ZOA to Jewish students: Stay away from Irvine
February 16, 2010
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Zionist Organization of America is calling on Jewish students not to apply to the University of California, Irvine because it does not condemn campus anti-Semitism.
Calling Oren a murderer and shouting words like killer? Did you all see the video? Anything antisemitic in it? I thought not.
ZOA in a statement released Tuesday accused the university of enabling bigotry and violating civil rights "by failing to condemn longstanding anti-Semitic and Israel-bashing speech and conduct on campus, and failing to enforce its own policies against the perpetrators."
This request is a violation of civil rights in itself. Its asking a university to sew the mouths of its students shut on all but praise for Israel-or else! Or else Zionist students will not attend. And "perpetrators". That is a new on on me. I know that ordinary "criminals" are referred to as "terrorists" by the hateful faithful in Israel, but to call protesters "perps" in the states is beyond overstepping. It also betrays the hate and racism behind the ZOA.
In its statement, the ZOA said that “UC Irvine must now pay the price for its inaction. We call on all decent people, both Jews and non-Jews, to stop supporting, with their money and enrollment, a university that has been complicit in promoting bigotry. It’s the right and moral thing to do, until the university makes it crystal clear that it will stop tolerating anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism and that the perpetrators will be held to the same standards of conduct as everyone else.”
I understand the request to stop tolerating antisemitism when antisemitism is actually present and not used as a control mechanism as it so clearly is here, but "anti-Israelism"? Yeah, right. How about Anti-Iranism while we are at it? Calling on all decent people...I'm a decent person and I will say, "Go shove it Nazi" before I will comply to any attempts to censor society on behalf of one rogue country that has earned every ounce of criticism it faces.
But the Muslim Student Union, the recipients of this temper tantrum, have it all together. This is what they have to say:
"The ZOA has unlawfully threatened the MSU's freedom of speech and freedom of association," spokesperson Hadeer Soliman said in an e-mail to JTA. "It has long lobbied University administration and governmental legislatures, acting as a vigilante group to undermine MSU's very basic freedoms. It seeks to silence MSU, and its tactics have resulted in an unconstitutional chilling effect."
I sure would like to know more about the history alluded to in that statement.
Source for all quoted content.
