King who came to speak to UCI and it was a band of Ku Klux Klan members who conspired together days ahead to stop him from speaking, we would have done the same thing, It doesn’t matter who the defendants are. It doesn’t matter who’s speaking. It doesn’t matter who came to listen. It’s against the law to disturb a lawful meeting."
I have seen Shabaik claim she was asserting the Irvine 11 are akin to KKK members.
Obviously, She was presenting a hypothetical. She was not liking the students to the KKK. Anyone who read the comment should understand that. He is smart enough to realize that. It is just not intellectually honest argument.
They also claim they were charged because of what they had to say and because they were speaking out against Israel. There is no evidence of this. In fact, the prosecution pointed out they are not being charged for the content of their speech.
I didn’t see this presentation, so I cannot comment on it. However, I'll comment on other talks I have seen.
I have seen plenty of Irvine 11 supporters try to defend these miscreants. Their defenders and Shabaik are not intellectually honest. Their arguments pray on people’s ignorance and emotions.
There is no doubt there are anti-Muslim bigots in Orange County but the Irvine 11 defenders believe that Orange County is a giant hotbed of hate of all Muslims.
They read anti-Muslim bigotry where it doesn’t exist. I have seen Shabaik claim the jury wasn’t a jury of his peers.
After the trial, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said, “Today, an Orange County jury sent a strong message that 1st Amendment rights belong to every American and we will not tolerate a small band of people who want to hijack our freedoms.”
Shabiak claimed that using the term hijack while talking about group of Muslims that people would think of terrorists - that Rackaukus was trying to appeal to anti-Muslim bigots with this statement. Shabiak also made a point of the use of the term “our”. He believes he was being excluded. That even though he is an American he is not part of the our. It made me scratch my head. But I don’t suffer the persecution complex he seems to suffer.
Susan Schroeder from the DA office said the charges against the students were not politically, religiously or racially motivated.
She was quoted as saying:
"If you change the names of who the players are, it wouldn’t have made a difference. If it had been a Martin Luther King who came to speak to UCI and it was a band of Ku Klux Klan members who conspired together days ahead to stop him from speaking, we would have done the same thing, It doesn’t matter who the defendants are. It doesn’t matter who’s speaking. It doesn’t matter who came to listen. It’s against the law to disturb a lawful meeting."
I have seen Shabaik claim she was asserting the Irvine 11 are akin to KKK members.
Obviously, She was presenting a hypothetical. She was not liking the students to the KKK. Anyone who read the comment should understand that. He is smart enough to realize that. It is just not intellectually honest argument.
They also claim they were charged because of what they had to say and because they were speaking out against Israel. There is no evidence of this. In fact, the prosecution pointed out they are not being charged for the content of their speech.
Free Speech is always for Me, never for Thee.
Taught by liberals to our children from early childhood.
As I've said a zillion times (my word, I'm paraphrasing) before, "East is east and west is west and never the two shall meet."
Norm
ps: Does any of this make the local news? I think you're the only one reporting this stuff...keep up the good work!
That jury of peerrs comment was also made at UCI. Maybe they think they have no peers.
I saw the video of the Ambassador Oren event. It was very clear that there was malice of forethought to disrupt the event, which was backed up by evidentiary emails that pointed to the forethought and careful planning to disrupt the event. In fact, there is a video of the MSU getting together at the end of their planned disruption to claim that they were successful in "shutting it down" and they, the MSU, should retreat to the "CCC" to debrief the disruption they purposefully caused.
This is not free speech, this is civil disobedience for which they were convicted. Our First Amendment rights always need to be protected and in this case, they were. If the MSU cannot do the time, they should not do the crime!
They got what they deserve, a criminal record for their transgressions.
Squid
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