UCLA Muslim Newsmag Targets Jewish Student

Paper's editorial board calls on Jewish student to disassociate from Hasbara Fellowships which "actively (contributes) to violence against Muslims."

5.8.2014

 Daniel Mael  Truth Revolt  www.truthrevolt.org 

The editorial board of Al-Talib, the Muslim Newsmagazine at UCLA, called onJewish student Avinoam Baral to disassociate himself from the pro-Israel program Hasbara Fellowships due to the group's alleged Islamophobia. Al-Talib alleged that the Jewish program "actively (contributes) to violence against Muslims" and asked that Baral, who is a candidate for Internal Vice President in upcoming UCLA student elections, separate himself from the program. 

The newsmagazine asked that Baral "publicly distance himself from the organization Hasbara Fellowships because of its association with the production and dissemination of Islamophobic documentaries across the United States. Unless Baral distances himself from an organization that disseminates Islamophobia, ties to anti-Muslim networks will remain accepted in campus life and politics."

TruthRevolt asked Ibrahim Hooper, the Communications Director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), whether or not the organization approved of the editorial's request, to which Hooper replied, "Your apparent hostility to Islam and Muslims seems to have you grasping at straws."

As TruthRevolt reported on Wednesday evening, a number candidates for UCLA student government were asked to sign an "ethics statement" prohibiting trips to Israel with Hasbara Fellowships, AIPAC and the ADL. StandWithUs Executive Director Roz Rothstein labeled the attempt "bigoted" and Israel on Campus Coalition Executive Director Jacob Baime hoped that students on campus would "not be intimidated by closed-minded zealots with their heads in the sand."Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Amnesty researcher admits that Palestinian "eyewitnesses" often lie

Thursday, May 08, 2014 Elder of Zyon

Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty field investigator, wrote aninteresting article about the challenges of fact finding in war situations. 

One of her main points is that eyewitnesses are often unreliable. For example:

In Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and other places I interviewed civilians who described what they thought were artillery or bomb strikes being launched by far away government forces and striking near their homes – whereas in reality the loud bangs and tremors were caused by mortars or rockets being launched by opposition fighters from their positions nearby. For the untrained ear it is virtually impossible to distinguish between incoming and outgoing fire, and all the more so for those who find themselves close to the frontlines.

Another factor she mentions:

Even if they disregard it, investigators must be alert to the fact that disinformation and misinformation can contribute to shaping the perception of events, the narrative surrounding the events, and the behaviour of people who take it in good faith and internalize it, including victims, witnesses, and others potential sources.

Here Rovera  is referring to lies that spread quickly and then become widely believed - including by "unbiased" NGOs - before anyone has a chance to investigate. How many times have we seen that?
She gives a specific example from Gaza:

Fear can lead victims and witnesses to withhold evidence or give deliberately erroneous accounts of incidents. In Gaza, I received partial or inaccurate information by relatives ofcivilians accidentally killed in accidental explosions or by rockets launched by Palestinian armed groups towards Israel that had malfunctioned and of civilians killed by Israeli strikes on nearby Palestinian armed groups’ positions. When confronted with other evidence obtained separately, some said they feared reprisals by the armed groups.

Meaning that "eyewitnesses" will often claim that there was no terrorist activity in the area of an airstrike and Israel wantonly and indiscriminately killed people for no reason.  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

BDS Movement: Barbarians Inside the Gates - Part II

by Denis MacEoin
May 8, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4275/bds-movement-barbarians

These politically correct activists are all supposed to be anti-racists and multiculturalists. Yet when artists are banned just because they happened to be born in Israel, it tears apart the very basis of both anti-racism and multiculturalism.

As you doubtless know, many in Europe loathe the United States. Their invective down the years has been an assault on reason and emotional stability, whether directed against the Vietnam war, the response to 9/11 or to the Iraq war. Yet there is no boycott of the United States.

