The community unites against biased ethnic studies model curriculum

A draft of the the first state level curriculum on ethnic studies in the country is now available on line through the Department of Education.  Public comment will be open until August 15.

From the JNS:  Proposed anti-Israel ethnic-studies curriculum in California has Jewish community on alert

Tammi Benjamin, tireless fighter against anti-Semitism on campus has weighed in already:  

“[It] is deeply troubling—not only for its shocking omission of any mention of Jewish Americans or anti-Semitism or its blatant anti-Israel bias and praise of BDS, but for its clear attempt to politically indoctrinate students to adopt the view that Israel and its Jewish supporters are part of ‘interlocking systems of oppression and privilege’ that must be fought with ‘direct action’ and ‘resistance.’

From Central pacific regional director (ADL) of the the Anti-Defamation League Seth Brysk:

“This is nothing more than an attempt by fringe activists to highjack the model ethnic-studies curriculum for California high schools in the service of radical political goals.”

From Masha Merkulova the executive director of the nationwide Zionist youth group, Club Z:
|“The proposed California curriculum intentionally excludes Jews as an ethnic group that has faced oppression; presents a one-sided narrative of the only Jewish state; and provides a mouthpiece for the bigoted BDS movement"

From the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Asaf Romirowsky, the draft represents a “one-sided politicized curriculum, especially as it relates to Israel and the Middle East.”

From the LA Times:   California’s proposed new ethnic studies curriculum is jargon-filled and all-too-PC.

....a current draft of the model curriculum, drawn up by a committee of teachers and academics and headed to the State Board of Education, is an impenetrable melange of academic jargon and politically correct pronouncements. It’s hard to wade through all the references to hxrstory and womxn and misogynoir and cisheteropatriarchy.

From the Progressive Zionists of California:
PZC Calls for Significant Changes to Antisemitic Ethnic Studies Sample Curriculum

...We are deeply disappointed that the current draft promotes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other anti-Israel narratives, while excluding the Jewish community as a diverse and frequently targeted ethnic group.

Its no surprise that  at least some of the drafters of the model curriculum, Theresa Johnson, Theresa Montano and Samia Shoman have a history of anti-Israel agitation and bias.

Outraged?  Stand With Us has some practical suggestions for action

Stop Anti-Israel Hate in California Public Schools

To submit feedback about the curriculum, follow these steps: 

Download the public input form here.
Fill out the form, respectfully requesting the removal of BDS and other anti-Israel bias from the model curriculum.
The form asks for references to specific pages, so please include page 2 of this document, as well as pages 234, 237, 242, 256, and 264-269 of this document.
Add a general comment to the form urging the state to add lessons about American Jews as an ethnic group, including those who fled the Holocaust, oppression in the Middle East, and discrimination in the former Soviet Union.

Email the form to ethnicstudies@cde.ca.gov

Consider signing this petition at change.org  

Stop institutionalized bigotry in CA public schools

Jewish owned business- Manny's in the Mission- vandalized again.

Open for less than a year, Manny's in the San Francisco's Mission district  has already had a major impact on the local community.  The  "people powered and community focused meeting and learning place" has hosted a multiple of Democratic presidential hopefuls, and  made headlines with its live reading of the Mueller report.    Two debate watching parties at Manny's were standing room only, and were featured on the first page of the Wall Street Journal.

Its no wonder that the San Francisco Examiner proclaimed "Manny's is the perfect business for the Mission".

Yet since its opening, Manny's has been subject to anti-Semitic and homophobic attacks, meant to intimidate both Manny and the community members who patronize his business.  The  business has been repeatedly vandalized- most recently this weekend.

The following screed appeared in several extremist websites and facebook pages.  The author describes the attacks on the business as  a  "low-intensity effort to fuck with Manny’s"

We glued the locks of the gentrifying business Manny’s and tagged a circle-A and “Free Cedar.” Manny’s is run by a Democratic Party operative who worked as an LGBT advisor to the Obama administration and as a top fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton campaign in Silicon Valley. His cafe is a blatant and sinister attempt to co-opt revolutionary sentiments back into the electoral shit show. This wanna-be politician is literally selling books by Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin while hosting live readings of the Mueller Report. He had the audacity, in some fluff piece about the cafe, to compare his tacky self-promotion to the riots at Compton’s Cafeteria and the Stonewall Inn. He fancies his business as a social center for #TheResistance in a neighborhood which has endured brutal waves of evictions and whose long history of actual resistance has been under threat of erasure. Several of the locks we glued were of gates preventing houseless people from sleeping in the alcoves of the business. We hope this small act highlights the hypocrisy of his “civic engagement”.

This attack is a contribution to a low-intensity effort to fuck with Manny’s which has included pickets, wheatpasting, and book expropriation. There is an ongoing boycott of the space, but clearly more action is desired.

It is easy to attack!
Free Cedar!
Go!

 When one of ours is under attack, what do we do?  Get up, fight back.

Show Manny some love and support.

Eat at Manny's.  Go there for coffee.  Host your  book club there.
Become a sponsor, or make a one time donation.
Love him on Yelp.
Go to one of the amazing thought provoking events at Manny's- check out the schedule here.

Manny's ongoing success will be our best revenge.

Dr. Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Siddiqi Spreads Hate in San Francisco

Its the "Summer of Hate" in San Francisco.

