Roseanne Barr in Berkeley: The Selective Outrage of the Morally bankrupt

Via Emunah:

Roseanne Barr is coming to the Magnes Museum in Berkeley on Tuesday, to discuss "Israel, the Jews and me". There is a lot of justifiable curiosity about her personal journey towards Zionism.

It was only last year, after all that Roseanne's program with notorious anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon was promoted by the extremist anti-Israel group, Jewish Voice for Peace.

How does one go from hobnobbing with extremists and anti-Semites to publicly supporting Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people? How does such a dramatic about face happen in a matter of months?

I have a ticket. I hope to find out.

Ben (the son of) Zoma had asked and answered in Pirke Avot: "Who is wise? He who learns from all people". The community is hoping to learn from Roseanne's personal journey.  The Jewish Community Relations Center is sponsoring the facilitated discussion with her.

Always outspoken, Roseanne is becoming even more controversial in recent days with a series of tweets that push the line of acceptable discourse. 

From the Sacramento Bee:

Barr’s Twitter page has since become a battleground with the 62-year-old comic lobbing rejoinders to obscene and anti-Semitic slurs directed at her. On Wednesday, Barr tweeted, “Proud to have spam blocked 25k Jew haters today! #UCDavisDivest toads.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article9771911.html#storylink=cpy

Our friends at Divest this  recently had a good discussion about  Twitter ( statements of 140 characters or less), remarking that social media as a whole

enables those stupid things we all say (especially in our younger years – things that might still make us wince upon remembrance) to be broadcast around the globe where they get to live on forever in screen grabs of Twitter feeds and Facebook timelines long since deleted.

Concluding

But as these thirty-second communication tools become proxies for what we are thinking, or bricks in the wall of confirmation bias too many of us are building around ourselves, it might be time to reflect on how tools originally designed to help us make friends should not be used to destroy lives.

How seriously should we take Roseanne's Twitter outbursts? Roseanne Barr is a public figure, but she is not an academic or a journalist. She's a comedienne- essentially a shock jock , who uses the literary tools of exaggeration and hyperbole to drive home her points.

Does it make us uncomfortable? Yes- but its meant to.

Opponents of Israel are using Tuesday's event as yet another reason to rage against the Jewish community. Jim Harris, founder of Stop AIPAC, and a familiar face at anti-Israel protests throughout the Bay area has started a petition "End Your Support for Roseanne Barr's call to "nuke" a California University".

He writes:

On Tuesday, February 17th, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of San Francisco will be hosting a talk by Roseanne Barr in Berkeley, California. We are shocked and saddened at this, as Roseanne Barr has long been so uncivil in her speech, even to the point of supporting violence against masses of people.  The latest, but certainly not the only, is her tweet of Feb. 10th that stated "I hope all the Jews leave UC Davis and then it gets nuked!"

Jim ends his petition (currently signed by a few dozen people) with a demand.

We demand that JCRC remove its sponsorship for this talk. To support civility. To reject all calls to violence. 

Jim Harris is providing us with yet another example of the selective outrage of the morally bankrupt anti-Israel activist. There were no calls or petitions for civility when pro-Israel activists were threatened and attacked at events he organized and attended. There was no condemnation of the genocidal aspirations of Hamas or the local organizations that enable and excuse them. And there was no calls or petitions for civility  when JVP promoted  Gilad "Burning synagogues is a rational act" Atzmon, just a few short months ago. And as Europe collapses, as Jews living Jewish lives are slaughtered, Jim Harris chooses to be outraged over 140 poorly chosen words.

On Tuesday, we'll be testing Ben Zoma's words, first hand. What can we, as a community, learn from Roseanne Barr's personal journey?   One thing is certain. Human beings are capable of much more nuance and subtlety when not restricted to 140 characters or less.

UPDATE:
The talk, originally scheduled for Tuesday night, has been cancelled

The Rise and free-fall of STOP AIPAC

"And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust"

The demise of yet another anti-Israel organization:

From Jim Harris of Stop AIPAC

When the website StopAIPAC.org started over 5 years ago, we had hopes to inspire people to unite in protest against AIPAC, a lobby for occupation and war. Since that time, there have dozens of protests around the country, in city after city, as aipac kept selling its product , an apartheid system that could only be promoted with fear and and the spread of hatred (in the form of Islamophobia), and protected by massive military expenditures. We witnessed the emergence of Move Over Aipac and its protest of aipac at its annual Policy Conference in DC. That was a modest success, and it remains to be seen if the next Policy Conference in March will be confronted by something bigger, our fondest hope.

What is certain is that due to many personal reasons i no longer wish to be doing this newsletter, or updating the website. This is the last newsletter you will be receiving, and the website will fade away soon also. I hope many others continue to fight aipac and work for justice and peace in the Middle East, and fight the threat of a US and/or Israeli war against Iran, which could easily turn into the greatest catastrophe of our era.

I am personally thankful for those who sent words and even donations of support. We hope you find other organizations to support (like Move Over Aipac or The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation ) We hope that the protests continue to grow and that people will continue to express their outrage at politicians that pander to plotters of war and oppression. We can make a better world.
--- jim harris for Stop AIPAC

Jim Harris who blogs as "Tom Joad" is a staple at anti-Israel events locally. The diminutive activist (Does he really walk dogs for a living?)reportedly was upset that his organization was not chosen to organize AIPAC disruptions in Washington and was growing progressively more disgusted at the hypocrisy of his colleagues' refusal to condemn anti-democratic homophobic, misogynist regimes in the Middle east

We've seen this over and over again in the Bay area. Hatred of the state of the Jewish people isn't enough to keep these groups unified. They break and fragment over being too Marxist. Not Marxist enough. Recently we've seen much imploding and divisiveness regarding the Arab Spring, with some groups rallying behind dictators and autocrats. Anti-Israel groups begin, break up and re-form with surprising regularity.

Does this mean AIPAC protests in the Bay Area for December 2011 are cancelled?
No.
Central Valley Hate groups are already coordinating a protest at the AIPAC lunch in Sacranmento, Sunday December 04 from 10:30 AM - 1:00 PM.

They show up every year. Who could ever forget Stephen Pearcy aand Virginia Johnson Pearcy with their Hamas and Hezbollah flags, Zionist baby killer effigy and and sign glorifying Nasrallah?



In the absence of StopAIPAC, protests on Oakland December 5 and San Francisco December 6 will likely be organized by a consortium of haters, from the AFSC, to JVP and the AROC. And if the past is any indication, while several dozen are gathering out side in protest, over a thousand people will be inside celebrating the special relation between the American and Israeli people.

Seven Arrested Attempting to Crash AIPAC dinner in Oakland

A group of seven hate-niks, led by the notorious Noura Khouri, a woman of staggering  hubris and ignorance who once accused Glide's Reverend Cecil Williams of "overt racism" was arrested this evening attempting to crash the annual AIPAC dinner.

Noura Khouri of the AFSC, arrested at AIPAC

The dinner at the Oakland Marriott, one of 4 sold out venues in the Bay area hosted hundreds of AIPaC supporters that were unaware of the disturbance in the lobby.

Immediately after entering the lobby, the group was surrounded by security personnel. The group then inexplicably broke into song.

In addition to Noura Khouri,others arrested and taken away in handcuffs included
Valerie Ortiz, Santa Cruz,
Leslie Angeline, San Francisco,
Martha Hubert, San Francisco,
Gene St. Onge, Oakland
Janet Kobren, Oakland, and
Peter Tcherneff, Santa Rosa

More details and photos as they come available.
True to form, the charming folks at Stop AIPAC sent out a press release, immediately declaring victory over the mighty lobby.

It has been proposed that the seven currently in custody in Oakland be traded in a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit.