San Francisco State: Tolerating the intolerable

Our friend Mike L.recently originally published  a series of posts at Israel Thrives regarding San Francisco State University

As a graduate he expresses his concern that his alma mater aids and abets anti-Semitism.


He writes

"My concern is that my alma mater finances hatred toward Jews and thus helps to bring that hatred to public prominence in the United States..."

1) SFSU funds student organizations, such as the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), that call for the murder of Jews, whom they call "colonizers."
2) In the last academic year, Muhammad Hammad, the former president of GUPS held up a blade, took a "selfie," and then published it on a social media site and talked about his desire to kill Jews.
3) The adviser to GUPS, professor Rabab Abdulhadi, a malicious anti-Israel anti-Jewish political activist who specializes in some semi-academic discipline called "race and resistance studies," took a university funded trip to the Middle East for the purpose of meeting with various terrorists and their supporters including plane hijacker, Leila Khaled, whom they exalt as a "freedom fighter."

Go to Israel thrives and  read  San Francisco State University Funds Hatred Toward Jews and

SFSU and the Abdulhadi Embarrasment # 1  

Mike reminds of that San Francisco State has a long and checkered history of tolerating the intolerable.

Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday, December 14, 2004, Cinnamon Stillwell tells us this:

How did such a threatening environment become associated with a campus located in one of the most liberal and tolerant cities in the nation? The truth is that SFSU has a reputation for intolerance that goes back at least 10 years. In this case, Republican students, clearly a minority at SFSU, were the targets. But in the past, such animosity was directed mostly at Jewish students or those seen as supporting Israel. Jews at SFSU have been spat on, called names and physically attacked, as well as censured by the administration for defending themselves, even as their attackers went unpunished.

Maccabeats: Home

Have you seen the latest from the Maccabeats? Filmed in  New York and in Israel, its a lovely  musical salute to the Jewish homeland, our homeland.

  

"Going home, to the place where I belong..."

Steven Salaita: Free Speech for me but not for thee

Former Virginia Tech professor Steven Salaita accepted an offer of a tenure-track position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign earlier this month, yet his contract was never submitted to the University Board of trustees for approval. According to University of Illinois chancellor Phyllis Wise the application was stonewalled  because the University  "cannot tolerate “personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.”

Wise wrote:

“We have a particular duty to our students to ensure that they live in a community of scholarship that challenges their assumptions about the world but that also respects their rights as individuals. A Jewish student, a Palestinian student, or any student of any faith or background must feel confident that personal views can be expressed and that philosophical disagreements with a faculty member can be debated in a civil, thoughtful and mutually respectful manner. Most important, every student must know that every instructor recognizes and values that student as a human being. If we have lost that, we have lost much more than our standing as a world-class institution of higher education,” Wise sent in a mass e-mail to the campus community Friday afternoon.

Steven Salaita is under fire  for a series of postings on social media.

Via Tablet 

You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not,” Salaita wrote shortly after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists, “I wish all the fucking West Bank settlers would go missing.” Another tweet applied just as much nuance in declaring, “Zionists: transforming ‘anti-semitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948.” Subject that last utterance to a close reading—an exercise that passes for rigid and original thinking in most American universities these days—and you learn that the author approaches anti-Semitism with the one-two punch of unreality: It doesn’t exist—hence the quotation marks—and if it does exist then it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

There’s much more where that came from: fantasies about Benjamin Netanyahu wearing a necklace made of Palestinian children’s teeth or about Israel resurfacing Atlantis only to colonize it, categorical refusals to condemn Hamas, and the ever-nuanced statement that anyone supporting Israel during the war in Gaza was “an awful human being.”

Salaita has become the last cause celeb for anti-Israel activists, who have created a petition that erroneously accuses the administrative of "firing" him .

