Standing Fast

In a retro nod to HUAC a recent article in the Forward trashes California universities as being purportedly being hotbeds of "anti-Israeli" activity. This kind of stuff is par for the course at Frontpage and various other right wing crusaders against anti-Bush thought on college campuses, but I will give credit to the author for labeling the offending activity on the campuses of the Golden State "anti-Israeli"; a much more accurate description of the kind of stuff that goes on at Berkley and SF State than the old "anti-semitism" canard.

But its the opening of the article that really crystallizes how remote from reality and politically destructive the Israel can do no wrong school of thought has become.

"The lecture topic was “The Threat to Israel’s Existence.” The speaker was Daniel Pipes, a Middle East analyst known for his hawkish pro-Israel views and sharp denunciations of Islamic extremism. The setting was the University of California, Irvine, a campus with a national reputation as a hotbed of anti-Israel rhetoric.

Students wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs clustered in the center of the auditorium.

The stage was set for confrontation.

Sure enough, 15 minutes into Pipes’s speech, just as he had built up to one of his main points — “The Palestinians must have their will crushed so that they will no longer be trying to eliminate Israel, so they will tend to their own affairs and leave Israel alone” — dozens of Muslim students interrupted him with hostile shouts, before promptly marching out of the lecture hall, chanting “anti-Israel, anti-oppression."

I'm generally opposed to those on the campus left who think disrupting or shouting down right-wing speakers is a smart tactic, but I can't really blame Arab students (or anyone with sliver of humanitarian concern) for getting upset at hearing Pipes calling for the will of a whole nation to be "crushed". If an Islamic fundamentalist gave speech at UCLA calling for the will of America to be crushed so that it will leave the Middle East alone, I can imagine there would be some pissed off students yelling and shouting too; I doubt the Forward or Frontpage would be rushing to defend academic freedom then. The fact that the Forward acts like this statement is some minor point of intellectual discourse that would only upset hard core Islamic fundamentalists or anti-Semites is indicative how badly the Forward, at one point the voice of Jewish-American Socialism committed to a secular, democratic and humanist worldview has degenerated into an apologist for the Israeli and US hard-right.

Labels: Israel, Palestine