Jewish Faculty at UC-Irvine Speak Out Against Anti-Semitism

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


The below letter, which is signed by several UC-Irvine faculty members has been sent to the campus newspaper, New University, this week. Most all of the signees are Jewish professors at UC-Irvine.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We, faculty at the University of California--Irvine, are deeply
disturbed about activities on campus that foment hatred against Jews
and Israelis. The troubling events over the past few years include the
painting of swastikas in university buildings, the Star of David
depicted as akin to a swastika, a statement (by a speaker repeatedly
invited by the Muslim Student Union) that the Zionist Jew is a party
of satan, a statement by another MSU speaker that the Holocaust was
God's will, the tearing down of posters placed by the student group
Anteaters for Israel, and the hacking of their web site. Some
community members, students, and faculty indeed feel intimidated, and
at times even unsafe.

Some of these actions are protected by the First Amendment and in no
way do we want to limit freedom of speech. We welcome open dialogue
among all members of the UCI community. We respect and value our
Muslim colleagues, including those members of the MSU who support and
encourage open dialogue and civility on campus. At the same time, we
take issue with hate-promoting actions that we find unacceptable. They
run counter to the peaceful co-existence and civility that are
essential to a university environment. Actions that demonize and
derogate others, such as the previous events that have occurred on our
campus noted above, have contributed to UCI's developing a growing
reputation as a center of hate and intolerance. Our campus deserves
better.

Signed:

Marlon Boarnet, Professor, Department of Planning, Policy, and Design
Matthew Brenner, Professor, Department of Medicine
Dan Cooper, Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering
Rina Dechter, Professor, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
George Farkas, Professor, Department of Education
Paul Feldstein, Robert Gumbiner Professor, The Paul Merage School of Business
Gary Fouse, Adjunct teacher, University Extension
Stephen Franklin, Lecturer, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Jean Fried, Project Scientist, Department of Planning, Policy, and Design
Sheldon Greenfield, Donald Bren Professor, School of Medicine
Amihai Glazer, Professor, Department of Economics
Dan Hirschberg, Professor, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Zeev Kain, Professor, Anesthesiology & Pediatrics & Psychiatry
Tatiana Kain, Chair and Medical Director, Department of Emergency Medicine
Sherrie Kaplan, Executive Co-Director, Center for Health Policy Research
Mark I. Langdorf, Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine
Seymour Menton, Research Professor, Department of Spanish & Portugese
Dana Mukamel, Professor, Department of Medicine
Mark I. Langdorf, Professor, Clinical Emergency Medicine
Marc Lerner, Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Frank Meyskens, Professor of Medicine, Biological Chemistry and Public Health
David Neumark, Professor, Department of Economics
Alex Nicolau, Professor, Department of Computer Science
Raymond W. Novaco, Professor, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
Richard Pattis, Lecturer, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Shlomit Radom-Aizik, Postdoc, Department of Pediatrics
Roberta Seid, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences
Roxane Cohen Silver, Professor Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
Etel Solingen, Chancellor's Professor, Political Science
Dara Sorkin, Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine
Eugene Spiritus, Chief Medical Officer, UCI Medical Center
Hal Stern, Professor, Department of Statistics
Dan Stokols, Chancellor's Professor, Department of Planning, Policy,
and Design and Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
Jerome Tobis, MD, Professor emeritus (recalled)
Gene Tsudik, Professor, Department of Computer Science
Alex Veidenbaum, Professor, Departmet of Computer Science
Mark Warschauer, Professor of Education and Informatics
Hadar Ziv, Lecturer/Research Scientist, Department of Informatics

Israel Apartheid Day at UC-Irvine-Day 1

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


It's late so I'm not going to post everything from Day 1. Today's speakers were Hedy Epstein and Hatem Bazian of UC Berkeley, of whom I will have more to say tomorrow. I do want to put up pictures of Muslim Student Union displays that I have gotten from the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism. You can judge their content for yourselves.

BTW: Overheard at the rally today: A group of MSU types talking about how they hate yours truly and how they must in the future not allow me to ask questions of their speakers.

Henry Waxman Wants Tracking Devices on All Cars

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk






"Oh, Henry...track me, track me"


Democratic Representative Henry Waxman (CA), also known as "Handsome Henry", has come up with yet another bonehead idea. This time, he wants to require that every car in the land be equipped with a "black box" recorder that would track our whereabouts as we are driving (to those tea parties, I suppose).



Believe it or not, Comrade Waxman is reportedly working on legislation that would produce a system like On-Star to be placed on all cars. That way, Handsome Henry will know where every car in the land is at any given moment.

Naturally, this would produce countless new government jobs. Green jobs no less! Think how many bureaucrats it would take to monitor all the cars in America.

Keep in mind, this is the same aparatchnik who has been pushing that "Fairness Doctrine" that would basically destroy talk radio by smothering radio stations with regulations and lawsuits.

How's that "Hope and Change" working for you, folks?

This has new meaning to the phrase, "Yankee go home!" ...I didn't know it applied to students in America.

MSNBC
Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees

By George Kiriyama NBCBayArea.com 

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

"They said we could wear it on any other day," Daniel Galli said, "but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today."

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus.

"They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended," Dominic Maciel, Galli's friend, said.

The boys really had no choice, and went home to avoid suspension. They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride. Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel's mom, said. "All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They're expressing their individuality."

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak, this was a big deal. They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

As for an apology, the boys and their families say, 'fat chance.'

"I'm not going to apologize. I did nothing wrong," Galli said. "I went along with my normal day. I might have worn an American flag, but I'm an American and I'm proud to be an American."

The five boys and their families met with a Morgan Hill Unified School District official Wednesday night. The district and the school do not see eye-to-eye on the incident and released the following statement:

The district does not concur with the Live Oak High School administration's interpretation of either board or district policy related to these actions.

The boys will not be suspended and were allowed to return to school Thursday. We spotted one of them when he got to campus -- and, yes, he was sporting an American flag T-shirt.

What others are saying... ChicagoRay (Careful now, Ray is kind of blunt...but I would agree with him on this one! - Actually, I would like to make examples of the teacher and principal  that were responsible for this.  I would put them in a cage [like zoo animals] in the town square...for life!) 

UC Berkeley Professor Objects to Campus Protest Against Anti-Semitism

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Below pictures by Arab Lesbians Against Hate



Andrew Gutierrez, Professor at UC Berkeley
(Hat tip to Fatima at Arab Lesbians Against Hate)


Yesterday, I posted an article about swastikas being discovered on the UC Berserkley campus last week and a resultant student demonstration protesting against anti-Semitism. Who could object to that?

Meet Professor Andrew Gutierrez




(hat tip to an anonymous commenter for sending me the link to this video)

What people like Gutierrez (an anti-Israel professor and Israel divestment petition signer) don't get is that there is a rise in anti-Semitism which should be opposed by everyone no matter where one stands on the Israel-Palestinian issue. So a group of students protest against swastikas on campus and this guy comes out to heckle them while they are speaking?

Well, what can you expect?

And a special salute to Fatima at Arab Lesbians Against Hate, which I have linked to this site.

Hate Week Returns to UC-Irvine

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk







Norman Finklestein-"Independent Scholar"


The Muslim Student Union at UC-Irvine has released its schedule of events for the week of May 10 plus a couple of warm-up events for the week of May 3. Yes, folks, it's the same group that is supposedly under investigation by the university for its George Galloway event of last May, when money was collected to deliver to Gaza. The MSU is also still under investigation by the university for its role in disrupting the speech of the Israeli ambassador on February 8th. Nevertheless, the show must go on. So here comes "Israel Apartheid Week-A Call to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel."

This coming week, the MSU in concert with several other unhappy student groups*, will host a couple of events under the title:

Roots of Pain: Oppression-Spreading Awareness for Issues of Injustice and Oppression. You get the message. On Monday (May 3) some former gang member will talk about the gang situation in Los Angeles. (I wonder who he will blame that on.) On Wednesday evening, there will be some sort of round table discussion of oppression under the guidance of a poet and rap artist named Amir Sulaiman.

The purpose of these two events is to draw in as many other "victim groups" as possible to establish a theme of various groups united in opposition to "oppression in Amerika". Hopefully (to the MSU), they will then all come together with the MSU during the week of May 10 when Israel, the US and those "Zionist Jews" will be singled out for blame for all the world's ills.

On Monday, May 10 at 2 pm, a Holocaust survivor named Hedy Epstein, will come in and talk about how bad Israel is. At seven that evening, Hatem Bazian will speak. Bazian teaches at UC Berkeley and has a number of interesting quotes attributed to him including the infamous hadith of hate-you know, the one about Jews hiding behind rocks and trees (which he denies). He also reportedly told a cheering crowd in San Francisco that it was time we had an intifada in this country (according to Steven Emerson in his book, American Jihad).

Then on Tuesday at noon (in front of the flagpoles), it's the incomparable Norman Finklestein, now an "independent scholar" since he was canned by DePaul University. Finklestein is a grumpy man who hates everything and everyone who disagrees with him. Yet, academics swoon when he comes to speak (at least at UC-Irvine). They love to listen as Finklestein throws in insults at someone every two or three sentences. They laugh at his sarcasm directed towards his opponents. Finklestein is guaranteed to go over his allotted time because he loves to listen to himself talk as he bashes Israel and America. Then at 5 pm, after resting his vocal cords, the esteemed "independent scholar" will do it all over again.

Der Fink has a number of interesting conspiracy theories including the idea that the Jews have exploited the Holocaust to blackmail the world, Israel attacked Hamas last year because they (Hamas) had become too moderate and represented a reliable partner for peace-and in answer to a question by me on January 31, 2009 at UCI that all those pro-Palestinian protesters in Ft Lauderdale, LA, and San Francisco yelling "Jews back to the ovens", "long live Hitler and "Hitler rest in peace" (videos can be seen on Fousesquawk) either didn't exist, were greatly exaggerated, or were Zionists masquerading as Arabs.

This is a really smart guy, folks.

On Wednesday at 12 and again at 2, film maker Alison Weir ("If They Only Knew") will bash Israel. Ms Weir is just one of so many who are absorbed with so-called human rights abuses in Israel but don't have a lot to say about human rights abuses in all those nations that surround Israel as well as the Palestinian territories.

In the evening (7:30), it's UC Santa Barbara sociology professor and indoctrinator William Robinson, the one who was involved in sending e-mails to his students comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. The topic of his talk will be "UC Israel", whatever that means.

On Thursday at noon, it's none other than old stand-by Amir Abdel Malik Ali on "Death to Apartheid". To Ali, that means wiping out Israel, one Palestinian state, and whatever it takes-including suicide bombers who blow up Israeli buses and pizza parlors-"heroes" and martyrs" according to him. No doubt, he'll identify a few more "Zionist Jews" for our benefit as he has in the past, folks like "David Axelrod, Rahm Israel Emanuel and Rupert Murdoch".

At 5 pm, it will be Omar Shakir, a young "scholar" in Middle East Studies at Georgetown and anti-Israel activist. As a student at Stanford, he led an attempt to get a divestment from Israel resolution passed.

So there it is, folks. While the entire UC system is turned upside down over recent hateful incidents on several of its campuses, trying to devise ways of patching up ethnic and religious divisions, and UCI is trying to figure out what to do about the aforementioned events involving George Galloway and the Israeli ambassador's disrupted speech, get ready for another round of bashing of Israel, the US and those "Zionist Jews". And for all those folks who have been denying there is a problem at UCI, come out and see it for yourselves.

BTW, where is George Galloway?

Ah, there he is (in red).

* Groups supporting May 3 week events:

American Indian Student Association
Black Student Union
Hip Hop Congress
Pakistani Students Ass.
Radical Student Union
Society of Arab Students
Uncultivated Rabbitts
UCI Cross Cultural Center ( I may be wrong, but isn't that a UCI entity?)

Michigan Passes Tough Immigration Law-Protests Erupt

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk



Can you tell who the Canadian is?


Last week, Michigan Governor John Conyers signed a draconian new anti-illegal immigration law into effect designed to combat the wave of crimes by Canadians crossing the border illegally (chiefly by swimming across the river from Windsor, Ontario into Detroit).

The reaction was immediate.

While most Michiganders support the law saying that the situation in the state had become intolerable, white groups condemned the action calling it racist and a prelude to racial profiling.



In Washington, President Yogi Berra called the law, "unconstitutional" and directed his attorney general, Joe Arpaio, to have the Justice Department look into the law to see if it was constitutional.




Director of Homeland Security and former Michigan Governor, Jenifer Granholm, was also sharply critical of the new law predicting it would run the state into the ground (again). The Canadian prime minister has issued a travel advisory for Canadians planning travel into Michigan. However, bill supporters point out the hypocrisy of Canada's complaints by referring to that country's tough immigration measures on its own northern border, which make it virtually impossible to enter.

Canadian Coast Guard intercepts vessel carrying illegal aliens into Canada from Arctic Circle

In related developments, the on-going drug war rages on in the Canadian border regions between the French-speaking Montreal Cartel and the English-speaking Toronto Cartel. Just yesterday, gunmen from the Toronto-based "The Jerks" shot down five members of the Montreal-based, "Les Folles" on the outskirts of the disputed region of Ottawa.







Meanwhile, "Sheriff Al" Sharpton, in an interview on "Larry King on Life Support", defended the new measure calling for the government to "enforce the law".


Jesse Jackson, traveling on the north side of Chicago, could not be reached for comment. Back on the south side, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright proclaimed,

"God bless America! If there's one thing this country doesn't need, it's more RICH WHITE PEOPLE!"

In other states, some politicians are calling for a boycott of Michigan even extending to the purchase of Detroit Lions gear-which nobody buys anyway.

"Sir, please remove your head covering."

Others are not so enthusiastic. When interviewed by a cute female TV reporter, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said only,

"It's none of our business".

Meanwhile, the ACLU issued a statement saying,

"We support our law enforcement."

Today, some 100 Canadians and Canadian-Americans are expected to march in downtown Detroit to protest the law. The Detroit Minutemen had this to say,

"We'll be ready for them."


But there is good news. Mexico has agreed to put tough controls on its nuclear enrichment program.