A student who disrupted the Israeli ambassador’s speech at the Irvine campus of the University of California is led out by a security officer (Photo: UprisingRadio.org)
A controversial report on Jewish campus life at the University of California is being slammed as biased and harmful to academic freedom by Jewish Voice for Peace. The progressive Jewish group adds to the chorus of voices that have condemned the report, which activists say conflates Palestine solidarity activism with anti-Semitism.
The report was released earlier in the month, and was sparked by high-profile incidents on campus that have occurred in recent years: the debate over divestment at Berkeley, and the disruption of Michael Oren’s speech by 11 students at the University of California, Irvine. Two separate reports, one on Muslim and Arab students and one on Jewish students, were published. The recommendations contained in the report on Jewish student life have proved to be the most controversial.
Writing in Al Jazeera English, Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi outlined some core problems with the report:
In the recommendations section of the report, which has the most potential to curtail the rights of students to speak out and organise, the authors suggest instituting a “hate speech-free” policy that extends beyond the “current harassment and non-discrimination provisions… and seek opportunities to prohibit hate speech”.
A number of students I spoke with believe this is a bold attempt to squash criticism and block action against Israel’s system of apartheid. The advisory council members seem well aware that they are overstepping their bounds when they write, “the Team recognises that changes to UC hate speech policies may result in legal challenge, but offer that UC accept the challenge”.
Jewish Voice for Peace has more on why the report is harmful in this press release:
Jewish Voice for Peace calls on University of California President Mark Yudof to table a recently released report on Jewish student campus climate and to disregard its controversial recommendations until a methodologically sound and even-handed report can be conducted.
The report, co-authored by Anti-Defamation League national education chairman Richard Barton and NAACP California president Alice Huffman, is coming under heavy criticism by a number of groups, including many Jewish students and faculty members, for poor methodology and bias.
Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace Deputy Director: “Rather than offering a genuine exploration of a range of Jewish student life issues—which we would support — the report reads like a blueprint for limiting pro-Palestinian activism and further marginalizing the growing numbers of students, many of them Jewish, who are critical of Israeli policies.”
The report does not reveal the names of individuals or groups who were interviewed or why many meetings were by invitation-only; offers no quantitative data to substantiate anecdotal evidence that the campuses are hostile places for Jewish students; and conflates pro-Palestinian activism with anti-Semitism. While it claims to explore all aspects of Jewish life, it devotes the bulk of column inches to pro-Palestinian student activism and makes recommendations that will have negative impacts on academic freedom for all students.
The report does accurately note that Jewish opinion on Israel and Palestine on campuses is extremely diverse, however it only offers anecdotes about the discomfort of students who support Israel policies, and omits numerous reports of harassment or intimidation experienced by Jewish students and staff who support Palestinian and Israeli rights, many of whom belong to progressive groups including Students for Justice in Palestine, J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Cecilie Surasky: “The UC system is a key battleground for groups that seek to limit criticism of Israeli policies. They are terrified of losing the unconditional support of the next generation and see UC as a testing ground for efforts to silence debate that include intimidating students and professors, making unsubstantiated claims of anti-Semitism against those critical of Israeli policies, encouraging legal action against schools and student protestors and so on.
There is no question that some Jewish students feel uncomfortable with public criticism of Israeli policies, whether articulated by other Jews or non-Jewish students, but that does not make that criticism anti-Semitic. The answer is more speech and enhanced communication, not limiting speech in order to avoid the discomfort of some students.”
So precious.
“Typically in the analysis of the malignant narcissist, “the patient attempts to triumph over the analyst by destroying the analysis and himself or herself”[11] — an extreme version of what Lacan described as “that resistance of the amour-propre…which is often expressed thus: ‘I can’t bear the thought of being freed by anyone other than myself’”.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
Interesting.
“Social psychologist Erich Fromm first coined the term malignant narcissism in 1964, describing it as a “severe mental sickness” representing “the quintessence of evil”. He characterized the condition as “the most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity”.[3] Edith Weigert (1967) saw malignant narcissism as a “regressive escape from frustration by distortion and denial of reality”; while Herbert Rosenfeld (1971) described it as “a disturbing form of narcissistic personality where grandiosity is built around aggression and the destructive aspects of the self become idealized”.[4]
Developing their ideas further, the psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg pointed out that the antisocial personality was fundamentally narcissistic and without morality.[5] Malignant narcissism includes a sadistic element, creating, in essence, a sadistic psychopath. In this essay, “malignant narcissism” and psychopathy are employed interchangeably. Kernberg first proposed malignant narcissism as a psychiatric diagnosis in 1984.
Kernberg described malignant narcissism as a syndrome characterized by a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial features, paranoid traits, and egosyntonic aggression. Other symptoms may include an absence of conscience, a psychological need for power, and a sense of importance (grandiosity). Pollock wrote: “The malignant narcissist is presented as pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism”.[6]
The writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck thought that the primary root of most human evil is ‘malignant narcissism’ and further characterized it as ‘militant ignorance’.”‘
All sounds very familiar.
Furthering the argument that the military aid we give to Israel would be much better spent on Social Services in the US, such as Medicare for All — including mental health services.
Whoa. Good for JVP
“There is no question that some Jewish students feel uncomfortable with public criticism of Israeli policies”
They should feel uncomfortable. Instead of censorship to protect their feelings maybe they should broaden their little minds. Maybe a few courses on World and ME history based on real history instead of reading from the jewishvirtual library.
But in reality I don’t think anything the zios or the colleges do is going to stop the Israel slide into the public opinion toilet.
So now they want universities to become echo chambers on this issue along the same lines of the mainstream media? Are they fragile flowers who can’t handle dissenting viewpoints?
Not only should universities become echo chambers, efforts are under way to create echo chambers in US public libraries:
In a major public library system that is over 100 years old, has over 70 participating branches and well over a million volumes, there are 2839 items under the subject ‘holocaust;’ but only 131 under the subject ‘Persian history,’ and at least a third of that number are graphic novels; another dozen are books on Esther, and most are written by authors with an antagonist point of view.
This has been coming for some time. Criticism of Israeli == antisemitism. Antisemitism == hate speech. Ipso facto: criticism of Israel == hate speech.
Those laws that have slowly moved through our justice system adding “hate” enhancements to obvious criminal acts are now coming together to make crimes out of political debate.
What is sad about this progression is that many of those “hate” enhancement laws were championed by progressives that once upon a time were the fiercest defenders of the first amendment.
“Free speech” is for words/ideas we HATE. Otherwise discourse becomes permitted propaganda.
Thus totalitarian governments opposing our First Amendment.
The Zionists are going to destroy the antisemitism meme. It’s “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome. People are going to end up linking Judaism to end stage Zionism.
Which is something like Mad Israel disease.
Concerning “Jews who feel uncomfortable with criticism of Israel” the defining commentary comes from El Finko in his “crocodile tears” tour de force
link to youtube.com
NF: “—the crocodile tears—allow me to finish! Allow me to finish! Allow me to finish! Sir! Sir! Allow me to finish! I don’t like to play, before an audience, the Holocaust card. But since now I feel compelled to, my late father was in Auschwitz. My late mother—please shut up!” (Huge applause.) “My late father was in Auschwitz. My late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp. Every single member of my family on my father’s side and my mother’s side—”
(Yellow Hoodie girl clutches her head and sobs. Some guy in the back of the line yells “The Jews can not take arms against—” but NF shouts him down.)
NF: “My late father was in Auschwitz concentration camp, my late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp! Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising! And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings, that I will not be silenced when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians! And I consider nothing more despicable than to use their suffering and their martyrdom to try to justify the torture, the brutalization, the demolition of homes, that Israel daily commits against the Palestinians! So I refuse, any longer, to be intimidated or browbeaten by the tears! If you had any heart in you, you would be crying for the Palestinians! Not for what you [inaudible]!”
(Huge applause and cheering. Girl in yellow hoodie is still crying, clutching her head, etc. Someone approaches Finkelstein, hands him a water bottle, and sends him to sit down. Finkelstein speaks directly to the cameraperson, with a smile.)
