All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
And now we go to Stephen Zunis, this time writing for Truthout.
University of California takes aim at human rights activists.
What the hey?
Welcome back to the show.
Good to be on again.
Well, now, what kind of human rights activist isn't welcome at the University of California?
Well, in this case, it appears to be those who support Palestinian rights.
Including this growing movement around boycott, divestment, and sanctions.
The president of the University of California system, which includes Berkeley, UCLA, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Merced, Davis, etc., Riverside, came out and basically compared those who were protesting the Israeli occupation with those who would deface the GLBTQ center, would hang a noose outside an African-American student union, would paint schwa stickers at Hillel, you know, that kind of thing.
Stuff that was clearly hate crimes.
But apparently, in his view, criticism of Israeli policies is somehow equating attacks against the Jewish people.
Okay, now, and I mean this question seriously.
Did anybody laugh in this guy's face when he said that?
I mean, nobody believes that anymore, right?
I guess somebody could have got away with that in 1980-something or whatever, but not now.
Yeah, really, really.
I mean, in particular, it's absurd.
And especially the interpretation of the incident that really prompted this.
At the Davis campus, some group brought in some Israeli soldiers who were kind of rationalizing for various war crimes and that kind of thing.
And the coalition of student groups, which included a pro-Palestinian group, a progressive Jewish organization called Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as the main Latino-Latina group, staged a silent walkout.
And there was one person, a staff member, apparently, who was affiliated with a group who was heckling and engaged in what I'd consider inappropriate behavior, but nothing anti-Semitic, nothing about Jews or whatever.
It was about Israeli policies.
But anyway, he seemed to both link the action of this one individual with this silent walkout by the student groups and, again, confuse the attacks on Israeli policies with anti-Semitism.
And so now what exactly are they doing about this now?
Well, they did a couple things.
One is they made this big public letter that was posted front and center on the university administration's website and sent it out to a bunch of places.
And he, in a meeting, gathered all the heads of the campus halals from the eight campuses together at his office to discuss how things were for people who care about Israel and their perspectives of these Jewish organizations.
And, well, I mean, like a lot of, you know, various other campus groups, other religions, they do a lot of, you know, reasonable stuff.
But, unfortunately, the leadership tends to be pretty hawkish, pretty right-wing vis-a-vis Israel, certainly to the right of the vast majority of Jewish students and students overall.
But, you know, he did nothing comparable to ask Palestinian students or ask anybody from the other ethnic group how things were going for them and how they saw perspectives.
And from my end, the thing that upset me the most is he said that he was bringing in representatives of the Anti-Defamation League to consult him on how to deal with this problem.
Now, the Anti-Defamation League was originally a reputable civil rights organization comparable to, you know, the NAACP or the American Anti-Discrimination Committee and other groups that support civil rights and challenge bigotry, etc.
But in recent decades, they've become more and more of these right-wing shills that basically engage in McCarthyistic tactics against anybody who criticizes Israel.
And just to give you a personal example from me, I did a column for the National Catholic Reporter in 2005, where I talked about the evolution of Hezbollah from a group that engaged in terrorist attacks and still had a pretty extreme fundamentalist ideology, but how they had evolved to be a legal political party in Lebanon, how they had a strong network of social service organizations.
And at that time, they had not engaged in any acts of terrorism for the past 10 years.
And I got this information, incidentally, from reports by both the Bipartisan Congressional Research Service and the State Department's annual report on terrorism.
Well, that didn't quite fit with the line of the ADL, which says Hezbollah is a terrorist group that engages in terrorist tactics all the time and that kind of stuff.
And so they had this headline on the front page of their website that says, Professor Justifies Terrorism.
Now, as you know, Scott, I have never justified terrorism in any way, shape, or form anywhere.
And as you know, I'm big into this whole nonviolence thing, you know.
But by just challenging the line of the right-wing Israeli government and their supporters, that became the equivalent of supporting terrorism.
This is an example of the kind of things that they use, that they do, that they will take anything that disagrees with the line of the right-wing Israeli government and their support of the United States and say, well, if you don't agree with our line and if you publicly challenge our line, therefore, you are support terrorism or you're anti-Semitic or whatever.
In other words, they're a classic kind of McCarthyistic group.
And this was an organization that the president of the University of California was bringing in to consult him on this supposed anti-Israel, anti-Semitic wave that was going on at the University of California.
Now, does he not have to submit his decision about this at all?
I mean, never mind bringing in a boxman to tell him what's what, which is just completely ridiculous.
But as far as his decision, this sounds like a lot of power for the president of an entire state university system to be able to make on his own.
Yeah, well, I mean, anyway, I'm hopeful it doesn't have much tangible effect in terms of the sense that this is not policy per se.
This is a public letter.
It's a consulting, putting out guidelines, whatever.
But at the same time, it clearly contributes to the climate of stifling legitimate dissent and legitimate discussion.
Indeed, this may or may not be related, but it was just a couple weeks after this happened back in March, a UCLA anthropology professor who teaches a course on indigenous studies program.
And this is a survey course which looked, I think, at four or five or six different cases of indigenous struggles around the world, Aborigines in Australia, Native Americans, Ogonis in Nigeria, et cetera, and included the Palestinians.
And in terms of the guidelines of the course, you do a term paper on one of the case studies that we're looking at, and on the web page or the online connection that was available only to students in the class, he listed scores of links dealing with all these various struggles.
And in the situation dealing with the Palestinians, it included a number of articles, a number of perspectives, including those that opposed the campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.
But one of the links was with a group that did support boycott, divestment, and sanctions of corporations that support the Israeli occupation.
But because he included that one, he got a formal reprimand from the head of the academic senate for having included that in the course.
And this is, I hope, not a sign of a trend that we're seeing.
I mean, I remember when I was a grad student at Cornell in the 1980s, he had faculty who were very openly supporting divestment vis-a-vis corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa, and it was no big deal.
You may agree or disagree with him.
I happen to agree with him in this case, but it was okay.
It was not a big deal for people to do so.
A law professor would wear his red armband every day in class, which is a sign of supporting the divestment struggle.
I don't know anybody who complained about that, but nowadays you can't even have one link on a website along with scores of others supporting divestment vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation.
Steven Zunis, we'll be right back after this, y'all.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Talking with Steven Zunis.
He is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco.
Shares the program in Middle Eastern studies.
And we're talking about all the trouble you can get in in the University of California system now where, as what happened to this one professor, on his website he linked to a website about the divestment movement.
And, you know, I don't know, that's against the rules.
He thought he had a loophole, right?
And he said, well, no, I just, you know, Palestinians, they're the indigenous.
And so we're indigenous studies here.
And so it was purely an academic concern.
And that wasn't good enough.
He got in trouble.
Exactly.
I already, you know, this is one thing.
Of course, you know, university campuses are supposed to be a place where you can bring up all sorts of controversial issues and talk about them and discuss them.
And, you know, it's generally okay for professors to take positions.
I take positions in my classes, though I'm very clear that students can disagree.
In fact, I even, I like students to disagree.
I've never been accused of grading a student differently because they disagree.
As long as I, you know, present all sides of an issue and respect those others, people like, you know, having their, you know, being challenged and having this kind of thing.
But we're in a very different climate now, and it's particularly disturbing.
I thought the university was all about memorizing flashcards.
No.
I said I thought the university was all about memorizing flashcards.
You're supposed to, you know, engage in deep discussions about important matters and stuff like that.
I don't know.
You're throwing me off.
Maybe that's a California thing.
No, I don't know.
No, I had great teachers at community college here in Austin.
I ain't going to complain.
But, yeah, no, so that's crazy.
And it really is.
It's just the Israel lobby that gets away with this.
Are there any other protected groups that are that protected at the University of California?
Well, I think they certainly make a big enough stink, you know.
And, of course, what I advocate, as you know, is that the people just need to make a big enough stink in the other direction.
And people are.
I've been actually pretty pleased that the reaction to all this has been very strong.
Hundreds of professors, mostly within the UNC system, but others as well, have signed on, you know, to a letter protesting President Yudof's action.
You know, this is, in many ways, I mean, ironically, it's been kind of a, given the whole issue, you know, greater publicity and greater exposure, because for all the reasons that you mentioned, it is totally absurd.
It is very disturbing.
And, you know, here's one of the ironies of the thing.
I mean, anti-Semitism, like racism and sexism, is ubiquitous.
And sometimes among a minority of people involved in Palestinian rights, it does raise this ugly head.
And when it does, I believe it should be strongly and forcefully and unequivocally challenged.
But the thing is, it ends up kind of like almost a crying wolf kind of thing when you start accusing people who have legitimate criticism of Israeli policies as being anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish or whatever.
It then makes it even harder when the real bigots, you know, come out to be able to successfully challenge them.
Well, and face it, it lends those people credibility.
I saw somebody on my Facebook feed the other day say, you know, I'm starting to really like David Duke.
And I'm thinking, man, you are just...
But anyway, there are enough horrible things that the Israeli government does all day for him to be right about that people can't tell the difference.
And the thing is, I hear a lot from liberals in particular, you know, who say, well, I'm afraid that if I criticize the Israeli government policies, it might defeat those who aren't just consistently on human rights and anti-war positions, but who unfairly single out Israel because it's Jewish.
