Extremist AROC seeks to reinstate discredited California Model Studies Curriculum

The extremist San Francisco based Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is attempting to breathe life into the dead horse of the widely discredited California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

You may remember Lara Kiswani, head of the AROC,  for her assault on Jewish elders.  Witnesses reported her physically ripping signs from the hands of the elders, and doing a victory lap with the destroyed signs held high over her head.

Lara Kiswani after her assault on a Jewish elder

Does Lara Kiswani seem like the type of person we want influencing curriculum for young people?

From the Progressive Zionists of California, a grassroots coalition of California Democrats:

Lara Kiswani and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) have helped sponsor a petition called “Save CA Ethnic Studies” which states, “Will it [the California Department of Education] institute a Ethnic Studies curriculum that uplifts the stories of all communities of color or reject one that includes Arab Americans—bending to the desires of pro-Israel groups [emphasis added]….”

Progressive Zionists points out that it was not "pro-Israel" groups alone objecting to  the "exclusionary and antisemitic Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum".  It widely condemned by a consortium of groups, including Armenian Americans, Greek Americans, Hindu Indian Americans, Assyrian-Americans, Sikh Americans, Korean Americans, on the grounds that it was "not inclusive enough".

They write:

To be clear, diverse communities came together to respond to the curriculum based on their own concerns. Claiming in this petition that they are “bending to the desires of” Jewish groups erases their lived experiences and concerns. This dangerous trope of Jews controlling other minorities deeply motivated the Poway, Pittsburg, New Jersey mass murders and the repeated attacks on Jews in Brooklyn and Monsey. PZC condemns this language as both racist and antisemitic.

We encourage the IQC to continue to reject extremism and antisemitism in the curriculum, and commend them for the progress they have made so far. It is crucial that the kind of hatred and misinformation Kiswani has trafficked in not be allowed to become the norm or sanctioned within any public education curriculum.  

Read the full statement here:

Progressive Zionists of California (PZC) Concerned about efforts to reinstate an exclusionary and antisemitic Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

A Tale of Two Restaurants: They go low, we go high.

A tale of 2 restaurants.

Reem’s café and bakery is adorned with a floor to ceiling image of a confessed murderer- Rasmea Odeh,  a convicted terrorist responsible for the deaths of 2 young men in a Jerusalem bombing nearly 20 years ago.   Peaceful vigils by a group of community elders opposed to the glorification of violence were violently attacked by ReemAssil’s staff and patrons.  

Ellen Brotsky of JVP attacking an elderly man at Reems, Fruitvale Oakland

Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource Organizing Center and Ellen Brotsky with posters
ripped out of the hands of community elders.  

When the physical attack failed to silence their voices,  the police were repeatedly called to break up the vigils.  Ultimately, Reem Assil attempted to take out restraining orders to quash the communities rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

Contrast and compare

Mannys in San Francisco is under protest by alt-left fringe groups, threatening to run him out of town.

Its not about the artwork Manny has chosen to display- glorious representations of our diverse community.  Its about who Manny is- a proud and  progressive queer Jew who happens to fail the litmus test of political correctness- and accepts the right of the Jewish people to self determination.  Manny’s business has been vandalized with anti-Semitic imagery.  His windows have been broken.

Mannys vandalized with spray painted Jewish star.  Photo from Mission Local 

Manny’s response to the protesters harassing his customers was to invite them in to talk.  They refused.  The community response  has also been open and loving. There have not been violent attacks against the protesters, or attempts to silence their voices.   The community instead has embraced Manny, his shop and his mission.  On Wednesday evenings, the day of the protests, Manny’s restaurant has been packed with patrons, celebrating in the community gathering space that Manny has created. . 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew best: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. "  

The community will continue to respond to these attacks with light and with love. 
Read more about Manny's:

How many hoops must Manny Yekutiel jump through before he’s deemed worthy to set foot in the Mission?