For all the talk of "academic freedom" and "free speech"  bantered about in this made-up controversy,  Salaita's defenders are his ideological compatriots, and the lofty principles they claim to uphold are a smokescreen.   Not a single one of the signators on the petition took a stand to protect the free speech or academic freedom of UC Santa Cruz lecturer Tammi Benjamin , who endured a campaign of character assassination, abuse and ostracism for simply speaking her mind.

If your stand  is "Free Speech for me, but not for thee", then don't evoke the principle of "academic freedom" to justify your actions. 

J Post misses the mark on Jewish voice for Peace

The  J post: completely missed the marked with its article "With Ferguson raging, Arabs and Jews draw parallels with African-American community"

Fortunately, Yitzhak Santis of  NGO monitor has set them straight

Letter to the Editor of The Jerusalem Post Regarding Jewish Voice for Peace

Steve Linde

Editor-in-Chief, The Jerusalem Post

Sir,
The article, “With Ferguson raging, Arabs and Jews draw parallels with African-American community” (Aug 25, 2014) refers to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as a “left-wing pro-two state solution organization.”  This is incorrect – JVP is a radical anti-Zionist group that “endorses neither a one-state solution, nor a two-state solution.”  Indeed, JVP participated in and supported the One State Conference at Harvard in 2012 and routinely partners with a wide range of radical leftist, Islamist, and Arab ultra-nationalist groups to promote its program.

JVP’s leaders claim to be the “Jewish wing of the Palestinian solidarity movement” and define their goal as “driving a wedge” within the American Jewish community regarding Israel.

JVP is an integral part in the anti-Israel BDS campaign and provides a façade of Jewish support for efforts such as the Presbyterian Church’s divestment vote. During the war in Gaza, JVP organized or participated in scores of anti-Israel street protests, and took credit for invading and occupying the offices of numerous Jewish federations in the U.S.

As NGO Monitor’s detailed research shows, JVP provides no evidence for its claims of 100,000 followers.  Further, JVP is able to gain visibility, including in this article, through an annual budget of $1.15 million, but the source of most of this money is carefully hidden. It seems the group’s leaders recognize that revelation of their donors will impeach the credibility they seek to project.

 

Yitzhak Santis

Chief Programs Officer

NGO Monitor

 

 

Apparently Jewish Voice for Peace and assorted anti-Israel agitprop groups have also claimed that the St. Louis County police chief received training in counter-terrorism measures in Israel .  Indeed, in 2011, the  police chief at the time Timothy Fitch went to Israel as part of an ADL sponsored counter-terrorism group.  Fitch is currently retired, and there is  no evidence that Jon Belmer, the current chief of police has been to Israel at all.

When Asked to Choose, Public Sympathizes with Israel by Wide Margin

From the Pew Research Center for People and the Press :

When Asked to Choose, Public Sympathizes with Israel by Wide Margin

Sodastream: Be careful what you wish for

Be careful what you wish for.

Anti-Israel activists are essentially parasites, willing to sacrifice everything, including their host, to advance their cause. Sadly, most anti-Israel activists are also willing to sacrifice the Palestinians- the very people they purport to help

Although the 900 Palestinians employed by Sodastream, by most accounts are very happy working there, the home carbonation device has long attracted the ire of the hate Israel cru, because it is located on the ‘wrong” side of the mythical green line.

In 2015, SodaStream will be moving to the Negev, leaving the Palestinians once happily employed there without work.

This is being touted by BDS activists as a major victory.

The Palestinians employed by Sodastream may feel differently.

"Those who seek to help the Palestinians end up hurting us,” commented Nabil Bashrat, 40, a resident of Ramallah who worked at the SodaStream factory. ”(The factory) provides income to hundreds of families, entire villages. Peace is what happens here inside, and not outside. Those who are abroad don’t understand the relations and actually sabotage the process. The factory draws us closer. Even in times of instability, as was during the war in Gaza, everything was as usual here.”

