Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced this week that they would be a hosting a national SJP conference at UCLA November 16-18.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/08/22/ucla-to-host-student-conference-that-advocates-destruction-of-jewish-self-determination/
Here is the SJP Facebook announcement:
We are excited to officially announce that the 8th annual national SJP conference, Radical Hope: Resistance in the Face of Adversity, will be held Fri.-Sun., November 16-18, 2018 in Los Angeles, CA, hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California–Los Angeles (SJP at UCLA).
With this conference we return to the West, a region that has always modeled student organizing and that set the bar high when it comes to campus divestment. At www.nationalsjp.o...
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FRI, NOV 16 - NOV 18
However, a spokesman for UCLA was not able to confirm that when queried by the LA Jewish Journal.
http://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/237658/ucla-unsure-hosting-anti-zionist-conference-november/
But Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA’s associate director of media relations, told the Journal in an email that UCLA had first learned about the conference in a Facebook post on August 21.
We [are] working to verify the information in the Facebook post,” Vazquez wrote.
Based on SJP's history of disrupting the events of others-including May 17 at UCLA- many Jewish students are concerned about the hostile climate that is coming to campus in November. The UCLA chaptor of Students Supporting Israel is objecting to the conference as is prominent Jewish professor at UCLA, Judea Pearl.
Based on SJP's history of disrupting the events of others-including May 17 at UCLA- many Jewish students are concerned about the hostile climate that is coming to campus in November. The UCLA chaptor of Students Supporting Israel is objecting to the conference as is prominent Jewish professor at UCLA, Judea Pearl.
“My students and colleagues at UCLA express revulsion and indignation at the idea that our campus will be hosting a racist Zionophobic conference aimed at the destruction of the Jewish homeland,” Pearl said in a statement sent to the Journal. “Israel is a cherished symbol of identity to thousands of students on this campus, and sponsoring a blunt Zionophobic conference at their face is telling them they are not welcome at the University of California. Zionophobic racism is still racism.”
“We plead with the Chancellor to react to this proposed conference the same way he would react to any racist conference, be it Islamophobic or white-supremacist.”
Obviously, there is a First Amendment question here. I would predict, based on the past performance (or lack thereof) of the UCLA administration, this conference will probably go forward. It will be an ugly spectacle. Whether someone plans to peacefully protest outside, I don't know, but I am sure it will not be disrupted. (That's what they do.) I am wondering who the invited speakers will be. In January 2011, SJP's sister organization, the UCLA Muslim Student Association, hosted the Western regional MSA conference. Featured speakers included the fiery, anti-semitic Oakland imam, Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who led the audience in the MSA pledge of allegiance, which sounded nothing like our American Pledge. There was also Siraj Wahhaj, the Brooklyn imam who was an indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case. He was never charged, but he appeared as a character witness for the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman. Wahhaj has a history of inflammatory statements including referring to America as a "filthy garbage can". In case his name rings a bell, it should. It was his son and two daughters who were busted recently in the New Mexico desert with 11 undernourished children reportedly training with weapons to attack schools. One three-year-old boy, Wahhaj's grandson, was found buried at the compound.
So we will follow this story.
So we will follow this story.
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