Manny’s builds a real-life space for civic discourse in SF

Jewish cafe owner in San Francisco hounded over his ‘Zionist ideals’

Reem's of Oakland: Photos of attackers emerge

Reem's in Fruitvale has been widely criticized for its lionization of convicted murderer Rasmea Odeh. Yesterday, a non-violent vigil meant to focus community attention on the local cafe's glorification of violence ended in an assault on the participants, including a 78 year old survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto

Lara Kiswani, the Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) in San Francisco Bay Area has been identified as one of the attackers. She is reported to have ripped a sign out of a participants hands, then strutted around the outside patio with the remnants.

Ellen Brotsky, a self identified member of Jewish Voice for Peace can also been seen on the footage attacking the non-violent protesters

Ellen Brotsky and Lara Kiswani  with stolen signs

This person  was reported to have assaulted a wheel-chair bound activist, cruelly twisting her fingers in an effort to steal her sign. 

Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) also made an appearance, participating in the mayhem until the police arrived, then tossing on a lime green National lawyers Guild Legal Observer hat.  (Pssst, Sara- the National Lawyers Guild Manual for Legal Observers specifically says  "...we ask people to commit themselves to act as Legal Observers and not protesters, and avoid blurring of lines between Legal Observer and activist.")

Oops. Fail.

As morally reprehensible as it might be, Reem Assil and her customers have the right to glorify a murderer, but they do not have the right to attack those in opposition. Organizers of the vigil are planning on returning to Fruitvale Station, committed to the sacred task of educating the community about the dangers of incitement and indoctrination and how they act as an obstacle to peace, both in Oakland and overseas.

These are just empty words from an interview with Reem Assil in Berkeleyside:  “People are afraid of politics, but now more than ever people are asking. If my food can stir up a conversation — even if it’s a hard conversation — that’s what I want it to do. I welcome that in my space.”  Yet when people attempting to engage in the very hard conversation Reem says she welcomes- they are met with abuse, harassment and assault.

Ad Wars Escalate in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In response to a wave of anti-Israel advertisements appearing on Bay Area buses, Israel advocacy group StandWithUs  recently sponsored a 4 week run of their own ads.  The ads were displayed on 20 buses, throughout the city. StandWithUs has countered anti-Israel messaging on  Northern California public transit eight times since 2011. 

Nothing upsets the forces of darkness as much as when the Jews fight back. This  counter messaging upsets the local extremist Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) who have called for a public meeting to pressure the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority to stop accepting these ads.

From Facebook:

NO MORE RACIST BUS ADS!

Bay Area Community Meeting

Thursday, October 27th
6pm
518 Valencia Street, SF

Upset at seeing racist ads on SF Muni buses? Want to do something about it? 

Join us on October 27th for a community meeting.

What is the history and organizing behind these racist ads?
What are strategies that have been used to challenge them in the past?
What do we want to do to stop these racist attacks?

In this climate of heightened anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, most recently with the targeted racist attacks on community leaders on college campuses, Arab and Muslim families continue to have to face the inclusion of hate speech and racist attacks against them on public transportation. For years the Bay Area community has fought back against these ads and their violent nature. Yet time and time again, we find that the city continues to allow them to drape buses throughout San Francisco. We will not let this go unchallenged. Let's come together to figure out how we want to challenge racism in SF.

Lara Kiswani and her colleagues at AROC understand full well that the pro-Israel messaging ads on MUNI is in direct response to the propaganda war their associates have launched against the Jewish state.  

As StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein has explained in the past:

“StandWithUs will not allow anti-Israel campaigns to go unanswered, no matter where they appear.  Our goal is to set the record straight, and to inform the public about Israel’s challenges and extraordinary achievements in helping make the world a better place.”  

In addition to San Francisco, SWU  ads have appeared in New York City; Houston, Texas; Missoula, and Helena, Montana; Washington, DC; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Chicago, Denver, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

The ads and billboards will stop when the anti-Israel messaging stops. Its that simple, AROC.

