Tuesday, February 09, 2010

University of California, Irvine Proves Once Again It Is A Bastion of Jihadism and Anti-Semitism

And they don't do anything about it.

The administrators at UCI ought to be ashamed of themselves.

From the OC Register:

Eleven people were arrested Monday evening during a raucous lecture at UC Irvine where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren came to talk about U.S.-Israel relations. (UCI earlier said that 12 were arrested.)

Here are the identities of the 8 UCI students and 3 UC Riverside students who were arrested.

Oren was interrupted 10 times Monday while trying to give his speech before 500 people at the UCI Student Center, where there was heavy security. Oren took a 20 minute break after the fourth protest, asked for hospitality and resumed his speech, only to be interrupted again by young men yelling at him every few minutes. Many members of the audience also applauded Oren.

After the 10th interruption, several dozens students who opposed Oren’s talk got up and walked out and staged a protest outside. It is not clear whether they were members of the UCI Muslim Student Union, which issued an email earlier in the day condemning Oren’s appearance on campus.

Oren continued talking, completing his speech at 6:42 p.m. Originally, he planned to take questions from the audience. But that wpicture-2as canceled after the repeated delays.
The second person yelled about “Zionism.”

The third yelled, “Israel.” The fourth could not be clearly heard.

UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey said it is not clear whether any of the protesters are UCI students.

Mark Petracca, a UCI political science professor, lost his temper and yelled, “This is embarrassing … Shame on all of you.”

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake also told the audience that he was embarrassed by the outburst.

Drake and Petracca were booed by many people, and applauded by others.

Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members “condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined.”





The Jewish Federation Orange County said earlier in the day that it had been informed that Oren’s speech at UC Irvine late today might be disrupted by protestors.

Shalom C. Elcott, president of JFOC, said in a statement today that, “We have been informed that some students may attempt to disrupt the event. We want to assure the community that our goal is to create a positive environment — indeed, a sacred space - for open dialogue, intellectual debate and civil discourse that befits a university setting.”

This was not the first time that there has been confrontation at a political lecture at UCI.

In January 2007, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum was interrupted by protesters at UCI while giving a speech titled, “The Threat to Israel’s Existence.” The protesters ended up getting into a brief shouting match with some members of the audience.

11 comments:

christian soldier said...

UCI --9-11---brings back bad memories-

Muslim students were laughing and 'yukking' it up--re: the terrorist attacks on 9-11-2001---
an exchange student reprimanded them for doing so...
the exchange student was then chastised by the administration of UCI for ---as I remember---hate speech toward the Muslim students...!!!
C-CS

joe six-pack said...

Anger management is a problem Muslims have throughout the world. At least they are not shooting. Yet.

mah29001 said...

What would these "anti-Zionists" be more comfortable with? Someone like David Duke? He agrees with their talking points on Israel being "genocidal" toward the Palestinians.

And they say they're anti-hate?

Pastorius said...

Christian Soldier,
Was that story reported in the news? I don't recall that.

christian soldier said...

I have it in some old files--I used to read paper newspapers...I saved it..ASA the remodel job is complete-I'll be able to access them...
C-CS

Pastorius said...

Cool, thanks.

Anonymous said...

Police identify 11 students arrested at UCI

Police have identified the students as:

UC Irvine

Joseph Tamim Haider

Osama Ahmed Sabry Shabaik

Mohemed Mohy Eldeen Abdelgany

Ali Mohammad Sayeed

Asaad Traina

Mohammad Qureashi

Aslam Akhtar

Hakim Nasreddine Kebir

UC Riverside

Taher Herzallam

Shaheen Waleed Nassar

Khalid Bahgat Akari

*************

Now identify all those on student visas and revoke their visa.

Anonymous said...

Here is a statement from the JFOC:

Jewish Federation Orange County Outraged Over Actions Leading to Arrests at Michael Oren Speech
Irvine, CA – February 9, 2009 - Jewish Federation Orange County is outraged by the disrespectful actions leading to the arrest of 12 people at last night’s speech by Michael Oren, the Ambassador of Israel to the United States, who came to the University of California Irvine to speak about the evolution of the relationship between Israel and the United States. Shalom Elcott, President and CEO of Jewish Federation Orange County, said the highly-orchestrated disruptions by the President of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) - who was arrested, along with one MSU board member and 10 other student protesters - constituted an embarrassment to the University and an insult to the broader community. “While we had hoped the administration would have been better prepared to thwart groups or individuals trying to harass Ambassador Oren, we do commend the University police for making arrests and taking action to escort the perpetrators out of the room,” says Elcott. “And, we are proud of the Ambassador not letting the disruptions stop him from completing his address. We will intensely monitor what actions the University administration will take in response to this evening’s event and will report our findings to the community,” says Elcott.
Though UCI Chancellor Michael Drake and Professor Mark Petracca, chair of UCI’s Department of Political Science, repeatedly implored the crowd to respect the Ambassador’s right to free speech, their requests were ignored by the hostile attendees, who escalated their outbursts. As a result, numerous participants were removed from the room by UCI police. According to UCI’s Chief of Police, all of the people who were removed from the event were arrested for disrupting a public event on a university campus, and if they were UCI students, they would be subject to student conduct charges which could include expulsion.
Approximately 900 people attended Monday night’s event, and a room had to be set up to handle the overflow. Oren’s presentation was organized by several campus groups and academic departments, including UCI’s School of Law. Oren’s speech was primarily funded by a grant by the Rose Project of Jewish Federation Orange County.

“It was clear early on that this was a coordinated effort to stifle freedom of speech,” says Joshua Felice, a student at UCI School of Law and event co-host and planner. “Freedom of speech is an Israeli value and an American value. Today we, as a Jewish community, took a stand at UCI. We sent a message that we are here to stay at UCI. We also sent a message that the attempted censorship of our freedom of speech will not be tolerated. We are thrilled that Michael Oren completed his talk. He was able to persevere, much like the U.S.-Israeli relations and much like a number of more constructive Muslim-Jewish dialogues at UCI.”
In contrast to the behavior of the Muslim Student Union, MESSI (Middle East Studies Student Initiative, which includes Muslim and Arab students) participated in co-sponsoring the Ambassador’s appearance. Several Muslim and Arab members of MESSI have also participated, along with Christian and Jewish students, in the Olive Tree Initiative, a program that sends a diverse group of UCI students to the Middle East for encounters with Israelis and Palestinians.
Moran Cohen, President of Anteaters for Israel, a pro-Israel group on campus, and co-host of event says, “We are disappointed that students did not comply with the requests to be respectful. But, Anteaters for Israel is proud that we have a strong Jewish community surrounding us so when we organize events, even a few disruptions will not stop them from happening.”

midnight rider said...

Pasto -- this vid has started autoplaying.

Pastorius said...

It's not audio-playing on my end?

Anonymous said...

the good news today is that israel deployed a new drone that is capable of destroying all of the nut allah followers and their ignorant people. i say more money to israel and these type of actions by these radical nut cases. i use to have sympathy for the sand bugs but no more..destroying and as a strong supporter of the uc system..let us use our influence and revoke their visas