 

Extremist Hatem Bazian Declares "International Day of Action" against Israel

Anti-Israel activism on campus is not a grass-roots localized effort- rather it is carefully coordinated and organized by professional activists.  We saw this earlier this year when Max Samarov  exposed career activist Dalit Baum as the author of a campus BDS resolution at Loyola University  

On Tuesday, April 1st, Students for Justice in Palestine presented the Loyola student government with an anti-Israel divestment resolution. But what they neglected to mention was that they didn’t write the legislation themselves. It turned out that the real author was Dalit Baum, a major leader in the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Baum is not a student or faculty member of Loyola or any North American university. She is a paid operative working to co-opt student governments into following the BDS Movement’s malicious, anti-Israel agenda. And if she is writing resolutions for one school, it is likely that she is writing them for others as well.

We are seeing it again.  University lecturer Hatem Bazian, who once infamously called for an “Intifada” in America has begun promoting an anti- Israel agenda for the coming school year.  A professional agitator,  not a student representatives is again setting the agenda, and has declared an  “International Day of Action” against Israel on Sept. 23, 2014.

 Via Truth revolt.

University of California at Berkeley professor and founder of the national student group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) Hatem Bazian announced an “International Day of Action” to call for a complete academic and cultural boycott of Israel on September 23^rd- the Eve before the Jewish New Year. 

The anti-Semitic nature of the day included calls for “No joint research or conferences with Israeli Institutions, No to University Presidents' Visits to Israel, No Campus Police Training or Cooperation with Israeli Security” in addition to demanding the elimination of all study abroad programs in Israel. The effort is to prevent all academic interaction with the Jewish state and to limit people’s ability to interact with Israel and Israelis.

The attempt to isolate Israel extends to a boycott of Jewish and Israeli on-campus organizations as well. Professor Bazian has also commanded his group to demand “No to University Coordination and Strategizing with the ADL, JCRC, AJC, Stand With US, ZOA, Israeli Consulate to Limit Students Pro-Palestine Constitutionally Protected Activities.”

Lets hope our students are prepared for this latest round of anti-Israel activity

Seattle: Block the Boat fail

The Seattle block the boat party fared about as well as the Tacoma action, with the targeted Zim Chicago docking and unloading right on schedule

From our neighbors to the north, via the Mike Report

Following embarrassing efforts in the Bay Area and a complete flop in Tacoma, the block the boat circus finally made it to the Port of Seattle's Terminal 18 on Harbor Island where the Zim Chicago was scheduled to dock this afternoon.

Demonstrators began to arrive around 3:45pm and at their height numbered about seventy. What they lacked in numbers though, they made up for in unrestrained obnoxiousness. The pro-Hamas activists taunted and provoked police officers and harassed the hard working truckers and union workers who depend on the port for their livelihood.

Screaming in a glass shattering high decibel voice, a woman self identified as Mary Jane ordered truckers to turn off their vehicles and to honor their picket line. Her pleas were universally ignored as truckers and dock workers pressed through the thin cordon. Eventually law enforcement offered the terror-groupies the choice of getting off the street or facing arrest. One chose arrest, the rest reluctantly complied.

Officers were pelted with epithets, one protester screamed "what the hell are you doing you f*cking pig!" Another offered a police officer the one finger salute.

Read it all here. (Pssst. He's got photos!)

 

And what did the Block the boaters do in the face of incontrovertible failure?  They declared victory.

Congresswoman Hahn Releases Statement on Protests Regarding Zim Ship at the Port of Oakland

Rep. Janice Hahn represents California's forty-fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is a member of the House Committee on transportation and Infrastructure and issued this statement on  August 19th regarding the fiasco that was taking place at the Oakland docks.  With Seattle in the cross-hair of the anti-Israel activists tomorrow, it is still relevant.

