SFSU President Wong Supports Incitement Against Jews

Michael L.

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

Contact

Office of the President
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue, Administration Building 562
San Francisco, CA 94132
Phone: (415) 338-1381
E-mail: president@sfsu.edu

http://president.sfsu.edu/biography

San Francisco State University President, Leslie Wong, very much admires the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS).

He even said that "GUPS is the very purpose of this great university."

The problem that president Wong has is that GUPS, while according to him representing the very purpose of SFSU, also incites violence against Jewish supporters of Israel, which is the great majority of the Jewish people.

Every time they wail into the face of Jewish people, "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!" we know that they are screaming for blood... the blood of our parents and the blood of our children.

Why would the president of a significant American university support a student organization that quite literally calls for the murder of Jews?

Let that question sink in for a second.

By going out of his way to compliment GUPS - an organization friendly with terrorists like plane-hijacker, Leila Khaled - Wong signals to Jewish people that inciting violent hatred toward us is acceptable to himself, and to SFSU, as a matter of "social justice."

The Context

Rates of violent anti-Semitism are dramatically rising around the United States and throughout Europe.

Jews are killed by jihadis in places like Paris or Marseilles or Malmo, while within Israel Junior-Jihadis are chasing after old ladies with knives and hand-axes.

Meanwhile, throughout the Muslim Middle East, imams and ayatollahs regularly teach their congregants that Jews are the children of orangutans and swine and screech to the heavens for our genocide.

They love to tell one another that butchering Jews is beautious within the heart of Allah.

Iran inches closer to an operable nuclear weapon that it has promised to use against Israel in order to bring about genocide and the progressive-left could hardly care less. In fact, the western-left generally blames anti-Semitic violence on the victims of that violence. Of course, such a scenario would also result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Arabs, but Tehran does not seem to particularly care and neither do its western supporters.

In Europe and the United States, the Red-Green Alliance between progressives and advocates for political Islam is flourishing. And the movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction Israel (BDS) - supported by Wong if he supports GUPS - is seeking to undermine the viability of the tiny Jewish state by seeking to turn universities, corporations, governments, and NGOs against it and, therefore, against the Jewish people, more generally, in an effort to eventually bring down both the country and the well-being of the Jewish people.

Israel and the Rise of the Crybullies

Of course, it is in the universities that the crybullies (snowflakes) demand their "safe spaces" while refusing to allow Jewish students any such courtesy. They complain about "microaggressions" and "micro-rapes" - like commenting on a cute sweater - even while inciting deep hatred toward Jews in the most raw terms possible.

Anti-Semitic anti-Zionists incite hatred toward Jewish supporters of Israel, and Israeli Jews, via "the Palestinian narrative." The narrative depends upon defamation, unjust insinuations, and highly biased historical conclusions that leave the great Muslim majority in the Middle East, which represents perhaps the most successful and vicious political project in human history, as innocent victims among among the minority population that they have victimized.

This results in violence against Jews supported by western academic institutions as driven by their most hateful and racist students.

Enter the General Union Palestine Students (GUPS) and their patron saint, San Francisco State University President Leslie Wong.

As Dusty over at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers reminds us:

The president of the organization, Mohammad Hammad posted a photo on his tumblr account, declaring "I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier.

San Francisco State University General Union of Palestinian students neither condemned Hammad's words, nor distanced themselves from them.

Why does SFSU continue to tolerate the intolerable?

Indeed. That is an exceedingly good question, although, as we have just learned via the video below, it is not that SFSU tolerates the intolerable so much as it positively encourages the intolerable.

GUPS is a student organization that is calling directly for the murder of Jews and it is supported by the president of the university.

Check the video clip. Wong's remarks begin just after the five minute mark.

Indigeneity

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

Non-Israeli Jews have been in diaspora for 2,000 years or thereabouts.

We have been in diaspora so long that we have forgotten that we have a home.

The Land of Israel.

This is not to say that America is not also our home or that anyplace we happen to live, say Australia, is not a home. I live in California and have nothing but the highest regard for this land, and these people, and this country.

But that does not change the fact that Jews are indigenous to the east coast of the Meditteranean, just as the French are indigenous to France or the Japanese to their Pacific islands.

Israel is where we come from and why non-Muslims are so hostile to this notion remains a mystery to me. Many Muslims, of course, despise the idea of Jewish indigeneity because Islam is an imperialist religion and any land that was at any time conquered by the forces of Islam, as was Israel in the 7th century, must forever and always belong to the Umma, the people of Islam.

Jews, of course, have no particular reason to respect this wildly fascistic notion other than the fact that Muslims outnumber Jews by a factor of well over 100 to 1 and, therefore, have a far larger megaphone than do the Jews. Anti-Jewish racists, needless to say, believe that Jews control everything from the banks to the newspapers to the schools and do so for nefarious reasons.

This is essentially what the Nazis thought and taught.

It is true that Jews tend to punch well above our weight level, but there are reasons for this. It has nothing to do with "race" or genetic superiority, or any such notions, but because Jews have been put through the ringer by Christians and Muslims for millennia.

It was the very persecution of the Jewish people that has made us strong.

It was the persecution of the Jewish people that essentially created the IDF.

It was the persecution of the Jewish people that caused Theordore Herzl to create the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

Of all the ancient peoples of the Levant, only the Jews have survived. All the rest of our old neighbors are gone, including the Romans. The Jebusites are gone. The Assyrians are gone. The Babylonians are gone. But the Jews struggled through and survived.

I understand why Muslims resent Jews, but what I do not understand is why so much of the contemporary West also does. It makes no sense to me. The Jewish people, small as our numbers were kept, have been a major contributing factor to western culture and society, in the best sense. Judaism is a religion of law and, thus, throughout the millennia has worked through ideas of justice. This is the essence of Judaism and also a major contributing factor within Western jurisprudence and society.

There is a reason that so many towns and cities throughout the United States are named after Israeli towns. ---

But the bottom line is, the truth is, that the Jewish people are the indigenous people to the land of Israel and that is the land that we come from.

Many Muslims do not like this fact for religious reasons.

Westerners are just bullies.

The Elder's Assumed Symmetry Fallacy

Mchael L.

{This is an old retread, but I like this one. Besides my laptop is busted... as is my right hand. So I am functioning off of Laurie's laptop - and G-d, how I hate it. I am feeling mean and surly so you better watch out!}

;O)

The Elder of Ziyon has a piece entitled, "Peter Beinart cannot tell the difference between a 'narrative' and a fact."

Speaking before a group of Democrats and progressives, Beinart said the following concerning conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson:

In 2008, when Tel Aviv University's Shlomo Sand published a book called "The Invention off the Jewish People," he was widely called anti-Semitic.  When Adelson says the same about Palestinians, he's a Republican rock star.

This is an example of what the Elder calls the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy.  He writes:

I am not a logician and do not know of a formal name for this fallacy, but let's call it the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy: the assumption that two sides - by virtue of their opposition - are falsely assumed to be symmetric.

This is a very important insight and one that we need to consider.  The Jews of the Middle East, via the State of Israel, are now a powerful people and we should be very proud, as Jews and friends of the Jewish State, of their accomplishments.  The success of Israel is nothing short of remarkable, given its humble beginnings.  Israel has the most powerful military in the entire region and one of the best economies, given its relative size, of any country in the world.  Israel is creative, innovative, technological, internationally-minded, and sophisticated.

However, the Jews of the Middle East also represent a tiny minority surrounded by a much larger, hostile majority of Muslims who have made it very clear, over the long and brutal course of 1,400 years, that they simply will not stand for Jewish sovereingty on historically Jewish land and will do everything within their power to make life miserable for the Jewish minority.  They teach their children that Jews are the descendents of orangatans and swine and that killing Jewish people is pleasing to the heart of Allah.  They wage war against us.  They shoot rockets at us.  They strap suicide belts onto women and children because when Muslim women and children commit suicide in an effort to murder Jews it is considered not merely a noble act, but the most noble spiritual act of the shaheed.

The truth is that in the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East, there is no symmetry.  In terms of numbers, resources, land mass, every advantage goes to the Arabs.  They outnumber the Jews by a factor of 60 or 70 to 1 throughout the region and if you include Muslims, more generally, the odds are over 100 to 1.  They conquered and conrol over 99% of the entire Middle East, with the sole exception of the Jewish State of Israel, and are committing a genocide against the native Christian population.  Muslims hold all non-Muslims under submission within imperial Islam since the rise of that religion in the 7th century throughout the Middle East with the lone, sole exception of Israel.

And now they literally created a brand-spanking new people, the "Palestinians," for the distinct purpose of countering Jewish sovereignty and freedom on historically Jewish land.

So, no, there is no symmetry in this fight.

The Jews are fighting to maintain freedom and sovereignty and the great Arab majority is dedicated to destroying that freedom and sovereignty and will ruin their own cousins, the Palestinian-Arabs, in order to keep them as the dagger pointed at the heart of the Jewish people on Jewish land.

Peter Beinart, it should be noted, is perhaps the single foremost example of Jewish dhimmitude in the public square today.  He represents an excellent example of the kind of Jewish "progressive" who cannot only not bring himself to take his own side in a fight, but who has so incorporated the "Palestinian narrative" of pristine victim-hood into his apprehension of the conflict that he honestly believes that the besieged Jewish minority in the Middle East are the aggressors upon their former Arab-Muslim masters.

Finally, and most importantly, the Elder is generally correct when he writes this:

The Palestinian Arabs are a recently invented people. They exist today, to be sure, but they were not a "people" before 1948 at the very earliest.  Westerners who drew the borders after World War I created what today's Palestinian Arabs laughably call "historic Palestine" - arbitrary lines that surrounded a people who had as much in common with those across those lines as with those within them.  Arabs in the Galilee had more in common with those in Damascus than those in Bethlehem.  Tribes and families trumped geography (and they often still do.)  They became a "people" because of how their Arab brethren refused to allow them to integrate into their countries, forcing them to suffer as a separate group that eventually did turn them into a people.  Arabs themselves admit freely that they kept Palestinian Arabs in miserable conditions in order to foster their nascent "unity."

And that, of course, is his primary point concerning the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy.  The Jews have been a people for over 3,500 years and perhaps considerably longer.  Among the peoples of the earth the Jews, along with the Chinese and other indigenous peoples, are among the oldest on the planet.  Jews are also, along with native Americans, for example, among the most persecuted.  The Palestinian-Arabs, by contrast, only emerged as an allegedly distinct people toward the end of the twentieth-century and did so for the specific purpose of beating up on the Jews.

And I suppose this is where I disagree with the Elder.  Are the "Palestinians" a distinct and separate people from Jordanian Arabs or Syrian Arabs or Egyptian Arabs?  The classical definition of nationhood would suggest not.  So-called "Palestinians" share the same religion with other Arabs, the same food-stuffs, generally speaking, with other Arabs, the same language and traditions.  The "Palestinians" are Arabs.  Period.  And, in fact, most of their grandparents immigrated into the area following the Jewish aliyahs around the turn of the century.

The Jewish people, or so it seems to me, are under no obligation to recognize a brand-new allegedly distinct people who came into existence for the explicit purpose of robbing the tiny Jewish minority of sovereignty on Jewish land.

The truth of the matter is that we owe them nothing, not even recognition.  If this sounds rather harsh, I am sorry, but the "Palestinians" have turned down every single offer for a state in peace next to Israel since 1937.  They are never going to accept a Jewish presence with autonomy on land that was once captured by the forces of Islam, because to do so contradicts the very reason that they came into existence as an allegedly distinct ethnicity to begin with.

What the Elder understands, and what Beinart clearly does not, is that there is no symmetry.  Shlomo Sand is a racist and a traitor to his people.  The very notion that the Jews are a recently invented people is historically preposterous and Sand is a fraud.  Adelson, however, whatever one may make of his politics was correct if he suggested that the "Palestinians" are a newly invented people.

This is not a matter of opinion.

It is a matter of fact.

Daily Kos and the hatred for "Zionists"

Michael L.

The genealogy of this blog ultimately goes to Daily Kos.

