El Camino College is a two-year community college located in Torrance, California near Los Angeles. There is a controversy there getting national attention. On June 9, during a commencement speech, a graduating speaker, Jana Abulaban, accused Israel of "torturing and killing Palestinian people". Abulaban, who immigrated with her parents to the US from Jordan at the age of 12, identifies as a Palestinian.
Part of the reason the news story caught my eye is that when I was playing baseball at Santa Monica Community College in 1964-65, El Camino was in our conference; thus, I had the opportunity to play against their team both at their ballpark and ours.
Of course, the more important reason is that this is an issue I care about. Thus, I would like to weigh in here. I should also note that the university has properly issued a statement distancing itself from the speaker's vitriolic remarks. Not surprisingly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has taken issue with that. Below is what I wrote today to the campus newspaper, The Union:
First of all, the young lady has the right of free speech, so nobody is arguing that she should be prosecuted. Some have opined that her speech should have been interrupted, and she should have been removed from the stage. I don't agree with that either. But those of us who disagree also enjoy the right to speak out, and Abulaban is not protected from criticism for her remarks. It comes down to this: Is what she said anti-Semitic? That requires a long answer. Criticism of Israeli policies against the Palestinians is not anti-Semitic per se-as pro-Israel leaders and organizations concede. Yet, as I often, do, I have to go back to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of anti-Semitism. There are elements pertaining to Israel that are considered anti-Semitic: For example, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, holding all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel, accusing American Jews of having dual loyalty, applying a double standard to Israel not applied to any other democratic country, denying the Jewish people a right to their own state, and accusing Israel of harvesting organs from Palestinian corpses, a canard that goes back to the ancient libel of Jews using the blood of Christian children to make matzo.
On a more practical level, I have personally seen and heard anti-Semitic images and words during anti-Israel events, mostly at UC Irvine, where I taught part-time from 1998-2016. In the name and cause of the Palestinian people, groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the UCI chapter of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) have regularly invited speakers to UCI who have crossed the line from mere criticism of Israel to outright anti-Jewish utterances. As examples, I can mention people like Washington DC-based imam Muhammed al-Asi, Oakland imam Amir Abdel Malik Ali, Abdul Alim Musa, British writer Ben White, BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions against Israel) co-founder, Omar Barghouti, Cynthia McKinney, UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, Council on American Islamic Relations CEOs, Zahra Billoo and Hussam Ayloush (more on him below).
I could also mention the regular disruptions of pro-Israel events by SJP and MSU, not only at UC Irvine, which I have personally witnessed, but on campuses across the nation. I could mention the disgusting stereotypical anti-Jewish caricature of Ariel Sharon I saw at the 2008 anti-Israel week of events at UC Irvine in 2008.
I could go on and on, but I call particular attention to Ayloush, the long-time Southern California CAIR CEO, who has often been accused of anti-Semitism. In 2015, Ayloush appeared as a panelist at the Islamic Center (mosque) of Orange County in Garden Grove. It was a public event dedicated to the issue of countering violent extremism, a theme fostered during the Obama administration and centered around extremism in certain American mosques. Ayloush asked why there was so much attention placed on a few American Muslim men who went off to join ISIS and no attention placed on the thousands of Jewish American men who went to join the Israeli Defense Forces "killing the Palestinians". I was present, and I videotaped it.
It is this same Hussam Ayloush who the El Camino campus newspaper, The Union, communicated with to get his take on the Abulaban controversy.
In fact, CAIR is itself an anti-Jewish organization. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and is linked to Hamas, a terrorist organization that rules Gaza. It is an obscenity that the current administration in Washington has invited CAIR to participate in its campaign to fight anti-Semitism.
My whole point is that the entire pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement on our college campuses is anti-Jewish to its core. They can insist all they want that they are not anti-Jewish, only anti-Zionist. They can trot out all their misguided Jewish speakers, like Norman Finklestein, and Jewish SJP members as "proof" they are not anti-Jewish. However, their long track record speaks for itself.
I am not asking El Camino College to take any negative action against Ms Abulaban. I am not accusing her of personally being anti-Semitic. The college has issued a statement distancing itself from the words she spoke. I would just hope that the college administration,. the students and the campus newspaper be aware of what is really going on with this well-orchestrated, well-financed campus movement against Israel, and most importantly, against all the denials, that it is deeply anti-Jewish in nature.
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