On January 23, a group of UC Irvine professors in the School of Humanities, apparently associated with the recently-formed Faculty for Justice in Palestine, held a 2-hour teach-in event at UC Irvine, which I attended. The screen at the front of the room announced the title of the event, "Genocide in Palestine". The event consisted of short presentations by UCI professors trying to make the case that Israel should be prosecuted by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide. South Africa, which has a pretty spotty human rights record both during and after apartheid, has lodged a complaint against Israel before the ICJ in the Hague charging the Jewish state with genocide. The ICJ is the UN's highest court, but this is not a criminal trial like those that would be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
I was sitting in the very back of the room with two like-minded friends and colleagues. Outside, a colleague from the Counter Jihad Coalition was passing out informative pamphlets about the terrorist organization, Hamas. I am guessing there were 70-80 people present, mostly students, and that number dwindled over the course of two hours. Some students may have had to get to class or perhaps were simply bored by the dry presentations. All in all, it was boring and disgusting at the same time-quite an accomplishment. As is the custom with these groups, they did not want to be filmed.
The moderator was Professor Susan Morrissey, who teaches Russian studies in the School of Humanities. She introduced the "panelists", and at one point in her introduction, Morrissey asked the audience not to film. (They never learn; more about that later). As for questions from the audience, she pointed out that there were note cards on each chair, and questions could be written and passed up to the front. I chose not to engage in that exercise.
The panelists present were Ian Coller, an Australian who is UCI faculty, David Theo Goldberg, from South Africa, who is also a member of the UCI faculty and a long-time anti-Israel activist, and Mark LeVine, a UCI history professor, occasional op-ed writer for Al Jazeera, and also a long-time critic of Israel.
The program began with a video clip of South African legal counsel Adila Hassim addressing the ICJ and trying to argue that Israel was guilty of genocide. There was no mention in the clip of what Hamas did on October 7.
That was followed by a Skype appearance by a fellow named Joshua Niyo from someplace on the other side of the world giving the audience an explanation of the international definition of genocide. Niyo, whom I believe is from Africa, has been associated with the UCLA School of Law, and is apparently now on the staff of UC Irvine's law school as a lecturer.
I want to interject at this point that I took notes. The entire two-hour event was quite boring. There was not a lot of red meat, and it was hard to sit there for two hours even if I had been supportive of the event (which I was not). There were only a handful of passing references to October 7, and I want to try and be fair and list those as they occurred.
First was Niyo. As elements under the international definition of genocide that meet the criteria of ICJ jurisdiction, he stated that there must be a specific intent to commit genocide, that genocide must be the only possible explanation for the acts that occurred as opposed to crimes against humanity and war crimes. As for South Africa's standing to bring a case, Niyo said that every state (nation) has a common interest in the (1948) Convention on Genocide.
After Niyo came Ian Coller, who talked about genocide in its historical context. He talked about Rwanda, Bosnia, the Serbs, and Bangladesh. He made a reference to "collective guilt" referring to Israel's response against Hamas after October 7.
Then came David Theo Goldberg. He made a very brief reference to the "horrors of October 7", then moved on to other issues. He gave an overview of the history of Israel-South Africa relations going back to the apartheid era. He mentioned that Israel had trained Burmese (Myanmar) forces in the surveillance of the Rohingya (Muslim minority). He also made reference to the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown (Ferguson, Missouri) and referred to Israel having trained that particular police department. In actuality, the former chief of the St Louis County Police, Timothy Fitch, had attended a counter-terrorism seminar in Israel in 2011 sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League but had retired by the time of the Brown shooting and subsequent riots in which the St Louis County Police were involved in restoring order. By the way, the police shooting of Brown was thoroughly investigated by the Obama Justice Department, and the officer was determined to have been acting in self-defense. The officer involved in the shooting was with the Ferguson Police Department.
Goldberg further made references to the military relations between Israel and South Africa during the 1970s and added that at one point, South Africans had received training in Israel for a year. In 1981, according to Goldberg, South Africa used drones supplied by Israel in its border conflict with Angola.
Then came LeVine. He opened his remarks by pointing out to the audience that we were sitting on stolen Native land. He added that "we are the beneficiaries of the most successful genocide of all time". He then talked about "settler colonialism", a favorite buzz term for the pro-Palestinian crowd, and linked it with the term genocide.
LeVine then stated that some of the families of Israeli victims/hostages (October 7) had sent a letter to the ICJ accusing Hamas of genocide. He added that he hoped the ICJ would take it up because it would be interesting. Later, he added that in his view, the ICJ should consider the entire issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including the "occupation".
At another point, he stated that "we all know the Palestinians are indigenous".
In what was the widest reference to Hamas and the events of October 7, LeVine posed the question: "Is Hamas genocidal"? He asked why Hamas kidnapped hundreds of people to exchange for Palestinians held by Israel when they could have taken just one soldier. "Has something changed with Hamas?" He brought up the question of whether Hamas was a creation of the Israelis. Did Israel encourage the creation of Hamas? As stated previously, LeVine suggested a tribunal to examine all claims (on both sides) including the "occupation".
That was followed by q and a (written questions submitted to the panel.)
One question directed to LeVine asked him to name his sources for claiming Israel encouraged Hamas. LeVine replied for the questioner to see him after the session and he would supply him with several sources in French and other languages.
On a couple of occasions during the q and a, LeVine stated that just because one was a victim of genocide did not justify them committing genocide. He then closed out by mentioning the need for the left to be rooted in the global movement, climate justice, environmental justice, and Palestinian justice.
In closing, Morrissey told the audience that the Irvine City Council was meeting later that night to consider a call for a cease-fire and she encouraged the audience to attend if they resided in Irvine.
Videotaping and other pleasantries
One of my associates who was sitting with me in the very back of the room began to videotape using his cell phone. About 30 minutes into the event, a young lady came over to him and asked him not to videotape. My friend replied that since this was a public event at a public venue, he absolutely had the right to videotape, an argument I have had to make numerous times at UCI when attending and videotaping these events. (I myself did not videotape this event.). The young lady was joined by a young man sitting a couple of rows in front of us who also requested my friend not to videotape. At one point, I told the two that it was his right to videotape. They gave up but came back letter to press the issue. My friend refused to give in and continued to film intermittently. I subsequently learned that another member of the audience was asked to stop filming and that she refused.
After the event, the young man returned to where we were sitting. He was courteous but insisted that there should not have been any videotaping and said that we needed permission to videotape. I politely informed him that I had been through this exercise many times at UCI and told him of one past experience I had where campus police had asked me not to videotape per the request of Students for Justice in Palestine. I added that I subsequently received an apology from the campus police and was informed from that point on, their officers would be informed of our right to videotape. The State of California policy and UCI policy is that videotaping of public events in public venues is allowed as long as there is no disruption. The young man told me that we had been disruptive because he could hear us (whispering) to each other in the back row. I told him that we were whispering, and if he heard our words, I was sorry but there was no intent to disrupt anybody-as Students for Justice in Palestine routinely does. He acknowledged to me that I was being courteous to him-as he was with me.
My comment:
This entire argument about genocide is a red herring. First of all, the Palestinian population has been exploding for several decades now. On the other hand, Hamas has expressed in its very charter the desire to destroy the Jewish state and even has quoted in its charter the Islamic hadith about the Day of Atonement, where the Muslims will fight the Jews, the Jew will hide behind a tree or rock, and the tree/rock will call out, "O Muslim There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him!"' Genocidal? You be the judge.
As I have pointed out previously, what did they expect Israel to do after the atrocities of October 7? What did we do after Pearl Harbor? Yes, we and our allies bombed every major German and Japanese city to rubble, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but has anybody ever argued that we were trying to commit genocide against the German and Japanese people? No. We were fighting for our survival just as Israel is fighting for her survival. Unfortunately, the terrorists of Hamas have a long-established policy of using their own people as human shields. Even given that, the Israeli military tries to limit civilian casualties mostly by actually warning civilians that they need to evacuate-even evacuate specific buildings. Genocide? Intent to destroy the Palestinians as a people? No.
My final point is this: Even if one were a critic of Israel and supported the Palestinian narrative, any decent-thinking person, particularly a Jew, should have concluded that October 7 and the unspeakable horrors visited upon innocent Israeli civilians, to the point of babies being beheaded, put into ovens to burn, the rapes and tortures, and with American citizens among the victims and hostages, was a game changer. They should have said, "This is not what I support." I am not saying that any of the panelists actually support the acts of Hamas on October 7, but their unwillingness to discuss it in detail or come out with any strong denunciations of Hamas are disappointing to put it mildly. None of those grisly details were raised or discussed in this event. The horror of October 7 received scant attention, and the "condemnations", if one can call them that, were tepid (I did not hear the word "condemn" actually used). They should be embarrassed to talk about "genocide" by Israelis when Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, has made it clear-in their own charter-that genocide is exactly what they have in mind for every Jew in Israel. And at a time when Jews all over the world are being subjected to a resurgence in anti-Semitism not seen since the Holocaust, a resurgence mostly fanned by the pro-Palestinian movement, mostly on our university campuses, what do they do? They side with Israel's enemies, as they always have.
For years, I have been watching these spectacles at UCI and other places. The fact that they have doubled down in the wake of October 7 and the barbarities committed by Hamas is beyond comprehension. They, of course, will deny they support Hamas only that they advocate for the Palestinian people. Indeed, Hamas is barely mentioned in passing by this crowd with good reason. Israel has declared war justifiably on Hamas, not the Palestinian people. It is the terrorists and butchers of Hamas that the Israeli army is fighting, an enemy that deliberately puts its own civilians in front of their fighters, rocket launchers, etc. (which the panelists also neglected to mention) in order to win the propaganda war against Israel, quite effectively I might add. Look at how many useful idiots they have fooled in the US, especially on our university campuses.
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