B'nai B'rith Magazine: The Issues Have Changed, the Problem Has Not

By Janet Lubman Rathner and Alison Goldstein for Bnai-Brith Magazine:

Jewish students in the 21st century might well face cases of anti-Semitism on campus, but the causes are considerably different than those that plagued their parents and grandparents in decades past. While, in the last century, the main problem involved the imposition of "quotas"—and an illogical hate of Jews—now it often has to do with the Middle East conflict.

At a recent University of California, Irvine (UCI) rally organized by the Muslim Student Union, a member applauded the use of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel while another showed off a swastika tattoo.

These actions—indicative of the years-long pattern of hostile behavior directed toward UCI's Jewish students—led the Orange County (Calif.) Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism on Campus to make a shocking recommendation in a report released in February: "Students with a strong Jewish identity should consider enrolling elsewhere unless, and until, tangible changes are made."

According to the report, anti-Semitism on the UCI campus is thriving because "[t]he Chancellor has failed to exercise his moral authority as an educator and leader by abrogating his leadership responsibilities. The boundaries of rational and reasonable discourse by constituencies that have differing positions on emotional issues have not been established."

UCI's extensive and ongoing xenophobic atmosphere is what led to the creation of the task force in 2006.

"We looked at [the task force] as a way to bring the community together," says Ted Bleiweis, public relations chairman for the task force. Bleiweis says that, in this kind of environment, "the situation for Jewish students is untenable because of the hatred."

U.S. Weighs in
UCI is not an anomaly. And the federal government has taken notice. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted a study, released in 2006, documenting, lamenting, and calling for action to battle what it termed an alarming proliferation of anti-Semitism on college campuses.

The United States seems to be experiencing a disturbing number of campus anti-Semitic incidents "in a volume not seen 15 or 20 years ago," according to Kenneth L. Marcus, former staff director of the commission.

"Whether this is a temporary aberration or an indication of halting progress can only be revealed with further study and action," Marcus recently told B'nai B'rith Magazine. Concerns about hostilities at schools nationwide are why Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, director of the Tufts University Hillel, lobbied for funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2006.

The money is earmarked for programs that encourage interfaith understanding and interaction. Five East Coast colleges—Tufts, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wellesley, Brandeis, and the University of Maryland—are sharing the three-year, $1.6-million grant.

"For years, we had been involved in promoting Muslim/Jewish dialogue on campus, but it wasn't enough to just talk about issues together. We wanted to develop curricula that would seriously address and educate students about cultural, religious, and political issues that were the basis for conflict on campus," says Summit in explaining why he approached DHS.

"I went to the Academic Affairs Office of the Department of Homeland Security and said, 'I know you are protecting bridges, but we're building bridges.' We needed to go deeper and have a greater impact on campus culture. We wanted to take students off-site [so] that they could develop personal connections and relationships that would build trust."

Summit says he believes the programs have begun to make a difference. "While we are now assessing the data, our impression is that these dialogue projects are contributing to a distinct lowering in the level of campus conflict over political, cultural, and religious issues," he says. "When you don't know people from other cultures, it's easy to vilify them. When you develop personal relationships and connections, [you feel] obligated to act in a more civil manner on campus and consider how programs, speakers, and articles in the newspaper will [affect] other students.

"It's not that everyone agrees; far from it. But when the president of Hillel and the president of the Arab Student Association ended up living in the same [building], they were much more likely to talk through differences, and do joint programming to discuss difficult issues, than to fight propaganda battles in the campus media," he continues. "When students feel that fellow students from other religious communities are willing to listen to them, even when they disagree, this lessens the level of tension on campus."

A Historical Perspective
Anti-Semitism on college campuses is nothing new. Shelly Tenenbaum, a sociology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., has written extensively about the subject. The players and circumstances might have changed, but not the issue.

When Wallace W. Atwood, formerly a professor of physiography at Harvard, arrived at Clark to become president in 1920, he brought along not only a desire to hire Harvard graduates, but also the Harvard model of keeping Jewish employees to a minimum. In a paper published in 2003, titled "The Vicissitudes of Tolerance: Jewish Faculty and Students at Clark University," Tenenbaum writes:

"In 1925, Harvard University's Appointment Office sent a typed memo to Clark with a list of five available candidates with master's degrees in mathematics. The chairperson of Harvard's mathematics department initialed the document, which he labeled 'confidential,' and wrote comments at the bottom of the page about two of the candidates. About one master's student he wrote, 'Jewish–not very clean cut personally,' and about the other, 'Lame–not very clean cut personally as I remember him.' Only these two candidates had X marks written over their names. It is unclear whether the chair from Harvard or someone from Clark made these marks."

Based on Tenenbaum's research, Atwood also had anti-Semitic leanings. "When Atwood tried to convince the Board of Trustees to approve a two-year appointment for a refugee scholar in 1941, he pointed out that the applicant 'is a Belgian, not Jewish,'" Tenenbaum writes. "One year earlier, a department chairperson believed that Atwood opposed his first choice for a one-year position because the candidate had 'the misfortune to be an Armenian and to look like a Jew, which he is not.' The department head thought it might help his candidate's chances if the president knew that this Armenian scholar had a white Anglo-Saxon wife who was 'an attractive, intelligent girl.' In the end, Atwood agreed to this temporary appointment."

In an interview with B'nai B'rith Magazine, Tenenbaum says this particular form of anti-Semitism persisted for years both on and off college campuses.

"Discriminatory practices against Jewish faculty and students reflected a xenophobia that plagued the United States during the post-WWI era," Tenenbaum says. "Henry Ford's publication of the anti-Semitic 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' a tract accusing Jews of waging an international conspiracy for world domination, contributed to a political climate that influenced Congress to pass its 1924 legislation curtailing immigration of 'racially inferior' people, including East European Jews."

Tenenbaum writes that college employees were not the only ones affected by anti-Semitism. Efforts to exclude students who were Jewish were rampant among some of the country's finest schools.

"Many East Coast college presidents implemented exclusionary measures out of fear that increasing numbers of Jewish students would overwhelm their schools and threaten an institution's reputation. Pres. A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard advocated a quota system when the proportion of Jewish students at his school tripled from 7 percent in 1900 to 21.5 percent in 1922," she writes. "Similarly, Yale's Pres. James Rowland Angell supported his dean's recommendation to limit the number of Jewish students when they grew from 2 percent in 1901–1902 to more than 13 percent of the class of 1925.

"Once one school introduced quotas, a chain reaction emerged since 'none wanted to become a dumping ground for unwanted Jews.' While Columbia and New York University, two of the first schools to implement quotas, used character tests, the Big Three—Harvard, Princeton, and Yale—developed exclusionary tactics such as requiring applicants to include photographs with their applications, provide information about religion and race, and complete personal interviews.

"As a result of these strategies, the proportion of Jewish students in Yale's class of 1934 decreased to 8.2 percent while the proportion in Harvard's class of 1930 fell to approximately 10–16 percent. Meanwhile Princeton cut its number of successful Jewish candidates by almost half, ensuring that the Jewish proportion of the student body would not exceed 3 percent, the percentage of Jews in the national population."

Tenenbaum tells B'nai B'rith Magazine it wasn't until after World War II, and the gradual and subsequent abolition of legal segregation laws, that caps on Jewish hires and students at Clark and other universities became a practice of the past.

"A strengthening of democratic values, the dismantling of the Jim Crow system of legal segregation, and an overall decline in anti-Semitic sentiment led to the decline of Jewish student quotas and to a dramatic increase in the number of Jewish faculty," she explains.

"By the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—legislation that guaranteed that 'all persons shall be entitled to the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation…without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin—anti-Semitic quotas had all but disappeared in the [academic world]," Tenenbaum says.

Nationwide Issue
However, the disappearance of quotas has not totally quelled anti-Semitic acts. The 2006 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights study documents testimony from Susan B.Tuchman, director of the Zionist Organization of America's Center for Law and Justice, about assorted anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred on campuses around the country.

At Rutgers University in 2004, for example, the student newspaper published a cartoon with pictures of a man sitting on an oven while another man lobs balls at him. The caption? "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar!"

While some campus anti-Semitism reflects the hostilities and misconceptions of an earlier era, most incidents today appear rooted in negative feelings toward Israel, although Summit says the situation is not as explosive as it once was.

"The situation is better now on campus than it used to be," he says. "During the first and second intifada, the level of anti-Israel activity, such as movements for the university to divest from Israel, was more pronounced. We countered at that time with a major campaign, 'Invest in Israel,' to educate the campus.

"Recently, with programs like IACT [Inspired, Active, Committed, Transformed], in conjunction with Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, we have doubled the number of students we have sent to Israel. Last year alone, we sent more than 200 students to Israel from Tufts and then did serious follow-up work with these students after they returned."

Through all of this Summit cautions that it is important to differentiate between criticisms against Israel per se and criticism against Israel rooted in hate toward anything Jewish.

"One of the greatest strengths of Israel is that it is a vibrant democracy, the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East. As long as students support the right of Israel to exist, we have no problem with students who are critical of specific aspects of Israel policy," Summit says. "The real challenge is to educate students to be passionate, knowledgeable advocates and supporters of Israel, even if they don't accept every aspect of current policy. We do this through travel to Israel, first-rate lectures, and introductory programs like 'Israel 101' which is a peer-led student program on our campus."

Silencing Hate
Marcus, who ended his tenure with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in January, was instrumental in its 2006 report chronicling campus anti-Semitism. "What the commission found," says Marcus, "[was] that students don't know their rights, so we began a nationwide public education campaign."

Equipped with an Internet crusade, a website, flyers, posters, and speakers like Marcus, the commission is spreading the message of the ongoing campaign: "Silence is an ally of hate."

The effort encourages students to gather information on what constitutes an anti-Semitic incident and how to seek help for a variety of situations. Marcus says, "A surprising aspect of campuses, as revealed in our work, is the variety of manifestations of anti-Semitism, such as intimidation from professors, or the cultivation of a hostile environment from outside speakers, or intimidation from other students. It is different at each institution."

The commission's campaign calls on administration, faculty, and on- and off-campus Jewish organizations, like Hillel, to publicize the campaign and act as watchdogs on individual campuses.

Mark Dollinger, who holds the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility at San Francisco State, knows that institutions of higher learning can't effectively combat anti-Semitism without this sort of team effort, and is proud of his institution's approach.

"Anytime there is an episode of anti-Semitism, [San Francisco State University President Robert] Corrigan calls together Jewish faculty, community representatives, student representatives from Hillel [and] the [Anti-Defamation League], and others to coordinate a response," he notes.

San Francisco State's task force has been deemed a "best practice" by experts like Marcus, who say that the most effective efforts to combat anti-Semitism on campuses have "forceful, energetic administration [led by presidents] like Corrigan who are very forthright and firm in their indications."

Dollinger agrees. "With an administration willing to speak publicly and honestly about the issues, there is no sweeping anything under the rug."

What is always central to Corrigan's responses, Dollinger says, is the overarching mission of the university—or any place of higher learning, for that matter. "This is always our most powerful argument," notes Dollinger.

University Standards
The standards of universities and faculties' adherence to them are of paramount importance to Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).

The nonprofit group of academics was formed "to inform, motivate, and encourage faculty to use their academic skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms, and in academic publications to develop effective responses to the ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist slanders, that poison debate and work against peace," according to its website.

SPME has chapters on 20 campuses in the United States and Europe, and more than 19,000 scholars and members receive the organization's literature at 1,000 university and college campuses worldwide.

Ed Beck, SPME's president, explains that the group intends to uphold scholars' academic freedom while maintaining academic accountability. "Our target audience is our colleagues," he says. "If we talk to our colleagues in understandable language, we reach them. We need to be more than an Israel advocacy group or a Jewish group."

According to Beck, this means SPME does not always go public when it receives complaints about a fellow academic. These measured responses, Beck notes, "aren't always the outcome the complainant wants. Just because we [organizationally] disagree with a professor does not mean [what he/she said] is actionable."

The Middle East Conflict?

After the uprising by Bar Kochba around 70 A.D. the Romans, when quelling the uprising, killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, destroyed the Temple, banished the Jews from the entire area, renamed the area Palestinium and erected one of their own temples on the site of the Temple Mount. There were never any indigenous "Palestinian" people. The Arabs that were in the region during the period when the Ottomans held dominion and when it was turned over to the British after WWI were basically nomadic individuals in an inhospitable and arid region.

Most of the troubles that affect Israel today are a result of British and French imperial meddling after the Treaty of Versailles. Winston Churchill created the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and installed King Abdullah on a throne that had not existed before.

The "two-state solution" is often glorified as a means to achieve peace between Israel and the "Palestinian" Arabs. It is unrealistic, however. The Palestinians are a people who are fed propaganda and hatred, living in an environment that breeds the worst sort of extremism. The "two-state solution" is insupportable and unjustified. Although it has become part of international conventional wisdom, anxiously pursued by our State Department, the Palestinians are not entitled to any part of Israel; not by the slightest historical claim or right, not by law, not by military conquest, and certainly not because the international community lacks the will to confront and expose a trumped up case fabricated by the Muslim world in order to destroy the Jewish people. It is interesting to note that a Palestinian will face all sorts of restrictions if he/she wanted to become a citizen of any Muslim country even though the majority of Palestinians are ethnically Jordanian or Egyptian. Yasser Arafat, for example, was Egyptian. The discrimination Palestinians face in Arab countries is appalling and disturbing, and the fact that Arab countries never integrated these individuals is a travesty. If Palestinian Arabs were truly peaceful, it could be argued that integrating them into Israeli society would be ideal. However, at this point in history, integration is not impossible.

USC provost orders USC-MSA to remove genocidal hadith from website on campus' internet server

I wrote an article for FrontPageMag regarding a decision by the USC provost to order the Muslim Students Association at USC to remove a Hadith which calls for the extermination of Jews as a path to redemption. Before reading the article, some clarification and background is necessary. Robert Spencer explains the hadith in question on his site, Jihad Watch: We cited that "infamous Hadith or saying of the prophet which calls on Muslims to kill Jews to bring about the Day of Judgment" in our Petition for Hadith Reform: We call on the Muslim Students Association to: -- Condemn and repudiate the hadith which reads: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time [of judgment] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” (Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985); The MSA of the University of Southern California became a focal point of this effort because it hosts a major online hadith collection here, which of course included the genocidal hadith. When this was brought to the attention of USA Provost, C. L. Max Nikias, he declared that "the passage cited is truly despicable...The passage in the Hadith that you brought to our attention violates the USC Principles of Community, and it has no place on a USC website." Said Nikias: "I have ordered that the passage be removed." You can see a pdf of his letter here. If you scroll down in their hadith collection on this page, you'll find that the numbers of the hadiths go straight from 6980 to 6986. What were 6981 through 6985? Go here to find out. Here they are: Book 041, Number 6981: Ibn 'Umar reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them until even a stone would say: Come here, Muslim, there is a Jew (hiding himself behind me) ; kill him. Book 041, Number 6982: Ubaidullah has reported this hadith with this chain of transmitters (and the Words are):" There is a Jew behind me." Book 041, Number 6983: Abdullah b. 'Umar reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You and the Jews would fight against one another until a stone would say: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; come and kill him. Book 041, Number 6984: Abdullah b. 'Umar reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The Jews will fight against you and you will gain victory over them until the stone would say: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; kill him. Book 041, Number 6985: Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews. So it's great that the USC MSA took these down, isn't it? But please note that we had requested that they "repudiate this incitement." That isn't the same thing as removing it from their website. Why not? Well, for one thing, because it still remains on their website in other places. Many ahadith appear more than once in the canonical hadith collections -- and this is in traditional Islamic theology an indication of their authenticity. This is one of them. Here are some variants of the same hadith, in Bukhari, from the USC MSA website: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 176: Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight wi the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.'" Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177: Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him." Also this one: Volume 4, Book 56, Number 791: Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; kill him!' " Just in case these also vanish without a trace, I took some screen shots: Now: will we see the MSA of USC and other MSAs not just cover up the existence of this hadith, but also repudiate the genocidal imperative contained within it? I won't be holding my breath. ________________________________________________ “Hadith of Hate” Banned at USC By Reut R. Cohen FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, August 22, 2008 As Muslim Student Association (MSA) chapters have become increasingly influential at universities and colleges around the country, critics have charged that it is a hate group that sympathizes with the international jihad and promulgates an anti-American and anti-Semitic ideology in its campus actions. In response, the MSA has claimed that it is merely another religious and cultural group similar to Hillel, a club for Jewish students, or the Newman Club for Catholics. That deception has been now unmasked at the University of Southern California, where the school’s Provost, Chrysostomos L. Max Nikias, reacting to a call from the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has ordered the campus MSA to remove a “despicable” hadith calling for Muslims to murder Jews as a condition for redemption from its website. David Horowitz, President of the Freedom Center, hails this as a breakthrough moment when the double standards that control the political and intellectual culture of most universities have finally been challenged. “Up to now, the slightest criticism of radical Islam on campus has been slammed as ‘Islamophobia,’ while Muslim groups and their radical fellow travelers have been allowed to say the most hateful things imaginable about Christians and Jews without any reaction from university administrators whatsoever,” Horowitz says. “Provost Nikias has called the hadith on the MSA website for what it is: despicable. Given the atmosphere that prevails on most campuses today, it was an act of integrity on his part to make this call and to demand that the MSA live up to basic standards of civility that should govern the university.” The hadith (sacred teaching) reads as follows: “Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him….” Its presence on the MSA website is consistent with other actions the Muslim group has initiated on the USC campus. In 2005, for instance, it hosted a conference featuring a speech by Islamist Ahmed Shama, who praised Hizbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and told his listeners that the terrorists in post-Saddam Iraq were part—as was the Muslim Student Association itself—of a “global Islamic movement” and that it was “necessary to rise up against the occupation there.” The David Horowitz Freedom Center worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center to draft a letter to Alan Casden, a USC trustee, about the “hadith of hate,” as it is often called. Disturbed that a call for genocide should be on the USC server, Casden contacted Provost Chrysostomos Nikias to express his concern. Nikias investigated the matter and sent Casden the following letter: “…The passage you cited is truly despicable and I share your concerns about its being on the USC server. We did some investigations and I have ordered the passage removed. “The passage in the Hadith that you brought to our attention violates the USC Principles of Community, and it has no place on a USC server.” The University of Southern California Principles of Community states in part: “No one has the right to denigrate another human being on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. We will not tolerate verbal or written abuse, threats, harassment, intimidation or violence against person or property.” No student group other than the Muslim Student Association has posted any kind of material, religious or otherwise, calling for the destruction of a race or group. USC’s decision to remove the hadith from the school’s server marks the first time that an American university has acknowledged that the Muslim Student Association’s agenda involves the promotion of ethnic hatred. It is also the first time that an administrator has acted quickly to censure “despicable” material. Rabbi Aron Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center hailed Provost Nikias’ decision: “We commend USC for having the moral courage to stand up against those who hijack speech and religious freedoms and the goodwill of the campus community in order to spread hate and extremist violence.” “This episode shows that fighting injustice can produce results,” Freedom Center President David Horowitz added. “It also shows what kind of an organization the Muslim Students Association is, which is why the Freedom Center has launched a nationwide campaign, Stop the Jihad on Campus Week, which will culminate the week of October 13.” The goals of Stop the Jihad on Campus Week are to rally students across the country to sign a petition against the “hadith of hate” and to convince student governments to defund the Muslim Students Association. For more information, please visit www.terrorismawareness.org.

Interview with John Bolton: "Confronting the Threat"

The following is my interview with Ambassador John Bolton from FrontPageMagazine: Confronting the Threat By Reut R. Cohen FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Ambassador John Bolton made a reputation as a forceful advocate for American interests both during his tenure in the State Department and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Since partisan leftists deprived the nation of his service, Bolton has acted as an expert spokesman on foreign policy, from North Korea and Iran to Europe and the Middle East. Reut R. Cohen sat down with Bolton to discuss the monumental changes in foreign policy over the last few weeks. -- The Editors. Cohen: Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview with us. We appreciate your time. Bolton: My pleasure. Cohen: In light of recent events with Russia and Georgia, how would you grade the presidential administration’s response with the Georgia/Russia conflict? What are the long-term implications of the Russians’ actions? Bolton: Well, I think the administration was very slow to react when the Russian troops moved in, and the failure to respond quickly was a signal of indecision and really a lack of any coherent response. And I think that encouraged the Russians to push further ahead. They certainly could have done whatever they wanted to do militarily, but if there were any chance for restraining them politically, the administration lost that. Since the president got back from the Olympics, rhetorically at least, he’s been much clearer of the extent of the US opposition and the potential consequences. But we’re still a long way from responding effectively. I think what we need to do is call a meeting with NATO and the foreign minister level and reverse the decision from the Bucharest NATO summit this spring and put Georgia and Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. There are a lot of other implications from this and other former states of the former Soviet Union, and we need to be very clear to the Russians that they cannot act militarily like this with impunity. Cohen: You have also been critical of the Bush administration on both North Korea and Iran. If you had the President's ear, what course of action would you advise in each of these troubled foreign policy areas? Bolton: Yeah, I don’t think either Iran or North Korea will give up their nuclear weapons programs voluntarily. Whatever chance diplomacy might once have had perhaps with Iran combined with very substantial sanctions, I think that opportunity is gone. So with respects to both countries, our options are very limited. I think with North Korea we have to apply a lot more pressure on China because China does have the ability to force North Korea to give up this nuclear program. We have not taken that approach, unfortunately, but I think that’s the way that I would certainly propose to go. With respect to Iran, we’ve had five years of failed European Union diplomacy and that leaves us with very few options. Regime change would be the preferable option, and I think that regime is weak. I think there is a lot of opposition to it inside Iran. But we have to be honest with ourselves regime change isn’t something you can do overnight. It may well be for that reason that we’re at the last resort which is the use of targeted force against Iran’s nuclear program. I don’t think President Bush is going to do that during his office but I think that really puts the pressure on Israel to make a decision whether they will use force, and I think they are very serious about considering it. The only other alternative is an Iran with nuclear weapons and I think that’s a very undesirable alternative. Cohen: In this case you feel that removing the regime by military means would be the best route to go? Bolton: No, you wouldn’t remove the regime by military means. You would support dissident Iranians both inside the country and in the diaspora around the world. I don’t think the regime is as stable as people may think on the outside. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the economy, there is a lot of dissatisfaction among the young people who know that they could have a different kind of life, and three is a lot of ethnic dissatisfaction. So I think the possibilities are there. I don’t think it would in any way require military force by the United States. Cohen: So you do believe that there could be a diplomatic solution to the Iranian ambition for nuclear weapons? Bolton: No, as I said, after five years of failed European diplomacy, we really don’t have very many desirable alternatives. Regime change by supporting the Iranian dissidence is one. But it may take too long. And that leaves us with the last choice which is the choice of targeted military force against Iranian nuclear weapons sites. Cohen: In your recent book, you discuss that, like the UN, the U.S. State Department is another department with an out of control bureaucracy. On page 448, you wrote that "what happens at State, where too much of the permanent bureaucracy thinks it is responsible not just for implementing policy, but for setting it, no matter what the president of the moment thinks...." How do you think the state department has interfered with the goals of the current presidential administration? Bolton: In both the cases of North Korea and Iran, it’s not so much they interfered with them as they have captured the secretary of state. Secretary Rice now channels their view and because of her dominant position within the administration the irony is that the state department has now reversed the president’s own state abuse from his first term and gotten the administration to pursue the preferred policy of the state department. And that’s not untypical, especially in Republican administrations. And I think the point is that the democratic legitimacy the president possesses is what gives him the authority under the constitution to make policy. The State Department legitimacy comes only to implement those policies. So, in effect, the citizens vote and they get a foreign policy very different than the one that they voted for, that’s a fundamental problem for democratic theory. Cohen: To what do you attribute the growing anti-American sentiment across the world? And do you even think there is an anti-American sentiment growing across the world? Bolton: I really don’t think the anti-American sentiment is growing. You know if you look, for example, at Europe where people have said that administrative policy on Iraq has made America very unpopular, just look at the recent elections. Schroeder has gone Merkel. This phrase about Schroeder is incomplete – it probably should say “Schroeder is gone, Merkel is much more friendly to the US.” Most dramatically of all, Chirac in France replaced by Sarkozy. Even though Blair has been replaced by Brown in Great Britain, there’s no fundamental change there. And the biggest irony of all is the Berlusconi, very pro-American, is back in Italy. You know, public opinion polls in these countries go up and go down, and the real test is how their leadership behaves because that’s ultimately what governs relations between nations. And I think that we’ve seen a shift in the past few years towards, clearly, more pro-American regimes. Cohen: What has been the biggest challenge for you in position of US ambassador to the UN? Bolton: The hardest thing is to try to maintain advocacy of America’s interest when so many Europeans are ready to compromise and give in, for example, on questions of Arab-Israeli issues. And that is a continuing challenge. I don’t regard it as difficult, in a sense, because it should be easy for an ambassador to represent America’s interest. But this is a problem in the foreign service when they often find it difficult to do that. Cohen: In regards to the Israeli-Arab issue, especially with regards to Iran and their repeated calls to annihilate Israel and to wipe it off the map, what do you think Israel is considering doing in light of opposition from the European Union? Bolton: I think they are trying to decide whether to use military force against Iran, and I think despite the opposition of the Europeans, the Israelis will make their own decision. I don’t know what the decision is going to be, but I have no doubt that if they think, as I believe they do, that Iran represents an existential threat to the State of Israel that Israel will do what it feels is necessary to represent its independence. Cohen: You have an amazing reputation for being very blunt and very straightforward with your colleagues. How does that work for you? Bolton: Well, I think most people appreciate it—you know, in America plain-speaking is a virtue. And I think those who don’t, it’s not so much they object to the straight-forwardness of the language; it’s that they object to the substance the policy. You know, that’s what diplomats ought to do is argue for American policy and American interests, and if that’s unappetizing to some countries, well, that’s a problem they’re going to have to deal with. Cohen: Would you ever consider running for public office? Bolton: I don’t think so, I don’t think that’s for me. Cohen: Those are all of the questions I have for you. Again, I sincerely appreciate your time and I look forward to hearing you on Tuesday night. Bolton: Thank you very much. Ambassador John Bolton will be appearing this evening, August 19, at 7:30 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. For more information about this event contact stephanie@horowitzfreedomcenter.org

Islamo-Fascism Week III: "Stop the Jihad on Campus"

Islamo-Fascism Week III: "Stop the Jihad on Campus" By David Horowitz and Reut Cohen FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, August 22, 2008 While America is finally winning the war in Iraq, the global effort against the Islamic jihad goes on. In Afghanistan, the war with al-Qaeda is still raging. In Gaza, Hamas continues to launch genocidal attacks against Israeli towns. Meanwhile, on American college campuses a coalition of organizations connected to the jihad network demonizes America and Israel. This coalition carries on its agendas of hate with the unwitting collaboration of student governments and university administrations. In October 2007, more than one hundred campuses hosted Islamo-Fascism Awareness weeks to make university communities aware of the Islamist threat and the danger it poses. In April 2008 a second Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week focused on the network created in America by the Muslim Brotherhood and that includes the Muslim Students Association and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). This fall, during the week of October 13-17, students on more than 100 campuses will hold events under the banner of "Stop the Jihad on Campus," a campaign designed to make the university community aware of the support the Muslim Students Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and other leftist groups provide for the jihadists' hatred and agendas. A focus of this campaign will be the genocidal nature of the jihad. Over one hundred Muslim Students Associations have refused to condemn the genocidal terror groups Hamas and Hizbullah, and have declined to repudiate the infamous Hadith or saying of the prophet which calls on Muslims to kill Jews to bring about the Day of Judgment. The request to repudiate this incitement was sent to the Muslim Students Associations by the David Horowitz Freedom Center last spring. It has been re-sent recently. If the MSAs again refuse to condemn religious genocide and the organizations whose goal it is to carry it out, the “Stop the Jihad” movement will call for the defunding of MSA chapters who promote of ethnic hatred and refuse to condemn holy war. The Muslim Students Association portrays itself as a religious and cultural organization, representing all Muslims. As a result, MSAs receive generous funding from student activities boards – often more than most other student groups. The University of Pennsylvania’s Muslim Students Association for example receives $20,000 from student government while college Republicans and Democrats receive nothing. During May 2008, the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine– a chapter of the Muslim Students Association -- specifically requested and received $6,500 for their “Palestine Awareness” program which called for the destruction of the Jewish state under the banner “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust.” The May 2008 Muslim Student Union hate-fest in support of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah at UCI included virulently anti-Israel and anti-American speakers such as imam Amir Abdel Malik Ali, imam Muhammad al-Asi and Norman Finkelstein. The MSA is in fact an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization, which has created a network of “front” groups to conduct a stealth jihad in America, including CAIR, the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Society of North America. “Stop the Jihad on Campus” will seek to make the academic community aware of the stealth jihad in its midst and end university support for the hate agendas – against women, gays and Jews – which MSA-sponsored speakers have brought to campus. The national MSA has sponsored hate speakers such as Sheik Khalid Yasin who has called for the execution of gays and accuses Jews of orchestrating the 9/11 terror attacks. Last spring, the MSA brought Sheik Yasin to Penn State, Ohio State, Minnesota State, the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud College and Sinclair Community College. The MSA has named its student scholarship fund after a member of the Muslim Brotherhood network, and has sponsored “Nakba” celebrations to coincide with Israel’s birth date and whose agenda is the destruction of the Jewish state. Student leaders will be asked to press their student governments to defund their respective MSA chapters for sponsoring ethnic hatred and violating university rules and regulations. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week will raise consciousness in campus communities across the nation as to the nature and presence of the jihad in their midst. Americans need to wake up to the threat that confronts them, before it is too late. For more information, please visit www.terrorismawareness.org.

The vanishing Jews of the Arab world

The following article was written by a Baghdad native, Semha Alwaya, about her experience as a Jewish Middle Eastern refugee.

In discussions about refugees in the Middle East, a major piece of the narrative is routinely omitted, and my life is part of the tapestry of what's missing. I am a Jew, and I, too, am a refugee. Some of my childhood was spent in a refugee camp in Israel (yes, Israel). And I am far from being alone.

This experience is shared by hundreds of thousands of other indigenous Jewish Middle Easterners who share a similar background to my own. However, unlike the Palestinian Arabs, our narrative is largely ignored by the world because our story -- that of some 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries dispossessed by Arab governments -- is an inconvenience for those who seek to blame Israel for all the problems in the Middle East.

