Monday, September 11, 2017
From Ian:
J Street U to Push Resolution Calling for End to ‘Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory’
J Street U to Push Resolution Calling for End to ‘Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory’
A campus activist network will push student governments and university administrations this year to pass a resolution calling for "an end to … the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory."Seth Frantzman: Calling Israel ‘white supremacist’ perpetuates Western antisemitism
J Street U, the university wing of a group that positions itself as pro-Israel and anti-boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), has drafted a motion "for ratification by student government and implementation by [administrators]" that would "affirm their support for a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which will ensure a future of peace and dignity for both peoples."
The draft resolution, which was viewed by the Washington Free Beacon, is titled "Invest in Israel; Invest in Two States" and urges the campus community to recognize the "two-state solution as the only viable solution for the end to the occupation of the West Bank by Israel."
The bill would encourage a repudiation of BDS by university trustees and students as counterproductive to the goal of reaching a two-state settlement, while also apportioning considerable blame for the ongoing conflict to Israel's "occupation" of East Jerusalem and the West Bank—areas that include Judaism's holiest sites—since the 1967 Six-Day War.
Also in the draft is a nod to ending "violence, terror, incitement," though the text makes no mention of who it considers responsible for terror and incitement in the region.
Repeated phone calls to the J Street national office and communications officials produced no response.
The 2017 issue of the Tufts University “Disorientation Guide” describes the campus group Hillel as “an organization that supports a white supremacist state.” The guide is not an official university brochure. According to the Tufts Daily it is “distributed at the start of the semester by a group called the Tufts Anti-Authoritarian Collective and seeks to “provide a platform for many underrepresented, radical voices on campus and to present the option of an alternative community to freshmen.”Berkeley Agitators Say Orthodox Jew Ben Shapiro Is A ‘White Supremacist’
Among “radical voices” on campuses in the West, hatred of Israel has become a pillar of faith. It is one cause that most of the disparate groups can agree on. In the Disorientation Guide, a whole section is devoted to Israel Apartheid Week and attacks on Israel and Jewish organizations such as Hillel. The anonymous writers would argue they are not anti-Jewish, because if you read closely it’s clear some of them are Jewish and they simply want to create “alternative Jewish communities on campus to celebrate their Judaism while remaining critical of Zionism and Israel.”
The Tufts guide isn’t unique, it’s representative of a wider phenomenon that is well known. Israel is a toxic issue on campus and opposition to “Zionism” is de rigueur. This fashionable anti-Israel activism has been a hallmark on campuses and parts of the Left since the 1970s. Even in 1966 the General Union of Palestine Students sought to get the National Union of Israel Students expelled from the International Union of Students.
What is particular to the current depiction of Israel is that it has grown beyond just pro-Palestinian activism that used to be part of the anti-colonial struggle and graduated to a depiction of Israel as a “white supremacist” state to connect it to current struggles in the US and the West. They posit that Jews are “white” and enjoy “white privilege” and therefore Israel is “white supremacist” because it is an expression of Jewish nationalism, which for them is like white nationalism.
There is an irony here in that the anti-Israel activists in the West tend to have more white privilege than the average person from Israel has. They portray Israel as “white” primarily as a device to distract from their own insecurities about being white, and to try to distract from the crimes of Western countries, including the Holocaust, and foist “white supremacism” onto Israel.
Left-wing agitators have falsely labeled conservative commentator Ben Shapiro a “white supremacist,” in an apparent attempt to inflame tensions ahead of Shapiro’s speech at the University of California, Berkeley on Thursday.UC Berkeley Offers Assisted Suicide to Students Offended by Shapiro Talk (satire)
Shapiro, the editor in chief of The Daily Wire, is an Orthodox Jew and a vocal opponent of the alt-right and other fringe white nationalist groups. Nevertheless, Refuse Fascism, a group that has previously organized violent demonstrations in Berkeley, labeled Shapiro a “fascist thug” and “white supremacist” over the weekend.
“Fascist thug [and] white supremacist Ben Shapiro is coming to UC Berkeley — The issue is not ‘Free Speech,'” the group wrote in a Facebook post. “The Issue is Fascism.”
The post linked to a Refuse Fascism statement declaring that “Campuses must become FASCIST-FREE ZONES.”
UC Berkeley has encouraged similarly dramatic responses to Shapiro’s talk on campus. The university announced that it would be offering “counseling services” to students upset by Shapiro’s presence on campus. (RELATED: DNC Platform Member Cornel West Tied To Violent Berkeley Rioters)
“We are deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals’ sense of safety and belonging. No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or for what they believe,” Paul Alivisatos, the university’s executive vice chancellor and provost, wrote in an open letter.
After learning that intensive counseling had failed to heal many of the deep emotional wounds caused by the event, the University of California at Berkeley is now offering assisted suicide to students threatened by conservative journalist Ben Shapiro’s scheduled talk.
“No student should ever feel threatened, harassed, or the least bit uncomfortable by being exposed to controversial or offensive ideas,” the university wrote in a letter to students. “Since such offense may be unavoidable with a Zionist Nazi like Shapiro invading our safe spaces, we understand that for many students, death may be the most merciful option, and we offer complimentary euthanasia for anyone who requires it.”
The letter stressed that these services would only be given only to students who chose to utilize them. This was not enough, however, for the radical ‘Antifa’ movement, which vowed to forcibly euthanize any students who chose to forgo the university’s treatment.
“Any students who want to live in a world in which a fascist like Shapiro can speak on their campus are themselves fascists,” one Antifa member told The Mideast Beast. “They therefore forfeit their right to live, and we are totally justified in attacking them with sticks and clubs.”
