Op-ed: UC Irvine Faculty Call for Civility During Wall Week
Amihai Glazer | May 12, 2010 | Comments 13
We, faculty at the University of California, Irvine, are deeply disturbed about activities on campus that foment hatred against Jews and Israelis. The troubling events over the past few years include the painting of swastikas in university buildings, the Star of David depicted as akin to a swastika, a statement (by a speaker repeatedly invited by the Muslim Student Union) that the Zionist Jew is a party of satan, a statement by another MSU speaker that the Holocaust was God’s will, the tearing down of posters placed by the student group Anteaters for Israel, and the hacking of their web site. Some community members, students, and faculty indeed feel intimidated, and at times even unsafe. Some of these actions are protected by the First Amendment and in no way do we want to limit freedom of speech. We welcome open dialogue among all members of the UCI community. We respect and value our Muslim colleagues, including those members of the MSU who support and encourage open dialogue and civility on campus. At the same time, we take issue with hate-promoting actions that we find unacceptable. They run counter to the peaceful co-existence and civility that are essential to a university environment. Actions that demonize and derogate others, such as the previous events that have occurred on our campus noted above, have contributed to UCI’s developing a growing reputation as a center of hate and intolerance. Our campus deserves better.
Signed:
Myron Bander, Professor of Physics
Marlon Boarnet, Professor, Department of Planning, Policy, and Design
Matthew Brenner, Professor, Department of Medicine
Dvora Cyrlak, Professor of Diagnostic Imaging
Gil Conchas, Associate Professor, Department of Education
Dan Cooper, Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering
Rina Dechter, Professor, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Hamid Djalilian, Associate Professor of Surgery
Jill Endres, MD, Director, Surgical Education, Department of Surgery
George Farkas, Professor, Department of Education
Paul Feldstein, Robert Gumbiner Professor, The Paul Merage School of Business
Gary Fouse, Adjunct teacher, University Extension
Stephen Franklin, Lecturer, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Jean Fried, Project Scientist, Department of Planning, Policy, and Design
De Gallow, Director, Teaching, Learning & Technology Center, Division
of Undergraduate Education
Julia M. Gelfand, Applied Sciences & Engineering Librarian
Amihai Glazer, Professor, Department of Economics
Sara Wallace Goodman, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
Sheldon Greenfield, Donald Bren Professor, School of Medicine
Dan Hirschberg, Professor, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Christopher Kahn, Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine
Tatiana Kain, Chair and Medical Director, Department of Emergency Medicine
Zeev Kain, Professor, Anesthesiology & Pediatrics & Psychiatry
Sherrie Kaplan, Professor of Medicine
Mark I. Langdorf, Professor, Clinical Emergency Medicine
Marc Lerner, Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Howard M. Lenhoff, Professor Emeritus, Developmental & Cell Biology
Elizabeth Loftus Professor Psychology and Social Behavior, criminology, law and society
and a professor of Law
Gloria Mark, Professor, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Richard Matthew, Professor of Planning, Policy, and Design
Seymour Menton, Research Professor, Department of Spanish & Portugese
Frank Meyskens, Professor of Medicine, Biological Chemistry and Public Health
Dana Mukamel, Professor, Department of Medicine
David Neumark, Professor, Department of Economics
Alex Nicolau, Professor, Department of Computer Science
Raymond W. Novaco, Professor, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
Eliezer Nussbaum, M.D., Professor of Clinical Pediatrics,
Ellen Olshansky, Professor and Director, Program in Nursing Science
Richard Pattis, Lecturer, Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
Harry Pellman, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
Henry N. Pontell, Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology
Shlomit Radom-Aizik, Postdoc, Department of Pediatrics
Judy Rosener, Senior Lecturer, School of Business
Carl H. Schultz, Professor, Emergency Medicine
Jacobo Sefami, Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Roberta Seid, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences
Roxane Cohen Silver, Professor Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
William A. Sirignano, Professor, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Etel Solingen, Chancellor’s Professor, Political Science
Dara Sorkin, Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine
Eugene Spiritus, Chief Medical Officer, UCI Medical Center
Robin Steinberg-Epstein M.D. Medical School Education
Hal Stern, Professor, Department of Statistics
Dan Stokols, Chancellor’s Professor, Department of Planning, Policy,
and Design and Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
Jerome Tobis, Professor emeritus (recalled)
Gene Tsudik, Professor, Department of Computer Science
Alex Veidenbaum, Professor, Department of Computer Science
Mark Warschauer, Professor of Education and Informatics
James Weiss, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine
Hadar Ziv, Lecturer/Research Scientist, Department of Informatics
Filed Under: Opinion • OpinionEater
Leila-
I’ve been to Bethlehem. You’re probably the only Christian from there (however long you lived there) who doesn’t have an issue with the fact that Muslim Arabs, through sheer population explosion, have all but stolen the city from the Christians.
