30 UC Jewish Studies Professors defend radical Muslim students who disrupted Ambassador Oren's presentation at UC Irvine

Natan Nestle

Thirty Jewish Studies professors at the University of California (UC) signed a petition asking the Orange County District Attorney to drop all charges against members of the UC Irvine extremist Muslim Students Union (MSU) who conspired to disrupt Ambassador Oren's talk at UC Irvine
last year denying him free speech (see here). These professors are complicit in enabling MSU students to hijack the campus, and eliminate free speech for anyone presenting an opinion which does not jibe with their extremist ideology.

The Muslim Student Union (MSU) is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. It supports Hamas terror (see here), and is part of the "Jihad Network" (see here and here). The MSU disseminates and promotes militant Islamic ideologies (see here), and is one of the primary organizations spearheading the demonization and delegitimization campaign against Israel. It has promoted Israel Apartheid Week and Nakba protests on campuses nationwide, as well as the boycott campaigns against Israel. In their petition the 30 professors write:
The use of the criminal justice system to police student speech is detrimental to the values exemplified by the academic and intellectual environment on our university campuses (see here).

The Jewish professors' petition follows the notorious Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) campaign which denounced the prosecution of the disrupting students (see here). The JVP, which the ADL placed on its list of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in the US (see here and here), supports boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Many of the 30 UC Jewish Studies professors who signed the petition also have voiced their support for anti-Israel BDS campaigns and for the divestment bill at UC Berkeley. Some have even argued that the Jewish state should not exist (see here).

Ironically, although the petition's signers are quick to defend the rights of radical Muslim students who have violated university policy and the law, none of them has signed a statement or petition defending Jewish students at the University of California. They do not champion students right to a campus free of the anti-Semitic harassment inflicted on them by extreme anti-Israel groups such as the MSU and the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), nor even seemingly recognize the irony of their defense of the freedom of extremist Muslim students to disseminate hate speech. Nevertheless, they stand mute in the face of Muslim students prohibiting the exercise of free speech by Ambassador Oren.

These professors have not been outraged by the routine and growing abuse of academic freedom in UC classrooms where UC professors, including some signatories, such as Ruthie Adler (who coordinates the Hebrew language program at UC Berkeley), have been abusing their academic freedom by turning their classroom into a venue of propaganda and anti-Israel rhetoric. Ruthie Adler regularly injects anti-Israel vitriol into her classroom intimidating the students who fear to challenge her. Many students who come to UC Berkeley to study Hebrew, Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, etc., have been deterred from taking the classes in which they would otherwise enroll. This after hearing of the experiences of students who took classes taught by professors--such as Adler of the Near East Studies Department, Wendy Brown of the Political Science Department, and Hatem Bazian* of the Near Eastern Studies Department--who turn their classrooms into political venues for anti-Israel indoctrination. Some students have had to change their areas of study as a result of these ideologically abusive instructors. These students have been denied their academic freedom by abusive faculty who debase academia by exploiting the classroom for their own political biases.

It is this dire situation, coupled with the blind eye and complacency of other UC faculty and administration, which creates a climate that mocks the academic and intellectual environment one would expect at the University of California.

Natan Nestel

*Hatem Bazian is notorious for his transparently biased approach to the Arab/Israeli conflict (see here, here and here). More of an activist than an academic, Bazian personifies the politicization of Middle East studies today.