Berkeley Intifada

Berkeley Intifada
As students embrace the Palestinian cause, UC Berkeley has lost whatever reputation it may once have had for tolerance.


http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/current/feature.html

On the day after September 11, Micki Weinberg walked to the UC Berkeley campus still in shock. At the entrance to campus, facing Telegraph Avenue, huge sheets of blank paper were spread out as an impromptu memorial on which students, faculty, and other passersby were invited to write comments. Glad to have found such a forum, Weinberg scanned the inscriptions. Then he saw one, large and clear, that stopped him dead in his tracks:
"It's the Jews, stupid."
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Almost three years later, Weinberg graduates this month as a student whose days at Cal were marked by what he calls "pinnacles of horror," in the pinched tone of a man betrayed. He remembers pro-Palestinian protesters insisting that Israeli border crossings are as bad as Nazi death camps. He remembers the glass front door of Berkeley's Hillel building -- where he attends Friday night services -- shattered by a cinderblock, with the message FUCK JEWS scrawled nearby. He remembers the spray-painted swastikas discovered one Monday morning last September on the walls of four lecture rooms in LeConte Hall accompanied by the chilling bilingual message, "Die, Juden. "


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Later that morning, Abdel Malik Ali returned to the stage. Jewelry flashed on his long delicate fingers as he outlined "the recipe for how we come to power: From an Islamic movement we graduate to an Islamic revolution, then to an Islamic state."

"Allahu akbar," came a chorus.

"We must be in power," Ali continued coolly. He rounded up his lecture by promising that "when it's all over, the only one standing is gonna be us."

"Allahu akbar."

"We ain't gonna lose. We must implement Islam as a totality," in which "Allah controls every place -- the home, the classroom, the science lab, the halls of Congress."

The weekend concluded with an evening program called "Muslim Students in the Struggle." A few officers and alumni took turns at the podium; one young man speculated about the day "when we are called upon to rock the West like it's never been rocked before." This is inevitable, he said. "Allah has promised the people that they will inherit this land."

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end of snips....some people cast no reflection

stormfront troopers and the fundy islamics have something in common,hell they even use the same code words..

This is not only sad it's frightening. Fortunately I am former Californian. I wouldn't condone what is happening on the campuses there, and I'm glad my children don't live in that state either.

yet you blame children killed during a protest in the place they were BORN for being in harm's way :eyes:

I never said that. I only hinted it in a note of sarcasm. No I don't blame them. It is the same for Jewish families living in Gaza, however, the children were born there, in some cases the parents were also.

And the fact that I live in Israel has nothing to do with it. There are many immigrants in the US also. Look at the article posted.

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My second statement in that post qualified the first, in my opinion. If you have a question about it, please put it in the appropriate thread.

And amongst them there's a wide variety of groups of people they hate...Jews, Muslims, Arabs, women, gays, etc....

If you find the anti-Semitism expressed by the whackos mentioned in that article sad and frightening, do you also find the 'Death to Arabs' slogans painted on walls in Jerusalem equally sad and frightening?

Violet...

Although I don't visit Jerusalem very often, this graffiti does crop up. Sometimes it's political graffiti. I don't put much credit to it, as usually such graffiti is done by underprivileged youngsters.

There is hatred in written large all over the Palestinian walls also, according to news footage. It's a sign of the conflict and the times. It is embarrassing for most of us, that is all. By and large, I find these expressions are rare in Israel.

Jerusalem has suffered more than 150 attacks in the past three years, and more now that it is about the only place still accessible because of the security fence, that is still incomplete in the Jerusalem area.

You should put a lot of credit to it, and you should be as disturbed by it as you would be by anti-Semitic graffiti. It's the same ugliness, approved of or excused by the same breed of ugly people. There are NO excuses for it, and none of it should be written off as 'done by underprivileged youngsters', no matter which group it's aimed at...


Violet...

upsets me more. There is ample reason for hatred being generated, even if it is inappropriately, or rather collectively directed. The attacks on citizens who kill children and ordinary people generate hate. Don't blame the victims.

like those living in refugee camps?

There are many victims in a lose-lose situation.

They're the perpetrators of hatred. Sorry, but there's something seriously wrong if you find anti-Semitic graffiti so disturbing that you are glad you left California, yet you merely find anti-Arab graffiti something you don't worry about. What's the difference between those forms of hatred?


Violet...

:hi:

:)

that calls children born in Gaza - shot while walking in Gaza - to blame for their own deaths (or atleast their parent's) while emigrating to Israel from the US is a perfectly SAFE? thing to do?

something seriously wrong if you find anti-Semitic graffiti so disturbing that you are glad you left California

It is not graffiti that bothers me. That is totally your issue and your concern.

You asked if I had seen any anti-Arab graffiti. I have, on one occasion. I am sure that it was done by children, and they are victims, not bigots. You, who claim to defend children should know that.

Huge portraits glorifying terrorism and terrorists that are found in Arab West Bank cities, is obviously not children's graffiti. That is what you would probably call "legitimate resistance" which is a disgusting euphemism for hatred.

You asked if I had seen any anti-Arab graffiti.

No, I didn't ask you that at all....

And how on earth do you know what bigoted graffiti is the product of children and what isn't? You don't...

Portraits of people are NOT bigotry. Bigotry is stuff like the 'Death to Arabs' that get painted on walls in Israel, and the anti-Semitic graffiti the article talked about....

And if yr talking about suicide-bombings being legitimate resistance, yr very well aware that I've never claimed that and have told YOU many times I don't consider them legitimate resistance....

Violet...

I know from where and how it's written. Israeli adults don't go in for that, even the fringe element of adults would frown on it. It's not cool in Israel, and there is very little graffiti at all.

This is what you said:

do you also find the 'Death to Arabs' slogans painted on walls in Jerusalem equally sad and frightening?

I said that I don't go to Jerusalem. I would have to see graffiti in order to be upset by it, wouldn't I? However, I understand graffiti in a different way than you do, apparently. You see it as a cultural trademark, especially in Jerusalem.

I hope that you are able to understand that there is legitimate criticism of Palestinians who have murdered close to 700 innocent civilians in Israel. The legitimate self-defense of Israel includes, building a security fence and arresting terrorist leaders and members of terrorist groups.

Your statement that the fence is not about security is total BS.

I asked you if you found the 'Death to Arabs' slogans painted on walls in Jerusalem equally sad and frightening, not if you'd personally seen it. As you hadn't personally seen any of the stuff mentioned in the article, I assumed you would be aware without having to personally go there and see the stuff for yrself that there's racist slogans on walls in Jerusalem. I posted an article by Tanya Reinhart a while back where she mentioned that the stuff isn't even removed from the walls. And claiming that it's children that paint racist slogans on walls is total bullshit. It's extremist adults who think being racist is something to be proud of that do it, not that they'd ever admit they're expressing racist sentiment as there's always a barrage of 'complex' excuses for the crap they spew...

If you have to see graffit in order to be upset by it, then it doesn't make sense that you'd find anything upsetting by the anti-Semitic grafitti talked about it the article, right?

Yes, there are legitimate criticisms of the Palestinians who do carry out attacks on civilians, but painting racist slogans on walls and inciting hatred against an entire people isn't anywhere close to being that...

We're not talking about the barrier here. That discussion's going on in another thread...

Violet...

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That's what we're talking about, not fucking murals and stuff like that. And hateful, racist grafitti is what makes the atmosphere, Gimel. Don't you think that a political atmosphere where cabinet ministers have made racist statements is one to be concerned about? That stuff is not harmless, no matter which group it's aimed at, and those folk who get all bothered about it when aimed at one group, but make endless excuses for why it's okay to be aimed at another group earn nothing but contempt by me for the hypocrites they are...

Unless you personally know the racists who daub that crap on walls, you don't know whether they're victims of assault or not. Nothing justifies racism and bigotry. I don't get what's so hard to understand about that....

