On Friday, a student at UCLA who wished to remain anonymous sent Ben Shapiro, Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt, a letter concerning the UCLA divestment from Israel failure this week. Here is the text:
Hi Mr. Shapiro,
I really hope you get this email because this will bring a smile to your face. Yesterday night the Bruins Against BDS group got together to celebrate divestment not passing at UCLA and among the students that were there, 6 of the 7 council members who voted against it came as well and 1 of them said something very interesting that I thought you should hear. He said, "I walked in to the meeting against it, but during the meeting I wavered a little bit, but then Ben Shapiro made his public comment and I KNEW I had to vote against it. In those 2 minutes he completely swayed me against it and I've watched the video of his public comment like 10 times today and told all my friends that HE is the reason I voted against this. He summarized it all so perfectly and I knew that if I was a drop in the bucket to help the BDS movement I could never live with myself."
I just wanted you to know that you made a difference that night and for that, the Bruins Against BDS could never thank you enough. You should be extremely proud.
Have you heard Ben Shapiro's speech yet?
Here's a transcript of Ben's talk from the Truth Revolt blog.
My name is Ben Shapiro. I'm an alumnus of this university. I'm also a local talk show host on 870 [AM] in the morning, and I got out of bed and left my one month old baby there when I saw what was going on here tonight. I've never been more ashamed to be a Bruin. I've never been more ashamed to be an alumnus of this university than to see this divestment petition being considered at this level.
To pretend this is about occupation, to pretend this is about peace, to pretend that this anything other than vile, spiteful Jew hatred is a lie!
There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Saudi Arabia. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Iran. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Palestine. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing the vast bevy of human rights violations that happen every day in the Middle East, exponentially worse that what happens in Israel.
Any gay or lesbian that is targeting Israel in this room seems to have forgotten how high they hang gays from cranes in Iran. Every person of liberal bent who suggests that Israel is the problem in the Middle East seems to have forgotten that there is only one country in the Middle East that actually has any sort of religious diversity in it. The countries that are apartheid countries are those that are Judenrein -- like, for example, Palestine.
So, for us to sit here and pretend that Israel is somehow on a lower moral plane is a direct manifestation of anti-Semitism. And to hold Jews to a different moral standard than any other country or group on the face of the earth represents nothing but an age-old and historic hatred for the Jewish people. All the folks here who are pretending that the B.D.S is about anything other than that, I would like to see a poll of those folks, and see how many of them actually believe in the existence of a Jewish state, qua-Jewish state, not as a state like any other, but as a Jewish state. They don't. They don't acknowledge that existence. They don't believe in that existence. They don't believe in peace. All this is about, pure and simple, is a desire to target the Jewish people.
this email doesnt jibe with the daily bruin article that not a single vote was changed during the course of the "debate"
ReplyDeletei appreciate shapiro calling out for everyone to look at the elephant in the room and agree more with him than bruins against bds, in the fact that the matter does have to with jew hate
dont really think that this was a forum for pimping his radio show, nor do i think he actually listened to the prior comments, which pointed out that ucla is not invested in companies that do biz with places like syria, etc
would have preferred that he note that there has never been a single divestment vote re companies that do biz with china, who occupies tibet and uses slave labor.
and personally, im happy that the world holds israel and jews to a higher moral standard
shows that the world does look to us to be a light unto the nations
"this email doesnt jibe with the daily bruin article that not a single vote was changed during the course of the "debate" "
ReplyDeleteI did think about that, and the deeply cynical part of me wondered if this was, in fact some sort of shameless self promotion via conveniently anonymous email. But the author says he was initially against the vote and found himself wavering- but the speech convinced him to vote against it. So he didn't change his mind, and there is no contradiction.
Jews and their supporters tend towards the "6 reasons the 1967 war was a defensive war" strategy of debate, while Palestinians and their supporters tend towards the "dead babies and olive trees" approach. Shapiro veered away from the usual track, and his raw emotion was effective in reaching his target audience.
Judging by the sheer number of viewers he has reached, he struck a chord.