The problem is, if people don't speak out against what Israel does for the right reasons, that that void will be filled by the David Dukes and others who criticize Israel for the wrong reasons.
Right.
Yeah, the whole thing is totally self-defeating.
Now, I read a thing one time by a lady who was, I forgot her name, but she was a very major historian in Britain.
And she was saying, no, don't outlaw Holocaust denial.
I can take any of these guys with one hand tied behind my back.
I don't need your help, cops.
All you do is make it look like I need your help.
And which means, you know, the inference, of course, is that they're right.
And that I can't beat them on their own terms with arguments.
Very well said.
Totally self-defeating and ridiculous.
Which goes for every one of the Israeli government's policies that I can think of.
And, you know, that goes for the ADL.
And, in fact, I wanted to point to this one that you wrote, or you linked to this one in your email that you sent out this morning.
And I thought it was important, and we still have a few minutes, so I was hoping you could talk a little bit about this piece.
U.S. policy undermines moderate Palestinians.
You know, I just read, what the hell was it?
I just read about the new elections, this and that, and how, oh, I know what it was.
It was at the Mondo Weiss blog.
Philip Weiss was writing about how this is not all about, you know, the new elections that Netanyahu called, which that's off now.
But anyway, it's not so much about impunity on the Iran issue and starting a war there.
It's about impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, and all the political pressure that will be, especially on Obama, to never mention the settlements again, and to even discredit and undermine, and I don't know what they plan on doing with him, Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PLA, which he's the, correct me if I'm wrong, Israeli and American installed sock puppet leader of the non-Hamas politicians of Palestine.
And now they're saying they want to undermine and ruin him.
And who do they think is going to benefit from that?
And what do they plan to do after that?
Exactly.
This is the whole message, that if you're moderate, if you compromise, if you're willing to accept only 22% of historic Palestine, if you're willing to even allow Israel to annex some of the settlements in return for an equivalent amount of land in Israel, if you're willing to essentially be disarmed right next to the most powerful military state in the region, if you're willing to give up your right of return, all these things that you're willing to share, Jerusalem as co-capital, all these compromises that the Abbas and the Palestinians have made, only to be rejected by Israel, then only to have the United States say, Oh, the Palestinians must learn to compromise too, and all Israel's making all these painful concessions, and et cetera, et cetera.
And the fact that the Palestine Authority and Fatah, the dominant groups, have not engaged in any acts of terrorism for a decade or more, and even Hamas has largely stopped as well now.
And yet the United States refuses to pressure Israel.
You have this idea that, oh, both sides need to compromise, both sides need to sit down and figure it out themselves, which is what we keep hearing from Obama, ignoring the gross asymmetry in power between the occupied people and the occupier, not to mention the fact that at this point in history, this has not always been the case, you go back to the 50s and 60s or whatever, but certainly in the recent decades, the Palestinians take a much more moderate compromising view than do the Israelis.
Now, is it as obvious to you as it is to me, or do you disagree, or what is the deal?
Because it seems to me so obvious.
If the Israelis would just get the settlers, which is, after all, a pretty small percentage of the population there supports the settlers, get them out of the West Bank and Gaza, rather be a little, as you described it, rump pseudo-Palestinian state there, bring the Israeli state back behind the 1967 borders, and say, hey, let's be friends with everybody, ratchet down all this tension and just call truce, couldn't you imagine Israel living in more or less peace with its neighbors for the indefinite future?
This perpetual occupation, the cruelty and the injustice, on a daily basis for, what, 45 years in a row now, is what is sticking in everybody's craw so badly.
The entire Arab League has agreed to recognize Israel, to have security agreements and do all this kind of thing, in return for the end of the occupation, as have the Palestinians.
Even Hamas has agreed to a long-term peace file along these lines, and frankly, if they had an independent, viable Palestinian state, I think Hamas's support would wither, because those Palestinians are not into their hardcore religiosity and fundamentalism, and since they've run Gaza, they've proved to be almost as corrupt as the Palestinian Authority.
So, you know, the whole idea of the occupation originally was land for peace, you know, that Israel will hold on to land until the Arabs agree to peace.
Okay, Arabs have agreed to peace, but guess what?
They're still holding on to the land, and the U.S. is supporting them.
And of course, now you have all these American politicians that are raising the ante along with the Israeli government, saying, oh, you don't just have to recognize Israel, you have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
And of course, they didn't demand that of Jordan and Egypt when they had a peace treaty.
We signed these various agreements with the Soviet Union, and we didn't insist that we recognize them as a communist state.
Well, you know, even Hamas went like 90% of the way towards saying that.
I'm sorry, I'm talking over you.
Anyway, we've got to go.
Thanks very much.
Stephen Zunis, everybody, from the University of California, San Francisco.
Appreciate it.
Bye-bye.