I started my blogging career on Daily Kos maybe ten years ago. At some point I left and became a front-pager on Maryscott O'Connor's now defunct My Left Wing. After My Left Wing proved itself comfy-cozy with anti-Semitic anti-Zionism I faded out and basically started up this joint.

But in truth, I owe many Daily Kos people and many My Left Wing people a debt of thanks for teaching me that the western-left is entirely comfortable defaming not only Israel, but "Zionists" (by whom they largely mean Jews).

The first thing that any progressive-left Jewish person needs to understand is that their own political movement does not care in the least about the well-being of the Jewish people who they conceive of as privileged and white. Hard-right anti-Semitic conservatism, of the David Duke variety, is irrelevant in the United States today. Anti-Semitism in the United States is primarily a left-wing phenomenon and it is instructive to read what the grassroots political people say about Israel and "Zionists" at places like Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the Guardian.

A recent piece by someone who goes under the name of "bobdevo" is illustrative.

In Hillary attacks Bernie for not being a good enough Jew bobdevo tells us that Hillary Clinton published a piece in the Times of Israel on the eve of Passover.

In that piece, she wrote:

Protecting allies and partners like Israel is one of the most solemn duties of any Commander-in-Chief. Yet others in this race suggest we must remain ‘neutral’ in order to negotiate... (emphasis bobdevo's)

For no elaborated upon reason, bobdevo believes that somehow this means that Clinton was attacking Sanders for not being "a good enough Jew."

The stupidity in such a conclusion is profound, but I am less concerned about bobdevo's attack on Hillary for allegedly attacking Sanders than I am in the nature of western-left discourse vis-à-vis the Jewish State of Israel.

The first thing to note is that bobdevo refers to the Times of Israel as "right-wing."

This is false.

Any fair-minded individual familiar with the scope of the Jewish press - or even the press out of the United States - would recognize that the Times of Israel is decidedly moderate. They publish people on both the Left and the Right. Further, chief editor David Horovitz - not to be confused with American conservative editor David Horowitz - is a moderate and reasonable individual.

So, why label the paper "right-wing."

I would submit to you that very many people on the Left think that any form of "Zionism," whatever they may mean by that word exactly, is "right-wing." All forms of struggle for ethnic self-determination and autonomy are welcomed on the Left, as part of the larger coalition, with the sole exception of the movement for Jewish self-determination and autonomy which is deemed right-wing racist. As an Israeli newspaper with a Jewish Israeli publisher it is hardly surprising that the editorial stance of the paper favors Israel's ongoing existence as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

For this it gets labeled by bobdevo as "right-wing."

The piece, itself, is not worthy of much consideration because there is "no there, there."

It is in the comments where we learn how so many of our fellow "liberals" feel about "Zionists" and Israel.

Ion 

As a Jew (who lost family members in the Holocaust), I find Hillary’s blog in a right wing Zionist forum fucking disgusting. 

She should be ashamed.

Notice the use of "Zionist." They have constructed a negative resonance around this word such that anyone, or anything, that is Zionist is considered bad on a visceral level.

And, needless to say, As a Jew (who lost family members in the Holocaust), I find Ion's blog in a left-wing anti-Zionist forum even more disgusting.

Also, of course, we have the ever-popular "as-a-Jew" theme wherein Israel hating Jews give non-Jews the permission to likewise hate on Israel. After all, if I, as-a-Jew despise Israel why should not anyone else?

Finally, notice the shaming admonishment.

This is very common among anti-Semitic anti-Zionist Jews. Arabs and progressives have taught many progressive-left Jews to be ashamed of Israel, and her supporters, and therefore to remain in their good graces they wear that shame on their sleeves. In this case, of course, Ion is projecting the shame onto Hillary Clinton but it is the same principle.

Further comments under the diary, not surprisingly, descended into the usual mud-slinging between Hillary supporters and those that feel the Bern.

Karl Rover

Also, Israel is a state, and the Palestinians are stateless. That kind of makes the whole “protecting Israel” thing sound like the worst Likud propaganda.

Not only are the "Palestinians" without a state, they do not even have an organic nationality.

The "Palestinians" were constructed by the PLO, with some advice from the Soviets, and came into being for the sole political purpose of undermining Jewish self-defense and autonomy toward the end of the twentieth-century. I, myself, am slightly older than "the Palestinians."

Karl Rover thinks that "protecting Israel" - which is to say, protecting the Jewish people from never-ending Arab aggression within memory of the Shoah sounds "like the worst Likud propaganda."

Right. For the Jews of Israel to wish to defend themselves from the Car Ramming / Stabbing / Knife Intifada or Iran's stated genocidal ambitions is merely Israeli propaganda. Karl Rover seems to suggest that Jews do not really care about protecting their children.

And they wonder why the Democratic Party is drizzling support among Jews.

MargaretPOA

Israel does not = Judaism or vice-versa. I really don’t like Clinton’s unequivocal support for Israel’s government and their apartheid policies...

While it is, of course, true that Israel does not equal Judaism, it is also true that Israel is an ancient name for the Jewish people, as a whole, and for most Jewish people the rise of the State of Israel has a redemptive meaning. It is for this reason that the vast majority of Jewish people throughout the world relate to Israel. By falsely accusing Israel of apartheid, she seeks to rob Jewish people of our dignity thereby reducing us to the status that we had prior to World War II. The apartheid slander is meant to rob us of self-respect, the will to self-defense, and to whip up hatred among others toward us.

That's really all that it is and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it represents a lie.

Israel is surrounded by apartheid states, but is not one.

Joe Biden and J-Street

I am going to make this short and sweet because today is busy, busy.

So, VP Biden spoke to J-Street the other day and Jonathan Tobin wrote it up for Commentary:

According to Biden, the problem in the region is that “there is no will for peace” among Israelis or Palestinians. His argument was that both the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian Authority were equally responsible for the lack of progress. Their actions, he said, meant, “the trust that is necessary for peace is fractured on both sides.”

Feeding the liberal J Street audience what they wanted to hear, Biden excoriated settlements in the West Bank as “counterproductive” and a threat to Israel’s continuance as both a Jewish and democratic state.

There are two important things to consider here.

The first is the lie that the Jews of Israel have no will for peace.

This is among the most mendacious notions out there. Of course, the Jews want peace! There is nobody in the region that has greater reason to see peace than the Jewish people of Israel. The problem here is not that Jews are the aggressors, but that the great Arab-Muslim majority ruled over us in the region for thirteen hundred years, until the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Jewish nationalism in the early part of the twentieth-century, and - in part for religious reasons - the Arabs developed a taste for domination.

We are not the guilty party in this conflict.

We are not the imperialist aggressors.

All the Jews want is to be left the hell alone to litigate against one another and create various helpful medical and technological doo-dads.

The second is the racist focus on the notion that Jews should only be allowed to live in certain places.

How did we ever allow things to get to the point where so many of us honestly believe that allegedly well-meaning non-Jews, like Biden, have every right to tell us where we should be allowed to live on the very land that we come from?

Where is Jewish self-respect?

It is not Jews living in Judea that is "counterproductive," but Biden and his administration which are entirely so.

{Good Pesach.}

I Love Passover

Michael L.

I just picked up our brisket.

We're having about 20 crammed into our little home.

Y'know, I want to write about SFSU President Wong and his support for those who incite genocidal hatred toward Jews, but I have to tell you this holiday comes first.

I am not a particularly religious guy but that does not mean that this holiday does not resonate in my heart.

Wong can wait until next week.

I will be at the head of the table and am responsible for conducting a Passover Seder, which is a significant responsibility.

I don't think that I quite realized that as a kid.

Anyway, to my mind, Passover is about freedom and fun.

It's about freedom and what can that mean if it does not include the freedom to enjoy yourself with your friends and family?

We drink leaning to the left.

Sounds like college!

Laurie and I have been conducting Passover Seders for maybe 8 or 9 years, now. And, as you will probably not be surprised to learn, the crew sitting around those seders over the years has been motley.

I need to make charoset!

{Paul is supposed to do it, but he moved home to Cincinnati, for chrissake.}

Good Pesach, my friends.

Things that we must insert into the narrative

Sar Shalom

Last week, Vic blogged about what we have to do in order to assert our self-respect in public diplomacy. Included in that blogpost were four messages that must be promulgated, according to Vic, no matter what the liberal intelligentsia says. I would like to suggest some different messages that we must promulgate in order to change the terms of the debate.

1. The conflict is about Arab irredentism for the social order that existed in the Levant until the mid-19th century.
2. A sufficient number Palestinian Arabs must be allowed sovereignty over themselves in order to allow Israel to remain a democratic and Jewish state
3. The Palestinian Arabs have no inherent right to any land that is not required for item 2.

The first point is the most critical one. If the public believes that the Palestinians are fighting for self-determination, then we will be behind the 8-ball in any attempt to explain Israel's actions. However, if the public believes that their real motives are restoring the old social order and that claims about denying historical rights are nothing more than a smokescreen to justify doing so in whole or in part, we will have a freer hand to deny their demands. Convincing the public that that is so is no small matter. The point should be that the only solution that would satisfy the Palestinian national movement would be for the Jews be accept their place as good little dhimmis and that anyone who supports that solution is a racist.

The first step would be to repeat the history that relates what that social order was. This must be accompanied by how the mufti Amin al-Husseini labored against the erosion of that social and and promulgated that tolerance of that erosion constitutes treason. The second part is critical because taking the first step without the second would seem like holding a grudge for what the Palestinians' ancestors did, which can never be ameliorated, when the reality is that today's Palestinians seek to do as their ancestors did. This is something which can change and changing it would be a necessary condition to bring peace.

Point 2 answers the critics, who claim to be Israel's friends, yet insist that Israel must capitulate to their demands because they claim there is no other way to preserve Israel as both a Jewish state and a democracy, most recently by Joe Biden and the JStreet gala. Palestinian sovereignty in Areas A and B would provide that, meaning that no amount of Israeli activity in Area C would endanger Israel's status as either Jewish or democratic. Point 3 challenges those demanding that Israel do more than what is required to answer point 2 to say why they do so.

Daniel Greenfield Speaks

We differ very much, Daniel and I.

Daniel Greenfield is a religious Jew and I am, for the most part, not. Although Laurie and I will be holding our annual Passover Seder this week.

But I think that it is fair to say that Greenfield is pretty hard-core right-wing.

One thing that leftists need to learn is that if, for example, George W. Bush says that the day is sunny, this does not automatically mean it's raining outside.

In a recent piece entitled, Great Idea! Let's Create a Real Palestinian State, Greenfield cuts directly to the bone:

Forget the peace process. Forget negotiations. They’ve never worked before. They’re not going to now.

And there’s nothing to negotiate anyway.

There are almost a million Jews living on territory claimed by the PLO. Removing them would be the single greatest act of ethnic cleansing against an indigenous population today. It wod also be impossible. But the same people who insist that the United States, a country of 318 million, can’t deport 11 million illegal aliens, think that Israel will somehow deport 1/8th of its own population if they just chant loudly enough about “occupation” outside Jewish businesses in London or San Francisco.

Precisely.

So, what the anti-Israel Left is selling you guys is the idea that on moral grounds the US should never seek to deport illegal aliens which represent a mere fraction of the US population.

I do not know that I favor such an action, either, yet these hypocrites will insist that Israel must remove the "settlers" - which is to say, Jewish people - from land that they legally purchased on the very land that we come from.

It is outrageous.

It is bigoted.

It is wrong.

It will not work.

And given Jewish history it is entirely immoral.

Nobody gets to tell Jewish people that we cannot live on Jewish land.

We are willing to share it, but we are not going to give up our own homeland no matter how many jihadis or self-righteous and ignorant leftists scream at the mayor of Jerusalem at SFSU.

A Few Thoughts for SFSU Hillel Director Ollie Benn

Michael L.

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon.}

I have recently been in touch with the gentleman, who is relatively new to the job, and I am not the least bit surprised that he has not responded. I did, after all, refer to his university as among the most racist in the country... which it clearly is.

In any case, I thought that I would share those notes with you guys:

Be strong. Fight back.

 Dear Ollie,

between the kid with the dreads and GUPS yelling and screaming at Jerusalem mayor Barkat, I do not envy you, nor Professor Astren, one little bit.

The truth, of course, as you know, is that Jewish kids on campuses across the country are getting defamed, or even physically attacked, if they stand up for rights of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense within the Jewish homeland, which is the State of Israel.

I am a PhD from Penn State who earned a Masters degree in American History from SFSU in 2000 and who has taught at Penn State, SFSU, and City College of SF.

I saw the hatred and contempt for the Jewish people and the Jewish state when I was there as a student.

I will never forget walking by the Malcolm X Student Plaza and seeing a bunch of students from an African-American student organization standing on a platform with a big American flag behind them with Stars of David replacing the normal five-pointed stars in the American flag.

It was surreal.

I suggest that you encourage the students of Hillel to take up a martial art.

Krav Maga would make good sense.

Jewish college students need to learn self-defense, both physically and in terms of the history of the Jewish State of Israel.

They need to know that the Jews are not the aggressors in this conflict.

Peace to you, please.

Michael Lumish, PhD

Editor, Israel Thrives

{By the way, I met my wife at SFSU.}

I have no reason to doubt the integrity of this gentleman and I have absolutely nothing against him.

In any case, I followed up a few days later with this:

No response?

Y'know, the truth is that these kids are not prepared to meet their enemies, but GUPS and Rabab Abdulhadi are prepared.

They are going to tell you straight to your face that Israeli Jews are land thieves.

They will tell you, without blinking, that Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militaristic, apartheid, racist country.

You and your kids need to have an immediate response.

Do you?

You have to stand up strong for the Jewish kids and I very much hope that you do so.

I can come and speak to them about social media, but I suspect that you will not like what I have to say.

Mr. Benn is fully aware that there is a problem on his campus. In response to the Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, fiasco - where the mayor was prevented from speaking by screeching crybullies with an authoritarian agenda -  he writes in a note to friends of SFSU Hillel:

Following extensive communication and coordination, President Wong will meet this coming week with Jewish student leaders at SF State, and major Jewish community leaders from the Bay Area, to discuss how the University will ensure that events like last week do not happen again. 

That is certainly a good place to start. He continues:

When President Wong meets with our students, he will hear how shaken they were by (1) the deprivation of their right to speak, listen and participate in a robust exchange of ideas; (2) being subjected to aggressive, hostile and vulgar abuse. He will hear their strong and justified questions about their place in the campus community. 

 Good!

Look, what I want from this guy, as a Jewish alumnus of the university, is strong leadership. Furthermore, I have no reason to believe that he will not provide such leadership. What he says in his letter is fair and it makes sense.

Our students who support Israel realized several years ago that aggressive confrontation on the quad (1) was not who they wanted to be as people; and (2) more fundamentally, was a completely ineffective strategy.

I am not, however, certain why Benn thinks that Jewish self-defense is ineffective. I am certainly not advocating that Jewish kids go onto the quad and beat the holy hell of out members of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS). In fact, that's the whole point. Any kid who knows how to handle him or herself is far less likely to get into a fight than one who does not.

Any kid who knows Krav Maga or Kung Fu, for example, or just boxing, is not going to get bullied, because bullies only pick on the weak.

Since then, the students embarked on a sophisticated and impressive program of coalition building on campus. This goes beyond a superficial "come to our events and we'll come to yours" approach. Our students have built real substantive relationships based on shared values, and understand on a deep level what really matters to other groups.

And it has worked. We regularly see student government leaders, and members of the Black, Latino, LGBT and Women's Center student leadership at Shabbat. And we've also sent leaders of those groups to Israel, where they see for themselves that simple, one-sided narratives do not reflect the complicated, rich and amazing realities there. 

I could not applaud this more.

Coalition building is tremendously important and I would also suggest to Mr. Benn that he encourage his students to join with other indigenous students on campus. The Jewish people are the indigenous people to the Land of Israel and thus should meet with other indigenous students in common cause to stand up for indigenous rights.

But support us.

And I don't just mean financially.

Really support us. Reply to me with a message I can pass on to our staff and students at tonight's Shabbat telling them how proud you are of all they're doing. And trust that, as the organization that invests day-in and day-out in student life, we have their interests at heart, and will create the best possible environment for them to thrive on campus.

My reputation on that campus is shot because I killed it myself.

And although hiring anti-Semitic anti-Zionists who want to partner with An-Najah university was just flat-out stupid, this does not mean that SFSU is hopelessly racist. Like any other sizable American university it is diverse and the average Jewish kid, who does not bother himself with pro-Israel / pro-Jewish politics, is not likely to receive a hard time.

I have no desire whatsoever to denigrate SFSU Hillel director Ollie Benn.

I just want him to be a strong leader for the kids and, if his letter is any indication, it looks to me like he may very well be.

I would encourage you guys to give the SFSU Hillel, and Mr. Benn, a positive shout out.

415 - 333 - 4922

info@Sfhillel.org

They deserve your support.

Apollo

What can I tell you guys.

Human beings are unquestionably leaving this solar system within the coming decades.

We are barely getting started.

The Apollo Project brought humanity to the moon.

Next we will put a human being on the surface of Mars and then we will hop from planet to planet until we send human beings beyond our solar system.

It is inevitable.

NASA is only one space flight agency. It is an important one, but it is not the only one. The community of people who are interested in this kind of thing are all over the world and now often represent private interests.

Only a tiny fraction of humanity gives this a moments' thought, but whether we think about it or not, it is happening.

Humanity is on the move.

A Note from Nachman

Michael L.

I received an email this morning from my old Daily Kos friend, Nachman, concerning A Note to Ollie Benn at SFSU Hillel.

Nachman thinks that Jewish kids need to learn how to kick ass and I know, for certain, Jon Segall, who practices Krav Maga, agrees entirely... despite the fact that he would argue, mistakenly, that we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Nachman writes:

Mike,

I see you’re getting there, landsman. You’re making the same journey I did.

Gut Yontiff. :-)

This was my response:

Nachman,

What can anyone say?

In a certain kind of way, I suppose that I owe Daily Kos a favor. It was those guys who taught me about anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.

And I definitely think that organizations like Hillel need to get more muscular.

"Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!"

Universities around the country support anti-Jewish anti-Israel organizations like the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) that quite literally calls for the murder of Jews. I mean, really, what is an intifada aside from an attempt to kill Jews?

Some kids on American campuses are calling for the murder of Jews and the administrations are funding this.

This is no joke.

Sometimes when I speak to friends about this I get a shrug. Ya know, they're just college students. Yup. They are just college students who will one day run the country with an anti-Jewish anti-Israel bias because the western-left has provided a home for people who despise Israel.

To hell with that.

We need pro-Israel pro-Jewish organizations like Hillel to stand up.

If the Jewish people will not stand up for themselves, nobody is going to do it for us.

Who are we going to count on, Barack Obama? The "first Jewish president." 

Puh-lease.

I do not know Ollie Benn at all and he has only been on the job for a relatively short period of time.

I just hope that he knows how to throw a punch. Astren does, but seems reluctant to do so.

A Note to Ollie Benn at SFSU Hillel

Michael L.

{I wrote this as a personal note to the guy, but he did not respond. I guess that he has my number. What I really miss, tho, are the purple sweatshirts with "San Francisco" written in Hebrew, but I can get that kind of stuff elsewhere. What I really want is for Jewish guys in this kind of position to stand the hell up, y'know?}

Be strong. Fight back.

Dear Ollie,

between the kid with the dreads and GUPS yelling and screaming at Jerusalem mayor Barkat, I do not envy you, nor Professor Astren, one little bit.

The truth, of course, as you know, is that Jewish kids on campuses across the country are getting defamed, or even physically attacked, if they stand up for rights of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense within the Jewish homeland, which is the State of Israel.

I am a PhD from Penn State who earned a Masters degree in American History from SFSU in 2000 and who has taught at Penn State, SFSU, and City College of SF.

I saw the hatred and contempt for the Jewish people and the Jewish state when I was there as a student.

I will never forget walking by the Malcolm X Student Plaza and seeing a bunch of students from an African-American student organization standing on a platform with a big American flag behind them with Stars of David replacing the normal five-pointed stars in the American flag.

It was surreal.

I suggest that you encourage the students of Hillel to take up a martial art.

Krav Maga would make good sense.

Jewish college students need to learn self-defense, both physically and in terms of the history of the Jewish State of Israel.

They need to know that the Jews are not the aggressors in this conflict.

Peace to you, please.

Michael Lumish, PhD

Editor, Israel Thrives

{By the way, I met my wife at SFSU.}

The Snowflakes of San Francisco State

Michael L.

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

San Francisco State University is among the most racist and anti-Semitic universities in the United States, which is why it is partnering with An-Najah University in Nablus, which is among the most racist universities in the world. This is only fitting. Birds of a feather, and so forth.

San Francisco State University racism takes the forms of progressive-left racism, more generally. That is, the delicate snowflakes at SFSU practice humanitarian racism toward people "of color" while promoting a highly aggressive and vicious form of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism toward Jews.

Humanitarian racism, of course, is the type of racism that views ethnic minorities (with the sole exception of Jews) as little children who have no agency and, thus, can never be held responsible for their behavior. The quintessential form of humanitarian racism is directed at the Arabs of Israel who are considered the World Champions of Victimhood. Israeli Jews are considered so horrible that no matter what the Arabs do to them, they are worthy of it. For the humanitarian racist, Arabs have every right to kill Jews as a matter of righteous resistance to The Occupation... with the Big O.

For the precious snowflakes at SFSU the mere presence of Jewish people on traditionally Jewish land is an outrage to the native, indigenous "Palestinians" who are said to have lived on that land since long before the creation of the Earth, itself. As we all know, of course, Adam and Eve were the original Arab-Muslims. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all Arab-Muslims. Moses was an Arab-Muslim. And Jesus was the first "Palestinian" shaheed.

Or, so Palestinian-Arab spokesmen have told us.

Anti-Semitism at SFSU, on the other hand, takes the form of a truly virulent and toxic form of anti-Zionism that transfers classic anti-Semitic themes, such as the blood libel, from Jews, as individuals, to the collective Jew, the State of Israel. So, instead of claiming that individual Jews enjoy killing Christian babies for the purpose of baking their blood into matzoh, the snowflakes tell one another that the collective Jew enjoys killing Arab children for no reason whatsoever. The Israelis are just brutes. Fascists. A subhuman species of semi-human beings that deserves whatever punishment the Arab world wishes to dish out. If Arabs wish to train their children to Jew Hatred and then send them out into the streets of Israel with hand-axes for the purpose of murdering random Jews, who can blame them?

The snowflakes sit in their "safe spaces" and tell one another that Israel is a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic, apartheid, genocidal, racist state and then march forth to yell and scream and moan and cry and wave around their little "Palestinian" flags - which is really just the flag of Jordan with the star removed - when the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, drops by for an open discussion at the invitation of SFSU Hillel.

According to Jordan Vale, writing in the Golden Gate Xpress:

“The Middle East, Israel in particular, have always been hot topics for this campus,” Assistant Director to San Francisco Hillel Rachel Nilson said before introducing Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat for an open dialogue with SF State students and community members. Her statement turned out to be prophetic when, minutes after Barkat started his opening speech, members of the General Union of Palestine Students stormed Seven Hills Conference Center demanding Barkat’s expulsion from the campus.

“We don’t want you on our campus!” they shouted. “Get the hell off our campus!”

GUPS was joined by members of the Black Student Union, the League of Filipino Students, and Defend and Advance Ethnic Studies. The crowd of about 40 students quickly took up chants, clapping, waving Palestinian flags and thrusting their fists in the air.

“Free, free, free Palestine!” one of the lead protesters chanted, which the crowd behind her echoed.

Snowflakes like their "safe spaces" where they can peacefully gaze at one another's navels even as they spread hatred toward out-groups like the Jews of Israel or, say, white Evangelicals, and whoever else they have deemed worthy of violent hatred. None of this, of course, is the least bit negotiable. They are not interested in dialogue or the free expression of ideas, for if they were, they would not have used bully-boy tactics to prevent the mayor of Jerusalem from being heard.

This is why Roger Kimball entitled his piece for the Wall Street Journal last November, The Rise of the College Crybullies.

By all accounts, Barkat endured the yelling and screaming and whining and moaning for about an hour before he excused himself and left campus. The question that many people are currently asking themselves is why the university did not dispatch the campus police to remove the protesters so that the people who came to listen and speak with Barkat could do so in a civilized manner. There was just one cop on hand who, according to reports, did nothing. Barkat had a body guard to protect himself, but the body guard certainly had no authority to try to roust students. All he could do was prevent the crybully-snowflakes from attacking the mayor.

Needless to say, it must be acknowledged that the great majority of students on that campus, like the great majority of students throughout the country, are not running around spitting hatred at anyone. Most SFSU students, like most people, in general, simply want to be left alone in order to pursue their particular interests.

However, one must ask oneself just why it is that SFSU funds a student organization like GUPS that calls for the murder of Jewish people?

Every time the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist snowflakes gather at Malcolm X Plaza shouting "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada" they are calling, quite specifically, for the murder of Jewish people and the university gives them money to organize such activities.

When it comes to supporting hatred few campuses in the United States do a finer job than San Francisco State University.

Audio Link

Gemini VI-A and VII

The first manned rendevouz with another spacecraft, 1965.

Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford in Gemini VI-A.

Frank F. Borman, II and James A. Lovell, Jr in Gemini VII.

The spacecraft never actually docked.

They just kissed noses.

Jewish White Racist Snowflake Dreadlocks

Michael L.

{Jewish White Racist Snowflake Dreadlocks audio file.}

Most of you guys are probably aware of the recent case of the Jewish White Racist Snowflake Dreadlocks.

Corey Goldstein is a student at San Francisco State University and he has dreadlocks and he is a DJ and he got accosted by some black girl in SFSU's Caesar Chavez student center for, in an allegedly racist manner, "culturally appropriating" his hairstyle which she claims is owned exclusively by her people.

"You're saying that I can't have a hair style because of your culture? Why?" Goldstein asked.

"Because it's my culture," she said.

Who is this white, Jewish kid to confiscate hair-styling from her people, anyway? Who are white kids or Jewish kids to wear anything that comes from formerly colonized Africa?

The whole issue is entirely stupid along the lines of The Great Falafel Debate, but the question of "cultural appropriation" is interesting because it is out there on the Politically-Correct western cultural landscape. My suspicion is that it is basically an insect that can be easily quashed, but if we fail to do so it could transmogrify into a monster.

I have been hard on SFSU because, as a former graduate student there, I deeply resent the fact that the university continues to financially support at least one student organization that directly calls for more violence against the Jewish people. It is not that other universities that I have been associated with have not likewise supported such groups, but that SFSU is unquestionably the most vehemently racist.

The General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) is advised by professor Rabab Abdulhadi and represents the kind of students that gather together at SFSU's Malcolm X. Plaza and raise their fists and cry out "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada!," while wearing their fashionable terrorist scarves. The intifada, of course, is the attempt within Israel by Arab-Muslims to murder Jews. The caterwauling of Abdulhadi's students might as well be, "Kill the Jews! Kill the Jews! We all need to kill the Jews!"

I wonder how SFSU would respond if a bunch of students from Hillel gathered in Malcolm X. Plaza and called for the murder of Arabs or Muslims?

Given the double-standard and the fact that any form of Jewish self-defense is seen as a form of aggression, my guess is that the university administration would act in a manner both swift and harsh.

Former SFSU student, Muhammad Hammad

No wonder that a few years ago the president of GUPS, Muhammad Hammad - genius that he is - went onto social media to hold up his blade and discuss his psychopathological desire to kill Jews in Israel... and this as he was enrolled in the same class as a young female Israeli who was still a member of the IDF. He must have felt rather surprised when the university turned around and booted him off campus.

Corey Goldstein and the Jewish White Racist Snowflake Dreadlocks issue may seem off-topic, but the fact is that Snowflake Nation supports the Big Lie against the Jews of Israel and should be confronted not only on the Arab-Israel conflict, but on their unrelenting and entirely mind-numbing insistence upon Political Correctness.

But the question of "cultural appropriation," in particular, needs to be stomped into the dust.

Cultural Appropriation.

The entire concept is moronic and whatever professor originally came up with it will burn in hell, if he or she is not already. It's just dumb. Every culture borrows from other cultures. No culture is an isolated social system that never borrows from other cultures. In fact, I thought that what we were supposed to get from the Multi-Culti Cult is the joyous sharing of cultural productions.

Y'know, we get to enjoy good Pakistani food and Jihadis get to blow us up.

Seems fair.

Podcast: Some Thoughts on Jews and the Left

Michael L.

Mike in Dolores Park, SF, in the late 00s

This is five minutes in length.

I am just beginning to learn about audio.

Michael Burd and Alan Freedman were kind enough to offer me a number of slots in May and June for writing and creating the introductions to J-Air's Nothing Left radio show out of Melbourne.

My future podcasts will be integrated into Israel Thrives, but for the moment this will do.

Jews and the Left

Meir Ettinger and "Administrative Orders"

Michael L.

{Also published at The Jewish Press and Jews Down Under.}

Writing in Israel National News, Shlomo Pyotrkovsky tells us:

Be'er Sheva district court judge Yisrael Pablo Axelrod on Sunday rejected the petition to release Meir Ettinger from his administrative detention for several hours on Monday so as to attend the brit milah (circumcision) of his firstborn son.

Ettinger has been held for the past eight months without trial or charges against him on administrative orders, a relic from the British Mandate which has almost exclusively been used against Arab terror suspects.

Meir Ettinger is the grandson of the much despised Meir Kahane... who many Jews confuse with the Devil. Kahane's Kach Party was, in the late 1980s, deemed a racist political party and the government barred members from running for the Knesset.

Ettinger is what is commonly referred to as a "Hilltop Youth." That is, he is among the generation of young Israelis who believe strongly for religious reasons in the connection of the Jewish people to our traditional homeland and are willing to risk the unhappiness of the government by settling non-annexed outposts in Judea and Samaria beyond that Holy of Holies, the "green line."

I am the kind of guy who is often accused of thinking that Israel can do no wrong. In fact, I have plenty of criticisms concerning Israel and the fact that they are holding people in prison without charge is one of them.

I don't care if the person is an Arab or a Muslim or a Jew or a Rosicrucion, it is a violation of the most fundamental premises of the political Enlightenment for a government to detain anyone for an extended period of time without charges being brought against the person.

{Do I really need to remind anyone of this?}

This is a little thing that we in the West like to refer to as Habeas Corpus.

There is no right derived from the European liberal tradition more basic than the right to not be thrown into the clink without charges being raised, without access to an attorney of law, and without being allowed to face one's accuser.

Perhaps I am just biased towards the Constitution of the United States and its fourth amendment within the Bill of Rights that guarantees that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

In other words, it is against the law in the United States to throw anyone in prison without due process and due process requires a trial by jury.

There are certain things that anger me about Israel, such as its policies in regard the Temple Mount, but this issue is something that I can agree upon with the most virulent demonizers of Israel.

It violates basic standards of human decency to hold people without charge for months on end. It is simply wrong and, to the extent that people are held in detention within Israel without access to a fair trial, the practice must end.

It may have been a story around Meir Ettinger that caught my eye, but the fundamental principle of a right of trial by jury needs to be extended to every citizen of the State of Israel no matter what their ideological beliefs.

Pyotrkovsky writes:

Ettinger is being imprisoned in extreme conditions of solitary confinement and is not being allowed any phone calls except to several close family members, even though there has been no evidence or indictment presented against him for any crime.

I would not care if this guy was the grandson of Yassir Arafat, this is unacceptable.

Vic Rosenthal is a Menace to Society

Michael L.

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon.}

Not too long ago Laurie and I met some friends for dinner at a sort-of upscale soul-food joint in Oakland. I ordered the southern fried chicken... because I love me southern fried chicken. About fifteen minutes after our food arrived our waitress asked, in passing, "Is everything good?" I - being the pain in the ass that I tend to be - raised my hand and called her over.

"I have a problem with this chicken," I said.

"Oh, I am sorry. What is the problem?," she asked.

"You guys do it better than I do and I really hate that!"

She practically patted me on the head with a smile before moving on to her next table.

This is basically the way that I feel about Rosenthal.

You guys have to check out his most recent piece, entitled "Tolerance and terrorism" at Abu Yehuda and the Elder of Ziyon.

The thing with Rosenthal, that I appreciate, is that he is a straight-shooter.

Listen to this:

The truth is that whether they know it or not, all of the non-Muslim world is at war, a war being fought by unconventional means, but a war nevertheless. The enemy is a loose confederation of Muslim groups, from militias to nations, that agree on little other than that the entire world should be ruled by Islam, and that jihad is the way to bring this about. It is entirely correct to call it a war of Islamic conquest.

"...a loose confederation of Muslim groups, from militias to nations..."

It is not all Muslims and it has nothing whatsoever to do with race or skin color or ethnicity... at least not from our end. This is about a segment of the Muslim population throughout the world that wants to kick your ass in the name of Allah. The reason that they want you dead is because you have refused to submit to their religious dictates and imperatives.

According to Islamists or Jihadis or Islamofascists or advocates for Political Islam - or whatever terminology makes you most happy - anyone who is not on-board with the Caliphatic agenda is worthy of death and that is why they slaughtered those poor bastards in Brussels.

What needs to be most emphatically understood is that none of this has anything to do with payback for the behavior of westerners or Jews.

The Jihadi war against the West, and against the Jewish people, is not some sort-of natural response to western or Jewish imperialism or colonialism because it is Islam, itself, which is the single most successful imperial-colonial power since the demise of the Roman Empire. Within one hundred years of the death of Muhammad, in 632 CE, Arab Muslims poured out the Saudi peninsula and conquered the entirety of the Middle East, while already banging on the gates of Europe.

Rosenthal writes:

Israel is very much on the front line of this war. Her location is highly strategic; she is considered a Western outpost in a region that by rights should be Muslim. She has become symbolic of the struggle since the Crusades. Many Muslims live in the territory Israel controls – that Jews control – a situation that is intolerable for them.

And this why the work of people like Ryan Bellerose is important. He insists, rightly, upon reminding the Jewish people that we are the indigenous population within the Land of Israel.  What both Rosenthal and Bellerose know full-well is that the enemies of the Jewish people - on both the Left and the Right, but most particularly the Left these day - falsely accuse the Jewish people of being interlopers on our own land.


The Elder reduced the issue to its primary structure in this graphic.

This is the message that we need to bang home consistently and without reservation, because it also happens to be historically truthful. This is not open to question. This is not a matter of a little of this and a little of that. No. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of that little part of the world and what much of the western-left is telling us is that Judah is Arabian land.

It isn't.

The Jewish people are willing to share that land with our Arab neighbors, although it might be nice if their media would stop encouraging their children to run out into the streets to stab random Jews for political-religious reasons.

Until the Palestinian-Arabs forgo their Jew Killing Policy they will get nothing, because they deserve nothing.

Israel represents .02 percent of the landmass of the Middle East.

.02

The Jihadis can either accept that or go back to their home in that Islamic Shangri-la, Saudi Arabia.

My guess is that Rosenthal would agree.

The Gemini Project

Ed White Performing an EVA during Gemini 4

The American space program, with Project Mercury, began with the Original Seven.

These were Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra, Alan Shepard, Gordo Cooper, Gus Grissom, Deke Slayton, and John Glenn.

One of these men walked on the moon and one of them died in the effort.

The Gemini Project was the intermediary step between Mercury and Apollo and was begun in 1961 and concluded in 1966.

The basic objectives were to see if human beings could live outside of Earth in a spacecraft for an extended period, to rendezvous and dock with another vehicle beyond the Earth's atmosphere, and to conduct Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), i.e. "space walks."

Each of these stages were necessary to fulfill the human desire to walk upon the face of the moon.

The Gemini astronauts - also known as the New Nine - included Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, Ed White, John Young, Jim McDivitt, Elliot See, and Thomas Stafford.

Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, the last of whom belonged to Astronaut Group 3, died in the Apollo 1 fire of January 27, 1967.