An event held by a Jewish student group at the University of California, Irvine was disrupted Wednesday night by a crowd of Muslim students chanting anti-Semitic and anti-police slogans.Here's video:
Ariana Rowlands, president of the College Republicans club at UCI, told Campus Reform that her group had just wrapped up its weekly meeting Wednesday night, and were gathered outside the building preparing to hang posters advertising an upcoming appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos when they heard a commotion nearby.
Wandering over to investigate, the CR members encountered a large group of students—Rowlands estimated there were perhaps 50 in total—holding signs and screaming in unison to protest a movie screening being held by Students Supporting Israel (SSI).
Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member who was on campus to address the CR meeting, posted a video on Facebook depicting a portion of the demonstration.
“Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada,” the protesters shout at the start of the video, following that up with a call-and-response chant of “displacing people since ‘48/there’s nothing here to celebrate!”
Kevin Brum, Vice President of SSI, told Campus Reform that the demonstrators were members of the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine groups, who were apparently incensed that two former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were planning to meet with attendees at the screening.
“The film was Beneath the Helmet, a film about IDF soldiers with personal interviews that sort of humanizes them,” he explained. “One of the campus advisers for Hillel is an Israeli citizen who served in the IDF, so she has former IDF friends, and two of them stopped by. Someone posted that information on Facebook, and SJP and MSU got wind of it.”
SJP bragged about violating free speech of people who support Israel:
Today we successfully demonstrated against the presence of IDF soldiers on campus. ...The presence of IDF and police threatened our coalition of Arab, black, undocumented, trans, and the greater activist community. Thank you to all that came out and bravely spoke out against injustice. #UCIntifadaSSI says that the police stopped the event for the safety of the Zionist students being threatened by the Israel-hating thugs:
Tonight one of our events was disrupted by certain student organizations. They were in violation of UC Regents Hate Speech policy and were shouting various anti-Semitic statements. The police had to escort attendees out of the event for their own safety. While it saddens us that there exist individuals who are more interested in shutting our Peace Week down, we at SSI want to assure you all that we are not backing down in the slightest. We are not going to give in to their intimidation tactics and anti-Semitic rhetoric. #UCIsrael2016 #WeStandUnited #NeverGiveUp #StudentsAgainstHate #StudentsForPeace #PeaceWeek
Imagine a campus allowing an "Anti-Palestinian Week" or indeed a week dedicated against any country's very existence. It could never happen.
But at UCI, a week dedicated to hate against the Jewish state is protected, while an event that celebrates Israel is in danger of being shut down because of the violence of the haters.
There is something seriously wrong on campus when hate speech is celebrated and people supporting peace cannot speak without being threatened.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
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