SAN PEDRO, CA—Today, Congresswoman Hahn released the following statement on the ILWU Local 10’s decision not to unload a Zim ship docked at the Port of Oakland that has been the subject of ongoing protests:

“It is critical to the state’s local economy that this ship be unloaded. I urge the local police department to take steps to ensure ILWU Local 10 workers’ safety so that they may reconsider their decision and unload this Zim ship. This issue is about commerce in the United States not the political situation in the Middle East . Failing to unload this ship threatens the local economy and jobs this community relies on. I have been assured that the local police can guarantee the safe passage of workers at the terminal while allowing the peaceful protests to continue.”

“With cargo diversion a constant threat to our West coast ports, not unloading this cargo, simply sends the wrong message.”

“Last week in my San Pedro office, I convened a meeting with the local ILWU, the Israeli Counsel General, clergy, and representatives from Jewish Labor and the Port of Los Angeles to discuss this issue. We were assured by our ILWU leadership that they are neutral on the political situation in the Middle East and guaranteed that the ships in LA and Long Beach would be unloaded. As the co-chair of the Congressional PORTS Caucus, I hope that we can hold similar meetings in Northern California to bring key leaders to the table to find a resolution.”

“Finally, I stand with the Teamsters in calling on the ILWU to unload the Zim ship and allow important commerce to continue.”

Congresswoman Hahn is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional PORTS Caucus. She represents America ’s Port – the Port of Los Angeles . With the Port of Long Beach , it is the largest port complex in the nation.

Breelyn Pete
(202) 225-8220
Breelyn.Pete( at)mail.house.gov

Tacoma Block the Boat: Anatomy of a fail

Block the Boat Tacoma has followed the same trajectory as so many other BDS actions. A period of manic self promotion and a failure to achieve an tangible aim has been followed by a rapid series of "even when we lose, we win statements", and the defeat, now wearing the laurel wreath of "victory" is never spoken of again.

The Seattle Times reports

About 100 people opposed to Israel’s military action in Gaza formed picket lines outside Washington United Terminals gates on Port of Tacoma Road shortly after 7 a.m., in an attempt to keep longshore workers from unloading the vessel Chicago, owned by the Israeli company, Zim Integrated Shipping Services.

Instead, longshore workers were taken to the terminal by an alternate route and began their shift as usual. “We’re not going to talk about how they got in,” said Tara Mattina, a Port of Tacoma spokeswoman. “The ship did come in as expected, and the longshore workers started working at 8 a.m.”

The Police were also well prepared for this action

Tacoma police kept their distance Saturday morning, but they set up a roadblock on the Port of Tacoma Road for about 45 minutes, allowing access only to port workers with identification. Port security officers refused to allow parking in the vicinity, threatening to tow cars along Marshall Avenue and Port of Tacoma Road.

The self reporting from the anti-Israel activists provides a different perspective. They distributed leaflets promoting the scurrilous and discredited  apartheid meme

When thwarted in their efforts gain access to the docks , some activists discussed forging press passes.

Via Twitter:

Despite claims of ILWU "solidarity" with their aims,  the local ILWU was unimpressed. ILWU Local 23 President Dean McGrath firmly declared via Twitter  'No organization will hijack our 'muscle' for their purposes."

With no worker "solidarity" for their cause, the protesters tried to physically prevent union members from reaching their destination.

KIROTV, Channel 7 reports:

A fight erupted when about 50 protestors tried to prevent workers at the Port of Tacoma from getting in and out of their parking lot.  The protestors were part of a growing group called "Block the Boat,” which was attempting to keep an Israeli cargo ship from unloading in Tacoma Saturday morning.

Protestors swarmed a man's minivan at the entrance of the parking lot.  When he finally got out to approach the gate, there was a physical confrontation. Other workers were trying to get home after their shift but they were trapped by the group. 

The anti-Israel activists were filled with self-righteous indignation that dock employees might actually care about their work responsibilities

Protesters shamelessly bragged about using their young children to obstruct  the workers.  (Children as human shields? Where have we seen that before?) What kind of parent would do this?