Our lives in the Israel of the 1950s were difficult. We had no money, no property; there were food shortages, few employment prospects. Israel was a new and poor country with very limited resources. It absorbed not only hundreds of thousands of us, but also an equal number of survivors of Hitler's genocide. We lived in dusty tents in "transit camps," their official name because these were to be temporary, not permanent.

Housing was eventually built for us, we became Israeli citizens, and we ceased being refugees. The refugee camps in Israel that I knew as a child were phased out, and no trace of them remains. Israel did this without receiving a single cent from the international community, relying instead on the resourcefulness of its citizens and donations from Diaspora Jewish communities. Today, many of Israel's top leaders are from families that were forced to flee Arab countries, and we make up more than half of Israel's Jewish population.

I was born in Baghdad, and like most other Iraqis, my mother tongue is Arabic. My family's cuisine, our mannerisms, our outlook, are all strongly influenced by our synthesized Judeo-Arabic culture.

There once was a vibrant presence of nearly 1 million Jews residing in 10 Arab countries. Our Middle Eastern Jewish culture existed long before the Arab world dominated and rewrote the history of the Middle East. Today, however, fewer than 12,000 Jews remain in these lands -- almost none in Iraq.

What happened to us, the indigenous Jews of the Arab world? Why were 150, 000 Iraqi Jews -- my family included -- forced out of Iraq? Why were an additional 800,000 Jews from nine other Arab countries also compelled to leave after 1948?

When the world of the 1930s and '40s was divided between the democratic Allies and the Fascist Axis, Arab nationalists in Iraq and Palestine chose to form an alliance with Nazi Germany. The father of Palestinian nationalism and the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, began his close collaboration with Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s.

The British put out an arrest warrant for the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader, but he escaped when war broke out in Europe in the spring of 1939. Later that year, he arrived in Baghdad and linked up with pro-Nazi Iraqi nationalist Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. In 1941 al-Husseini and al-Gaylani engineered a pro- German coup against the pro-British Iraqi government, which brought a reign of terror to Iraq's Jews. This culminated in what we remember as the Farhud, an Arabic word akin to "pogrom."

In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, murdering, raping and pillaging these cities' Jewish communities. Nearly 200 Jews were killed, more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, as were hundreds of Jewish-owned shops. My father was a survivor of the carnage. He hid in a hole dug in the ground to save his life. He saw Iraqi soldiers pull small children away from their parents and rip the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets. He saw pregnant women being raped and their stomachs cut open.

Britain eventually regained control, but al-Husseini and other Palestinian nationalists had already fled to Berlin where they became honored guests of the Nazi state. Hitler told a grateful al-Husseini that "Germany's only remaining objective in the [Middle East] would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under British protection in Arab lands."

Later, in a speech over Radio Berlin's Arabic Service, al-Husseini voiced support for the Nazis' "Final Solution" and became the first Arab leader to call openly for the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands -- some eight years before there was a single Palestinian refugee.

Even though Hitler lost the war, al-Husseini's call was heeded. In 1948, Iraq rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of Jews. Others were removed from their jobs in the civil service, business licenses of Jews were revoked, and quotas were placed on Jewish high school and college students. Later, discriminatory restrictions were imposed on Jewish travel abroad and the buying or selling of property. Thus, even if Jews wanted to escape Iraq, they could not do so legally, and they could not liquidate their assets.

In 1950, the Iraqi parliament passed a law called Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews, Law No. 1 that stripped Iraqi Jews of their citizenship. In 1951, the Iraqi parliament passed another law, confiscating all Jewish property. Within a year, most of Iraq's ancient Jewish population, my family included, fled to Israel.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, Jews faced similar circumstances. In Libya in 1945, nearly 100 Jews were massacred. In 1948, the Jewish communities of Aden and Algeria were rocked by a series of attacks that left hundreds dead and many more injured. Discriminatory laws against Jews were passed in other Arab countries. Within a decade, the exodus of Jews from Arab countries was almost complete, with most going to Israel.

All of this was conducted under the guise of law by Arab governments. This forced Jews to flee lands where we had lived for thousands of years before the Arab-Islamic conquests.

Since 1949, the United Nations has passed more than 100 resolutions on Palestinian refugees. Yet, for Jewish refugees from Arab countries not a single U.N. resolution has been introduced recognizing our mistreatment or calling for justice for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees forced out of our homes. This imbalance of the world's concern is itself an injustice.

Arab governments instituted policies that led to nearly 900,000 Middle Eastern Jews becoming stateless refugees. Those same governments forced about 750,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants to remain in impoverished refugee camps, refusing them citizenship and denying them hope.

Peace between Israel and the Arab world requires a solution that recognizes that there were two refugee populations. Acknowledging and redressing the legitimate rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries will promote the cause of justice, peace and a true reconciliation.

Semha Alwaya is an attorney in the Bay Area and a founding member of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (www.jimena.org). E-mail us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

15 Seconds in Sderot, Israel

Palestinian Arabs have never wavered from their attempt to systematically massacre Jews. Though many attacks are thwarted, several have been successful and have taken the lives on innocent civilians. In Sderot, Israel, kassam missiles have being launched from Gaza into this Israeli town for more than eight years.

People have 15 seconds to find shelter when the "color red" siren goes off. People in this city, children especially, live in a constant state of severe stress. We cannot refer to it as "post-traumatic stress" because these attacks are relentless and have not stopped (even during "cease fires"). But the world is deafeningly silent.

'Jews Are Our Dogs'

The following is an article by Joseph Wahed. It was particularly interesting as it delved into the seldom recognized issue of the Middle Eastern Jewish refugees.

'Jews Are Our Dogs'
By Joseph Wahed; August 22, 2006

A man brazenly shoots his way into the Jewish Federation of Seattle, kills a woman, and wounds four others, three critically. As he opens fire, the alleged assailant shouts, "I am a Muslim and I'm angry at Israel," as if to indicate that his religious affiliation gives him permission to kill Jews.

In a second incident, Mel Gibson, a Hollywood director and actor, is arrested in Malibu on suspicion of drunk driving. He allegedly screams at the officer, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," not realizing that nearly all today's wars are Islamic wars. He also asks his arresting officer, "Are you Jewish?"

While Jew hating is not a new phenomena, it has recently become the insult de riguer in many parts of our society. And it isn't just gun-toting rampagers or drunk celebrities — the hatred is evident in the streets. Nowhere is that clearer than in a third recent incident, in which Palestinian Arabs in the streets of San Francisco chant proudly in Arabic and without fear of being castigated, "The Jews are our dogs."

It happened at an anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco on Thursday, July 12, organized by a Palestinian group called Al Awda. The demonstration was loud, boisterous, and passionate. Suddenly, demonstrators began chanting in Arabic "Al Yahud Kelabna," "the Jews are our dogs."

As troubling as it is to hear such sentiment voiced on a street in America, it was even more distressing for me since it conjured up terrible memories of when I was a young boy growing up in Egypt. These memories included Egyptian mobs descending upon the Jewish quarter of Cairo chanting "Al Yahud Kelabna," followed by violence that left some Jews dead and injured and the community dazed.

Egyptian Muslim mobs no longer do this, but only because there is no longer an Egyptian Jewish community to speak of. We once were over 80,000. Today there are fewer than 50 Jews remaining in Egypt, according to one official tally. Indeed, once thriving Jewish communities in 10 Arab countries were likewise cleansed. Today, only about 5,000 Jews remain in the Arab Muslim world, mostly in Morocco and Tunisia. Arab sympathizers blame the creation of Israel, but in reality Middle Eastern Jewry began to deteriorate years before Israel was established.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Egypt was a much more cosmopolitan place than it is today. Whatever the broader ills of colonialism, Egypt under British rule was at least a place where Muslims, Jews, and Christians got along fairly harmoniously. But all this began to change as the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic group two of the offspring of which are Hamas and Al Qaeda, began agitating against both the British and the Jews.

Along with the rise of Arab nationalism and Arab independence, life for Jews in Egypt and other Arab countries became intolerable. All this started happening years before Israel was established. Within a 20-year period starting in 1945, nearly a million Jews were forced out of Arab countries. Being Jewish was criminalized in Egypt in the late 1940s. Other Arab states such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria, passed similar laws. Jews began facing iron walls of discrimination and harassment by the authorities. Most of us were dispossessed. Our schools, homes, synagogues, businesses, farms, and hospitals, were all confiscated by Arab governments. Our rich, 3,000-year-old culture and heritage was decimated. No trial, no jury, no justice.

The demonstrators in San Francisco last week attacked Jews, not Israel. They did it in Arabic, perhaps thinking that only they would be in on the "joke." They didn't count on a group of indigenous Middle Eastern Jewish "dogs" being present at the counter rally across the street. In Arab culture, dogs are considered filthy, dirty beasts, and negotiating with "dogs" is not an option. Jews were often identified this way because for centuries we were living as a subjected people under the dominant culture of Islam.

We were a "protected" minority living under a religious caste system where we had to wear identifiable clothes, pay a special tax, were not allowed to ride horses, were forced to live in ghettoes, and were subjected to other indignities. Our fortunes fluctuated with the benevolence of whoever was ruling at the time. When the ruler was fair and just, Jews prospered. Otherwise, watch out. Massacres of Jews by Arab Muslims were not unknown. While most people know how European Jews suffered, little is known of the Jews of the Arab world.

Today, the Middle Eastern Muslim world is the most anti-Semitic of any region. Much of their media — television programs, cartoons, editorials — promote the kind of anti-Semitism not seen or heard since the time when Hitler walked the earth. In many mosques, too, throughout the region, religious leaders who are quick to take offense over such matters as cartoons about Islam regularly teach the vilest anti-Jewish defamation.

The effects of this "education" are seen and felt even in San Francisco, where a crowd of young Arab men and women feel perfectly free to chant "Al Yahud Kelabna." As long as Palestinian and other Arab children are taught such dehumanizing hatred of Jews, there is no hope for them, and there is no hope for us. Peace in the Middle East will not come with the next ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, but only when tolerance, compassion, understanding, and respect for religious freedom become the dominant value in Arab society. When Arab young people honestly feel too ashamed to chant about Jews being "our dogs," then there will be real hope.

Mr. Wahed is a co-founder of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.

Update: Malik Ali at the Antihill Pub?

A few days ago I posted regarding a photo of Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a notorious terrorist supporter, whose photo is featured at the UCI Anthill Pub.

For the sake of clarification, I would like to point out that I disagree with featuring an image of Malik Ali at the pub. The context of the picture is relatively unclear as it is featured among much more innocuous and positive aspects of student life. It did not seem appropriate to feature a hate-monger among photos of our athletes and dance teams.

However, I completely disagree that the pub management is antisemitic or anti-American. The pub management is entitled to make their own decision in this matter and they are willing to listen to anyone who is concerned about the photo. I feel that the owner is quite fair and is trying to figure out the best solution to this issue (whether it's leveling the photo with something else or putting up a disclaimer for the sake of clarity).

When I was a student at UC Irvine the Anthill Pub was the coolest place to go on campus to unwind. The last thing I'd ever want to see while I'm trying to hang out with friends is this regular speaker the Muslim Student Union at UCI hosts who speaks in support of Hamas and Hezbollah and calls for the annihilation of Israel and America.

After discussing this issue with the owner of the pub, I understand that the photos were selected by the New University (campus newspaper) staff. The pub management felt that the image was reflective of campus life and issues that have affected the campus community recently.

I believe in condemning that which is reprehensible. I don't agree with limiting free-speech. But a pub or a restaurant is a place to unwind and that is probably why several people had such a reaction to seeing a photo of Malik Ali mounted on a wall.

I hope that this clarifies my position on the matter. This issue, however, has occupied far too much of my time and I don't think it is particularly useful to spend anymore time debating this issue. I am not making any demands regarding the photo. I am merely expressing my position as someone who would normally frequent the Anthill Pub. The pub management at this point can make the decision with how they want to resolve this based on what they've heard.

There is a Facebook group where this issue is being discussed if anyone is interested in debating this further.

Contact Anthill Pub at UC Irvine!

Earlier this week I blogged about the fact that a photo of the notoriously racist, homophobic (the movement he is associated with prescribes death for homosexuals), anti-American and antisemitic Amir Abdel Malik Ali is featured at the UC Irvine Anthill Pub. While it is extremely unlikely that the motivations of the pub management were malicious, I am sincerely hoping that the management opts to take the photo down or at least offers some sort of clarification for the campus community.