I've got no idea what the crucifix stuff is about, cause it doesn't make any sense....

Violet...

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. It has nothing to do with intifada. They are fundies. That is all. Though I have no doubt muslim fundies are using Palestinians as a recrutment, just like Jews for Jesus uses christian zionsim to recrute Jews.

since it actually has everything to do with intifada.

The Palestinians are pissed because of land theft, irrespective of whether they are muslim fundies. How do you account for Christian Palestinians like Said and Ashrawi? Sharon did more to encourage fundyism among Palestinians than American College students. He let them distribute food and medical aid and proslytise to the refugees, because he wanted them to destroy the PA.

Christian fundies are doing more to promote the inifada that muslim ones. They fund the settlements on the West Bank. The Palestinians are justifiably pissed about. The people who wrote the article support settlements too.

Are you from the Bay Area? Are you familiar with the paper it was from?

What excuses do you give the clan?

Daniel Pipes, who openly supports settlements. I don't excuse these people the clan or the christian zionist, all groups you can find at Berkley.

it was a large article. The article was not written by Hillel. The article made no effort to defend or rationalize Pipes' remarks and he was remarked on in only about a third of the piece.

Can Americans be targetted for hate crimes because Donald Rumsfeld is an asshole? Even the ones who disagree with Rumsfeld?

I find it hard to believe that you think the phrase "Fuck the Jews" passes for intelligent and progressive discourse.

discoarse? The article was inspired by a Daniel Pipes complaint. He is a racist and known to lie.

"One of my primary concerns is that Daniel Pipes is a noted Islamophobe, a noted Muslim hater," said Ibrahim, whose eyes shine with warm intelligence. "This event was a circus and Daniel Pipes is the ringmaster, and I'm reminded of the same type of racist propaganda that was used in European history to justify the extermination of other racial groups.

"Pipes is a hack," continued the graduating senior, whose parents came to the United States some twenty years ago from Pakistan, and who agreed to speak only if identified by a pseudonym. "He's playing on the fears of Americans who are generally ill-informed about the Middle East, about Arabs and Muslims -- and who think all those things are one and the same. His partisans typically happen to be Zionists. ... Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, Daniel Pipes said, 'We told you so -- it was Arabs.' After 9/11, there's definitely an environment in which Muslims and Arabs are called into question as being un-American. A wave of Islamophobia has swept the American public," and Pipes and his supporters "play demagogue to it. ... The bottom line is, it's just chicanery."
""




the article was not prompted by a Daniel Pipes complaint.

It was prompetd by stuff like this:
One flier making the rounds declared, "The neoconservatives and the Jewish Lobby ... planned the Iraq wars. ... Most of the US media ... are Jewish owned." Meanwhile, the largest sign said, "I Want You! to DIE for Israel. Israel sings: 'Onward christian soldiers.'" On the reverse side, in an attempted riff on "Pax Americana," the sign said, "I WANT YOU TO KILL FOR THE AMERA-ISRAELA POX!" Large rakish swastikas replaced the letter "s" in "Israel" on both sides of the sign. The sign-bearer's Uncle Sam hat was emblazoned with another swastika.


You mention Pipes a lot but not H. Rap Brown who is also quoted, or Abdel Malik Ali.

"Ali said the conflict between Muslims and Zionists "is an opportunity, dawg," because "we're allowed to fight against oppression. It's an act of worship. ... In America, you're mostly fighting with your tongue. But you should also learn how to fight with the sword."

Ali's remarks met with polite silence, punctuated by occasional choruses of "Allahu akbar." No protesters were visible either inside or outside the hall.

"The enemies of Islam know that when we come back to power we're gonna check 'em," Ali said before leaving. "They're gonna be checked."

A few minutes later, from a jail in Georgia, Imam Jamil's voice emerged through the speakers less than clearly. He was obviously a practiced speaker but the connection was weak. "The circumstances that Allah has placed upon me at this time have been placed on Muslims around the world," he said. "Stay conscious and ask Allah to raise the Muslims and give us victory over the disbeliever." Jamil urged his listeners to be devout.