But you’re right that criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. There’s a saying that goes, “No one criticizes Israel more than Israelis.” I criticized Ehud Olmert for being involved in that scandal 2 years ago. My friends criticize Avigdor Lieberman for his unusually strong rhetoric. The same way I criticize Obama for his foreign policy, or the US army whenever their soldiers unnecessarily kill civilians. But I don’t call for the destruction and international condemnation of the US, because that takes it beyond criticism.
What you and your fellow anti-Zionists term “criticism” is, by textbook definition, nothing more than double-standards and hostile delegitimization. Calling Israel a Nazi, apartheid, racist, or evil state is not criticism; saying Israel oppresses the Palestinians and Arabs and pretending that many of the latter do not attack the former on a daily basis is not criticism; demonizing Israel for the Flotilla Fiasco without looking at the situation from Israel’s side, or taking into account the US blockade on Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis is not critcism.
It’s all double-standards, hatred, and ignorance.
And if you’ve bothered to study Judaism at all, you’d know that the Torah mentions Jerusalem over 800 times. That’s eight hundred, with two zeros. Which is nothing to say of how many times it mentions Israel. So your claim that Zionism is not part of Judaism is wrong at best, the butt of many jokes at worst.
The Qur’an mentions Jerusalem only once or twice, and in at least one of those passages, it’s about Allah describing the Jews as “children of Jerusalem”.
Seeking out willful ignorance wherever it lurks,
~A
Anyone who cannot separate Judaism from Zionism has absolutely no credibility.
Criticizing Israel is NOT anti-semitic. Just like criticizing Saudi Arabia is NOT anti-Muslim.
I hope the students at UC Irvine continue to bring to light Israel’s crimes against humanity. And I hope these so called professors stop trying to justify Israel’s crimes by hiding being the anti-semitism argument.
Hatred and lack of tolerance should not cause fear and inconvenience among students and faculty/stuff. We are not part of the campus to make it our battlefield. There are many civilized ways to express ourselves, and it is never necessary to make others feel unsafe and worried to prove that we have the right to free speech.
Thank you.
Thank you
Signed. These whole occurrences are an embarrassment to the school. No one should have to feel unsafe on campus.
no one cares, we don’t really feel like giving into to a bunch of complainers with no intellectual reasoning behind supporting a small group of people who act like an annoying group of hippies with a pair of drums and a guitar – BOYCOTT. DIVEST. SANCTION.
another pathetic attempt by supporters of a state that is condemned by Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and the UN to be pitied. all these “professors” should be fired for their lack of intelligence and care for humanity.
I’ll drink to that.
THANK YOU
Thanks to each of you for condemning hatred and prejudice in a publid forum.
Here is a short video which is shockingly reminiscent of the hatred and prejudice experienced by Ambassador Oren when he “tried” to speak at UC/Irvine.
UC/Irvine needs to be more proactive in disciplining students before incidents like the following one happen here.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/05/this-is-sweden-muslims-shout-allahu-akbar-as-lars-vilks-attacked.html
win.
What a bunch of hypocrisy. Amihai Glazer has been a cheerleader for howling “anti-semitism” at moslem organizations for a long time. Now he rounds up a bunch of mostly Jewish professors at the university and creates this ‘victimization’ appeal. Well Mr. Glazer where were u when the university invited Michael Oren and no Palestinian to present their point of view.