As the protesters slowly realized they were on the brink of failure, their rhetoric escalated. The talk was no longer of unions and solidarity.  Thinly veiled threats were made to the port. The action was no longer about the Zim ship. It was about shutting down the entire port.

Zim's customer line was next in the cross-hairs.  This is nothing short of  economic terrorism.

In spite of the protest, The Zim Chicago docked and was unloaded  without major incident.

Cue the "When we lose, we win statements", in all their infinite variety

On Monday, the "block party" continues, with Block the boat Seattle. 

Code Pink's grand Adventure in Jack London Square

From our friend, Emunah:

Even by Code Pink's standards, "Operation Annoy Barbara Boxer" was an epic failure.  Having telegraphed their plan to “occupy”  the Senator’s office across the interwebs, the police were ready and waiting  for the group as they trickled in to Jack London Square on Tuesday, August 19th.

 

 

 

Code Pink organizers seemed hurt and baffled that they weren’t being allowed to take over the Senator’s office, but quickly set to work occupying the empty plaza.  It was hard for them. The plaza was very big, and their group was very small.

With zero visibility from the street and very little foot traffic, the group clearly regarded this primarily as a photo op.  “Pose by the address”, Cynthia Papermaster directed. “So everyone will know we were here”

Over 2 dozen eventually appeared . 

 

 They distributed pink schmattas, and. posed for photos.

 

 

 

They held vile signs.  They chanted "We support the Intifada" . They screamed "Go back to Germany" to  someone who made the mistake of coming over to talk to them.

 

Eventually they must have realized it was all in vain. The Code Pink pity party broke up 45 minutes early.

 

 

 

Block the Boat Fail: Unleashing the scourge of red lentils upon the world

Its all about the "occupation", they’ll tell you. 

And that’s why dock workers and longshoremen at the Port of Oakland were harassed for four days.

All to prevent crates of sparkling wine, olives and ceramic tiles from Spain, cheese and rice from Italy and organic red lentils from Turkey from being unloaded from the Zim Piraeus. Or perhaps the fanatics were targeting the irrigation equipment and solar heaters that happened to be manufactured in Israel.

More likely the protesters simply didn’t care. 

They didn't care that the Piraeus ZIM Piraeus wasn’t Israeli-owned or flagged. They didn’t care that ZIM America contracts with a Greek company Costamare to manage and operate ZIM Piraeus. Slightly more than 30% of Zim is owned by Israeli interests and that was good enough for them

For years, anti-Israel activists have been struggling to grow their movement, to find linkages with progressive causes. Unions were a natural target, and the International Longshore Workers Union Local 10 has been courted by the haters for years. What role the union and the local in particular played in this fiasco are yet to be determined.

Another Code Pink Tantrum: Operation Annoy Barbara Boxer

The Middle east is exploding. The deaths in Syria number in the hundreds of thousands- millions have been displaced. The atrocities committed by ISIS in Iraq rival those of the Third Reich. There have been reports of the beheadings of children, the wholesale slaughter of members of ethnic minorities, the selling of women and children into sexual slavery.

But Code Pink is determined not to let the  real suffering in the world distract you.

Only Gaza matters.

Did you miss that?

ONLY GAZA MATTERS

Code Pink is planning another one of their shrill self-serving temper tantrums. California Senator Barbara Boxer is now in their cross-hairs. Sen Boxer, once desribed by Code Pink as "our beloved Senator Boxer" apparently isn't toeing their party line on Israel, and therefore must be made to suffer.  The group that once wrote  "We THANK Barbara Boxer yet again for being a true representative of the people and for standing up to the bullies in the White House and Congress" has turned on her.

 

Via Cynthia Papermaster cynthia_papermaster@yahoo.com  510-333-6097

Senator Boxer: Stop Funding Israeli Military Occupation of Gaza

Be sure to join Codepink this Tuesday, 8/19, at noon when we attempt to occupy Senator Barbara Boxer's Oakland Office, 70 Washington St., Jack London Square. Boxer is a leader in securing the $8.5 million/day the U.S. gives to the Israeli military for it's illegal, inhumane blockade of Gaza and murderous attacks on its population, mostly women and children. We ask her to join with Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Keith Ellison in calling for an end to the blockade and to listen to her constituents who are saying "ENOUGH!"

