Where is the right to free speech for Israel advocates on campus, academics ask

CATHRYN J. PRINCE

Former University of California and current University of Haifa presidents note that while BDS activists regularly use anti-Semitic tropes, Jewish voices aren’t given a fair shake

Illustrative: Muslim students at an anti-Israel protest at the University of California, Irvine, in 2006. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/JTA)

NEW YORK — Eight years ago a group of Muslim students shouted down Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as he delivered a speech on US-Israel relations at University of California. Flash forward to last Friday night at the University of Virginia. Pro-Palestinian students disrupted a number of Israel Defense Force reservists participating on a panel “Building Bridges.”

Whether it’s eight years or eight days ago, when pro-Israel speakers come to campus it’s almost a sure bet those aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) will show up to boo, hiss and intimidate, said Mark Yudof, former president of the University of California. He was speaking last Monday night during a conversation hosted by The American Society of the University of Haifa.

“The name of the game is shouting down Israeli, Jewish and pro-Israeli speakers. [After the event] I was told, ‘Mr. President, free speech is for marginalized people, not for privileged people.’ And that is the problem,” Yudof said during the panel discussion with Ron Robin, president of the University of Haifa.

Started in 2005, the BDS movement has grown into a global campaign determined to promote various forms of boycott against Israel. While trying to emulate the 1980s campaigns against South African apartheid, the movement uses anti-Semitic rhetoric, and frequently targets Jewish students, Israeli guest speakers, or pro-Israel speakers on college campuses in North America and Europe.

Yudof and Robin sat inside the richly paneled library of Manhattan’s Lotos Club, one of the oldest literary clubs in the nation — an appropriate setting for a discussion about BDS and free speech.

Mark Yudof, former President of the University of California (right), Ron Robin, President of University of Haifa (center), and Marc Berley (left) at a special briefing hosted by the American Society of the University of Haifa in New York, February 2018. (Cathryn Prince/Times of Israel)

Healthy campuses ought to be places of debate, even heated debate, Yudof said. Yet, at a time when phrases such as “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” and “intersectionality” have entered the lexicon, there are some university students who believe the freedom to speak only applies to a few, he said. “It’s demoralizing, particularly for Jewish students. They hear how Jews control the media, Jews control Congress. So it’s anti-Semitic. It would be how Nazis in the 1930s talked, or the mayor of Vienna at the time,” Yudof said.

“There is a clear double standard. They [BDS] don’t worry about how gay people are treated, how Turkey treats its minorities, how the Chinese act in Tibet,” he said. He added that there is a consensus among some university presidents and chancellors that “Jewish students are too white, too privileged and not needy,” and therefore don’t need protection.

Illustrative: BDS movement in France. (CC BY-SA, Odemirense, Wikimedia commons)

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Free Gaza spox admits activist initiated fatal 2010 violence aboard Mavi Marmara

ROBERT PHILPOT

Report on inner-workings of anti-Semitic group reveals that Greta Berlin belatedly acknowledged ‘crazy’ Ken O’Keefe seized IDF commando’s gun, sparking fight in which 10 Turks died

Footage taken from a security camera aboard the Mavi Marmara, showing the activists preparing to resist IDF soldiers about to board the ship. (IDF Spokesperson/Flash90)

LONDON — A leading pro-Palestinian campaigner involved in the flotilla that attempted to enter Gaza in May 2010 has appeared to corroborate Israel’s version of the events which led to the bloody confrontation on board the Mavi Marmara.

Ten Turkish activists died after IDF commandos boarded the ship — the largest in the six-vessel convoy — as it sailed towards the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave in defiance of an Israeli security blockade designed to prevent the terror group importing weapons.

In newly revealed posts from a secret British Facebook group, Greta Berlin, the co-founder and spokesperson of the Free Gaza Movement, states that the Israeli troops did not open fire until after Ken O’Keefe, a former US marine aboard the Mavi Marmara, had seized a gun from one of them.