So, despite a hatred for America -- and a perverse love of Iran, Hezbollah, and the PLO -- we come back to the Israeli exception, to the singling out of just one country. However charitable we may try to be, it is hard not to detect the reek of anti-Semitism. Am I being unfair? To people who marched through the streets of European cities chanting, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas," (and here and here at Dutch football matches) was that just simple folly -- or proof of intention?

The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement [BDS] against Israel is so determined to hurt Israel abroad, that the boycotters also put pressure on performers who even consider holding concerts in Israel.

Carlos Latuff's cartoon calling on performers to boycott Israel.

The pressure works. An endless stream of artists, mainly musicians, have cancelled concerts or simply turned down invitations to play in Tel Aviv or elsewhere in Israel.  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Anti-Israel Vassar student group focuses on race of crowd at my speech

Posted by William A. Jacobson    Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 11:59am
Legal Insurrection

Not all minds were changed by my speech at Vassar. The speech and lengthy Q&A (see video below) took place after none of the 39 Vassar professors who signed a letter defending the academic boycott of Israel took up my challenge to debate any or all of them.

But that’s okay.

It’s a shame, though, that people who disagree with me have to focus on race.

(Original tweets here, here, here, here)

Their comment isn’t even accurate and is insulting to the diverse crowd in attendance. Certainly the crowd was mostly white, just like Vassar’s student body and faculty. But so what?

Dividing people by race and trying to drum up racial tension is a deliberate tactic of SJP at Vassar and elsewhere, as was reflected in the highly racialized taunting of two Vassar professors at a March 3 open forum on campus, as previously reported.

I guess I’m not really surprised.   Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Mystical Politics: Vassar College Students for Justice in Palestine and Antisemitism

Mystical Politics: Vassar College Students for Justice in Palestine and Antisemitism

SJP Vassar Responds to Professor Jacobson

Read this SJP Vassar Response to Professor Jacobson

BDS? Boycott?

The Next Step in the Campus War on Jews

from Commentary Jonathan S. Tobin May7, 2014

In recent months, those advocating boycotts of Israel have lost a series of votes on college campuses around the country. Though the political culture of academia swings hard to the left with faculty members often tilting the discussion about the Middle East against Israel, a critical mass of fair minded students still exist at most institutions of higher learning. Part of that stems from the fact that some students—especially Jews—have been to Israel on trips where they learn the other side of the story from the pro-Palestinian propaganda that is often shoved down their throats in classes or at college forums. So rather than merely accept the lies about Israel being an “apartheid” state they can lean on their own experiences and speak about the equal rights that are held by all people in the Jewish state or discuss the complex questions about the West Bank in terms other than that of an “occupation.”

That’s a problem for the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) crowd, but they’ve come up with an effective answer to it: start a campaign seeking to stigmatize those who take trips to Israel sponsored by Jewish organizations. That’s what’s happening at UCLA where an election has promoted a debate over whether it is ethical for candidates for student offices to have been to Israel on a visit sponsored by a Jewish organization. This specious issue was raised in an article published in the student newspaper the Daily Bruin last week by two members of Students for Justice for Palestine, an anti-Zionist group. It was followed by an attempt to get the student government to enact a ban on its members going to the Middle East with pro-Israel groups. That failed but, as the Daily Bruin also reported, a majority of candidates for student government positions have now signed a pledged not to take such trips. 

Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Top Netanyahu aide: Here’s proof Abbas deliberately destroyed peace talks

In letter to White House, EU and world ambassadors, PM’s national security chief presents ‘damning evidence’ of sabotage by Ramallah

BY YIFA YAAKOV May 7, 2014, 12:29 pm

NOTE: This is really interesting:

A letter reportedly sent by Israel’s national security chief to the White House, the EU and numerous ambassadors blames the Palestinians for the collapse of peace talks, and claims to include hard proof that PA officials were devising measures to thwart the process even before Israel refused to release a fourth round of Palestinian prisoners at the end of March.

n the April 22 letter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, revealed that chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat wrote a policy paper in March in preparation for a Palestinian rejection of American mediation efforts and Israeli overtures — nearly a month before Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made a unilateral move to sign 15 international conventions, ostensibly in response to Israel’s refusal to honor its commitment to release the final round of prisoners,Haaretz reported Wednesday.

In fact, Cohen said, according to a copy of the latter published alongside the report (PDF here), Erekat had planned the maneuver weeks before Israel announced its refusal to release the prisoners — timing that, according to Cohen, demonstrates that the Palestinian leadership never intended to follow the peace talks through.

Cohen attached Erekat’s policy paper to his letter, copies of which were reportedly sent to his US counterpart Susan Rice, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, all Israel-based EU ambassadors, and ambassadors from China, Russia and other countries. He appealed to the recipients to peruse the Erekat document and “draw conclusions” as to the Palestinians’ “bad faith” and responsibility for the failure of the latest round of peace talks.

Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Read more: Top Netanyahu aide: Here's proof Abbas deliberately destroyed peace talks | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-official-palestinians-purposely-stymied-talks/#ixzz315EJANZK
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

Top Egyptian official: Hamas must recognize Israel

FM Amr Moussa supports Palestinian reconciliation, but says Gaza-based terror group should back the 2002 Arab initiative  from Times of Israel May 8, 2014

Hamas must recognize the existence of Israel if the Palestinians are to move forward with their hopes of establishing their own state, former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa said Wednesday.

“It is normal for the Palestinians to reconcile,” Moussa said of a recent unity deal struck between the Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

However, “I believe that Hamas should declare its acceptance of the Arab initiative of 2002, which is the map of normalization and recognition of the state of Israel together with the establishing of the Palestinian state and the withdrawal of the occupied territory,” he insisted.

“If Hamas does do this, it would be a major step in the direction of formulating a favorable all-Palestinian policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Amr Moussa speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt, on Aug. 6, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil)

Hamas and the Western-backed PLO, which is dominated by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah party, signed a surprise reconciliation agreement on April 23 in a bid to end years of bitter and sometime bloody rivalry.

Under terms of the deal, the two sides would work together to form an “independent government” of technocrats, to be headed by Abbas, that would pave the way for long-delayed elections.

The move angered Israel, which has suspended its participation in US-led peace talks, saying it cannot be expected to negotiate with a government which includes members of a party dedicated to its destruction.

Egypt, which was once close to Hamas, has grown increasingly hostile to the militant movement after the Egyptian military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was launched by Saudi Arabia and backed by the Arab League.

Under the plan, Arab states would forge full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in exchange for a withdrawal from land it occupied during the 1967 Six Day War or mutually-agreed upon land swaps.

Moussa, who was Egypt’s top diplomat from 1991 to 2001 before becoming secretary general of the Arab League until 2011, is close to former military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who is tipped to win next month’s elections in Egypt.

Abbas held “positive” talks with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Doha Monday in the first meeting since their surprise unity deal last month, Palestinian officials said.

However, the deputy leader of Hamas, Moussa Abu Marzouk, insisted earlier this week that despite the unity deal his group would never recognize Israel.

“We will not recognize the Zionist entity,” he told a press conference in Gaza City. 

LINK HERE

What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Apartheid?

from the Tabletmag.com
Kerry and others talk in terms of demographics, but it’s a question of rights

By James Kirchick|May 2, 2014 4:00 PM

Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks last week to the Trilateral Commission predicting Israel’s potential transformation into an “apartheid state” should it fail to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians raised howls of protest from American Jewish leaders.

In Kerry’s defense, a number of commentators have pointed to Israeli leaders who have argued the same point, including Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Indeed, many genuine friends of Israel—of which Kerry is undoubtedly one—have warned of the apartheid scenario, doing so often in service of specifically deflecting claims that Israel is already an apartheid state. Let the peace process fester, these pro-Israel voices warn, and that calumny could one day become true. But is this admonition accurate?

