The San Jose State Incident. Article by David Meir-Levy

What follows below is an article by David Meir-Levy of San Jose State University. It appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and concerns the disruption of a speaking event featuring an Israeli diplomat. (I have previously posted on this incident.)

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Opinion: Free speech endangered on campuses, including San Jose State
By David Meir-Levi
Special to the Mercury News
Posted: 02/18/2009


Few rights are dearer to the American people than freedom of speech. But there are rational and legal limits. Incitement to violence, to unlawful activity, or to the violent overthrow of the American government are not protected as free speech; neither is slander, nor defamation. Free speech does not require that anyone listen, nor that an institution provide a podium for speech it finds objectionable.

I assert that this precious freedom should not extend to those who would exploit it in order to interfere with the free speech of others.

I witnessed that interference at San Jose State University on Feb. 5.

The guest speaker was Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor. The lecture hall was almost full 30 minutes before the event began. Women wearing Muslim head coverings and men and other women sporting the traditional Palestinian neck scarves had come early to pack the room. Some brought anti-Israel posters and Palestinian flags. During Tor's presentation there were hostile interruptions from these early arrivals; but when the consul general attempted to respond, politely and thoughtfully, he was vociferously shouted down.

The threat is real

It became clear that these disruptive elements had come with the express purpose of interfering with the presentation. Their well-organized, vociferous, choreographed tactics hijacked the event. Campus police refused to take action because they feared instigating a riot. Ultimately, Tor was escorted out of the room for his own safety in a phalanx of officers.

Other campuses have suffered similar egregious behavior by what appear to be Muslims or other anti-Israel elements. Campus demonstrations by Muslim and anti-Zionist groups throughout the U.S. and Canada have forced universities to cancel speakers for security reasons. Some demonstrations have become violent and destructive — including, just days ago, an assault by a mob on Jewish students in the Hillel House at York University in Canada. Yet anti-Israel groups need no security for their own speakers.

Such behavior poses a grave and long-term threat to the very raison d'etre of the university: the ultimate bastion of free speech, marketplace of ideas and arena for civil discourse and debate. If such hostile forces are allowed to act unrestrained, they will destroy the university as we know it.

It appears that governance at San Jose State and across the country has not perceived the urgency of this threat. There is a critical and pressing need to enforce limitations on groups whose intent is to violate the free speech of others. Such strategies may include:


Prohibiting lending the university's name to, or approving the use of university facilities for, events sponsored by groups related to those who perpetrate such disturbances.


Escorting demonstrators to public areas where their demonstrations cannot interfere with an event.


Giving notice to audiences that security forces will physically remove disrupters.

Action is needed

University governance must decide where it wants the casualties: either take actions now which may employ security forces to keep order, and perhaps involve lawsuits against offenders; or stand idly by as the forces of chaos hijack our universities and impose their will upon anyone who arouses their ire. The casualties in the former case are the events which may require police action to quell disturbances. The casualties in the latter are ultimately the universities themselves.

University governance must display the courage to protect our freedom of speech from those who seek to curtail it, and to defend our universities from those who wish to usurp them.


David Meir-Levi ias a lecturer in the History Department at San Jose State Univesity. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.

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Fousesquawk comment: More thuggery on a college campus by Muslim Student Union thugs followed by university cowardice. The speaker was a diplomat from a country which is a US ally-whether the MSU likes it or not. These offending students should be expelled. But they won't be of course.

Article by Judea Pearl (UCLA)

University of California at Los Angeles


I am pleased to post the below article, which was written by Judea Pearl, a professor at UCLA and father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl. The article appears in Jewish Journal (Opinion).

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February 18, 2009

Dust Over Campus Life: UCLA at a Crossroad
By Judea Pearl



Remember Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”? Written in the late 1950s, the play describes the transformation of a quiet, peaceful town into anarchy when one after another of its residents is transformed into a lumbering, thick-skinned brute. Only Berenger, a stand-in for the playwright, tries to hold out against the collective rush into rhinocerism.

First, the townspeople notice a stray rhinoceros rumbling down the street. No one takes a great deal of notice — “It made a lot of dust.’’ ‘’Stupid quadruped not worth talking about’’ — although it does trample one woman’s cat.

Before long, an ethical debate develops over the rhino way of life vs. the human way of life. ‘’Why not just leave them alone,’’ a friend advises Berenger. ‘’You get used to it.’’ The debate is quickly muted into blind acceptance of the rhino ethic, the entire town is joining the marching herd, and Berenger finds himself alone, partly resisting, partly enjoying the uncontrolled sounds coming out his own throat: “Honk, Honk, Honk”.

These sounds from Ionesco’s play echoed in my ears on Jan. 22, when an e-mail from a colleague at Indiana University asked: “Being at UCLA, you must know about this symposium ... pretty bad.” Attached to it was Roberta Seid’s report on the now famous “Human Rights and Gaza” symposium held a day earlier at UCLA (see “UCLA Symposium on Gaza Ignites Strong Criticism,” Jewish Journal, Feb. 11, 2009).

To refresh readers’ memory, this symposium, organized by UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies (CNES), was billed as a discussion of human rights in Gaza. Instead, the director of the center, Susan Slyomovics, invited four longtime demonizers of Israel for a panel that Seid describes as a reenactment of a “1920 Munich beer hall.” Not only did the panelists portray Hamas as a guiltless, peace-seeking, unjustly provoked organization, they also bashed Israel, her motives, her character, her birth and conception and led the excited audience into chanting “Zionism is Nazism,” “F—-, f—- Israel,” in the best tradition of rhino liturgy.

But the primary impact of the event became evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, partially informed students woke up to read an article in the campus newspaper titled, “Scholars Say Attack on Gaza an Abuse of Human Rights,” to which the good name of the University of California was attached, and from which the word “terror” and the genocidal agenda of Hamas were conspicuously absent. This mock verdict, presented as an outcome of supposedly dispassionate scholarship, is where Hamas culture scored its main triumph — another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.

Naturally, when students came complaining to me about how abused and frightened they felt during the symposium and how concerned they are about the direction the Center for Near East Studies is taking, I felt terribly guilty. “We should have anticipated such travesties,” I told myself, “we, the Jewish faculty at UCLA, should have preempted it with a true symposium on human rights, one that honestly tackles the tough moral and legal dilemmas that the Gaza situation presents to civilized society: How does society protect the human rights of a civilian population in which rocket-launching terrorists are hiding? How does one reconcile the right of a country to defend itself with the wrong of killing women and children when the former entails the latter? What is a legitimate military target?”

These are dilemmas that had not surfaced before the days of rockets and missiles, and we, the Jewish faculty, ought to have pioneered their study. Instead, we allowed Hamas’ sympathizers to frame the academic agenda. How can we face our students from the safety of our offices when they deal with anti-Israel abuse on a daily basis — in the cafeteria, the library and the classroom — and as alarming reports of mob violence are arriving from other campuses (San Jose State University, Spartan Daily, Feb. 9, and York University, Globe and Mail, Feb. 13)?

Burdened with guilt, I called some colleagues, but quickly realized that a few have already made the shift to a strange-sounding language, not unlike “Honk, Honk.” Some have entered the debate phase, arguing over the rhino way of life vs. the human way of life, and the majority, while still speaking in a familiar English vocabulary, are frightened beyond anything I have seen at UCLA in the 40 years that I have served on its faculty.

Colleagues told me about lecturers whose appointments were terminated, professors whose promotion committees received “incriminating” letters, and about the impossibility of revealing one’s pro-Israel convictions without losing grants, editorial board membership, or invitation to panels and conferences. And all, literally all, swore me into strict secrecy — we have entered the era of “the new Maranos.”