NF: “I’ve never been in a crowd like this. They’re nuts.”
Love it.
I’ve seen Dr. Finkelstein speak at UC Irvine and my own campus. He was quite warmly received and dealt with detractors in an open, respectful, but also commanding manner. He does not suffer fools gladly, but certainly gives them every opportunity to make their case.
So, what happened to him?
He got bored. Crocodile tears for the Palestinians?
“He got bored.”
If you are referring to Finklestein, I’ve seen that view put forward elsewhere. That Finklestein was no longer out in front when his views became more mainstream, but was unwilling to move further, and this was somehow an untenable position for him.
Until I became enmeshed in this struggle, I had only ever observed the use of the word “hate” (in the sense used by Zionists) among children as in the “Mommy hates me” reaction to discipline.
In my culture, it is rarely used by adults, and then only in jest (don’tcha hate it when that happens?) or for emphasis (I hate traffic jams). Neither usage is active, the sense is more “dislike” i.e the absence of “like”.
Nowadays I come across the word in nearly every engagement with the more zealous of the pro-Israel crowd who use it in a more insidious, loaded, sense – as if it is somehow a crime to dislike the actions of Zionism and the Israeli State.
It is a potent tactic for it manages to yoke the critic with historic persecutions yet it is complete nonsense on many levels.
I have yet to find “hate” as the root cause of human depredation. The English did not cause the deaths of a million Irish during the famine because they “hated” Irishmen. Ten million dead black Africans during the era of slavery were not victims of “hate”. The primary motivations in these cases were ideological, economic and political.
The incitement of “hatred” came after the fact and served to sustain these systems – they (the Blacks, the Irish whoever) “hate” us therefore its OK to do these things to them. Irrational but strikingly similar to the treatment of Palestinians.
It may be that those who use this word in this context are capable of understanding it. That is to say, they have experienced the emotional state of “hate” in its active, irrational form, which they project onto others.
Either that or they buy into yet another myth added to the mountain of mythology on which the colonialist edifice of Zionism is erected.
Interesting. Those who accuse others of anti-Semitism are accusing them either of expressing something uniquely anti Jewish, ie irrational, or deliberately attempting to provoke that emotion in their audience. If this is totally unjustified, indeed absurdly so, it evokes an emotion of frustration/irritation that is too easily tossed back without any filtering, resulting in a slanging match from which, when the dust settles, the perpetrator appears to have escaped unscathed. The reason for this is that the accusation is itself a deliberate effort to evoke the emotion of frustration, thereby shunting, as it were, the issue from mind to emotion, from intellect to heart. Assuming one is not being anti-Semitic, one needs strive to keep the issue at an intellectual level and not let it descend to an emotional bear pit, saying something in the spirit of: I am sorry you feel that, it must be very uncomfortable for you. Or whatever, but at all costs avoiding any unfiltered expression of the impatience the accusation quite deliberately attempts to provoke.
> “Assuming one is not being anti-Semitic, one needs strive to keep the issue at an intellectual level…”
Why? Ever try stopping a thug hellbent on doing you bodily harm with “intellectual” arguments?
Why buy into the idea that anger is negative? Why, for godsake, do we even HAVE the capacity to get angry if not to rectify injustices?
Gandhi was a provocateur. He despised both passivity and cowardice. He believed if you couldn’t, in your deepest heart, bear the blows of an enemy with kindness it was your moral duty to strike back as hard as you could. All his actions were designed to CONFRONT, not “understand” or placate evil-doers.
Israeli hasbarists want to kill all criticism of Israel. In the 1930s they would have been members of Hitler’s thug gangs. Later they would have said any critique of the Reich was “antiteutonic.”
Israel-Firsters would have hunted down members of the White Rose Society.
Shameless!
A well-written article, Alex Kane. But I have to say that as soon as it was revealed this report was ADL conceived, it should have been ignored. Is there any redeeming qualities to the ADL at all? I have my doubts. Its history of criminality over ‘defending’ Israel including illegal spying on it’s critics should have been it’s swan song. Close it down, for pete’s sake….