The Crucible of UC-Irvine‏

Judea Pearl
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
May 28, 2009

Universities, like religions, are often judged notby what they preach but what they tolerate. This painful truth came to mind upon reading Neelie Milstein's Opedarticle in these pages, ("Protecting Hate at UC Irvine", May20, 2009), in which she describes the atmosphere at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), where the Muslim Students Union (MSU) celebrateda week-long lynching of Jewish identity under the banner"Israel: The Politics of Genocide." "At UCI," Neelie wrote, "hate is a yearly event that lasts for a week. It isn't just any hatred. It is hatred directed at me, my friends, my community and my history.You are a Jew; a proud Jew, a proud supporter of Israel. Now you are seen as nothing but a racist murderer on your own campus." Neelie is not alone. Her frustration is shared by many students and facultyat Irvine. What is happening at UCI is part ofa coordinated assault on Jewishidentity at campuses across the nation,an assault that threatens to erode the dignity,values and peoplehood of all Jewish students in the generation to come. We must understand its anatomy,for universities hold the key to our future. UC-Irvine has long been a proving ground for orchestrated Israel-defamation. The combination of a large and highly-motivated Muslim student organization, an affluent and supportive Muslim community, a non-confrontational University administration and a divided (what's new?) Jewish leadership has turned the UCI campus into a veritable petri dish to test the limits of hate, bigotry and intimidation.Pro-Israel students, with the help of organizations like Hillel, Standwithus and others, have mobilized to reach out to MSU, but were unable to moderate the rising intensity of this assuault)(See Brad Greenberg's "Quiet war on campus, JJ, August 20,2008) Many Orwellian hyperboles were first tested at UCI, among them: "Genocide in Jenin," "Zionism is Cancer," "The World without Israel," "Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine," "Holocaust in the Holy Land," "Israel: The Fourth Reich." This year, the masters of absurdity upped the ante with mental deformities such as: "Allah is a terrorist," "The Zionist-Jew is a party of Satan," along with images ofAnne Frank in a Palestinian Kaffiyeh, blood-drenched Israeli flags and heroic Hamas fighters advancing the cause of peace --all at a prime location on campus, near the flagpoles and the administration building, giving the hate fest the appearance of a university-sponsored event. Naturally, despite their tireless and honest efforts,university administrators have been powerless to prevent UCI from becoming a national focus of anxieties and expectations.

Indeed, on the day the official UCI marquee at the entrance to campusdisplayed the "Israel-Genocide" sign, I received messages from colleagues as far away as Indiana asking whether California Education Code allows such use of the University of California name. "What next for us?" they asked. On the other side of the fault line, Anti-Israel propagandists have been watching UCI performances thirsting for new ideas and new opportunities for upcoming hate-fests on other campuses.I wonder, for example, whether Susan Slyomovics, thedirector of UCLA Center for Near East Studies, would have mustered the imagination to choreograph her famous Gaza Symposiumlast January 22 had she not been emboldened by Irvine's 2005 workshop "A World without Israel".For readers who missed Slyomovics show,it was described by a foreign diplomat (not Israeli)in the audience as"the dirtiest Israel-bashing and indeed full-fledgedanti-Semitic hate fest I have experienced in my two and a half years in this city" (see my column "Dust Over UCLACampus Life: UCLA at a Crossroad" Feb. 18, 2009). Likewise, I would speculate that UCLA Chancellor Gene Blockis keenly tuned to the happenings at UCI, for he is facing a similar dillema: How long can a university refrain from confronting obsessive Israel bashers/deniers -- bent on stifling debateand trampling campus norms of civil discourse --and still convince the public that students should feel safe and welcome, and their sensitivities respected. In 2005, in response to faculty complaints over the hate speechesby MSU's speaker Malik Ali, UCI Vice Chancellor Gomez wrote thatthe administration is "legally prohibited from either proscribing or prescribing the content of speech, as long as speakers conform to campus policies and applicable laws." This is no longer the current stance of the university.In a recent letter, UCI Chancellor Drake wrote:"We must reject disrespectful and hateful slurs, particularly those based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or any other fundamental aspect of identity. ... We rejectanti-Semitism. We reject anti-Islamic rhetoric. We reject de-humanizing stereotypes. We embrace dialogue and mutual understanding. Theoretically, this is precisely what Neelie Milstein requested."I am not asking the UCI administration to censor the hate speech. I am asking them to denounce this style of rhetoric and displays just as they would denounce campaigns for white supremacy, sexism, or Islamophobia." But there is a catch that lies at the core of the issue, which only a few bold university administrators have thus far dared to address. Does the content of "Israel: The Politics of Genocide" fall within Chancellor Drake's categories of what "We reject", or is it deemed to be a commendable model of academic free speech? Unfortunately, the declarative "we reject anti-semitism" doesnot get us closer to answering this question. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the UCI's MSU have learned to absolve themselves skillfully of charges of anti-Semitism; after all, itis only the "Zionist Jew" who is the Satan, not all Jews. (Imagine Dutch politician Geert Wilders saying: "It isonly Sunni Muslims who are morally inferior, not all Muslims") I believe that one of the greatest mistakes Jewish advocacy has made in the past decade has been to argue that anti-Zionism is dangerous because it is a thin cover of anti-Semitism. We should have exposed the immoral character of anti-Zionism in itself and demanded that Israel's statehood be recognized asa "fundamental aspect of Jewish identity." As Chancellor Drake implied in his letter,religion has no monopoly on human sensitivityor group identity. Chancellor Drake's letter does not identify code-breakersnor does he specify any offenses. It reminds me of the vague anti-terrorism Fatwa that American Muslim organizations issued in 2005, a week after the London bombing,which went through a great linguistic effort NOT to name Bin Laden or Al Qaeda as offenders and which rendered the Fatwa non binding.Thus, even if anti-Zionism rhetoric is explicitly recognizedas offensive activity at UCI, the MSU will not seeitself even remotely involved -- naming the offender is essential for reversing the climb in campus temperature. In 2007, Vice Chancellor Gomez wrote to complaining UCI faculty: "In all honesty, I get dismayed at the fact that even though we have been deeply engaged in creating a safe and dynamic campuscommunity, the attention that continues to be focused on UCI is both distorted and negative." In fairness to Gomez, the UCI administration has indeed invested a tremendous amount of time,resources and goodwill in efforts to restore civility to UCI campus. However, the latest MSU carnival proves that there are fundamental limits to what non-confrontational policies can achieve in an academic environment that finds itself attacked by professional, well-funded hate crusaders, aiming to test the patience of that environment. The 2009 spectacle made a blatant mockery of everything the administration has labored to develop, including, I worry, the Daniel Pearl Muslim-Jewish Dialogue that UCI hosted in May 2005. It is time for the university to reassess the way that it tolerates the intolerant. Its legal requirement to tolerate that which is wrong does not diminish its moral obligation to point to that which is right.=============