At UC Irvine, anti-Semitic violence against Jewish students is being excused because the attackers from the SJP and MSA hate groups are so very "diverse".
UC Irvine alum Sharon Shaoulian agreed with Izak’s perspective on the protesters’ motivation. The former president of Anteaters for Israel (the predecessor of Students Supporting Israel on the UC Irvine campus), Shaoulian had hoped to attend the screening and drop off supplies that she still had from her time with the pro-Israel student group, which ended with her graduation last December.
“When I arrived, they were screaming at the top of their lungs ‘intifada, intifada,’ banging on the windows, and I could see women—Jewish students who were desperately trying to keep the door closed from inside,” Shaoulian said.
Shaoulian sees the cries supporting the “intifada” as incitement to violence against Israelis. The usual chant by anti-Israel protesters, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is commonly regarded as a call for ethnic cleansing. She also echoed Izak’s concerns about the First Amendment rights of Jewish and pro-Israel students.
“SJP and MSU (the Muslim Student Association) have a documented history of violence on this campus, specifically violence against Jewish students, myself a victim numerous times, [and my] friends victimized, and their history of sabotaging Jewish events and intimidating Jewish students,” Shaoulian said. “Although I am grateful the police were there to do something, the wrong students were escorted out.”
Shaoulian places much of the blame on Dr. Thomas Parham, UC Irvine’s vice chancellor for student affairs and past president of the National Association of Black Psychologists.
“He speaks out against any speech that can be borderline offensive to African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants, women, and any other group. But every single year when Jewish students sit down with him, he gives the impression that what the protesters are doing is not anti-Semitic or hate speech, that they have a right to be there, and that he has an obligation and a desire to protect them,” explained Shaoulian. “Parham tells us every single year, ‘Look at their crowd, look how diverse they are ethnically, racially. What does that tell you? Who do you think is in the wrong here?’”
Shaoulian continued, “He says to us, ‘Look at their crowd, at their numbers, and their diversity. They are not all Muslim students. The protesters are black students, Hispanic students, Asian students—what does that tell you, Sharon?’ He said it this year, he said it last year and the year before last."
I wonder whether Parham would take that same position on the harassment of gay students or Muslims students by a "diverse" coalition. Somehow I doubt it.
Parham's metric for deciding who committed a hate crime based on whether the victims or perpetrators are more diverse is certainly interesting. It would certainly be interesting to see it in court.
Besides Dr. Parham just proved that the Nazis weren't racists because they too were diverse. Nazi Germany formed an alliance with Imperial Japan and Latin American countries. Its ranks included African Muslim soldiers. Clearly therefore the Nazis couldn't be bigots. Look at their diversity. Who do you think is in the wrong here?