Dr. Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Siddiqi regularly delivers the Friday night sermon to the faithful at the Darussalam Mosque, downtown San Francisco's largest mosque and home to the Islamic Society of San Francisco.

On Friday, June 21, Siddiqi's sermon accused "Zionist agents" , working for Satan of murdering former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. According to Dr. Siddiqi,  Morsi "was only trying to help humanity by bringing the truth of Islam... the forces of evil... will continue not to allow [this] unless we Muslims allow ourselves to connect with each other and establish the kind of unity that is required."

In a city prized for its diversity and inclusivity, Siddiqi ploarizing lies are nothing less than hate speech.

From his webpage:

Dr. Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Siddiqi has been serving international communities in the Bay Area and over the United States since 1983. He designs and teaches courses on all Islamic studies subjects including but not limited to: Interpretation (Tafseer) of Quran, Hadith and Sunnah (Prophetic Traditions), Seerah: Biography of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Islamic Civilization, Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh), Islamic Legal and Political System, and the Status of Women in Islam.

Dr. Siddiqi is a lecturer of Islamic Studies and Arabic at the Graduate Theological Union's Center for Islamic Studies, Chabot College, Mission College and Ohlone College. He is the Director of the Islamic Education and Information Center, founder of the Islamic Law (Shari'a) Council and continues to serve as Secretary for the Council. Dr. Siddiqi earned his Ph.D. in Quranic Studies from the University of London and M.A. in Exegesis of the Holy Qur’an (Takhassus), from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

Yes, this vile hate monger has taught at Ohlone, Mission and Chabot Colleges, public, tax-payer funded community colleges.





Will our community colleges allow this man to continue teaching our students?

Read more at MEMRI:

San Francisco Friday Sermon By Dr. Khalid Siddiqi: Morsi Was Murdered By Zionist Agents Who Are Working For Satan

The take - home lesson from the California Democratic convention

The recent controversies at the California Democratic convention underscore how few people understand the current system, and  how few are actually involved.

Every two years,  California Democrats elect 7 self-identified females and 7 other than self-identified females from each Assembly District  as delegates to the California Democratic party.  Only a tiny proportion of registered voters participate in these elections.  There are almost 8 million registered Democrats in California.  Of those, less than 400,000 voters participated in the last  elections, held in January of this year. That’s one half of 1 percent.  In my Assembly district, the elections were held on Shabbat, effectively disenfranchising  traditionally observant Jewish voters.  This is in violation of the parties own guidelines.

There is little transparency and little accountability in these elections.  Assembly District Delegate Elections are not regulated by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Those who are elected  can vote for Party officers, endorse candidates for statewide, legislative and congressional office, attend the annual convention, and to introduce, endorse and vote on resolutions and ballot measures.

This is how extremists like David Mandel  in Assembly District 7 , Ronald “Chris” Yatooma in Assembly District 6 and Yassar Dahbour in Assembly District 9 are elected.   This is how bigoted and one sided resolutions are introduced into Democratic party policies.  And we can expect this to continue until moderate members of the Democratic get more involved.

An Open Letter to Iyad Afalqa, Chair of the Arab American Caucus of the California Democratic Party

Posted today February 22, 2019, by the Progressive Zionists of the California Democratic Party, a group working feverishly to save the Democratic party from the rampant anti-Semitism that  plagues the UK's Labour party, way across the pond.

An Open Letter to Iyad Afalqa, Chair of the Arab American Caucus of the CDP:

We, members of Progressive Zionists of the California Democratic Party (CDP) condemn the hateful and false depiction of Zionism and the unmistakably antisemitic tropes in the article you chose to share in the CADEM Delegates page on February 18, 2019 entitled “All Zionist roads lead to genocide.”

Here, for example, are excerpts that contain some of the most dangerous slanders we have seen trafficked in Democratic Party leadership circles:

“Zionism and its denialism appeals to white supremacists in the United States who similarly are in denial of the American genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of black Africans.”

“Zionism has always been a white supremacist, settler colonialist, anti-democratic, right-wing ideology, which has demanded a loyalty based on nationalist racism. Zionists of all sorts, including of the liberal kind, have collaborated with anti-Semitic forces towards a mutual goal of global apartheid, often at the expense of Jews who live outside Israel."

The article frames Zionism as responsible for an international conspiracy of global apartheid. This is clear and unbridled antisemitism found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a famously false and hateful pamphlet alleging international conspiracy by racist, global Zionists. By itself, this trope has been responsible for the deaths of literally millions of Jews. This is the language we see being normalized in the article you shared.

It is historically inaccurate to claim that Zionism is a white supremacist ideology, as Zionist ideals are an embedded element of Jewish life—regardless of race or ethnicity. This is evidenced by the fundamental importance of Zionism as an aspirational ideal for Middle Eastern Jewish communities, or “Arab-Jews” for centuries. The hope of the return to the indigenous Jewish land of Israel was a central element of Jewish prayer and thought in Arab countries since the Babylonian exile—when Jews were forcibly taken as slaves from Jerusalem to modern day Iraq some 2,500 years ago.

In the 20th century, under the color of law, Arab governments routinely employed anti-Zionist tropes and laws against Jews in order to incite pogroms and state sanctioned persecution which ultimately led to the ethnic cleansing, dispossession and displacement of close to one million Jewish refugees from countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Fortunately, 650,000 of these victims found refuge in Israel, and today their descendants comprise half of Israel’s Jewish population. Many came to America and our own state of California. They are your constituents, however, the language you perpetuate here fundamentally undermines their safety.

We believe you are a good person who cares deeply about justice for the oppressed. We also believe that your desire in posting this egregious opinion piece was not due to hatred of any people or persons, but rather to a misunderstanding of what Zionism means to the majority of Jews in Israel and the diaspora, particularly those from MENA lands.

Because you are an important leader in the CDP, we ask of you the following:

1. That we set up a respectful conversation with you and Jews from the Middle East and North African diaspora to learn more about the personal experiences of former Jewish refugees, to understand the critical role of Israel in the lives of Jews from Arab countries, and to explore opportunities and points of connection.

2. That you work with them to help bring their stories to the Arab American Caucus meeting at the CDP Convention in San Francisco in May/June to share what the Democratic Party means to them as former Middle Eastern refugees.

Thank you for your attention to these critical and pressing matters. We look forward to helping to restore the discourse to one of fairness, truth, and decency, and ask for your help in doing so.

Sincerely,

Founding Members of Progressive Zionists
of the California Democratic Party

Andrea Beth Damsky
Matthew Finkelstein
Susan George
Paul Kujawsky
Micha Liberman
Lauren Rose

John Cheney-Lippold faces the music

Occasionally, actions have consequences, even for tenured professors.

John Cheney-Lippold, a tenured American and digital studies associate professor at the University of Michigan refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student wanting to study in Israel.    

The University has launched disciplinary proceedings against Cheney-Lippold. In an Oct 3rd letter, published in the Detroit News,  Elizabeth Cole, the acting dean of UM’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts wrote:

"Your conduct has fallen far short of the University’s and College’s expectations for how LSA faculty interact with and treat students...This letter is a strong warning that your behavior in this circumstance was inappropriate and will not be tolerated."

"In the future, a student's merit should be your primary guide for determining how and whether to provide a letter of recommendation. You are not to use student requests for recommendations as a platform to discuss your personal political beliefs."

According to information obtained through a FOIA request, the Detroit News reported that Cheney-Lippold  

will not get a merit raise during the 2018-19 academic year and can't go on his upcoming sabbatical in January or another sabbatical for two years...  He could also face additional discipline, up to and including dismissal, if a similar incident occurs in the future.

Since then, it has been reported that Lucy Peterson, a graduate student instructor at  the university  also denied a student a letter of recommendation for study in Israel.

Anti-Semitism at UC Berkeley

Flyers blaming the Jewish people for sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Nominee  Brett Kavanaugh  were found  at UC Berkeley today.

From the Facebook page of Tikvah, Students for Israel:

Anti-Semitic flyers found on UC Berkeley campus near Eshleman Hall:

UC Berkeley’s tolerance of anti-Semitism preached from authoritative figures and lecturers like Hatem Bazian  shows Neo-Nazis that our campus allows for racism and enables them to publicly promote their Jewish conspiracies without challenge.

To be clear Nazi imagery on UC Berkeley’s campus is nothing new and has been an issue that Jewish students have been raising to the school administration since 2015. Despite repeated calls for action, the school has neglected to take serious measures to address this issue. Chancellor Christ, you have a serious problem…NOW is the time to take a stand. 

These repulsive anti-Semitic flyers have been appearing across the country, most recently at UC Davis

Uber and the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in America

Yet another example of the mainstreaming of Jew-hate in America.  

An Israeli diplomat in Chicago was thrown out of an Uber after the driver heard him speaking Hebrew.

Itay Milner, Israel’s deputy consul general in Chicago took to social media to describe his experience,  posting on both Facebook and on Twitter

He wrote: 

I just had one of the worst experience in my life. I was just thrown out of an #uber in the middle of the highway only because I answered my phone in my mother togue. 

10 minutes into my ride and with no prior interaction between the driver and myself, it took only two words in Hebrew to get my driver start yelling at me "get the $#@* out of my car". 

It did not help when I told him that I can't go out in the middle of the highway. It was like I wasn't a person for him anymore. When I asked him if it's because I'm speaking Hebrew he said yes and kept yelling at me to get out.

I am not easily intimidated, but that scared me, and I ran out of there, walking in the middle of the road.

I never thought something like this could happen in America, such awful racism. 

This cannot be tolerated!

A spokeswoman for Uber released a statement reported by CBS Chicago

Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination. We are reaching out to the rider to extend our support for the experience he described here. As soon as we were made aware of this, we removed the driver’s access from the app as we look further into this.

Lt. Governor of California candidate Gayle McLaughlin and the mainstreaming of anti-semitic rhetoric

Gayle McLaughlin is running for Lt. Governor of California. Her Facebook page, her blog and her Twitter account are filled with unwarranted accusations, defamation, lies and anti-Semitic imagery regarding the riots in Gaza. 

In her blog, Gayle writes

Another Gaza massacre took place Friday as tens of thousands of Palestinians protested peacefully at the Israeli wall against their collective incarceration in Gaza, which can only be called the largest concentration camp in the world.

Of the 30,000 attending the event, there were 17 fatalities- .06 % of those participating.  Of those killed, at least 10 were identified as Hamas terrorists.  

The protest was hardly peaceful, characterized instead by firebombs, burning tires,  thrown rocks, and this:

And Gayle, Gaza as "open air concentration camp" is so last decade. Social media is filled with photos of the resorts, restaurants and gourmet shops of Gaza.

Again, from Gayle's  blog:

My heart is broken by the violent meanness of spirit of Israel. As an American I feel shame for the cover and support our country gives to such crimes. As an activist and a dreamer for a better nation I send my sorrow and my solidarity to the People of Gaza, and I add my voice for a transparent and independent investigation of this massacre.

Your misplaced sympathies for a group vowed to the genocide not only of Israel, but of the Jewish people worldwide reminds me again why so many of my friends left the Green party.

Please contact Gayle McLaughlin and let her know that this is not ok .

Her Twitter account @GayleforCA
Her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GayleforCA/

Husam El-Qoulaq. The local angle

Husam El-Qoulaq, a third-year law student at Harvard Law School has achieved his 15 minutes of fame using playground style taunts against a foreign dignitary. His outburst embarrassed and humiliated the school. 

At an April 14, 2016  panel discussion on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations  El-Qoulaq childishly heckled Tzipi Livni during the question and answer period, asking “How is it that you are so smelly?” 

Its more than immature- its anti-Semitic.
As reported by Canary Mission:

On April 18, 2016, three members of the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association demanded a public apology to Ms. Livni, the Jewish students of HLS, and Harvard Law School at large — and observed in response to El-Qoulaq’s question:

“A quick Internet search will show that the stereotype of “the Jew” as “smelly” or “dirty” has been around since at least the 1800s. The Nazis promoted the idea that Jews “smell” to propagandize Jews as an inferior people. The idea that Jews can be identified by a malodor is patently offensive and stereotypes Jews as an “other” which incites further acts of discrimination. The fact that such a hate-filled and outdated stereotype reemerged at Harvard Law School is nothing short of revolting.”

Harvard officials immediately condemned the exchange, but took care to conceal the name of the student involved. The university also deleted the portion of the video featuring the incident.

Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law School,denounced the comments, stating:

“The comment was offensive and it violated the trust and respect we expect in our community. Many perceive it as anti-Semitic, and no one would see it as appropriate. It was an embarrassment to this institution and an assault upon the values we seek to uphold.”

The Harvard Law Record took an unprecedented step by closing comments on an article regarding the incident, to prevent El-Qoulaq from being identified.

Why is Harvard bending over backwards to protect the identity of Husam El-Qoulaq?  Are his family major donors?

The local angle? There's always a local angle.

Husam El-Qoulaq graduated with a degree in peace and conflict studies from UC Berkeley, and served a stint as a volunteer commissioner on the City of Berkeley's foreign policy body, the Peace and Justice Commission.

Interestingly, his Linked in profile (since deleted) fraudulently implies he served on the Berkeley City Council. It is not known if he also misrepresented his status in his application to the Harvard law school.

Husam El-Qoulaq never served on the Berkeley city council

Incidentally, the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento, California sent El-Qoulaq a warning letter for failing to disclose his economic interests after leaving the Berkeley commission

For more information on Husam El-Qoulaq  also known as Husam Coolaq:
Harvard’s disgrace

Husam El-Qoulaq (Coolaq)

Husam El-Qoolaq ID’d As Harvard Law Student Behind ‘Smelly’ Jew Attack on Former Israeli Foreign Minister

An Open Letter To Harvard Law School (HLS) About Husam El-Qoulaq And Tzipi Livni

Harvard Law student asks Tzipi Livni, Israeli politician, why she is ‘so smelly’’
BDS Activist Named as Harvard Law Student Behind ‘Smelly’ Remark Directed at Visiting Israeli Politician

Vile antisemitism at UC Santa Cruz

For all JVP's rhetoric about not conflating Judaism with Zionism, I don't see them running to defend this student.

Via StandWithUs

Alarming antisemitism on campus as a UC Santa Cruz Stevenson College Elected Representative, Daniel, was asked to "abstain" from voting on a BDS resolution because he is President of the Jewish Student Union and was "elected with a Jewish agenda." The original message is in the photo.

We call on the UC system to immediately take action against the unacceptable antisemitism running rampant on California college campuses.

Here is Daniel's statement:

"About two days ago, I received a Facebook message from someone I won't name, instructing me to abstain from the vote about the divestment issue because I am the Vice President of the Jewish Student Union. Furthermore, I was told that members from the Stevenson College Council were concerned that I would be biased because I was elected with a "Jewish agenda," as if my involvement in and passion for the wellbeing of the Jewish community, MY COMMUNITY, is something that I should be ashamed of, and something that will hold me back from representing my constituents fairly in the greater student assembly.

The implication that I, as a Jewish student and leader in the Jewish community, should not be allowed to vote on an issue that so deeply impacts the Jewish community, and that I should abstain because I cannot be trusted due to an alleged, “Jewish agenda,” echoes the racism Jews have faced all over the world throughout our history. I wish that me being subjected to anti-Semitism was a shocking new occurrence. But the truth is that I’m not shocked. I’m not shocked because this hatred and ignorance has followed me everywhere. I'm not shocked because Jewish students have been targeted with this vile racism all over the UC system for years, and especially since BDS became a major issue of discussion. Anti-Semitism today may not be the same as it was in the 1930s. But it has clearly evolved to become an inseparable part of campus politics right here at UC Santa Cruz and across the UC system.

This was evident when Rachel Beyda, at UCLA, was denied a position on the Judicial board because of her identity as a Jew, it was evident when my fellow AEPi brothers had swastikas painted on their house in Davis, and now I have had a firsthand experience that this volatile bile of racism is evident at UCSC.

The only "Jewish Agenda" I care about is keeping my community safe and making it so we can coexist peacefully among the other 15,000 students on our campus. I want my community to have a normal learning environment, free from hate speech and harassment, where we can enjoy college without being discriminated against. If people here see that as a legitimate reason to distrust me, to stop me from voting my conscience on issues that matter to the Jewish community, or even to remove me from positions of leadership, then so be it. But they should know that they will never silence me, and they will never stop my community from fighting for the rights and protections that we deserve on this campus.

I am calling on the leadership at UC Santa Cruz, from the student level on up to start taking concrete action to get the anti-Semitism at this campus under control. Student governments at UCLA, UCSB, and Berkeley addressed this issue last year, and the UC Regents are addressing it now. If we stand idly by in the face of this racism, we are sending a clear message that Jewish students cannot expect to be treated with a basic level of fairness and respect at this university. It’s time for the student leadership and the administration here to make a decision: are we going to ensure the fair and equal treatment of all students on this campus, or not? For the sake of future generations of Jewish students here, for the sake of the Jewish community as a whole, and for the sake of everyone on this campus, I hope that we make the right decision."

Stanford Campus Defaced with Swastikas

This weekend,  several residential facilities on the Stanford campus were defaced with swastikas. The vandalism was condemned widely as a hate crime, by student groups, religious leaders and university administrators. Stanford police are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime under its Acts of Intolerance Protocol.

Stanford President John Hennessy has condemned the early Sunday morning vandalism of swastikas spray-painted around student residences as an act of hate "that has no place at Stanford..."

"I am deeply troubled by the act of vandalism, including symbols of hate, that has marred our campus," Hennessy said Sunday. "The university will not tolerate hate crimes and this incident will be fully investigated, both by campus police and by the university under our Acts of Intolerance Protocol. This level of incivility has no place at Stanford. I ask everyone in the university community to stand together against intolerance and hate, and to affirm our commitment to a campus community where discourse is civil, where we value differences, and where every individual is respected."

Later, hundreds attended a Stand in Solidarity against AntiSemitism Vigil in White plaza organized by Jewish groups on campus.

According to the Stanford review, 

Similar Neo-Nazi graffiti incidents have occurred on many college campuses. UC Berkeley, UCDavis, Harvard, Yale, George Washington University — to name a few —  have all had reported incidents of anti-semitic graffiti.

Meet the UC Davis student who celebrates Hamas and Sharia: Azka Fayyaz.

Who is Azka Fayyaz, the Student Senator at UC Davis  who celebrated BDS as a victory for "Hamas and Sharia " on her campus?

 There is nothing in her campaign statement that indicates she will use her position to advocate for divestment  There is nothing in her campaign platform to indicate her support for avowed terror groups.

 If divestment wasn't part of the platform that led to the election of Azka Fayyaz, why does anyone think she has a mandate from the student body to proceed in that direction?  There is nothing in her platform to indicate her extremist politics.

 Azka wrote:

Hello Aggies, My name is Azka. Azka Fayyaz. I am a second-year political science major from the beautiful central valley town of Madera, CA. Currently, I am an active member of organizations for students of color including various Middle Eastern and South Asian communities such as the Muslim and Pakistani Student Associations. Additionally, I have taken dynamic roles within ASUCD by serving on the External Affairs Commission and by working with Senator Miles Thomas as a member of his senior staff. Last quarter, I consummated my duties as the head of logistics for the the Muslim Student Association’s West conference, which welcomed over 1,000 attendees to our beautiful campus. In this role, I worked closely with high level UC Davis administration, as well as faculty and students from a host of communities. This opportunity gave me both critical insight into how the school is run from behind the scenes and the places where student concerns were not being met. To address these issues and many more, I ask for your support in my bid to become your ASUCD Senator. My initiatives range from implementing a holistic campus calendar to creating a more robust Club Finance Council, and actively working with administration for an expansion of quiet spaces for study, reflection and prayer. 

Platforms:
1. CREATE A CAMPUS-WIDE CALENDAR
Currently, students are largely unaware of the incredible events that can be found on our campus every day. These missed opportunities are both tragic and easy to address: create a centralized calendar for all students to read and contribute to, compiling information from dozens of currently disjointed systems. If elected, I will ensure that the UC Davis population is able to find out about these great opportunities with the creation of a new ASUCD unit. 

2. INCREASE CLUB FINANCE COUNCIL FUNDING
According to student leaders and the staff director of the Club Finance Council, the organization’s budget does not meet the needs of the more than 600 clubs who can apply for funding. This funding goes towards creating collaborative and exciting events, but for the last few years, no organization has received the full amount that CFC has determined they should get for the event. I want to reinvest in ASUCD’s most profitable ventures so that we can, in turn, reinvest in one of our Association's greatest resources and meet the needs of CFC. 

3. ADVOCATE FOR MORE QUIET SPACES FOR STUDY, REFLECTION, AND PRAYER
With our growing student population, spaces that provide sanctuary for prayer, reflection, and study have become increasingly limited and overcrowded. Fortunately, this increase comes alongside our Association's growing involvement in campus renovations. If elected, I will be the strongest advocate imaginable for quiet spaces, so that students may find respite in prayer, reflection, and study during our long days on campus.

Azka Fayyaz clearly believes in meaningful discourse, as she holds a poster labeling Netanyahu as "Hitler's illegitimate child".  Note the horns.

Via Scott Dresser on Twitter:

SFSU Hillel Weighs in

San Francisco State University Hillel has been quiet throughout this controversy.   Nearly a month to the date of the incident at Malcolm X plaza, they have released a public statement, calling for community members to sign a petition in support of Jewish students at the school.

From San Francisco State Hillel:

We are deeply troubled by the recent events that have taken place at San Francisco State University, in which individual students have openly glorified violence, including in this latest incident directed against Israeli soldiers. These expressions of violence are unacceptable and have no place in an academic environment. This has already led to an increased sense of fear and intimidation among some students, even while we continue to engage in dynamic and visible Jewish programming on campus. SF State has, in recent years truly become a welcoming environment for Jewish students and we are committed to maintaining that openness.

We appreciate the work that goes on behind the scenes by President Leslie Wong's office, the Dean of Students, local law enforcement and security personnel, campus group leaders, and students to ensure that SFSU continues to be a safe place for all students, irrespective of religion, nationality, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation or political affiliation, and demand that the work not stop until all students feel safe on campus.

Please sign their petition here 

To San Francisco State Hillel:

The community appreciates that you have been working behind the scenes.  Nonetheless, as the primary representative of the Jewish community at SFSU, you ought to have been the conduit for information, for planning, and for coordinating a community-wide response.   There has been only silence for nearly a month.

Indeed, "individual students have openly glorified violence", but when these "individual students" are the presidents of student organizations at a tax-payer financed institution, it is an indication of a much deeper problem.

Parents with children at SFSU, and the overall Jewish community look to Hillel for proactive leadership in university matters such as these.  Please make an effort to communicate more effectively with your constituency.  Thank you for your continued efforts, and remember than we are all partners in insuring a safe and successful experience for our students.

Alarming Resurgence of anti-Semitism

A survey on  anti-Semitism  conducted on behalf of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in nine European countries found that 26% of Jews have suffered from anti-Semitic harassment at least once in the past year, 34% experienced such harassment in the past five years, 5% reported that their property was intentionally vandalized because they are Jewish, about 7% were physically hurt or threatened in the past five years.

40% to 50% of Jews in France, Belgium and Hungary said they were considering emigrating as they no longer felt safe.

Its not just in Europe.

During a study on anti-Semitism on college campuses, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise discovered , that “78% of Jewish students report witnessing or personally experiencing anti-Semitism"
According to an article by Andrew Loeb,  Top Ten Surprises About Campus Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitic incidents take on many shapes and forms, ranging from direct physical confrontation to verbal abuse to property vandalism. At UC Irvine since the early 2000s, Jews have been verbally ridiculed with neo-Nazi slurs, confronted with threats to physical violence if they did not remove their Star of David necklaces, and a Holocaust Memorial was defaced with a swastika. At UC Berkeley, one of the top universities in the nation, Jessica Felber was taking part in a counter-protest to an anti-Israel demonstration when she was rammed with a shopping cart by one of the anti-Israel protestors. These incidents represent the seeming extremes of what occurs on college campuses, but other forms of anti-Semitism occur as well, such as academic biases from professors in classes dealing with Middle Eastern topics. 

 In Canada, comfort seems to be found in denial, as both police and Jewish community  members insist that the firebombing of two kosher restaurants in 48 hours, and an attack on a home in a Jewish neighborhood, were not anti-Semitic acts.

Never Again.  Its up to all of us to ensure that these are more than just words.  Kol Yisra'el arevim zeh ba-zeh

Smearing the Victims of Racism: Beyonce Concert Edition

So, a group of young Israelis attending a Beyonce concert in Berlin encounter a little classic anti-Semitism:

“Some of them noticed that we were speaking Hebrew,” Zerad told JTA. “One of them said, ‘You stink, you should go back to Israel.’ A girl said, ‘You guys smell so bad. Why didn’t he die in the Holocaust?’ ”

The young Germans began to shout at the Israelis to “go, go, go,” he said. They accused the Israelis of pushing, “which was not true because we were first in line. We had no need to push. We were there already.

“So they started pushing us; they said ‘You are Jewish, go back to Israel, we wish that the Holocaust would succeed so you all die,’” Zerad recalled.

The whole article is at: http://forward.com/articles/177451/israelis-suffer-abuse-at-berlin-beyonce-gig/#ixzz2UaBkdcEw

Richard Silverstein decides that no outburst of anti-Semitism is complete without a little victim-blaming:

Israeli, pissed u weren't 1st in line @ Beyonce concert, & pushed by others? Call it anti-Semitism! bit.ly/Zq5O8F
— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) May 28, 2013

@revolawtionary But if u turn it into anti-Semitic incident then Jews are always victims & always right, right??
— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) May 28, 2013

Defend racists, attack their victims, and do it all under the name 'Tikun Olam'. How perfect.

An open Letter to Eyad Kishawi

An  open letter to Eyad Kishawi of Al Awda


Oh,  Eyad. Eyad. Eyad.

Its obvious why you are so misguided.  You’ve never learned how to do even fundamental research.  (Or perhaps you do know and are simply maliciously  lying. That would make you evil.)

Just a few days ago, you sent out photos of dead children.   Heartbreaking. Tragic

You wrote “These children were murdered by Israel”.

Except for one thing, Eyad. They weren’t.

“Thanks to Tazpit News Agency’s investigative work, it was found that the photo had been originally published on a news site based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates called Moheet one month earlier on October 19. On the Moheet website, the photo was titled “Syria killed 122 Friday…Assad Used Cluster Bombs.”

These children were murdered in Syria, Eyad.

How many people received this email?  Hundreds?  Thousands?  Don't they deserve to know the truth?  Do I expect a retraction? No.  I do not believe you are a man of personal integrity.  I do not believe you care about the truth.

What I found even more disturbing, Eyad was this statement you made:

“These children were murdered by Israel and by extension the Zionists who support it, right here all around us.  When these Zionists go to counter protests and ignorantly carry that flag, standing across from us as we demand our right to life, they call for this horror.  “

Eyad.  This is 21st century blood libel.  You are inciting violence, not simply against the Zionists who oppose you on the street- the ones who speak truth to your lies, but to the entire Jewish community. 

You are manipulating people with lies, and inciting violence.  These are not the acts of a man of peace. These are not the acts of a man with integrity


UPDATE:
I just received this email from Eyad Kishawi. (Yes, i intend to check the provenance of the second photo as well) Its a retraction.  I'm pleasantly surprised. 

Dear Friends

I sent yesterday two photos: one had two dead children and a woman and the other had four.  As tragic as it is, the former were murdered in the Syrian civil war, resulting from a brutal regime clinging to power, a regime that had maintained a policy of avoidance with Israel while deploying fighter jets against its population.  The latter, the one of the four children, they were murdered by Israeli forces.  Humanity is universal and brutality is universal, regardless of the perpetrator.

We owe it to the Syrian people to recognize their pain as we stand with our people under seige.  A correction is due in the sea of violence.

Eyad Kishawi

Roman Polanski, Gore Vidal, and "Charges of Anti-Semitism"

Goddamnit, I get tired of this.

So I wander over to Tiger Beatdown, to see what the hardcore feminists are talking about, and as it happens, they're talking righteous smack about the newly late Gore Vidal, and his defense of Roman Polanski. I am still, as it happens, unbelievably angry about the spineless, unbelievable defense of Polanski exhibited by far too many Hollywood names ('rape-rape', Whoopi? WTF?), so I settle down for a quick read.

Now, apparently Vidal said this: "The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then."  And then right in the middle of the take-down of Vidal's victim-blaming and viciousness, I get this, not from Gore Vidal, but from blogger Garland Grey:

"I take charges of Anti-Semitism very seriously, but I also know that sometimes (as when people show even a sliver of support or concern for the state of Palestine and its people) accusations of such are misused to shut the conversation all the way down."

Well.

I wrote a quick response on the comment thread:

I agree that accusations of anti-Semitism were used to deflect blame in the Polanski case, and avoid confronting his actual rape and abuse of this young woman.

You should, however, be aware that the formulation used above, that accusations of anti-Semitism are used to control conversation about the Israel/Palestine conflict, is, in fact, often used to cover for actual anti-Semitism, and to provide people with an excuse for not learning the real history of the conflict, or taking responsibility for the bigotry they may speak.

It's remarkably similar to many other accusations about people 'playing the race card', and it plays a similar function.

Was there some reason for bringing in an unrelated topic to illustrate your idea that people sometimes lie about the bigotry they face? Or was it easier than explaining why you don't believe anti-Semitism was a factor in the Polanski case?

That was was much more restrained and polite than I felt like being. There's a fine line between trying educate and just wanting to break stuff, and this makes me want to break stuff. For real? Is there some way this does not break down into "I take accusations of anti-Semitism very seriously, but Jews and their friends sometimes lie about it, anyway, to shut people up, you know, like if you show any sympathy (a 'sliver') for the Palestinian people, so I guess I can dismiss this contention of Gore Vidal's without seeming like I'm not giving it enough attention, because this is just another example of using charges of anti-Semitism to make people be quiet"?

Is there another form of racism that a serious anti-oppression blogger would treat like this? I'm betting not.

It's really pretty funny, because I think Polanski is scum, so it's fairly hard to offend me when railing on him and his defenders. I wouldn't have blinked if the writer had simply said she thought Vidal was full of shit on the anti-Semitism issue re: Polanski.

Hilarious, too, is the fact that Vidal himself was an anti-Semite fond of veiling his hate in rants about Israel:

Commenting for the Huffington Post on his infamous 1986 piece "The Empire Lovers Strike Back", David Greenberg writes:

It was the kind of piece that should give pause to those who ritually deny that anti-Zionism is rooted in anti-Semitism; it should be read in full. Describing the Podhoretzs as propagandists for Israel (“in its never-ending wars against just about everyone … a predatory people”), he cast Podhoretz, who was born in the United States, as someone who would never become “an ‘assimilated American,’ to use the old-fashioned terminology.” Addressing Decter, he declared, “I’ve got to tell you I don’t much like your country, which is Israel.”

So unquestioningly has this idea been accepted, that calling anti-Semitism by name is only a way to 'shut the conversation down', that it now creeps into conversations as far afield from Israel as this. Charming. Really charming.

A Spectacular Post From Chas Newkey-Burden

This is something so good I just had to repost it immediately, and get it out to as many people as possible. Over at Oy Va Goy, Chas Newkey-Burden takes apart the inherent anti-Semitism of the common anti-Israel plaint that after the Shoah, the world has the right to demand more moral behavior from Jews than others.

Newkey-Burden writes: Let us strip the “they-of-all-people” argument down to its very basics: gentiles telling Jews that we killed six million of your people and that as a result it is you, not us, who have lessons to learn; that it is you, not us, who need to clean up your act. It is an argument of atrocious, spiteful insanity. Do not accept it; turn it back on those who offer it. For it is us, not you, who should know better.


Read the whole thing here.

And the last word on Habima goes to David Hirsh

David Hirsh from Engage has written a thoughtful (ok, ok, bloody brilliant) review of Israel's Habima Theater and the failed attempts to censor and disrupt the Israeli troops performance of "The Merchant of Venice"

"Portia, Shylock and the exclusion of Israeli actors from the global cultural community"

To David, the audience at the Globe "was there to face down those who said that Israeli actors should be excluded from the global community of culture, while actors from all the other states which had been invited to the Globe were celebrated in a festival of the Olympic city’s multiculturalism." After all, the Globe had hosted theater troops from all over the world from such bastions of human rights as South Africa, Georgia, Palestine, Turkey and China.

First, he provides context:

"Since some rather nasty medieval stuff, London and Jews have got on fairly well. London stood firm against Hitler, and the local Blackshirts too; it didn’t mind much whether Jews stayed separate or whether they immersed themselves in its vibrancy; it didn’t feel threatened, it didn’t worry, it just let Jews live engaged lives. But London’s very post-nationalism, and its post-colonialism, has functioned as the medium for a rather odd new kind of intolerance.

Sometimes, we define our own identities in relation to some ‘other’. Early Christianity defined itself in relation to the Jews who refused to accept its gospel, and it portrayed them as Christ-killers. If people wanted to embrace modernity, then they sometimes constructed themselves as being different from the traditional Jew with his beard and coat, standing against progress. Yet if they were afraid of the new then they could define themselves against the modernist Jew. Nineteenth Century nationalists often defined the Jew as the foreigner. Twentieth Century totalitarianisms, which had universal ambition, found their ‘other’ in the cosmopolitan Jew.

These processes created an invented image of ‘The Jew’ and the antisemites portrayed themselves as victims of ‘The Jew’. Antisemitism has only ever portrayed itself as defensive."

He continues:

"Some people who love London’s relaxed, diverse, antiracism look for an ‘other’ against which to define themselves. They find Israel. They make it symbolise everything against which they define themselves: ethnic nationalism, racism, apartheid, colonialism. London’s shameful past, not to mention in some ways its present, is cast out and thrust upon Israel. London was within a few thousand votes last month of re-electing a mayor, Ken Livingstone, who embraced this kind of scapegoating...'

We can tell that this hostility to Israel is as artificially constructed as any antisemitism by looking at the list of theatre groups against which the enlightened ones organized no boycott. Antizionists have created a whole new ‘-ism’, a worldview, around their campaign against Israel. Within it, a caricature of Israel is endowed with huge symbolic significance which relates only here and there to the actual state, to the complex conflict and to the diversity of existing Israelis. If the Palestinians stand, in the antizionist imagination, as symbolic of all the victims of ‘the west’ or ‘imperialism’ then Israel is thrust into the centre of the world as being symbolic of oppression everywhere. Like antisemitism, antizionism imagines Jews as being central to all that is bad in the world.

One of the sources of energy for this special focus on Israel comes from Jewish antizionists. For them, as for many other Jews, Israel is of special importance. For them, Israel’s human rights abuses, real, exaggerated or imagined, are sources of particular pain, sometimes even shame. Some of them take their private preoccupation with Israel and try to export it into the cultural and political sphere in general, and into non-Jewish civil society spaces where a special focus on the evils of Israel takes on a new symbolic power. But the ‘as a Jew’ antizionists are so centred on Israel that they often fail to understand the significance of the symbolism which they so confidently implant into the antiracist spaces of old London."

Regarding the protestors, he asks

"Do the protestors think that this is an antisemitic play? Perhaps they felt that this was the ‘Zionists’ rubbing the history of antisemitism in the faces of London and then by proxy, the Palestinians. Isn’t that the source of Zionist power today? Their ability to mobilize Jewish victimhood and their ownership of the Holocaust. This, again, is an old libel, that the Jews are so clever and so morally lacking, that they are able to benefit from their own persecution. When will the world forgive the Jews for antisemitism and the Holocaust?"

Read David Hirsh's complete essay here .