The apartheid regime in South Africa consisted of a white minority ruling over a non-white majority, and it is this feature that those who invoke the specter of apartheid over Israel cite as evidence for their claim. If Israelis and Palestinians do not reach a two-state solution, they warn, then a Jewish minority will eventually rule over a non-Jewish majority in the area spanning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Jeffrey Goldberg quoted his own 10-year-old New Yorker article on this point:

By 2020, the Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola has predicted, Jews will make up less than forty-seven per cent of the population. If a self-sustaining Palestinian state—one that is territorially contiguous within the West Bank—does not emerge, the Jews of Israel will be faced with two choices: a binational state with an Arab majority, which would be the end of the idea of Zionism, or an apartheid state, in which the Arab majority would be ruled by a Jewish minority.

The problem with the logic is that relative population size has nothing to do with whether or not a system can be described as “apartheid.”  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Abunimah and Blumenthal’s freedom ride

from Mondoweiss

NOTE: Isn't it amazing how one can see only what one wants to see and hear only what one wants to hear? If you are a lion, a giraffe looks like lunch, I guess. This utter Jew hater thinks what Blumenthal and Abuminah said was okay? 

For weeks now I’ve been hearing about Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal’s joint appearances and though it was one of the rainiest days ever in New York last Wednesday I drove up to Vassar College to hear them talk.  
Keep Reading Here if you can stomach it

ASA Boycott – Not Defending the Undefendable

from divestthis.com May 7, 2014

I’ve said my piece (really more than my piece) regarding the academic boycott voted in by the American Studies Association last year.  But now that we’re closing in on the six month mark since a boycott against the Jewish state was made policy by an (admittedly marginal) academic group, it’s worth taking a step back to see what the consequences have been for Israel vs. the ASA.

As far as Israeli academics are concerned, I’m not aware of a single American Studies professor from a single university taking a single step to target an Israeli academic or institution in compliance with the boycott policy.  Perhaps someone can provide us an instance of the boycott actually being enacted, but as far as I can tell the leadership of the ASA has proven itself willing to put its organization, its members and the entire discipline of American Studies at risk for the sake of a policy they do not have the guts to actually implement.

Supporters of the ASA boycott point out that the action was primarily symbolic – a means to demonstrate that the organization (claiming to represent the ideals of academic inquiry and discourse) had become so sickened by Israeli policy that they were willing to use the blunt instrument of a boycott to express their disapproval.  But for this symbolism to hold, it must be demonstrated that the boycott actually represents some kind of consensus within the field, especially for a vote passed by a “majority” of just 16% of the organization’s members.  

NOTE: Several paragraphs later....

But probably the most telling example of how desperately the boycotters don’t want to engage in the conversation they claim to crave was this week’s appearance by Jacobson at Vassar College, a school where 39 professors attacked the college’s President’s when she joined over two-hundred other college and university presidents to condemn the ASA’s action (correctly) as an attack on academic freedom.

Please CLICK HERE to read the whole article

Holocaust Denial is Anti Semitism

Matas Uses Award Ceremony to Criticize University

May 6, 2014 Jewish Tribune Canada by Joanne Hill Staff Writer

NOTE: Kudos for David Matas for speaking out! 

TORONTO – Anti-Israel activities on campus are driving Jewish students away and interfering with their education, said a noted human rights lawyer.

David Matas, honorary national senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada and an internationally recognized expert in refugee, immigration and human rights law, spoke to the Jewish Tribune by phone from Winnipeg hours before he was given the University of Manitoba’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In his acceptance speech, Matas expressed disagreement with the university’s decision to allow Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) events to take place on campus this year.

“If you create a poisoned environment within a closed community, it ruptures the community and undermines and destroys the university,” Matas told the Tribune. “That’s what we’ve seen with incitement to hatred against the Jewish community in other universities: these places become hostile environments for Jewish students and we see Jewish students quitting or not going because of this. It’s a blow against higher education for the Jewish community because it’s driving these people away from these institutions through this incitement to hatred, and intimidation and threats and, in some cases, violence.”  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading