RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hearing chants of “Long live the Intifada” on video shot at UCI Wednesday night brings back the tumultuous and scary days as a campus rabbi at University of California, Irvine. (Video below)
As the campus rabbi at UCI for almost five years, I became accustomed to constant anti-Israel programs, racist and anti-semitic speakers, anti-Israel marches, protests and disruptions and an administration that looked the other way or denied how bad it was.
The atmosphere was so toxic, that in a blog post in May of 2006, I coined the phrase “UC Intifada” to describe their hateful anti-Israel, anti-Jewish campaign.
The Muslim Student Union later adopted it as their motto, made t-shirts, and it can be seen today on the Students for Justice – UCI Facebook page.
The most infamous episode — but by no means the worst — was in February 2010, when eleven Muslim students conspired to prevent Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking, and then lied about it. This embarrassed then UCI President Drake and the University, and the climate improved as the ring-leaders were now having to defend themselves on criminal misdemeanor charges. They had less time to parade hate and racism. I was asked by a prominent muslim leader to sign a letter requesting charges be dropped. I agreed on condition the group apologize for their behavior. They showed zero remorse.

“Relax, Lieberman won’t bomb Egypt… He’s a pragmatist and he’s harmless”
100 years on, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Jon Stewart and Joe Biden all agree…
Aryeh’s violin: The Improbable Happiness of Israelis (& Turkish brawl as MPs beat up Kurds)
How British leftists omitted Jews from the list of Holocaust victims

“Relax, Lieberman won’t bomb Egypt… He’s a pragmatist and he’s harmless”I attach several articles concerning the agreement in Israel to bring the Yisrael Beiteinu party into the governing coalition, and appoint its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, as defense minister.

The New York Times Upfront magazine, distributed by paid subscription to approximately 1 million American 8th to 12th graders, recently included an article, “How the Middle East Got that Way.” Author Joseph Berger, former Times reporter, blames the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 for the current mess in the Middle East.

In his view, “a century ago, two diplomats carved out lines on the Middle East map, creating new nations and sowing the seeds for much of the strife in the region today.”

Referring to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Berger tells students, “Most Arabs opposed the Zionist movement, which called for a Jewish state in Palestine. But world pressure to create a Jewish homeland increased after World War II… because 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.”

The article emphasizes that Western imperialism created the Arab-Israeli conflict because Sykes (British) and Picot (French) disregarded the wishes and rights of the indigenous Arab population and, Berger writes, “Arab leaders were angry” and “felt betrayed.”

The article continues, “In 1947, Britain, with approval from the United Nations, came up with a partition plan (to) create the nations of Israel and Palestine…. The Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries rejected it… (and) fought an unsuccessful war…. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel expanded territory…by capturing lands where many Palestinians were living…. The occupied Palestinians continue to demand a state of their own.”

Reading this description of historical events, young students, with little pre-existing knowledge about the topic, have no idea why the Jews would want a nation-state in the Middle East, which Berger characterizes as “Arab.” The author portrays the Arabs as victims of Western domination, legitimizing their 1948 rejection of a Jewish state and their subsequent war against newly declared Israel.

Neither the article nor the teacher’s guide or handouts mention the 3,000-year historical connection of the Jews to the area, the continuous Jewish presence in this land, the Jewish immigration to their historic homeland in the late 19th and early 20th century or the promise made to the Jews for a national homeland in Palestine in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Also lacking is information about the 1922 League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine to create a Jewish national home in today’s Israel, the “West Bank” and Sinai and the UN’s assumption of that international legal commitment.

The article’s failure to provide historical and legal context for the Jewish presence in the Middle East and the establishment of the Jewish state delegitimizes the creation of Israel. The Jews are made to look like foreign colonialists taking Arab land — the false narrative promoted by Arabs and Western progressives.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/435734/print

Political satirist and video maker Ami Horowitz recently visited the campus of Portland State University, posing as a member of Hamas. He asked students to donate to the terrorist organization to help bomb schools, cafés, and other “soft targets” that would help destroy Israel.

Shockingly, Horowitz raised several hundred dollars from students who agreed that Israel needs to be “wiped off the map.” Here’s the unbelievable video: