VIDEO: Anti-Israel Hatred at UC Davis, Blogger Alleges

Note: If you have more info about his event (or video that tells more of the story), please comment below or email me at justin.cox@patch.com.

An Israeli soldier and a Druze woman were scheduled to "tell their stories" at a UC Davis event sponsored by the campus Chabad group earlier this week. The presentation was temporarily derailed by heckling members of the audience, according to a blog post by IsraelStreet.org.

“If you ever wanted to see how American universities have become bastions of Israel hatred, you should have been at the University of California-Davis last night,” the blog began. “Of [the] 125 attendees, at least half were clearly identifiable as 'pro-Palestinian' students (with keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, Free Gaza T-shirts, and other 'Palestinian' paraphernalia).”

IsraelStreet.org’s stated mission is to “fight for Israel,” without making efforts to shape U.S. policy toward the nation.

“How many women have you raped?” yelled one attendee to the Israeli soldier at the front of the room. “How many children have you raped? You are a child molester."  

Here's a bit about the police response from the UC Davis News Site: 

... the organizers requested police support a couple of hours before the event, held in 106 Wellman Hall. The department provided a supervisor and two security officers from Aggie Hosts — who are Police Department student employees, trained in special event security.

Acting Police Chief Matt Carmichael and three of his officers also were on the scene, as was a staff member from the Office of Student Affairs.

They persuaded the main heckler (video above) to leave voluntarily. Carmichael said at the event that it was his direction not to make arrests while mediation and dialogue were ongoing. More action could have been taken in the event of violence. 

IsraeliStreet.org goes on to make the strong allegation that the "main heckler" was actually a student from India who was paid $50 by "Muslim students to heckle so loudly that the program would not be able to continue." IsraelStreet does not, however, cite a source for this information. I'm currently awaiting a response.

Is this an appropriate form of protest? Comment below to weigh in.

UC Davis alum Tawfiq Morrar, who attended the event and is passionate about the Palestinian cause, had this to say about that particular allegation: 

I went outside and I ran into the "heckler." I told him that there was a concerted effort for a walk-out by the students.  He didn’t seem to care.  He said he wanted to send the speakers a personal message that he didn’t want them there.  He didn’t say anything about being paid $50.

Lyla Rayyan, co-president for Students of Justice in Palestine, wrote a letter to the Aggie that gives a different perspective of how things went down. Here's a bit from that letter: 

Often, Palestinians are blamed for our “lack of dialogue,” and our refusal to sit down with Israeli and Jewish students to just talk things out. I am personally against dialogue, as the word implies that both parties are on equal footing — obviously Israel as the Occupier and Palestinians as the Occupied cannot sit down as two equals. It’s the equivalent of asking a white man and black man to sit down to dinner in 1960s Mississippi — absolutely absurd. 

Rayyan points out that the group showed up to Olson 106, where they planned to stage a walk-out. They realized, however, that this location was a "decoy." She said that this flies in the face of the aforementioned desire for "dialogue." Here's more from the letter: 

There were admittedly hecklers from both sides ... It is important for people to know that the event ended abruptly, not because of Palestinians rioting, but because the Jewish and Israeli community began yelling as soon as a Jewish American student got to the mike with statistics.

These speakers are portraying Israel in an inaccurate light, and I feel it is my duty to raise awareness. 

IsraelStreet says that the Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights played a role in organizing the attendees, along with the Students for Justice in Palestine, Davis Peace Coalition, the Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, and the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement.

Read the full blog on IsraelStreet.org. Here’s a second post about the event. Here's the full letter to the Aggie. 

Please comment below or contact me at justin.cox@patch.com if you have something to say or if you were at the event. If you’d like to blog about this topic, click here.

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