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.

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