Exaggeration? Jewish paranoia? Hardly. I invite skeptics to repeat the private experiment that I conducted among Jewish faculty in a reception hosted last year by the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA. I asked each of them privately: “Tell me, aren’t you a Zionist?” I then counted the number of times my conversant would look to the right, then to the left, before whispering: “Yes, but ...” I am sure that anyone who repeats this experiment will be as alarmed as I was about the level of academic terror on U.S. campuses, especially in the humanities, political and social sciences. Many generations of Jewish students will pay dearly for the failure of our leadership to acknowledge, assess and form a unified front to combat this academic terror.

Are university administrators aware of this suffocating intellectual atmosphere and how it negates any illusion of “academic freedom” — once the hallmark of university life?

UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, in a letter to the Daily Bruin ( Feb. 9), reasserted the university’s commitment to “academic freedom” and “scholarly balance,” but did not indicate whether the Gaza symposium as choreographed by CSNE was a positive or negative contributor to these noble objectives. What students and faculty find lacking in the chancellor’s statement is some characterization of “civil discourse,” which he identified as “essential to the intellectual climate at UCLA.” They argue that any panel advocating white supremacy or boycott of Muslim scholars would have invited a totally different reaction from the chancellor, one that would have addressed the appropriateness of the content, not merely its style of delivery. Specifically, what Jewish students and faculty all over America expect to hear is a recognition that the demonization of the Jewish state, along with Islamophobic and racial slurs, are offensive to large segments of the university community and should therefore be discouraged, not censored, from academic discourse.

On the local scene, the issue UCLA administration must now face is the future direction of the Center for Near East Studies. The chancellor’s note in the Daily Bruin states that “the university strives overall for scholarly balance,” and cites three lectures by Israeli diplomats sponsored by the Israel Study Program at UCLA. Clearly, presentations by Israeli diplomats are epistemologically and situationally not equivalent to an anti-Israel presentation by supposedly dispassionate scholars. The question follows whether the university plans to achieve its “scholarly balance” through “apartheid” or through respectful dialogue. In other words, should UCLA students conclude that, from now on, the name, reputation and resources of the CNES will be harnessed to support primarily anti-coexistence voices, while pro-coexistence voices will be diverted to the (much smaller) Israel Study Program and other centers or departments?

Programmatically speaking, such a division would be a mistake. First, voices of coexistence need to be heard by all audiences concerned with regional issues, and the Center for Near East Studies (as its name implies) is the academic body chartered to embrace these issues. Second, given that Israel will be a major player in every peace process, to exclude Israel’s society from the scope of CNES’s interest and activity would be a disservice to Near East education and research. Finally, the insulation of CNES from the coexistence camp would betray community expectations. In the 20 years of its existence, this Center has garnered the reputation and tradition of being a meeting place for ideas of all players in the Near East. To whimsically ostracize one of the players and turn the CNES into a politicized propaganda center for anti-coexistence forces is not what students, parents, faculty, alumni and the community at large would expect of UCLA.

The UCLA community deserves to be told where the Center for Near East Studies is heading.

In retrospect, two positive outcomes are emerging from the Gaza symposium of Jan. 21. First, Jewish students have heard, many for the first time, that someone will pay attention to the agony and bewilderment through which they struggle to maintain their identity on campus. Second, Jewish faculty have seen what silence and indifference can lead to under rhino culture, and have realized (I hope) that a coordinated proactive effort to address campus anti-Israelism, cutting across all the political spectrum, is long overdue.

Our students are tomorrow’s leaders — they deserve our efforts to reclaim their dignity and assertiveness.
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Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after his son. He is a co-editor of “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl” (Jewish Lights, 2004).

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Fousesquawk comment: Professor Pearl's words represent a refreshing voice of dignity, reason and righteousness amid the squalor at UCLA masquerading as scholarship. The problem he describes is not unique to UCLA. It is a cancer that has infected other campuses of the University of California system and universities all over the US. Undoubtedly, it will continue, protected under the umbrella of free speech. Our mission is to expose it to the public for the fraud that it is, challenge it and give our students alternative opinions. It is our children who are being exposed to these fraudulent "scholars" who are speading their poison of hate. Even more alarmingly, many Jewish students on campuses are being subjected to attacks on their very identity because of the Israel-Palestine issue. It is wrong and shameful. Unruly students, inciting speakers, radical leftist professors and cowardly administrators must be exposed to the public. Only an outraged public can effectively bring about change.

Football Parity-Government Style

"From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs."

-Karl Marx, noted football fan



News flash:

Congress has just passed another bailout package proposed by President Obama. Under the plan, the Detroit Lions will receive the entire Pittsburgh Steelers starting defensive squad. (The Steelers will continue to pay their salaries, however.)

President Obama praised the act by Congress, while Rush Limbaugh called it, "just another example of the producers and achievers in this country having to foot the bill for the non-producers".

Karl Marx Would Be Proud

"Oh yee suckers"


Today, President Obama announced a 75 billion dollar plan to bail out homeowners who have been unable to make payments on homes they purchased. As is his wont, Obama laid the blame for the mortgage mess squarely on the lenders.

Under the plan, there will be tons of money for the home owners and tons of money for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And where will all these tons of money come from? From us-the tax-payers, the home-owners who bought homes they could afford and always made the payments.

What Obama didn't mention in his announcement today was the real culprit in the mortgage collapse-the Government. Obama didn't say anything about Barney Frank. You remember Barney Frank, don't you? You should because he is still around as Chairman of the Financial Services Committee. He is the guy who pressured lenders to give out to home mortgage borrowers from lower economic segments of the population under threat of discrimination suits. He is the guy who was involved in a romantic relationship with former Fannie Mae executive, Herb Moses, to whom he brought home the bacon. He is the guy who assured us all that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were doing fine when the White House and Republicans were raising red flags and calling for greater scrutiny.

Obama never mentioned the name of Chris Dodd, another defender of the two above entities, who received the most money from them of any member of Congress.

Obama never mentioned the name of Maxine Waters, who also defended Fannie and Freddie, in Fannie's case adding, ".....under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines."

Follow the money, folks.

Even more alarming is the inescapable fact that what we are witnessing is a massive and rapid move toward socialism. The sound you hear is the massive transfer of wealth from the people who produce to those who do not.

"From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs."

This is the change that candidate Barack Obama was talking about. Not a change in the openness and transparency of government. Not a change toward less corruption. Not a change in reforming our rotten political system. It is a change toward socialism.

Kalifornia Budget Update-No Budget- No Update

According to my records, the last time I wrote about the failure of Sacramento to pass a state budget was February 4. Guess what! Still no budget (as if I care).

The way things stand now, the pols in Sacramento are one vote shy (1 Republican vote) of passing a budget with 14 billion in tax increases. So now, the Democratic leadership has instituted a lockdown of the capitol until a budget is passed. Lawmakers have now brought in sleeping bags and reportedly the Sergeant at Arms has confiscated the keys of the lawmakers. Democrats are adamant about tax hikes and most Republicans are adamant about not raising taxes and cutting spending.

If you think given the huge budget deficit facing California some sort of tax increase is reasonable, consider this:

California has the highest state income tax in the nation.

We also have the highest sales tax in the nation.

We also pay the highest gas tax in the nation plus an extra 50 cents per
gallon for a special ingredient that is "saving the environment".

California has the highest business tax in the West, which is resulting in businesses leaving the state in droves and taking their jobs with them.

Nevertheless, it isn't enough.


"Make it more!"

The problem is out-of-control spending. And what are we paying for, you ask?

Tens of millions a year for illegal aliens in the form of social services, medical care, education and incarceration costs for the criminal element among them.

Unions. And that is huge. Which unions? The teachers union, prison guard union and state employees unions.

Worried about the rising cost of health care? There's a solution. Get yourself incarcerated in California and you will get free health care that exceeds what the folks on the outside are getting. All that is being "upgraded" as we speak to the tune of about 100 million.

And what is our illustrious governor, Arnold Kennedy-Schwarzenegger doing during all this?




If I were a Republican lawmaker in Sacramento, I would hit the Sergeant of Arms over the head, get my car keys back and head to Mexico for a year's vacation. At this point, I could care less if California has a budget.

Roland Burris-Building on that Mausoleum

The Burris Mausoleum-The sculptors are on hold.


News item: Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) now says that he did, in fact, have discussions about raising campaign funds for Rod Blagoyevich. Calls mount for him to resign.

If there could possibly be any additional room on that pre-fabricated mausoleum for Roland Burris in a Chicago cemetery, I suggest the following quotations from The Great Man, himself:

"No money was involved in my appointment."

"On second thought, it depends on what your definition of "money" is.

"I never discussed money with anyone."

"On second thought, it depends on what your definition of "discussed" is.

"On second thought, I think I'll be cremated."

"Weep not for me because I am not here. I decided cremation was a better idea."

Meanwhile, Senator Majority "Leader", Harry Reid issued a statement supporting the man he once vowed to keep out of the Senate for cooperating with state and federal officials investigating whether Burris committed perjury.

"We just have to wait and see" what happens on a number of investigative fronts."

"I don't think it's for me to say," Reid told reporters after a speech in Carson City. The "story seems to be changing day by day."

"It's too bad," Reid later added, "that we're having all this difficulty replacing Sen. Obama."

Now there's a leader among men.

Anti-Semitism on University Campuses

Anti-Semitic demagogue Imam Mohammed al-Asi at UC-Irvine



San Francisco Rally January 2009


As my readers know, I have written often about the increasing intolerance that exists on our university campuses; intolerance toward conservative opinion, intolerance toward anything that goes against the principle of political correctness, and more recently, intolerance toward Jews. It is this trend that I think demands the attention of the public and our elected leaders in Washington.

The on-going issue of Israel/Palestine has been a volatile issue on our college campuses for years. Since the recent war in Gaza, it has increased dramatically. Fueled by radical Muslim Student Associations on many North American campuses (which includes Canada)aided by radical anarchists ready to jump into any anti-establishment cause, leftist professors and cowardly administrators, there has been an alarming increase recently in anti-Jewish expression, not just on our campuses, but in street demonstrations as well. It is one thing to hear demonstrators chanting "Free Palestine". It is quite another to hear them chanting, "Long Live Hitler", "Go back to the ovens", and draw swastikas over the Star of David. That is what we have witnessed in the demonstrations that have broken out from Ft Lauderdale to Los Angeles to San Francisco to Toronto to name just a few in recent weeks.

In recent years, on many campuses in the US and Canada, Jewish students are feeling increasingly uncomfortable on campus, often physically afraid. They hear their very faith attacked by radical voices. They are being ostracized in classrooms, not only by other students, but by professors as well. They are afraid to speak up when they hear their professors attack Israel and Zionism then castigate them in front of the class if they dare speak up. Just this month, a group of Jewish students at York University in Toronto, while trying to hold a demonstration on an unrelated event, were chased into the campus Hillel building by a mob of anti-Israel demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags. There they had to remain barricaded while the mob chanted their slogans including, interestingly, "let the non-whites in!"

As I stated above, much of this is fueled by radical Muslim students on campus aided by other radical leftists looking for excitement. But what is the response of the so-called adults who run our universities?

As for faculty, which (at least in the humanities) is overwhelmingly dominated by leftists, there is no sympathy for Jewish students. Their focus is making the case for the Palestinian cause. In many cases, Arab professors verbally berate Jewish students who dare to speak up against the anti-Israel diatribes they throw out in their classes. In other cases, professors who were born Jewish have showed their rebellion by turning against everything Jewish-especially Israel. The poster boy for this faction is discredited professor Norman Finklestein, recently denied tenure at DePaul University, now making his living appearing at campuses across the country damning Israel and America. To listen to his non-stop monologues is an exercise in endurance as he throws out one insult after another toward Israel, America, Bush, Cheney, and anyone who disagrees with him. This man-child absolutely radiates and oozes arrogance and condescension.

Yet, he is welcomed as a rock star at many universities including UC Irvine, where I teach part-time. When Finklestein comes to spread his poison, hundreds turn out to see him including deans and vice-chancellors who laugh at his silly quips and applaud his hateful statements. To watch an event featuring Finklestein is to witness the sickness and perversion that permeates American universities.

Part of the reason that Jews have to endure harassment and insults to their identities is that it is part and parcel of the rejection of Western values that headlines the agenda of the universities. Israel, and thus Jewry, represent Western culture, civilization and values-which is considered bad. What is celebrated is the ideology of the "oppressed"-the non-Western, non-white you will. It is "The Oppressed" which is romanticized on American university campuses. As far as these people are concerned, the Jews are just part of Western values-which must be rejected. Add Israel to the mix, and what we see is an explosion of hate.

Are there faculty-including Jewish faculty who see the wrong with this mentality? Yes, there are. Unfortunately, most remain silent-or even deny the problem exists. There are Jewish advocacy groups which also deny the problem. In many cases, they see their role as working quietly within the system to effect change, lobbying university administrators to take action and remaining quiet when they are ignored. For many of these professors, tenure and career advancement is their main consideration. For many Jewish organizations, especially those that must work with the university to carry out their activities, they remain silent in order to protect their positions or their power base. It is disgraceful.

And the administrators, the presidents, chancellors, vice chancellors and deans? In too many cases, they are just plain cowards. Presidents and chancellors are afraid of the faculty. Ask Lawrence Summers, ex-president of Harvard. Certainly, they are intimidated by the Muslim Student Associations and CAIR-ever vigilant for a case they can file a discrimination lawsuit on. Or any many cases, university administrators actually sympathize with the Muslim Student Associations. Jewish students who go to the administrators to complain are ignored. They just don't care.

They don't care if their Jewish students are chased from building to building on campus.

They don't care if their Jewish students are afraid to speak up for Israel or afraid to even show their Jewish identity.

They don't care if radical Muslim clerics come to their campus and make hateful speeches.

They don't care if a Mohammed al-Asi, an imam, states on campus;

"Jews are low-life ghetto-dwellers. "You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew."

They simply don't care.

Nor does our media care. They hardly report these incidents. Why is it that we have to go on the Internet or to blogs to hear the hate-filled words and violence taking place on our campuses and streets-especially since the Israel-Gaza fighting began? Why? Because this is not part of the agenda of the main-stream media.

This is not a matter of where people stand on the Israel issue. This is a matter of rising anti-Semitism on our shores-against people who have been a part of our society for a long time.

So what is to be done?

1 Publicize the issue and inform the public of what is happening-especially on our campuses. Heat needs to be brought to campus administrators who allow themselves to be intimidated by leftist forces on campus. They need to see that their money, their student base-and their jobs depend on acting responsibly and decently. They need to be told that if this situation continues, alumni will be asked to cease contributions and Jewish students will be discouraged from attending offending schools. The universities need to be held accountable for their failure to enforce their own codes of conduct regarding civil discourse.

2 Jewish groups need to stand up and demand support from their fellow Americans against this assault. And we need to respond.


3 Jewish groups and other supporting organizations need to organize speaking events-at synagogues, churches, universities and other venues educating people as to what is happening on our campuses and what is being said at other anti-Israel demonstrations on our streets. If the American people are aware, they will support our cause.

4 Get our political leaders involved-right up to the President of the United States-who needs to speak to the American public on this issue now. We also need to ask our political leaders to look into the Saudi money that is being contributed to universities which leads to more Jihadist propaganda.

5 Legislation needs to be passed so that religious discrimination is also fully included in our civil rights laws. What that requires-and what is lacking- is wording that Jews are also a minority who are entitled to equal protection.

6 Where appropraite, legal action should be initiated, perhaps a class-axtion lawsuit, to protect the civil rights of Jewish university students on campus.

7 Jewish organizations need to put aside their differences and turf battles in order to work together. If they remain divided, their enemies win.

People, what we are witnessing today in America is a resurgence of anti-Semitism that is spreading. It is unworthy of our nation and our people. Yet, many Americans are not even aware of what is happening. We must recognize that this is part and parcel of the Jihadist movement in the US, which has joined forces with the radical left in order to further their agenda. If the American people are made aware, I believe they will respond and support righteousness and decency.

From the National Black Republican Association

As I have done in the past, I am pleased to post the latest National Black Republican Association bulletin I received from the director, Dr Frances Rice.

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DEMOCRATS SOLD OUT AMERICA FOR 30 PIECES OF SILVER

By Frances Rice

In a moment that will live in infamy, President Barack Hussein Obama fostered upon America a gigantic Socialist Stimulus Bill that will plunge America deeply into the failed Euro-socialist psychosis.

Obama conjured up images of the Great Depression to intimidate the US Congress into voting for his $787 billion pork-laden stimulus bill that was crafted in the dead of night by liberal Democrats and read by no member of Congress before they voted the next day. Now, economists are revealing that Obama's Depression analogy is historically false and fearmongering at its worse. History shows that FDR's New Deal blocked recovery and plunged our nation into a deeper recession. What really got us out of the Great Depression was World War Two.

Click below to read the article "The Real Lessons of the Great Depression" by Michael Barone.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2009/02/14/the_real_lessons_of_the_great_depression

Click below to read the article "Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'" by Bradley R. Schiller.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457303244386495.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

When Democrats voted for that bloated stimulus bill to reward their special interests and fund every kooky item on their socialist agenda, they sold out America for a bag full of our tax dollars -- their 30 pieces of silver. No Republican in the US House of Representatives voted for that bill. In the US Senate, only three moderate Republicans voted with the Democrats to saddle our future generations with a massive budget deficit.

Obama's cruelest slap was on the face of black Americans. Buried in the bowels of that big government spending bill is a poison pill that kills welfare reform. Welfare money will no longer be used for job training, child care or transportation. Instead, the money will now, once again, be just a government handout that keeps black children trapped in generational poverty. Uncle Sam has replaced the father in the homes of poor blacks because you cannot get a welfare check if there is a man in the house. Democrats have been running black communities for the past 40 years. The socialist polices of the Democrats have created a culture of dependency on government handouts and turned black communities into economic and social wastelands. Socialism is a moral and economic cancer that destroys families, communities and nations.

Hidden deeply in the stimulus package is funding for social engineering programs that can become the seeds for Obama to become our first American dictator. An Obama supporter put up a sign that says: "One Nation Under Obama". That sign is a chilling look into the world of Obama where America is no longer "One Nation Under God".

For the 233 years of our nation's existence, our rights came from God, not man. The Declaration of Independence signed on July 4, 1776 declares: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

In the year 2009, we find ourselves faced with a serious question. Will we, the people of the United States of America, consent to having Obama as our god and leave it to him to dictate what rights we will have?

With the fawning media refusing to hold Obama accountable, Congress in control of Democrats and Obama poised to appoint extreme left-wingers to the US Supreme Court, there will be no check on Obama's power – except we, the people.

While telling us to be "civil", Obama uses fear and intimidation to silence his critics and seize unprecedented power over our lives and every aspect of our entire economy – our banks, automotive industry, airlines, food, drugs, education system, public health, energy production, science, and media broadcasts. Obama wants to plant our nation's feet so firmly in the concrete of dead-end socialism that America will never recover and never again be the land of the free.

Will we fight for our freedom, using the non-violent means of Republican Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or will we cower like cowards out of fear of being called "racist" or "divisive" and allow our country to be turned into a failed socialist nation?

Will we follow the courageous example of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks who refused to sit on the back of the segregated bus, or will we sit like sheep with our heads bowed on the back of Obama's socialist bus?

We, as American citizens, have three powerful tools we can use o fight against Obama's socialism – our money, our time and our vote.

Money Talks. We can cancel our subscriptions to liberal newspapers and magazines. We can make our lives a "TARP FREE ZONE" by refusing to put our money in banks or buy products from manufacturers that take TARP Two money. We can donate to Republican candidates and Republican organizations. Be creative in deciding how to use your money to fight for the soul of America.

Time Chalks. We can participate in "No To Socialism" protest rallies in our cities and our nation's capitol. We can write letters of protest to President Obama and our members of Congress. We can chalk up time as volunteers with our local Republican Party organizations.

Voters Walk. We can refuse to vote for any Democrat running for Congress in 2010 because doing so keeps liberal Democrats in control of Congress. In 2012, we can refuse to vote for a Democrat to be our president.

Wake up America. Fight for what is right. Just say NO to Socialism!

Click here for more information about the National Black Republican Association

The UCLA "Symposium" on Israel and Gaza

Another college administrator in action (UCLA)



The below article is written by Tom Tugend for The Jewish Journal and concerns a symposium held on the UCLA campus on January 21, 2009.


The Jewish Journal


February 11, 2009
UCLA Symposium on Gaza Ignites Strong Criticism


By Tom Tugend


http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/ucla_symposium_on_gaza_ignites_strong_criticism_20090211/




Academic seminars are so numerous at UCLA that they rarely have much of an afterlife, but this has not been the case with the symposium on “Human Rights and Gaza” held Jan. 21 on campus.


Even three weeks later, some outraged critics across the country continue to weigh in and to characterize the symposium as an “academic lynching,” a “one-sided witch hunt of Israel,” a “Hamas recruiting rally” or, at the very least, “a degradation of academic standards.”


On Monday, UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block issued a statement urging the campus community to “engage in civil discourse” and “respectful discussion” on even the most controversial topics.


At issue in the symposium were the alleged human rights crimes against Gaza residents during the three-week incursion by Israeli forces, launched with the announced purpose of eliminating persistent missile firings by Hamas militants on Israeli communities .


While critics of the symposium, who spoke to a reporter after the session, were especially upset by the audience conduct during a raucous question-and-answer period, the one-sidedness of the professorial presentations also drew sharp objections. Podcasts of all of the talks are online(visit jewishjournal.com), although the question-and-answer portion is not.


Professor Susan Slyomovics, director of the sponsoring Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) and the symposium moderator, had invited four of the leading academic critics of Israel, and she opened the event by promising the audience of some 400 that it would learn the “truth” about Gaza, thus far hidden or distorted by the mainstream media.


The professors’ presentations were generally calmly delivered and well modulated, but spiced with anecdotes and conclusions that left no doubt that Israel was guilty not only of war crimes in the Gaza fighting but was pretty much at the root of all the Mideast’s problems since the inception of modern Zionism.


Leading off was UCLA historian Gabriel Piterberg, who was raised in Israel, graduated from Tel Aviv University and served in the Israeli army. He opened his talk with a telling anecdote: In a recent phone conversation, his brother, a former officer in the Israeli air force, quoted an Israeli Apache helicopter pilot as telling a radio station, “We should bombard Gaza so hard that Dresden will pale in comparison.”


The reference was to the series of air raids on the German city by waves of British and American bombers in February 1945, which created a firestorm and claimed between 24,000 to 40,000 civilian lives.


Piterberg went on to liken Zionist policy since 1900 to historical colonial enterprises, in which European nations eradicated and enslaved the indigenous populations.


Next, professor Lisa Hajjar, who chairs the Law and Society Program at UC Santa Barbara, opened with a fairly dispassionate discussion on the rules of warfare and the responsibilities of occupying powers.


She also said that regardless of its earlier troop withdrawal, Israel still occupies Gaza because it controls the enclave’s borders and air space. Since it is illegal for an occupying power to make war on the occupied, Israel is guilty of war crimes, she concluded.


The third speaker was Richard Falk, emeritus professor of international law and practice at Princeton University, who was recently named U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories.


Falk, who joined Piterberg as the second Jewish professor on the panel, has previously compared the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi extermination of Jews and was recently refused an entry visa by Israeli authorities.


Falk maintained that Hamas and its missiles posed no security threat to Israel, that Israel had refused Hamas truce offers and labeled Israeli action in Gaza as a “savagely criminal operation.”


The final speaker was UCLA English literature professor Saree Makdisi, who stated that when Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the continuing blockade “made Gaza a prison and [Israel] threw away the keys.” He added that it was Israel’s “premeditated state policy” to kill Gazans and stunt the growth of their children.


While the four professorial talks were delivered and received quietly, interrupted only occasionally by applause, emotions escalated during the closing question-and-answer session.


Most of the questioners were adults, well beyond student age, and their softball questions about control of Washington by the Jewish lobby and how to divest from Israel were easily fielded by the speakers.


The mood changed when a few pro-Israel attendees got their chance, according to audience members. When Eric Golub asked Hajjar whether she would consider as prosecutable crimes Hamas’ murder of Fatah rivals, the use of civilians as human shields and recruitment of suicide bombers, the professor responded, “If you think I favor suicide bombings, then you have that Zionist hat on your head screwed on way too tight.”


Hajjar later retracted her comment, but her initial response was met by audience cheers and chants of “Zionism is racism,” “Zionism is Nazism,” “Free, Free Palestine” and “F…, f… Israel.”


Although there were no threats of violence and a policeman was at hand, when the meeting concluded, some members of the audience engaged pro-Israel students with further cries of “f… you.”


Shirley Eshaghian, a psychology senior and president of Bruins for Israel, said she left the symposium shaken.


“I never felt so unsafe on campus,” she said. “People were shouting, and I had this horrible feeling that I, as a Jew, was being attacked; that I was being called a Nazi.”


Dana Sadgat, an 18-year-old freshman in computer science, said she was also deeply upset. “This was not put on by a bunch of kids; this was run by an academic department at UCLA,” she said. “There was no speaker there for Israel; there wasn’t even one who was not against Israel. But this experience has made me even more pro-Israel.”


The two students agreed with other attendees that at no point did Slyomovics, the organizer and moderator of the event, try to intervene or urge the audience to observe a basic level of decorum.


Seminars and symposia that raise controversial viewpoints are common at UCLA and are, indeed, considered one of the hallmarks of a free university.


Partially for that reason, and perhaps because, apparently, no pro-Israel UCLA professors were in attendance, the symposium held on Jan. 21 evoked little reaction at first.


That changed within a week, due mainly to a detailed report on the symposium written and circulated by e-mail by Roberta Seid, who added her own rebuttals to the charges against Israel. (The report can be read by visiting this article at jewishjournal.com.) Seid is a historian who teaches a course on modern Israel at UC Irvine, and she also serves as director of educational research for the pro-Israel organization, StandWithUs.


Her 10-page report mobilized critics who had not attended the symposium. “I got an e-mail from a friend in Indiana who asked me, ‘What’s going on at your university?’” said UCLA computer science professor Judea Pearl.


Some of the strongest objections to the symposium have come from UCLA faculty often considered peaceniks by the mainstream Jewish community, such as Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, UCLA Hillel director.


“This symposium constituted a reprehehensible academic abuse by CNES,” Seidler-Feller said in an interview. “The center was for many years an internationally respected institution, but it is becoming more and more representative of only one point of view. UCLA has been a pretty calm place, but this symposium has pierced the calm.”


David N. Myers, director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, who has publicly protested the level of Israeli force used in Gaza, also expressed reservations. After stressing the university’s role as “an open marketplace of ideas” and Israel’s actions in Gaza as a legitimate topic for academic discussion, Myers described the symposium as a form of rhetorical overkill.


“This was a forum in which there was relatively little difference in overall perspective among the four speakers, all of whom were very critical of Israel,” he said. “I myself wondered if it was necessary to have four speakers, rather than one, or perhaps two, address this topic.”


Two other UCLA professors, considered middle of the road, also responded to questions by The Journal.


Neil Netanel, a law professor and director of the Israel Studies Program, said that according to all reports reaching him, the symposium was “a one-sided witch hunt of Israel.”


However, he added, “I cannot say that the symposium was outside the accepted boundaries of academic discussion…. But I, personally, would be embarrassed to put on such an overtly one-sided panel, both in substance and tone, on a highly contentious and controversial issue.”


Pearl, who is also a Jewish Journal columnist, extended the discussion to a wider audience through an essay in The Wall Street Journal marking the anniversary of the killing of his son, journalist Daniel Pearl, by Islamic extremists in Pakistan. In the column, Pearl labeled the symposium a “Hamas recruiting rally,” but, speaking to The Jewish Journal, he emphasized a different concern.


“The CNES, which once had a reputation for open-mindedness and diversity, has been closing its door to one segment of Near Eastern society, represented by the Israeli people,” he said. “That is a loss for its students and shame for UCLA.”


At the center of the controversy is Slyomovics, who joined UCLA as an anthropology professor in 2006 and became CNES director a year ago. According to some reports at UCLA, she speaks Hebrew and attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but there is no such data in her voluminous Google file.


She picked up the phone when a Jewish Journal reporter called her office and asked for comments.


“Read the podcasts of the symposium on our Web site,” she said.


When informed that the reporter had done so, she said, “I have a student here, excuse me,” and hung up.


Subsequent e-mails to Slyomovics asking for information about the scope and policy of CNES were not acknowledged.


In his reaction to the controversy this week, UCLA Chancellor Block also noted that “many people have contacted me — and some have even written news articles — to express profound disappointment over what they believe was the panel’s unbalanced presentation and lack of decorum during the question-and-answer period.”


At the same time, Block renewed UCLA’s commitment to the “free exchange of ideas ... as a core value of academic freedom” and praised UCLA as one of the most invigorating intellectual campuses in the world.


“Our students must hear diverse viewpoints, if only to sharpen their own thought processes and strengthen their arguments,” Block added.


The chancellor noted that a number of prominent Israeli diplomats have spoken on campus recently, and he lauded the recent dedication of a UCLA “Peace Pole” by students of widely differing backgrounds and opinions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fousesquawk comment: How about UCLA Chancellor Gene Block DEMAND that "the campus community" engage in "civil discourse" and "respectful discussion" or they will get the boot? When I was going to school, unruly behavior was a punishable offense. Not so in today's academia.

My Report on "Whither the Levant" (Uncondensed)

"Who let the skunks in?"


What follows below is my complete report on the conference held at UC-Irvine on January 31, 2009 entitled; "Whither the Levant". This, as stated previously, was a full day and evening of non-stop Israel-bashing. A condensed and edited version appeared in Frontpage blog and Campus Watch.


On January 31, 2009, I attended an all-day conference at the University of California at Irvine entitled; Whither the Levant-The Crisis of the Nation State: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine. This event was organized by the Levantine Cultural Center of Los Angeles and the Middle East Studies Student Initiative at UCI and co-sponsored by the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies at UCI, the America Friends Service Committee and LA Jews for Peace. Other individual co-sponsors were Diane Shammas, Jeanette Shammas, Asda Farah, Kanan Hamzeh, Bana Hilal, Lawrence Joseph, Casey Kasem, the Sallam-Shalom Educational Foundation and the Magic Lamp Restaurant of Long Beach (which provided catering.) . The event lasted from 11 am to past 8 pm and consisted of three panel discussions and two films on Lebanon during the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. Depending on which event was on-going at the time, attendance was anywhere from 50 to 150 people by my estimation. The audience was overwhelmingly to almost completely anti-Israel. (There may have been a few Jewish students present, but I am not sure.) What follows below is a chronological account of the events. It should be underlined at the outset that this was a completely one-sided conference which condemned the State of Israel. I was the only person in the audience who spoke up and defended Israel. (It was a long and lonely day.)

