Two recent incidents, one at Oxford University and one at the University of California, Irvine demonstrate a trend amongst pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activists to silence the voice of Israel on University campuses.
In the UK a recent case sought to issue an arrest warrant for war crimes against Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister of Israel during Operation Cast Lead, in expectation of her visiting the UK. The visit never materialised and the Israeli government issued a strong condemnation of the law which allows such warrants to be issued. The UK government then gave Israel assurances that the law would be changed (which it hasn’t) and that it would ensure Israeli politicians could come to the UK without fear of arrest.
Whilst a lot of Human Rights people and Muslim organisations became agitated that the UK government was interfering in the judiciary to provide cover for ‘war criminals’, it was revealed that Hamas was behind the warrants
Hamas admitted to masterminding the campaign to pursue war crimes cases against Israeli politicians and military officials in Britain and other European countries.
The group, considered to be a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union, says it has been working with lawyers to get the Israelis charged with war crimes in connection with Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.
This fact doesn’t seem to bother the anti-Israel, pro-Human Rights interests. It’s rather like Hitler trying to get Churchill prosecuted at Nuremburg for bombing Dresden.
But this is just one way of trying to silence Israeli politicians.
Meanwhile back at the Uni’s.
At the University of California, Irvine, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was prevented from completing his address about progress in the Middle East. Having been invited by the Jewish Federation of Orange County the event was open to all students. A number of students, many clearly Muslim, stood up one after another to interrupt in a co-ordinated and very effective, and it should be said, peaceable demonstration. Each was escorted out of the building but Oren eventually gave up the losing battle. Oren was accused, inter alia, of being a killer. The students were not available to comment on Hamas’s or Fatah’s track record.
Now this does bring up an interesting problem for democracies and Free Speech; lets say this was David Irving or Robert Mugabe. Would I object to attempts to stop him speaking? Ahmadinejad was heckled in New York, for example. Just because we don’t agree with a heckler or an orchestrated demonstration doesn’t mean that the demonstrators have no right to do so. What are the limits for such demonstrations? When Ahmadinejad has been heckled in the West he has never been stopped; the protesters made their point and were arrested or made to leave.
In Irvine, according to Press TV, an Iranian-funded TV network, ‘at least eleven students have been arrested’ as a result of this protest for disturbing a public event. The students could also be disciplined and suspended or worse. Is it right that students should lose their University places and opportunity for education because of their political beliefs? Surely it’s for the law to decide if there was a misdemeanour. However objectionable I or other supporters of Israel feel their actions were, they were not violent, there were no anti-Semitic slogans.
The issue is: does everyone have a right to free speech and what are the limits of protest? Each country will have an answer to these questions. Iran has an answer and we know what that is. The irony is that these protestors prevented free speech from someone of a country where free speech is alive and kicking, but the countries these same protestors would, presumably, support, have no such freedoms. If you do not even want to hear what your opponent has to say and you want to stifle debate then it surely means that you have little confidence in your own arguments.
Debate is at the very heart of the Oxford Union. This week Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, was invited to speak. What then took place went beyond protest. As Ayalon began to speak various members of the audience began to shout at him. The whole sad story is related by his press office:
On Monday night, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was invited by the Oxford Union to speak at an event at the university. During the speech one student shouted extreme abuse at the Deputy Foreign Minister including Itbach Al-Yahud (Slaughter the Jews). The event was caught on camera and subsequently shown on Israeli television Channel Ten. The Deputy Foreign Minister is looking into the possibility of pressing charges against the student for what is tantamount to a call for genocide.
“This demonstrates our new policy on hatred and racism and we will have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, something that should have happened a long time ago,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon.
Another protestor carrying a Palestinian flag started walking towards Ayalon before security intervened and he was ejected from the hall. Another student shouted at the Deputy Foreign Minister that “we will do to you what we did to Milosevic”. Other students shouted, both inside and outside the hall, “Palestine will be free, from the River to the Sea”, which by its meaning, calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. After the event several students attempted to physically assault the Deputy Foreign Minister but were prevented from doing so by security.
Speaking to the students, Ayalon was able to relate Israel’s point of view on many issues that many felt had rarely been heard in such a setting. Ayalon received applause at the end after taking extremely hostile and abusive questions and patiently dissecting and answering them one by one. After the event, several students approached the Deputy Foreign Minister and thanked him for giving a narrative that they felt they had never heard before.
Ayalon corrected many students’ assertions on history, international law and United Nations resolutions and told them that: “If I manage to convince you to go and learn the truth from the history books then this will have been a successful event.” During his speech, Ayalon called for historic reconciliation between all of the peoples in the Middle East.
It is interesting that some students would thank Ayalon for explaining a point of view they had not heard before. That says a lot about the way the Israeli point of view is being stifled and misrepresented in the UK media and the disgraceful demonstrators are part of that attempt to suppress Israel’s point of view and spit hatred.
How different from Irvine. In the UK any Israeli politician has to be subject to blatant anti-Semitism and calls for genocide of the Israelis (Jews only, of course) from those accusing them of the very crimes they wish to perpetrate themselves.
And now these accusations of war crimes are fuelled by the egregious Goldstone Report which is a badly flawed and thoroughly scurrilous document which over time will be dissected, rebutted and discredited. But as it is out there and carries what passes for the authority of the UN itself, it can now be used by the Israel delegitimisers to throw rocks at Israeli politicians and provide cover for the suppression of free speech and calls for genocide.
