Protesters at UC-Berkeley Shout Down Conservative Israeli Lawmaker’s Talk
“We are deeply disturbed and disappointed by the disruptions that took place at our event yesterday, which was stormed and shut down by anti-Israel rioters”
When are schools going to start expelling people for doing this? That’s the only way you’re going to end it.
The College Fix reports:
Protest shuts down conservative Israeli lawmaker’s talk at UC Berkeley
The presence of a conservative Israeli lawmaker at UC Berkeley drew an angry crowd of protesters whose rowdy interruptions prompted the event to shut down and move online.
The disruption took place last week during a law school forum that featured Simcha Rothman, a member of the Israeli parliament’s Religious Zionist Party.
Rothman was on campus for an event titled “Restoring Democracy: The Debate Over Judicial Reform in Israel” hosted by the Federalist Society chapter at UC Berkeley, SF Gate reported.
Pro-Palestinian student protesters repeatedly shouted “antifada revolution, there is only one solution” outside the venue, according to social media posts. Some members of UnXeptable also took part in the protest, the Gate reported:
Offir Gutelzon, a co-founder of UnXeptable … told SFGATE that the group wanted to press Rothman on his plan to reform Israel’s judiciary, and to ask why he’s not doing more to ensure the release of the nearly 100 Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza.
“He needs to be home and work on saving the hostages, releasing the hostages, and not trying to promote the judicial overhaul,” Gutelzon said in an interview on Friday. …
Other videos from Rothman’s appearance show that the event quickly turned even more raucous after it officially began.
Pro-Palestinian protesters also attended Tuesday’s event, and in a video obtained by SFGATE, one of them can be heard shouting at Rothman just four minutes after he began answering questions from the event’s host. From there, protesters on either side began arguing with each other and Rothman was soon ushered out of the auditorium by security.
The Berkeley Federalist Society condemned the incident in an Instagram post.
“We are deeply disturbed and disappointed by the disruptions that took place at our event yesterday, which was stormed and shut down by anti-Israel rioters,” the group stated. “Our academic institutions cannot function as intended so long as the right to free speech is only selectively protected.”
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Comments
Ahh, Berkeley. The home of free speech as long as we like it.
Simcha Rotman is excellent. Much too good for Berkley.
The judicial reform package was if anything too tame. If our judicial branch behaved the way the Israeli one does, there would be tar and feathers all around, not to mention impeachments and criminal trials.
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