The day began with a film entitled; Lebanon, Summer 2006, produced by Cedric Troadec, a young Frenchman living in Los Angeles, who had traveled to Lebanon during that period to visit family members and returned to record personal testimonies of Lebanese who had experienced the war. Initial introductions and the film were introduced by Lina Haddad Kreidie, Professor of Middle Eastern History at UCI. Troadec and Jordan Elgrably, a member of the board of the Levantine Cultural Center, then introduced the film. Elgrably stated at the outset that the film was one-sided since they had not been able to interview any Israelis about the war, and that if anyone wanted to hear the other side, they would have to find an Israeli film.

The film, which was about an hour long, began with the caption that on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah had captured two Israeli soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border, and that Israel responded with a blockade and bombing. What followed was scenes of destruction, drawings of the destruction and death of civilians by Lebanese children and the accounts of Lebanese who experienced the war. As stated, the film was completely one-sided against Israel. Statements were made by those interviewed to the effect that the capture of the two soldiers was a “pretext” for Israel to attack Hezbollah. The idea put forth was that Israel and Hezbollah have been capturing each others’ soldiers for years, and that the attack by Israel was according to a “premeditated plan”. “It wasn’t about the two soldiers.“ In addition, there were critical references to America’s support for Israel. It was also stated in the film by interviewees that Israel had used white phosphorous weapons against civilians, had used Lebanon as a testing ground to try out new weapons produced by “industrialized powers”, and further, that Israel would drop leaflets warning civilians to evacuate and then bomb the evacuation routs. It was also charged by one interviewee that Israel had used cluster bombs as they left Lebanon. Other statements made by interviewees:

“Americans are war criminals in all their wars”
“Hezbollah is not terrorist and never has been”.

In general, the film was quite complimentary to Hezbollah as “having restored Arab honor”, as being a social movement that provided services to the people, etc.

During the question and answer session after the film, I asked Troadec what had happened to the two Israeli soldiers since the film did not address that issue. He stated that their bodies were returned to Israel after the hostilities, and they had been “killed in action”. I stated that according to Israeli reports, the remains had shown signs of “extreme torture”, which Troadec professed no knowledge of . (he later told me privately that Hezbollah never tortured its prisoners.)

In a subsequent question, I asked him if any of his interviewees had expressed any anger toward Hezbollah for its role in the war and if there might have been fewer civilian casualties had Hezbollah not inserted itself in the civilian centers when fighting. I referred to the areas of open land shown in the film on the border. At this point, I had incurred the wrath of the crowd, and when Troadec replied that wars these days are not fought in open spaces like the old British and French wars, the crowd applauded. Subsequent statements from the audience got heated and one lady angrily addressed her comments to me stating that Israel was using American-made weapons to bomb civilians and that as an American, she was ashamed. I replied to her that she could be ashamed all she wanted, I was not (ashamed). I also reminded the speaker that Hezbollah was the same organization that was responsible for killing over 200 US marines in the barracks bombing. (I didn’t get any support there either.) One woman replied, they (the Marines) were invading their country. Generally, I got the impression Hezbollah enjoyed support from the audience.

At this, the first session was concluded, and the audience and organizers adjourned for a Middle Eastern meal next door. (I passed in favor of finding a nearby restaurant figuring no one wanted to eat with me. I had already established myself as the skunk at the garden party.)

After lunch, the crowd grew to about 150 as the first panel discussion took place. The participants were;

Dr. As’ad Abukhalil, a Lebanese professor at California State University at Stanislaus and editor of a blog entitled; “The Angry Arab“.

Dr Nubar Hovsepian, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Chapman University.

Norman Finklestein an independent scholar of Middle East issues and political science, formerly of DePaul University, Finklestein is a controversial opponent of Israel, who left DePaul when he was denied tenure.

Lina Haddad Kreidie moderated. The topic was ; Regional Forces: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine

Norman Finklestein spoke first. He spoke for 35 minutes, going over his allotted time, not unexpected since he is known for long speeches. He began by talking about the latest fighting in Gaza, which he called a massacre. According to Finklestein, Israel had two reasons for going into Gaza:

1 to restore its deterrent capacity and
2 to head off another “Palestinian peace offensive” !!??!

Finklestein then went on to blame the 1967 war on Israel, stating that it all began with Israel’s initial plans to attack Syria. Why according to Finklestein? It was all because Israel had to maintain its deterrent capacity, which he translated as a “fear of Israel”.

He then went on to describe Israel’s “ignominious defeats” at the hands of Hezbollah in recent years, then stating that “Israel had to find a defenseless country to annihilate” That became Gaza, which he described as an “Israeli shooting gallery”. He went on to quote from various Israeli officials , some named, others not as advocating the “punishment of Palestinian civilians“. According to Finklestein, a raid in which 70 Gazan police graduates were killed had been planned well in advance. He referred to author historian Benny Morris as a “full-time propagandist”. He took a side shot at the US Army War College as an entity that “doesn’t believe in human rights“. He claimed that Israel wanted to attack Hamas because they (Hamas) were becoming “too moderate” and a “trustworthy partner for peace“. He also charged Israel with purposely targeting civilians.

I should insert at this point that Finklestein (who is Jewish-born) is not regarded as a serious figure by many because of his historical views and personal agenda against the State of Israel. Certainly, he has his admirers in academia as well (UCI for example). As his reputation attests, Finklestein, when speaking, oozes and reeks of arrogance and condescension. He has a ready litany of colorful little insults to refer to his critics and those who disagree with him. I will come back to this point later. Suffice to say here that having to endure his prolonged monologues is no day at beach.

Next came As’ad Abukhalil, who called Israel a “bloody regime”. In discussing Lebanese history, he charged that Israel had engineered a split between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. He referred to Pierre Gemayel and his Falangist Party, whom he called “Brown-shirts”. He described the founder of the Falangists as one who had come away from the Berlin Olympics so impressed that he wanted to establish a Nazi equivalent in Lebanon. In referring to Bashir Gemayel, Abukhalil stated that “fortunately, he was assassinated before he could take over the presidency of Lebanon“. He also stated that civilian casualties inflicted by Israel are “never accidental.” He referred to publisher A.M. Rosenthal as “the famous Zionist”.

Abukhalil was followed by Nubar Hovsepian, who echoed the theme of the “massacre in Gaza” by “Israeli terrorist soldiers”. He held up an IDF leaflet which warned civilians to leave their locations-not warning them they would be bombed on the way out. (My recollection is that this leaflet was from the 2006 conflict in Lebanon-I could be in error.)

Hovsepian then went on to talk about how the US tried to destroy the Iranian Revolution and how the authoritarian government of Algeria faced an opposition that resulted in 100,000 deaths in that nation.

Q&A

Unlike the morning session, audience members had to pass their questions up front on index cards, thus there was no back and forth. I passed up the following question:

Do you condemn recent statements and chants heard at recent demonstrations in LA, Ft Lauderdale and Toronto, in which the following has been said:

“Go back to the ovens”
“You need a bigger oven”
“Go Hitler”
“Long live Hitler”
‘Go Nazi Germany”

Further, do you feel that such statements hurt your cause?

My questions went to Finklestein. First, he stated that “it isn’t my cause”. He said he had never heard of it. Then he went on to state that in his view, such reports were “wildly inflated”. They were “99% per cent made up“. He also stated that they were “a pretext or excuse to change the subject”. He added that such statements were rare or chanted by Israeli provocateurs. He also added that in his experience, his Muslim audiences try to avoid such expressions. Finally, he stated that this was not the issue and referred to people asking him about pogroms in Russia, to which he replies that they should “pull themselves out of their navels”. Finklestein never condemned such statements in his answer, and for this arrogant, dismissive, and false reply, the audience applauded.

Abukhalil also chimed in that in the Florida incident (apparently referring to Ft Lauderdale), a 14-15 year old girl in Muslim headdress was responding to pro-Israel demonstrators who, according to him,
had been shouting, “Death to Arabs”, and “We will burn Gaza”. He dismissed the whole thing as Zionist propaganda.

Another question from the audience had to do with the comments by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about wiping Israel off the face of the map as well as Iranian funding to Hezbollah and Hamas. Hovsepian responded that while he disowned Ahmadinejad’s statements, it was a case of changing the subject. He added that the comments were stupid, but that he (Hovsepian) refused to change the subject. Finklestein also described the comment as stupid, but that it was being used for opportunistic purposes. He also made a gratuitous attack on Condoleeza Rice and drew applause with some reference to “stooges of the US”.

Abukhalil also made a reference to anti -Semitism coming out of our ally Saudi Arabia.(I think I even gave polite applause to that statement.)



The second panel discussion was entitled; Israel, Palestine and the Two-State vs. One State Solution. The panel participants were;

Saree Makdisi, who teaches English and Comparative Literature at UCLA. He is the author of a book entitled; Palestine Inside Out: an Everyday Occupation.

Chuck O’Connell a sociology lecture at UCI, where he teaches courses on race-ethnicity-nationality and the US war on terrorism.

Gabriel Piterberg, Associate Professor of History at UCLA. He is an Israeli Jew who supports the Palestinian cause.

David Theo Goldberg-Director of University of California Humanities Research Institute.

The moderator was Mark LeVine- Professor of Middle Eastern History at UC Irvine.

The first speaker was Dr Makdisi, who, in my opinion, was the most impressive of any of the participants. He is articulate And makes his arguments well. His main idea was that a two-state solution would not work for a variety of reasons. For one, he argued that the populations (Jews/Palestinians are too mixed geographically throughout the area. He also mentioned the “Right of Return” of Palestinians who left the region in 1948 (which, of course would eliminate any notion of a Jewish state.)

Makdisi suggested a one-state solution with everyone staying in their place. (In the Q&A, which again was designed for the audience to submit written questions, I addressed a question specifically to Makdisi which was; In your vision of one state, could Jews live in peace and security after everything that has happened?
His answer was that, of course, it would be messy, but like Europeans and other populations who had fought, it would probably work itself out in the long run. Of course, the issue of Hamas and their charter was not mentioned-nor was it ever mentioned at all by anyone.)

Then Chuck O’Connell took the podium for his presentation, which was quite rambling and disorganized. He talked about racism , nationality and what he termed “ethno-nationalism” as a form of racism. He talked about the distribution of wealth in the US. He mentioned the separation of the peoples by the US-Mexican border. He talked about labor unions, minimum wage laws, trade pacts with Middle Eastern countries that leave the workers under the ruling classes.

A little more on topic, he mentioned a Jewish friend who was critical of Israel in the Gaza crisis but was afraid to express his views with other Jews.

At this point, he seemed to lose his way with his notes, ran over his allotted time and stated that this wasn’t the talk he had planned to give, but it was the talk we (the audience) got .

(In the margin of my notes, I made a notation; no lesson plan.)

Gabriel Piterberg spoke of other countries where “settlers” wiped out indigenous populations. He was also against the idea of a 2 state solution since he felt it would give Israel the possibility of continuing to grow and act as a “settler state”.

He also made a reference to (Israel) dancing on the blood of Palestinian children”, and expressed his hope that the (Israeli) war criminals were brought to justice.

David Theo Goldberg was also against the two-state solution. He favors one secularized, multi-ethnic state.

In his talk, he spoke of the notion of “Jewish superiority”-in other words, Jews-especially European Jews-as racist. He said that Jews were referring to Palestinians as “vermin, rats and worms”. Last week, said Goldberg, a Jewish woman at UCLA screamed at him and his supporters, “You’re killers, you’re scum!” He also felt that initially, the relationship between Jews and Arabs in a new state would be difficult but could be worked out.

I would like to interject at this point that during one of the breaks, Mr. Troadec approached me and asked me my views since I was obviously not in agreement with what was being presented. We had a very pleasant conversation and exchanged many views, most of which we disagreed on. He asked me if I thought his film was one-sided, to which I responded in the affirmative. I told him that I supported Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, and he seemed to agree with that much. I also pointed out to him that not one of the participants was a defender of Israel, thus the entire affair was one-sided.

In an interesting side note, Troadec expressed shame as a Frenchman that his nation had given up its Jews to the Nazis in World War II.

As for the present conflict, I told him that I had no doubt that the Palestinian people had historical grievances, but that, in my opinion, if they had made their case peacefully, they would have had their state decades ago. I also expressed to him my number one concern, which was anti-Semitism in general. While we disagreed on many points, he respected my point of view.

There was also an announcement of an up-coming meeting in the local area between some Palestinian women’s; group and Cynthia McKinney, the anti-Semitic ex-congresswoman who recently ran ashore on a boat trying to deliver who knows what to Gaza. I didn’t catch the date, so I guess I’ll have to miss it.

In the evening (about 5 pm), there was a final panel discussion featuring Abukhalil, Finklestein,Hovsepian, Goldberg, O’Connell, Makdisi and Piterberg. It was moderated by Mark Levine. The topic was if there would be a change in our foreign policy under Obama.

There were some comments that I think are worth quoting. O’Connell made a reference to George Bush as “that idiot from a village in Texas”. LeVine followed that up with, “Does anyone out there want to disagree with that point?” I raised my hand from the back and volunteered the name of Saddam Hussein. I was ignored.

Later Goldberg referred to Bush as an “:idiot savant.”

Piterberg stated, “Obama is Clinton in black skin.” He added that Obama’s cabinet is right out of AIPEC’s wish list”.

O’Connell then drifted off-topic again by talking about the 1960s and campus unrest. He talked about “economic justice.” In the Q&A, he responded to a question about Obama ending US imperialist wars by referring to previous wars when we sent soldiers to kill Asians like Koreans and Vietnamese-then added something about “that was John McCain told us”. (I believe those were his exact words.) He then added that now we are killing Arabs, made a reference to “imperial domination” and talked about ex-soldiers in his classes who have returned against the war.

Then there was the insufferable Mr Finklestein. Once again, when handed the microphone, he went off on a rambling discourse. He was asked a question from someone in the audience (again by index cards) if he had read a certain book by a certain author whose name I did not catch. At this point, there was a loud exchange between Finklestein and a man in the front row. I could not catch the point since LeVine was trying to restore order. Then Finklestein continued . He talked about people like Cheney and Rumsfeld and some other people they appointed like Paul Wolfowitz and a couple of others I don’t recall. He called Cheney a “thug”, a “murderer” and someone you want to baby sit for you. He spoke of Bush “being in his room with Play Station 3” while Cheney and the others were plotting war. At one point, Finklestein continued to ramble on to the obvious annoyance of the other panelists. Then, as he began a new topic; “It was very interesting….” LeVine cut him off to give some else a chance to talk. Finklestein put his chin in the palm of his hand and sulked in silence.

Piterberg added that they (Bush, Cheney, et al) are “evil-not stupid”. He also referred to Israeli infiltration of the US to the point where one can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

After that event finished, there was a film entitled, Under the Bombs”, a French-Lebanese fictional film about an Arab mother trying to find her missing son in Southern Lebanon in the wake of the 2006 war between Israel and Hamas.

Final observations.

First of all, the entire event was totally one-sided against Israel. There was not one single participant who spoke in defense of Israel or even acknowledged its right to exist. Many of the speakers, as I have outlined, have a visceral hatred for Israel.

In addition, there wasn’t a lot of love expressed for our own country. America was generally portrayed as a willing imperialistic accomplice in the “Israeli campaign of death and destruction against the Palestinian people. “

Personally, I found the ad hominem attacks on people like President George Bush, Dick Cheney and even John McCain as a soldier to be offensive and unprofessional for people who call themselves professors. They have, of course, every right to express their opinions, which are shared by many. However, the fact that there were many young students in that audience made it seem unprofessional to me.

I heard a lot of talk about peace during the day. Yet, no one talked about the right of Israelis to live in peace and be left alone within their own borders. There was also a lot of talk about the killing of innocents. Rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians were not on the agenda, however.

No one spoke out against Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah, in particular, came across as “good guys”. In talking about a one-state solution, in which the Jews and Arabs would learn to live together, no one mentioned the Hamas charter, which rejects treaties or negotiation and calls for the imposition of an Islamic Palestinian state. That never came up.

No one discussed the question of where Hezbollah and Hamas rockets were being aimed at. The answer, of course, is innocent civilians.

None of the people expressed any support for a two-state solution. Do they really envision reconciliation-or do they simply “want it all”? How many people there think that Israel has a right to even exist?

There was no attention given to that 800 pound gorilla in the room-the entire question of Islamic terrorism and Jihad worldwide.

I think the Levantine Center made a strategic mistake in inviting Mr Finklestein, who is an obvious ideologue with no sense of objectivity whatsoever. They could have made their points much more persuasively with more speakers like Makdisi. Instead, they loaded up their panels with speakers who were not only anti-Israel, but showed a disdain for America as well. And as for O’Connell, he talked as if he had walked into the wrong conference room.

Finally, I would hope that if UCI is going to put its imprimatur on an event, it would not be so one-sided.

My Report on the Israel-Bashing Conference at UC-Irvine

"Who let the skunks in?"


What follows below is a condensed and edited version of my report on the conference held at UC-Irvine on January 31, 2009 entitled; Whither the Levant. This article was published on Frontpage.com and Campus Watch. I will be following this up with the complete and original report in the very near future. There is already a response to the article from someone named Abraham LNU who posted it as a comment on my posting on the Three Little Pigs and the UN. I chose to publish it because I think it illustrates the thinking on the other side. If you're in the mood for a couple of yuks, check it out.


On January 31, 2009, a conference took place at UC Irvine (UCI) titled, “Whither the Levant? The Crisis of the Nation State: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine.” Organized by the Levantine Cultural Center of Los Angeles and the Middle East Studies Student Initiative, the conference featured two documentaries about the 2006 war in southern Lebanon, three panel discussions, and a number of Middle East studies academics. In spite of the neutral sounding title, the conference was a one-sided exercise in bashing Israel and America.

The general theme was that Israel is an oppressor and deliberately murders innocent Palestinians, aided and abetted by an imperialistic America. California State University-Stanislaus political science professor As’ad Abu Khalil, for example, claimed that civilian casualties by Israel are “never accidental.” UCLA history professor Gabriel Piterberg made a macabre remark about Israelis “dancing on the blood of Palestinian children” and called for the prosecution of Israeli “war criminals.” David Theo Goldberg, director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, referred to Jews, and particularly Ashkenazi Jews, as racists. Nubar Hovsepian, associate professor of political science and international studies at Chapman University, described Israeli soldiers as “Israeli terrorist soldiers” and accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of warning civilians to evacuate and then bombing the evacuation routes.

Self-described “independent scholar” Norman Finkelstein was by far the most obnoxious, living up to his reputation for arrogance and condescension. He droned on endlessly, going over his allotted time and attacking others with prepared quips designed to evoke laughter. But not everyone was amused. After hogging the microphone to the obvious annoyance of conference moderator and UCI history professor Mark LeVine, Finkelstein began a new topic only to be cut off abruptly and left to sit sullenly with his face in his hands.

Meanwhile, UCI sociology lecturer Chuck O’Connell seemed to have walked into the wrong conference. When it was his turn to speak, he launched into a rambling diatribe about labor unions, the minimum wage, racism, distribution of wealth in the U.S., nationalism, the U.S./Mexican border, and for good measure, one or two references to the Middle East. He concluded by stating that this wasn’t the talk he had intended to give, but it was the talk we got.

Seemingly oblivious to the ascendance of the Obama administration, panelists focused obsessively on George W. Bush, with O’Connell, LeVine, and Finkelstein all calling him an “idiot” and Finkelstein calling Dick Cheney a “thug and murderer.” When LeVine asked the audience if anyone disagreed with the Bush assessment, I raised my hand and offered the name of Saddam Hussein as an alternative. I was ignored.

Later, the audience submitted written questions for the panelists and one of mine was selected. I asked, “Do you condemn statements and chants heard recently at anti-Israel rallies in Ft. Lauderdale and Los Angeles such as ‘Go back to the ovens,’ ‘You need a bigger oven,’ ‘Long live Hitler,’ ‘Go Hitler,’ and ‘Go Nazi Germany’? Secondly, don’t you think these statements discredit your cause?”

The question was given to Finkelstein, who responded, “First of all, it’s not my cause.” He disclaimed any knowledge of the statements, but said that he suspected they were “99% made up…a pretext or excuse to change the subject” and that the perpetrators might have been “pro-Israel provocateurs masquerading as Arabs.” He never condemned the statements and his dismissive and conspiratorial response caused the audience to erupt in applause.

There was nothing educational about this conference. Overwhelmingly one-sided against Israel, it was simply an exercise in indoctrination.

Not a single participant spoke in defense of Israel or even acknowledged its right to exist, and many of them demonstrated a visceral hatred for the Jewish state.

There wasn’t a lot of love expressed for America either, which was generally portrayed as a willing imperialistic accomplice in an Israeli campaign of death and destruction against the Palestinian people.

There was much talk of peace, but nothing was said about Israelis’ right to live in peace within their own borders. There was also discussion about the killing of innocents, yet rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians never entered the conversation.

None of the speakers expressed any support for a two-state solution. In broaching the possibility of a “one-state solution” in which Jews and Arabs would live together peacefully, no one mentioned the Hamas charter, which explicitly calls for the obliteration of Israel and of the Jewish people, as well as the imposition of an Islamic state.

No one spoke out against Hamas and Hezbollah or their oppression of fellow Muslims.

Most importantly, no one mentioned the 800-pound gorilla in the room: worldwide Islamic terrorism and jihad.

In its stated goal of emphasizing “pathways to diplomatic, non-violent solutions to the region’s problems,” the conference failed miserably. But then again, giving a platform to the most biased, politicized academics in the field of Middle East studies is hardly a recipe for success.

The Three Little Pigs and the UN

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs. They lived in a land far, far away that was surrounded by a lot of big, bad wolves. But they thought they were safe because they had the United Nations to protect them. Boy, were they ever wrong.





One day, a Big Bad Wolf came to the straw house where one little pig lived. He huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down. The little pig managed to escape to his brother's house, which was made out of wood. The poor little pig complained to the UN, but they said nothing. All over the world, no one said anything.




Then the Big Bad Wolf came to the second house made of wood where the two piggies were living. He huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down. Fortunately, the two little piggies were able to escape. The two piggies complained to the UN, but the UN said nothing. No one in the world said a word.




This time, all three piggies built a strong house made of brick that the Big Bad Wolf could not penetrate. Furious, he complained to the UN, and the UN passed a bunch of resolutions condemning the brick house. Protests broke out all over the world condemning the Three Little Pigs and their brick house.









Then one day, the Big Bad Wolf came to the brick house with a plan. He was going to climb up on the roof and come down the chimney. However, the pigs built a roaring fire in the fireplace, and when the wolf came down he burned himself all over and ran off screaming.





Of course, he complained to the UN, and the UN reacted with more resolutions condemning the Three Little Pigs for harming the Big Bad Wolf. Worse yet, protests and riots broke out all over the world against the Three Little Pigs. In some places, pigs were assaulted by furious protesters (many of whom didn't want to anger Big Bad Wolves) and called names like "Swine", etc.








To that, the UN said nothing.




So the moral of the story is....don't depend on the UN.