Campus claws

18. Feb, 2010 Print This Article! 0 Comments

Paul Balles

We claim to be just and upright. No wrath from us will come stealthily to the one who holds out clean hands, and he will go through life unharmed; but whoever sins and hides his bloodstained hands, as avengers of bloodshed we appear against him to the end, presenting ourselves as upright witnesses for the dead. –Aeschylus, Eumenides 470 BC

February 19, 2010

Israel keeps selling disinformation to the public. Channelling it through the media they own and control, the one institution that’s difficult to control happens to be the university.

Zionists have spent a great deal of money distributing their propaganda and circulating their image management. On university campuses with significant numbers of Muslim students, the Pro-Israel groups don’t have quite the freedom to run rampant with their campaigns.

Despite the beatings Muslims have endured in Palestine, their youth who have joined universities have been able to voice their protests, much to the dismay of the Zionists. Others who have sympathised with the plight of the Palestinians have joined them.

Pro-Palestinian students have disrupted speeches by prominent Israeli speakers at Oxford University, in England, at the University of Chicago, the University of California, Los Angeles, Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, Western Michigan University and, most recently, the University of California at Irvine.

The point they seem to be making, more emphatically than anything else: we’re no longer going to sit by while your propagandists come to the university hoping to brainwash the student body.

Of course, there has been resistance on the part of pro-Israeli organizations. Writer Debbie Menon has observed, “Jewish groups have been pushing for state and federal governments to stop criticism of Israel in College Campuses since 2005, http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2300. They claim it is anti-Semitism! Apparently they fear the growing awareness of College Students of Israeli crimes.”

Jennifer Jacobson, reporting in the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote, “Representatives of Jewish groups told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights…that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias are rampant at colleges and universities across the country and that if campus officials fail to stop such abuse, federal and state governments should intervene.”

The recent protest at the Irvine campus was doubly unfortunate. The students accomplished very little, and they lost potential sympathizers for the plight of Palestinians at home.

An invited speaker —Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States— was repeatedly forced to stop his talk. Every few minutes, reports USA Today, “a student would get up, shout something critical of Israel, be applauded by some in the audience, and be led away by police.”

A significant lesson for the Muslim students can be found in this. Instead of simply shouting at speakers who represent their enemy, they should learn to express themselves well enough to challenge their adversaries. They should prepare for and encourage debates.

As Jarret S. Lovell, a professor of politics at California State University at Fullerton, said “the Irvine hecklers should realize what will happen next. ‘It’s only a matter of time until (anti-Zionist Jew) Norman Finkelstein speaks at UCI and Jewish groups shout him down’.”

Though protesters should have every right to distribute leaflets before and after such events, ‘heckler’s veto’ through disruptive actions does little or nothing to advance their legitimate and deserved cause.

In another context, Congressman Dennis Kucinich said, “How can we justify in effect cancelling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, and the right to peacefully assemble?”

In America, and any country that wants to live with democratic principles, all voices should be free to speak, but the assemblies should be peaceful.

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Paul Balles

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see

http://www.pballes.com.

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