During a heated online debate, in the safety of a Facebook group of pro-Palestinian activists who had all been approved or invited to join, Berlin repeatedly challenged comments from other members praising O’Keefe.

Greta Berlin, spokesperson and co-founder for Free Gaza Movement. (Engelo, CC-BY-SA, via wikipedia)

“He was responsible for some of the deaths on board the Mavi Marmara. Had he not disarmed an Israeli terrorist soldier, they would not have started to fire. That’s enough. Most of you have no idea what you’re talking about,” she wrote.

Berlin’s comments, posted in 2014, were made on the Palestine Live group.

Last week, a report by researcher and blogger David Collier uncovered a raft of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel material on the site, whose members once included the leader of Britain’s Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn.

But Collier’s examination of the Facebook group also seems to throw new light on the events which unfolded in international waters off of the Gazan coast nearly eight years ago, which provoked a fierce diplomatic spat between Turkey and Israel and the severing of ties by Ankara.

Muslim activists hold pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli placards at a rally in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June 2010, days after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident. (photo credit: AP/Achmad Ibrahim)

Dueling narratives

Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara by descending on ropes…

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Swedish FM seems to support PA’s payments to terrorists’ families

RAPHAEL AHREN

Are people supposed to starve to death?’ Margot Wallström asks, but clarifies Stockholm doesn’t fund Palestinian prisoners

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom in Hanoi, Vietnam, November 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh)

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström appeared to display sympathy for the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying “salaries” to the families of Palestinian terrorists.

In an interview with a local Jewish journal published this week, Wallström was asked about her opinion of the fact that Ramallah provides financial aid to the families of Palestinians who are in prison for attacking Israelis.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to in this case, but we have to review how we spend our money. But are people supposed to starve to death or what? What are these families supposed to do if they don’t receive money?” she replied, according to a translation of the interview by a Swedish-born journalist.

A spokesperson for Wallström later told the local journal, Judisk Krönika, that Stockholm’s financial aid to the Palestinian Authority is not being used to pay for needy families. According to Swedish and European Union directives, no aid money is allowed to be used to fund Palestinians in Israeli prisons, the spokesperson said.

Israeli officials have long condemned what they call the PA’s “pay-to-slay” policy.

“Raise your hands high if you agree with me that President Abbas should stop paying terrorists who murder Jews,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month during a speech at an AIPAC conference in Washington.

“He pays about $350 million a year to terrorists and their families, each year. That’s about a little less than 10% of the total Palestinian budget. That’s an incredible number,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm)

A Washington Post report found that Netanyahu’s claim is somewhat exaggerated, arguing that the actual amount the PA pays to terrorists’ families may be up to two-thirds smaller. The paper did confirm, however, that Ramallah pays “salaries” to suicide bombers and other terrorists.

In her interview, Wallström rejected claims that she is quick to censure Israel but rarely calls out the PA, saying she constantly puts pressure on her interlocutors in Ramallah.

“Always when we meet we talk about the fact that they need a younger leadership, that they need female representation and that they need to hold elections and start a reconciliation and work on issues that can lead to peace negotiations; to make the Palestinian Authority fully state-worthy,” she said.

Wallström also defended herself against accusations of anti-Semitism, saying her positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which have led to repeated clashes with Israeli officials, emanate solely from the desire to see both sides reach a political agreement.

“I want to point out that for me it was never about choosing a side in the conflict but rather to strive for a two-state solution; one has to choose peace,” she said.

“Everything I have done proves that I am not an anti-Semite,” she continued. “My driving force ever since I learned about the Holocaust has been to work for a society where that can never happen again.”

Asked if questioning Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state can be considered anti-Semitism, she replied: “I’m not a theologian and I can’t answer that. But if I am accused of being an anti-Semite for promoting a two-state solution I think that hurts the debate. I have always argued for Israel’s right to exist within safe borders.”

Wallström also revealed that she first came to Israel in the 1970s, visiting Masada and some kibbutzim.

“Everything having to do with Israel-Palestine is emotional, and I’m not afraid of that, but it has to be constructive,” she said.