Please forward widely, post to lists, let's get a big turnout for the media we expect to cover this gathering. Wear pink! Bring banners and signs or hold ours. Allies welcome!

WHEN
August 19, 2014 at 12pm - 2pm

WHERE
Senator Barbara Boxer
70 Washington St
in Jack London Square
Oakland, California

Will there be nudity? Funny hats? Fuzzy pink boas? Its Code Pink. We can only imagine.

Shudder.  Ew.

Paul Larudee on Block the Boat: Truth-impaired and clueless.

 The clueless of anti-Israel agitators is a remarkable thing to behold.

In an article published in Middle East Monitor, Paul Larudee of the Free Palestine Movement displays not only an unusual denseness but a casual willingness to ignore reality. For its part, the Middle East Monitor invested no effort in fact-checking or verifying Paul's testimony

Paul Larudee in happier times. Photo from the Contra Costa times

From Middle East Monitor:

 According to Dr Paul Larudee, a co-founder of the Free Palestine movement, thousands of activists waving Palestinian flags turned out to blockade the Israeli cargo ship Ever Lasting, which pulled into a harbour in the San Francisco Bay on Saturday morning.

 The protesters intended to form a picket line to prevent work crews from unloading the ship, responding to the Palestinian General Federation Trade Union's BDS call for workers around the world to refuse to handle Israeli goods. "The Ever Lasting and its sister ship ZIM Piraeus were both due to be unloaded that day," Dr Larudee told MEMO.

"As it approached the docks, however, the Ever Lasting was ordered by the port authority to return to the entrance and moor to the side until further notice. In the meantime, the ZIM Piraeus had been treading water off the coast of Monterey since the previous evening."

In reality, the EverLasting is not an "Israeli cargo ship"  It's Hong Kong flagged and owned by a Chinese company. It does not even doesn't sail to Israel. Its not a "sister ship" to the Piraeus. Its not even a distant cousin.


The Ever Lasting sailed into Oakland harbor early Saturday morning.

and was unloaded without incident. There was not a single protester on the docks. The protest call , originally issued for 5 am, had been changed to 3pm.

Ever Lasting unload at Oakland harbor early Saturday morning

No, Paul. The 500 protesters that showed up at the Oakland docks late in the afternoon  at had no effect whatsoever on the docking or unloading of the Ever Lasting.

According to John Driscoll, of the Port of Oakland  

"Seaport operations were not impacted by the protest.  Operations scheduled for tonight and tomorrow are currently expected to proceed as planned."

And yes, Paul, he's a more trustworthy source than you. Paul Larudee's block the boat: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

BDS fail in unexpected places

Dining in a renowned restaurant in Northern  California, I was pleasantly surprised to see an Israeli beer on the rather limited and exclusive menu of artisan beers.

Malka is an Irish Dry Stout, rich, creamy and chocolaty.  Ask for it at your local brew pub.  Nice to see that even in occupied northern California, most sensible people's response to BDS is  "why would anyone boycott Israel?"

Indeed. Why would anyone boycott a diverse, pluralistic democracy?

Also sighted in Northern California-  a shoe store in a rather tony neighborhood proudly featuring a display of Israeli made shoes.  Carrying two complete lines of shoes from Israel, the owner knew nothing of a boycott, and said the shoes were were quite popular.

A local grocery store is now carrying a line of frozen Dorot spice mixes and sauces.  Quick, convenient and Israeli.

And perhaps most gratifying is this, from a Iranian market in Berkeley. The owner of a mid-Eastern grocery  helpfully arranged her Passover products  in one display.  Most of these products are from Israel.  In the Bay area, as in most of the country, the most reliable place to buy Israeli products are the small Arab grocery stores.

The Bay area has long been regarded as the hub of anti-Israel organizing in the country.  Yet even after 13 years of intense pressure, the boycott movement has not  achieved even a tenuous toehold here. 

13 years of BDS fail. Delicious, comfortable convenient BDS fail.

Anti-Israel Activists miss the boat. Block the Boat fail.

In 2010, anti-Israel activists at the Port of  Oakland  sought to block a Zim cargo ship from docking. They issued press-releases declaring victory well before the targeted Zim ship had even steamed through the Golden Gate. Mainstream media was complicit in spreading their lies.

Photo from the San Francisco chronicle

Fast forward.

Its deja vu all over again.

The same activists, spearheaded by the extremist Arab Resource and Organizing center planned a similar action for this weekend, organizing largely via social media.  Originally calling for  activists to meet at the West Oakland BART station at 5 am, they inexplicably changed direction, re-issuing a call for action at 3pm.

There is some speculation that they knew they would be unable to achieve critical mass at 5am, while most of the local anarchists were still sleeping off their beer hang-overs, and that was the primary reason for the change. 

From Jane Jewell, of  the Marin county group 14 friends of Palestine

But there is also some speculation that the organizers were made aware that they were targeting the wrong ship.  Although it appears on the Zim website, the EverLasting is not a  Zim vessel. It was a fools choice for the Block the Boat organizers: Do they block the wrong boat, or do they block a boat that hasn't arrived yet?

Via twitter:
The Everlasting was off-loaded without incident, and the Piraeus became the focus of the action.

At 3, several hundred gathered at the West Oakland Bart station, and began the march to the docks. It was a typical Bay Area "peace" rally.

And as usual in the Bay area, not a single of the sponsoring "human rights" groups said a word about this glorification of violence . And as usual, although the protesters were happy to declare "victory", there was no real effect on port functions.

From the Oakland Block the boat march

The flag of the terror group Hamas was proudly displayed.

Hamas terror flag at Oakland block the boat march

No one would ever mistake the Block the boat activists for patriots, as they joked about burning American flags

From John Driscoll, of the Port of Oakland

At about 4:30 pm today, approximately 500 protesters entered the Port's maritime area (seaport) and demonstrated along Middle Harbor Road, near the Oakland International Container Terminal.  The protest was related to the Gaza-Israel conflict in the Middle East.

As of 5:30 pm, the protesters were leaving the seaport.  As a cautionary measure, law enforcement is maintaining a presence on-site.  Seaport operations were not impacted by the protest.  Operations scheduled for tonight and tomorrow are currently expected to proceed as planned.

As of 6:30, the Piraeus had not yet docked.
 

Wishing the haters of peaceful co-existence many more such victories.

The protesters did accomplish one thing from this utterly pointless maneuver.  A fundraiser for "The Vagina Monologues."  scheduled for the waterfront was cancelled and forced to relocate. The organizers scrambled to find a last minute venue to relocate their event

The Block the boat action has done more than hurt the reputation of the Port of Oakland as a stable hub for U.S. shipping.  The block the boat activists have proven themselves to be bad neighbors all around.  I'm certain no one is surprised.

UPDATE: In spite anti-Israel activists claims to the contrary,  the Longshore and Shipping News reported  Thirty ILWU members worked the ship, starting at 10 PM Tuesday and completing the work at 4 AM Wednesday.

The more things change: Hallmark tricks of the manipulative propagandist.

The seven Hallmark tricks of the manipulative propagandist could be the  "DIY" manual  of the anti-Israel activist.  It is still entirely apropos.  Although this was originally written 10 years ago as Somerville was besieged by divestment activists it still accurately characterizes the state of discource today involving Operation Protective Edge.  And it’s the same few people, and the same few tired tricks

Via Divest this: 
A  fellow named Rich Cowan wrote a couple of articles a few years back on “Confronting Right Wing Actions and Arguments.” Part of the work he posted to the Internet referenced “seven hallmark tricks of the manipulative propagandist” originally described by The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, a now-defunct organization created to help counter right-wing propaganda in the 1930s.

Below is a list of Institute’s seven “tricks” along with excellent examples of how such tricks have been used in Somerville’s current divestiture debate:
 

Name Calling - Hanging a bad label on an idea

Such as taking the enormously complex issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict where 22 Arab nations have been warring with one Jewish state directly and through proxies for generations, and reducing everything to the simple, inaccurate term of “apartheid.”

Card Stacking – Selective use of facts or outright falsification

Such as presenting suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza while making no mention of the role the Palestinian’s own murder campaign has played in creating their plight, much less ever once mentioning the 1000+ victims of Arab terror that might provide some context for Israeli actions.

Band Wagon – A claim that everyone like us thinks this way

Such as highlighting a few shaky “successes” (like the Presbyterian Church) while failing to mention of the fact that divestiture has failed on every campus in the country.

Testimonial – The association of a respected or hated person with an idea

Such as dishonestly presenting a fringe Israeli voice (see Voices) as representing popular Israeli support for divestiture.

Plain Folks – A technique whereby the idea and its proponents are liked to “people like you and me”

Such as creating a “grass roots” Somerville organization whose leadership is made up of the same, non-Somerville people that have been at the forefront of every anti-Israel activity of the last twenty-five years, and presenting it as a local movement.

Transfer - An assertion of a connection between something valued or hated and the idea or commodity discussed

Again, read “apartheid.”

Glittering Generality – An association of something with a “virtue word” to gain approval without examining the evidence

The list is long. In this debate, the terms “human rights,” “fairness,” “socially responsible investing” have all been used to dress up a petition which calls for Israel, alone among all nations in the world, to be economically punished. If the petition is ever passed, count on these soft words to be replaced by a much harder message: that Somerville has declared Israel to be a racist, apartheid state that the rest of the world should join Somerville in punishing.

Read it all here

Protective Edge in Gaza: By the Numbers

As of August 5, 2014, when a truce went into effect, the IDF Spokesman’s Unit published the following statistics drawn from 29 days of Operation Protective Edge:

3,356 rockets fired at Israel:
2,303 hit Israel and 356 were aimed at IDF forces operating in Gaza
116 hit populated areas inside Israel (3.45%)
578 were intercepted by Iron Dome
475 landed within the Gaza Strip

Geographic Breakdown
69.4% of rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip
12.9% fired from the central Gaza Strip
17.3% fired from the southern Gaza Strip

597 rockets were launched from civilian facilities abused by terrorists (18%)
Approx. 260 launched from educational facilities (schools)
Approx. 127 launched from cemeteries
Approx. 160 launched from religious sites
Approx. 50 launched from hospitals

4,762 terror sites struck across the Gaza Strip:
1,678 rockets launching capabilities
977 command and control centers
237 militant wing government facilities
191 weapon storage and manufacturing facilities
144 training and militant compounds
1,535 additional terror sites

Gaza tunnel network:
32 terror tunnels neutralized
14 of which crossed into Israel
2 tunnels had shafts located 300-500 meters from Israel

750-1,000 militants targeted:
At least 253 Hamas operatives
At least 147 Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives
At least 65 operatives of various other organizations
At least 603 operatives whose affiliation is unknown

In addition, 159 suspected terrorists have been questioned by Israeli security forces, 25 of whom are currently imprisoned.

Israeli casualties:
3 civilians killed
64 IDF soldiers killed in combat
83 Israeli civilians wounded
463 IDF soldiers wounded

1,856 trucks of Humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza, carrying 40,550 tons:
1,491 trucks with 37,178 tons of food
220 trucks with 1,694 humanitarian supplies
106 trucks with 1,029 tons of medical supplies

82,201 IDF Reserve Duty Personnel called up