"

Those words seem a tad racist to me.

Israel's Evangelical Approach
U.S. Christian Zionists Nurtured as Political, Tourism Force

By Mark O'Keefe
Religion News Service
Saturday, January 26, 2002; Page B11

In an effort to solidify its relationship with American evangelicals, the government of Israel has launched initiatives that include expense-paid trips to the Holy Land and strategy sessions with the Christian Coalition and other conservative groups.

The objectives: to revive Israel's sagging tourism industry and strengthen grass-roots support in the United States. The target audience is the estimated 98 million U.S. evangelicals, but especially a subset of that group, Christian Zionists.

"If I felt the administration or anyone in Congress was moving away from support of Israel, believe me, I'd encourage people to pick up the phone and tell their legislators, 'Don't you dare!' " said Janet Parshall, who hosts a weekday syndicated show on evangelical radio stations across the country.......

Jews and Muslims both see Abraham as their patriarch. But Christian Zionists contend that Muslims don't share in the promise of land because they are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and his maidservant, Hagar. Ishmael was not part of the "everlasting covenant" with God and inherited no land.

Jews are seen as the descendants of Isaac, the son of Abraham and his wife, Sarah. Isaac did inherit property. So only Jews are regarded as holding a rightful claim to the land that has been a source of international conflict since Israel became a state in 1948, Christian Zionists say.

The embassy called the gathering the first "American-Christian grass-roots networks briefing and strategy discussion." Plans call for similar discussions monthly.

During the meeting, Shari Dollinger, the embassy's officer for interreligious affairs, led a discussion of how Christian college students could lead pro-Israel events on campus. She said she also sees Israel reaching out more than ever in the United States......

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/isrevan.htm

why is it impossible for you to actually discuss what was in the article? Does the fact that there is bigotry in everyone absolve everyone else of the responsibility for their own bigotry? Have we fallen so far that "not being the worst" can be seen as acceptable?

I would be interested in knowing if you read the article and what you thought of it. Especially if you actually had coherent comments on it.

The tit for tat stuff should be beneath you.

unique hostility toward Israel on campus. Israeli apologist have a persecution complex. I would like to defuse it.


I also don't really believe these articles belong in I/P, but if they are going to be posted to support the Israeli persecution complex I will post the other side of the equation.

. They hate muslims.

by addressing what was in the article.

After you read it of course.

so do christian zionist groups, and prosettlement organizations.

this article was about one particular campus and some of the things that go on there.

I find it hard to believe none of the comments in the article disturbed you.

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"Later that morning, Abdel Malik Ali returned to the stage. Jewelry flashed on his long delicate fingers as he outlined "the recipe for how we come to power: From an Islamic movement we graduate to an Islamic revolution, then to an Islamic state."

"Allahu akbar," came a chorus.

"We must be in power," Ali continued coolly. He rounded up his lecture by promising that "when it's all over, the only one standing is gonna be us."

"Allahu akbar."

"We ain't gonna lose. We must implement Islam as a totality," in which "Allah controls every place -- the home, the classroom, the science lab, the halls of Congress."

The weekend concluded with an evening program called "Muslim Students in the Struggle." A few officers and alumni took turns at the podium; one young man speculated about the day "when we are called upon to rock the West like it's never been rocked before." This is inevitable, he said. "Allah has promised the people that they will inherit this land."

"
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2004-05-19/feature.html/4/index.html

and will not sit back quietly as racist SCUMBAGS like Daniel Pipes & his CampusWatch Gestapo are brought on campus to tell everyone how evil Islam is. You want tolerance on our campuses? SHOW IT! Don't be defending the likes of that racist war-mongering ass Daniel Pipes whose apprearance is defended in that article as if it were a good thing ("a member of the presidentially appointed US Institute for Peace and a prize-winning columnist.") and spreading his filth.

Berkeley students ROCK!! We get really tired of the dramatics up here. Just last week when the San Francisco synagogue
burned people braced for the huge "see how evil Islam is" hue and cry started by the Hillel org at Berkeley only fo find out, amazingly enough, that the arson was started by the Rabbi's son. http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1868462 Thank God the police solved that one before Pipes & his cronies had the chance to fire off another of their "love" articles!

The kind of filth reported in that article is nothing I have ever seen at Berkeley and I'm getting really tired of these lies and exaggerations. Nice try painting them as racists. HERE's the Berkeley that I know and see:

=====

Berkeley law students denounce professor for POW memo

SAN FRANCISCO – A growing number of law students at the University of California at Berkeley are denouncing a professor who reportedly helped the Bush administration develop the legal framework that led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

A legal memo written by law professor John Yoo "contributed directly to the reprehensible violation of human rights in Iraq and elsewhere," according to a petition being circulated among students and faculty at Berkeley's Boalt School of Law.

Protesting students planned to wear red armbands during Boalt's commencement ceremony Saturday afternoon and pass out fliers denouncing Yoo for "aiding and abetting war crimes." Yoo said he didn't plan to attend the graduation.

The Jan. 9, 2002, memo co-written by Yoo, first reported in Newsweek magazine this week, laid out the legal reasons why the United States didn't have to comply with international treaties governing prisoner rights. The memo argued that the normal laws of armed conflict didn't apply to al-Qaeda and Taliban militia prisoners because they didn't belong to a state.

The Bush administration agreed with that position despite protests from the State Department, Newsweek reported. Yoo drafted the memo when he served as deputy assistant attorney general for the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel between 2001 and 2003.

<snip>

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040522-1024-ca-prisonerabuse-lawprofessor.html

On edit. Maybe I should post some gems from Masada2000 and the like to counter this tripe.

The truth will always win. Doesn't matter how long it takes but it shall ALWAYS win!

you are saying we are liars?

to remain within forum guidelines. ;)

I wasn't going to touch that one.

But I'm glad you did :)

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Hillel students, I guess.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/letters/index.html


Free speech is alive
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What I'd like to critique in the article is how a few standout protesters at the Daniel Pipes talk who clearly were not students were pointed to as examples of anti-Semitism, implying that they are representative of campus Palestine groups. The guy dressed as Uncle Sam with swastikas drawn on an Israeli flag, Joe Webb, is a Palo Alto therapist who persistently shows up at nearly every local antiwar event.
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Christine Petersen, Berkeley

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See their Experience
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For those who will have the knee-jerk response to dismiss or attack the piece, I hope you can maybe, just maybe, allow yourselves to absorb the other side's experience, even if only for a moment.
J.R., Berkeley

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In fifteen years here, I've never seen it
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It is remarkable that in the whole article only one Berkeley professor is cited. Although one other is represented as having declined to comment, at last count there were a couple of thousand professors, hundreds of them Jewish, including several experts on Jewish culture and history. Have they been assaulted at Berkeley with that alleged "relic from the history books" -- some of which they wrote -- "anti-Semitism"?

Had this Israeli professor been asked, I would have answered that in fifteen years of teaching Talmud at Berkeley and walking on the campus day after day with a yarmulke on my head, I have never once been subjected to an instance of anti-Semitism directed at me. It seems in general a remarkable fact that the only people at Berkeley who perceive anti-Semitism on the campus are right-wing Zionists.
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Daniel Boyarin, Ph.D, Taubman professor of Talmudic culture, UC Berkeley

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UC has changed
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During a Berkeley campus rally I attended a couple of years ago, pro-Palestinian speeches started out anti-Israeli but turned anti-Semitic very quickly. The protesters were unwilling or unable to accept that their cause was not about Jews, but about politics and borders. Ironically, this rally was held on Holocaust Memorial Day, and across from the rally a small group of Hillel students read the names of people killed in Nazi concentration camps.
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Jessica Hilberman, Oakland
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Just in case anyone was wondering, that is what an exchange of ideas looks like.