UCI Anti-Semitism Distorted
Editorial Board | Mar 05, 2007 | Comments 1
UC Irvine is being investigated for anti-Semitism for the third time in as many years, this time by the Hillel Foundation of Orange County. Although Hillel’s report likely won’t be released for a few months, one can already predict with a high degree of certainty what it will say.
We’ll hear again about the destruction of a Holocaust memorial in 2003, a swastika carved into a table and two more painted on a wall in Vista del Campo. You can count on mentions of last year’s ‘Holocaust in the Holy Land’ event and the many speeches by perennial hatemonger and Muslim Student Union favorite Amir Abdel Malik Ali. Hillel might even scour old letters to the New University to find strongly worded condemnations of the ‘racist political ideology of Zionism’ and the ‘oppressive Israeli occupation of Palestine.’
But when one considers the entirety of the evidence that can be brought against UCI, the inescapable conclusion is that anti-Semitic students are a tiny minority who give a bad name to the 25,000 others here.
Exaggerating the extent of anti-Semitism at UCI does harm unfairly to our school’s reputation and sends the misleading message that anti-Semites are welcome here.
The few virulently anti-Jewish students at UCI
Popularity: unranked [?]
Filed Under: Opinion
Perhaps you should take their allegations seriously instead of downplaying them. You even prejudged the outcome of the investgation instead of waiting to hear it’s outcome. The tone of your response is that it is tiring to hear such allegations. I am sure that it is equally tiring to suffer such anti-semitism in a place where all religions and cultures should be made to feel welcome. Strongly worded condemnations of such anti-Semitic acts would go farther toward eradicating such hate than tired responses about a tiny minority of students being responsible.