Discover the Networks lists some of Malik Ali's most notable statements made during his hateful speeches at UCI:

"The truth of the matter is your days are numbered. We will fight you. We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious."

"They [Jews] think they are superman, but we, the Muslims, are kryptonite. They [Jews] know that their days are numbered."

"Sooner or later, today's Muslim students will be the parents of Muslim children. And they should be militants."

"In America, you're mostly fighting with your tongue, but you should also learn how to fight with the sword."

"Israelis ought to return to Germany, to Poland, to Russia. The Germans should hook y'all up. You [Israelis] should go back to Germany."

Below is a picture, courtesy of Julian Babbitt, of the image of imam Ali which is featured prominently among photographs of athletes and sport teams. The caption on the photo reads "Malik Ali, 2007" and a signature of the photographer accompanies this caption.
As a recent alum of the university, I feel it is quite a sad commentary that a photo of Malik Ali is considered to be reflective of campus life. Perhaps this is the case and all of this is indicative of a larger set of problems that plague the campus community.

Readers should call the pub to protest this poor decision to feature this bigot at a place meant for socializing.

The number for the Anthill Pub is 949 824 3050.

Amir Abdel Malik Ali... at the Anthill Pub?

Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a radical imam, is no stranger to UC Irvine where he regularly spreads his seething hatred of America, Israel and Jews on behalf of the Muslim Student Union (MSU). Imam Malik Ali is involved with As-Sabiqun (which means "The Vanguard" in Arabic). This movement is a Sunni endeavor that seeks, through "an organized Islamic movement," to establish Islam "as a complete way of life in America" -- "in total, complete, and uncompromised service of Allah." This movement works closely with Muslim Students Associations across the country, including UC Irvine’s MSU.

It has been brought to my attention that a picture of Amir Abdel Malik Ali is featured at the Anthill Pub on the UC Irvine campus. The picture is displayed prominently among other pictures which feature UCI athletes, a dance team and advertisements for alcoholic beverages. The Anthill Pub is run by the Associated Graduate Students of UCI. Below are two pictures which were taken with a camera phone by Emanuel Movroydis.


Anthill Pub should consider removing the picture of imam Malik Ali who is notorious for his support of terrorism. Otherwise, students should seriously consider refraining from visiting Anthill Pub. The university and university restaurants/bars should not be expressing a political opinion. A pub is a place to socialize and talk about sports.

While the pub's intention was to represent campus life, the context of the photo is unclear as it is featured among photos that are far more innocuous. Malik Ali’s photo was a poor choice of decoration for a wall designated to show colorful examples of people on campus. Though we must respect free-speech codes, Malik Ali advocates violence and displaying his photo sends a mixed message where condemnation is necessary.

Below is another picture (courtesy of a UCI student).

Islamic Brutality Againsts Jews Under the So-Called "Golden Age"

Approximately 1,000,000 Jews fled the Arab world in the 1900s. The majority settled in Israel. But how did Jews fare under Arab rule historically? Was it really a “Golden Age”? While we can point out that there were some situations where Jews could make it to a government post when an Arab leader was fair and kind, Jews were always relegated to a situation of being third-class citizens and obligated to pay special taxes, jizya, for their very survival. Here are just a few small examples of Islamic brutality against Jews:

1790 -- Pogrom in Tetouan (Morocco): All Jews stripped naked, many women raped, most homes ransacked.

1800's - Jews of Yemen are forbidden to wear new or good clothes, nor could they ride a donkey or a mule. They were compelled to make long journeys on foot when occasion required it. They were prohibited from engaging in monetary transactions.

1834 -- "Suleika affair": Jewish woman from Tangier refuses to convert and marry a high-ranking official. She is executed in Fez.

1815 -- Jews of Mogador (Morocco) ordered to pay sudden jizya poll-tax. Those who pay punched on the forehead after turning over coins, those who refuse thrown in dungeon.

1884-1888 -- 307 Jews murdered over four years by Muslims, yet no Muslims put on trial.

1903 -- 40 Jews killed by Muslims during riots in Taza. More killed in Settat.

1907 -- In Casablanca, 30 Jews killed; 200 women, girls and boys abducted, raped.

1910 -- 12-year-old grandson of Fez's Rabbi Abensur abducted and forcibly converted to Islam.

1912 -- Franco-Moroccan Treaty signed in Fez makes Morocco a French protectorate. Muslim rioters massacre 60 Jews in Fez, leave 10,000 homeless.

1918-1948 -- Yemenite Jewish children whose parents had died were taken from relatives and raised as Muslims.

Professor Irwin Cotler who is a Canadian parliament member and former Canadian minister of justice, talks about this issue and about the hypocrisy of the United Nations in their failure to address the plight of the Middle Eastern Jews. Pay attention to the end of the video in which he talks about the real apartheid.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar Defends Israel and Jerusalem on Al-Jazeera

Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University defends the Jewishness of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital for over 3000 years. He also defends the right of Israelis to settle in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank.

Facts about Israel, Judaism, and the Israeli-Arab conflict

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem: Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C., the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 A.D. Lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Qu'ran.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Muhammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. Under Arab-Muslim rule, Jews in Middle Eastern lands were third-class citizens.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be up to 1,000,000.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by twenty-one separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The PLO Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS.

Hitler and the Mufti

The historic Nazi connection to today's Islamic terrorism is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. He became a Nazi agent after meeting Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, in the Palestine Mandate in 1937. With Nazi funds he organized the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 which led to the British stopping Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate. This facilitated the "Final Solution" by closing off the avenue of refuge. In 1941, the mufti orchestrated a short-lived, Nazi-backed generals' coup in Iraq.

The Iraq coup was followed by the Farhud, a pogrom against Baghdad's Jews, an event viewed by Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews as comparable to the German "Kristallnacht." The Mufti obtained Hitler's assurance in November 1941 that after dealing with the Jews of Europe, Hitler would treat the Jews of the Middle East similarly.

Son of top Hamas leader immigrates to US, slams Hamas‏

Haaretz has the story:

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. "I'm now called Joseph," he says at the outset.

Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime.

"I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country," he says.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death." [...]

Read it all here.