San Francisco rethinks its partnership with extremist AROC

In May, the San Francisco Board of Education passed a resolution for the Unified School District to begin Arabic- and Vietnamese-language and cultural classes for the 2017 school year. Sponsored by board members Sandra Fewer, Matt Haney and Shamann Walton, the resolution was passed unanimously on May 26.

The resolution called for the district to work with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) to develop “culturally appropriate professional development opportunities” for the language programs.

Why would the School District even consider a partnership with this extremist group?

The San Francisco based AROC has been widely condemned for its extremist rhetoric, and for the open support of terror at its events. At the AROC sponsored "Block the Boat"  rally in Oakland last year, Hamas flags were flown, and signage that glorified  gun violence were displayed.   AROC co-sponsored the now infamous rally at San Francisco State University that featured the theme “My heroes have always killed colonizers”. They’ve distributed handouts glorifying the Intifada- the campaign of terror that left thousands of Israelis and Palestinians dead.

AROC tabling

Just last year, in a panel discussion at UC Berkeley, the executive director of AROC, Lara Kiswani told a tearful Jewish student pleading for co-existence “As long as you continue to be on that side [of Zionism] I’m going to continue to hate you.”

Responding to requests from the Jewish community , the seven-member Board is reviewing the resolution.

From the San Francisco Examiner:

“We fully support implementing language pathways in Vietnamese and Arabic. [The opposition] is of this group that has been named in the resolution [and] made these really ugly and divisive statements,” said Jeremy Russell, a spokesman for the Jewish council.

District officials have not confirmed whether the Arab group will remain listed as a resource in the resolution, and the Board of Education in the coming weeks intends to collectively respond to community concerns regarding the resolution.

AROC has responded, with (yawn) a petition.

For more information, see:

Arab group’s partnership with S.F. schools raises alarm

Group pushing Arabic-language curriculum in SF schools faces backlash over remarks

Israel haters nearly sneak one by S.F. school board

Lara Kiswani of the AROC: The face of pure hatred.

On Nov. 12 a panel discussion was held at at U.C. Berkeley organized by the BDS Caucus of UAW 2865, the union for 13,000 University of California graduate student workers. The panel included 3 advocates for BDS, Michael Letwin, Clarence Thomas and Lara Kiswani and featured rhetoric so disturbing, a student left the room in tears.

From the J weekly, the weekly newspaper of the Northern California Jewish community, written by Jewish community hero, Tammi Benjamin-Rossman

Ms. Benjamin-Rossman is a lecturer at U.C. Santa Cruz and co-founder of the Amcha Initiative, a nonprofit that combats anti-Semitism on college campuses.

"Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers.”

These words were spoken by Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, at a Nov. 12 panel discussion at U.C. Berkeley organized by the BDS Caucus of UAW 2865, the union for 13,000 University of California graduate student workers. Those grad student-teachers and other workers will be voting on a union resolution to boycott Israel on Dec. 4.

Throughout her talk, Kiswani made crystal clear that the goal of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel is not to legitimately criticize Israeli policy, but rather to bring an end to the Jewish state, and she claimed that UAW 2865 members will be playing an important role in achieving that goal should they approve the BDS resolution in their vote next week:

• “BDS is about isolating Zionism.”
• “I think you should boycott any Zionist institution, academic, organization, whether it be from 1967 occupied Palestine or 1948 occupied Palestine, because BDS really should be about shifting the cultural framework and shifting how we see Israel and isolating it and making it feel unwelcome anywhere and everywhere.”
• “We have demanded that the world take a stand in isolating Israel everywhere.”
• “We’re resisting colonialism in Palestine, and colonialism entails all of occupied Palestine from Haifa to Jerusalem to Ramallah.”

Make no mistake: Calling for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state is anti-Semitic. Not only do the United States and Canada consider denying Jews the right to self-determination a prime example of anti-Semitism, but the vast majority of Jews around the world experience BDS and other attempts to “bring down Israel” as a deeply anti-Semitic assault on the entire Jewish people.
 
Read the full account here. The entire panel discussion is available here

The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) has a long history of extremist rhetoric, intolerance  and promotion of violence