Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat cancels visit to SFSU

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has canceled a scheduled visit to San Francisco State University, accusing the university of failing to adequately prepare for his visit.

“By failing to provide the necessary public forum and properly publicize my lecture, the University has contributed to the continuing marginalization and demonization of the Jewish state,” Barkat declared, adding “If I were a representative of any other country, no institution of higher learning would have allowed my speech to be drowned out by protesters inciting violence and then bring me back to campus in a limited, secluded way,”

The visit was scheduled for Thursday, a full year after his talk at SFSU was interrupted by anti-Israel activists.  A subsequent investigation found that SFSU failed to properly handle the protest, yet the participants faced no actual consequences. San Francisco State University is regularly listed as one of the most difficult campuses for Jewish students.

Mayor Nir Barkat planned to visit the campus exactly a year to the day after students with the General Union of Palestine Students group interrupted his on-campus speech with chants of "Intifada, Intifada", terrorizing the Jewish students and community members attending the event.

“Dozens of anti-Israel protesters disrupted my public lecture through intimidation and provocation, vulgarities and incitement that bordered on the anti-Semitic,” Barkat said

Barakat’s speech was scheduled to take place Thursday  at the Seven Hills Conference Center. The venue quickly sold  out.

Bay area Anti- Israel activists had already begun to mobilize for the event, distributing a rambling, incoherent diatribe emphasizing  their personal and collective victimhood, and demanding Wong cancel the appearance.

Instead, Barakat will be speaking a private venue.

Mayor Barkat's full statement follows:

"At San Francisco State last April, dozens of anti-Israel protesters disrupted my public lecture through intimidation and provocation, vulgarities and incitement that bordered on the anti-Semitic.

Following the incident, President Wong invited me back to the University to provide students the opportunity to learn that they were denied last spring. I felt a moral obligation to return to San Francisco State and share Jerusalem’s progress, challenges, and opportunities.

Unfortunately, the University did not offer the lecture that would provide the kind of healing needed after the assault on free speech last year. Instead, the University offered a ticketed, limited event, and no legitimate effort was made on the part of the University to publicize the lecture. I have decided not to participate.

By failing to provide the necessary public forum and properly publicize my lecture, the University has contributed to the continuing marginalization and demonization of the Jewish state. If I were a representative of any other country, no institution of higher learning would have allowed my speech to be drowned out by protestors inciting violence and then bring me back to campus in a limited, secluded way.

Mostly importantly, the University's proposed framework is nothing short of a double standard. The University has demonstrated that they will protect the rights of anti-Israel students to drown out diverse voices through violent incitement, while they will not protect the rights of the students to engage in open, robust dialogue."

--
Rachel Greenspan
Deputy Advisor, Foreign Affairs and International Media
Office of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat"

SFSU: The battle cry of the coward is "But I'm the victim".

Its enough to make George Orwell spin in his grave.  In a move so cynically twisted and morally bankrupt it nearly defies description, anti-Israel students at  SFSU  who disrupted a speech by the mayor of Jerusalem are claiming the mantle of victimhood.

Yes, really.

At an April 6 talk sponsored by San Francisco State University Hillel  Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat  was prevented from speaking by an unruly crowd, to the intense frustration of those who had gathered to hear him speak. University officials stood by and did nothing.

From Aaron Parker, who was at the aborted talk:

The administrators’ and police’s high profile inaction emboldened the mob, which consequently grew louder and more brazen.  We waited and waited for the disruptors to be removed so the event could proceed, but it never happened.  Eventually, Mayor Barkat asked us to huddle around him so he could speak to us over the mob’s chants, but it was a lost cause.

“Get the fuck off our campus, get the fuck off our campus,” the mob yelled at us with bullhorns, indoors, over and over.  “Get the fuck off our campus.”

Students at SFSU described their frustration at the course of events:

From the Golden Gate Xpress, the SFSU school newspaper

“We have a right to hear what (Barkat) has to say, and we can’t hear it with all that,” physiology major Sarah Herman said, gesturing to the protestors...

“I think it’s really unfortunate that we’re not allowed an environment where we can have an open dialogue,” political science major Antonia Ford said. “I have no issue with having different opinions and being angry, but they’re not here to talk, they’re here to yell, and that will never achieve anything.”

The latest development in this ongoing saga? From the website of the anti-Israel group US Campaign - a petition urging SFSU President Wong not to investigate the incident.

The text of the petition follows:

Dear SFSU President Leslie Wong,

I am writing to you to express my deep concerns over the recent backlash against students who participated in the April 6th 2016 protest to the visit to SF State by the Mayor of occupied Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. Barkat has promoted and orchestrated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem. SFSU is a public educational institution with a long history of promoting social justice and centering the narratives of injustice the world over, including Indigenous communities, communities of color and other marginalized and colonized communities. The students who protested were standing up for those very values. 

I am also concerned about the impact of the recent backlash, which has included online bullying, smearing, in person harassment, sexual harassment, and even death threats, especially in an already pervasive climate of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. 

Please  take the following steps:

1. Immediately stop the administrative investigation to punish students’ speech activity, and instead protect students’ safety, rights, and ability to continue to participate in their educational pursuits. 

2. Condemn the bullying, smearing, sexual harassment and death threats that are targeting student protesters and investigate the organizations attacking these students, and the relationship between members of the administration, and the University. 

3. Implement training for faculty and administrators on Islamophobia and the proper enforcement of Title VI protections against anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination, including that experienced on the SFSU campus.

The General Union of Palestinian Students at SFSU define cowardice.

They lacked the intellectual discipline to question Nir Barkat.  They lacked the moral backbone to defend their position. They lacked the courage to face the consequences of their very public tantrum, instead whining "But I'm the victim".  It remains to be seen if San Francisco State University president Les Wong will capitulate to this perverse moral inversion.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in San Francisco

More news from San Francisco State University, from someone who witnessed the fiasco.

Written by Aaron Parker,  published in the Times of Israel

Mayor Barkat’s visit was planned.  University administrators expected both him and the disruptors, who reliably attend all Israeli speaking events here.  The university police were sent in.  But, in a decision that should deeply disturb all who value a civil society, and one that I as a Jew find profoundly demoralizing, the police were instructed not to remove the disruptors and instead to stand by and watch the event be completely shut down.

Please let that sink in. Public university administrators and police stood and watched as the Mayor of Jerusalem, the Jewish student organization that sponsored him, and all of us in attendance, were permanently bullied off the stage.  Officers with guns, and the power that comes from the barrels of those guns, were instructed to stand, watch, and do nothing, as freedom of speech was replaced with a policy of whoever shouts the loudest wins, at least when it comes to shouting down a visiting Israeli dignitary. Those whom we thought were there to protect us and restore order, stood, watched, and did nothing.

The administrators’ and police’s high profile inaction emboldened the mob, which consequently grew louder and more brazen.  We waited and waited for the disruptors to be removed so the event could proceed, but it never happened.  Eventually, Mayor Barkat asked us to huddle around him so he could speak to us over the mob’s chants, but it was a lost cause.

“Get the fuck off our campus, get the fuck off our campus,” the mob yelled at us with bullhorns, indoors, over and over.  “Get the fuck off our campus.”

Aaron concludes:

As a Jewish San Franciscan, I was profoundly shaken by the experience.  I was prepared for the anti-Israel movement to be there.  They’ve grown chillingly disciplined in recent years.  I expected them to be given a space outside the event to yell hateful rhetoric and engage in theatrics.  I was prepared for the likelihood of having to pass them on the way in, threatening me, calling me anti-Semitic epithets, because it’s how they roll.  What I didn’t expect was for them to be given the power by the university to control who speaks and who does not.  I left shaken to my core.

Read it all here: 
 Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in San Francisco