With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel

With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel

Two violent attacks campus speakers have gained widespread media attention in recent months — the attack on Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC-Berkeley, and Charles Murray at Middlebury.

Less violent, but still disruptive, attempts were made to shut down Rick Santorum and Michael Johns at Cornell, Christina Hoff Sommers at Oberlin, Georgetown and elsewhere. and other conservative speakers.

Finally, there is widespread condemnation even from the left, particularly after Middlebury.

Yet we have been covering shout-downs and violence directed at speakers on campus for several years, but for the most part these events never gained national media attention much less condemnation from the left. Because the speakers who were disrupted were mostly Jewish Israelis and supporters of Israel. Not all those shouted down or attacked were Jewish, but all were deemed supportive of Zionism, the recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jews.

The perpetrators frequently acted under the banner of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and Students for Justice in Palestine, or similar anti-Israel groups.

The disruptions started long ago, directed at Israeli political figures like a riot to shut down Benjamin Netanyahu in 2002 at Concordia University in Canada:

And the disruption of former Ambassador Michael Oren, as the SFGate reported in 2011, Muslim students found guilty of disrupting speech:

In an emotional conclusion to a case that generated national debate over free speech rights, a jury on Friday found 10 Muslim students guilty of disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine last year.

Although the students faced up to a year in jail on the misdemeanor charges, they instead were placed on three years of informal probation, and ordered to perform 56 hours of community service.

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas issued a statement afterward in which he called the students’ disruptions “censorship by a few.”

“History requires us to draw a line in the sand against this sort of organized thuggery,” he said.

We have reported on several other such recent disruptions targeting non-politicians, including at University of Minnesota Law School of an Israeli professor:

At UT-Austin of an Israeli Studies professor:

At Kings College (London) of an Israeli speaker:

Here is some of the footage I filmed last night of people banging on the windows and intimidating those inside pic.twitter.com/0hKTo48qC9

— Russell Langer (@R_Langer) January 20, 2016

At Edinburgh U. and  U. Windsor of an Israeli diplomat who is Bedouin:

And an Israeli diplomat who is Christian:

At an LGBTQ Shabbat Event in Chicago of Jewish and Israeli speakers.

At University of Ireland – Galway of a professor who supports Zionism (language warning):

At the Florida International University, of Israeli student speakers:

These incidents are just examples, by no means an exhaustive list. The AMCHA Initiative has a list of disruptions, though even that list is not exhaustive.

Even events that are not disrupted are protested, such as the appearance of actor Michael Douglas and human rights hero Natan Sharansky at Brown University.

The message for Jews and supporters of Israel on campus has been clear for years — your speech will be disrupted and we will seek to drive you from campus by whatever means possible.

Now it’s come around more generally to anyone right of center campuses, with almost explicit incitement from mostly recent graduates of Middlebury College, for example, who termed Charles Murray’s mere appearance and speech a “threat” to students that warrant opposition “however you see fit”:

The anti-free speech “social justice warrior” monster now stalking campuses didn’t start recently.

First they came for the Jews and Israel.

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