BDS Tag

On November 13, 2015, the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) at UT-Austin disrupted an event hosted by Israel Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur at which a guest speaker (who also was Israeli) from Stanford University was to lead a discussion. The PSC protesters, led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi and former Middle East Studies grad student Patrick Higgins, refused to leave when asked, shouted arguably threatening demands for an Intifada, and for the destruction of Israel. Prof. Pedahzur's concerns were heightened when he learned, after the disruption, that Nabulsi and Higgins appeared to have had online aliases using the names of known terrorists. Nabulsi has written of the need for the anti-Israel boycott movement to support Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other “resistance” groups.

The students who disrupted a UT-Austin Israel Studies event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur have gone on the offensive, filing a "civil rights" complaint with the University. The disruption was carried out by the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, who also is a leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus. Despite my requests both to the University and the students' lawyer Brian McGiverin, I have not received a copy of the complaint. But the nature of the charges has been explained in press statements issued by the students and McGiverin. The Austin Chronicle reports:

After the event, Pedahzur released a statement about the incident on an official UT website – that was later removed – and on his website and Facebook page. In it, Pedahzur compared the incident with the latest Paris terrorist attacks, saying, "Less than 48 hours after the horrific attacks in Paris, I feel that it is my responsibility to ask you to join me in an attempt to confront the radicalization process on campuses and to protect students, staff, and faculty members from intimidation and violence."

The publicity surrounding the disruption of an Israel Studies event at the University of Texas at Austin by the UT-Austin Palestine Solidarity Committee continues to escalate, with local media in Texas taking up the story. For full background, see my prior posts, Anti-Israel students target UT-Austin Israeli Studies prof after disrupting his speech and New Video supports UT-Austin Israeli Studies Prof. after confrontion by protesters. The lead protester, law student Mohammed Nabulsi, led the failed divestment from Israel effort last spring, and is a leader of the anti-Israel campus movement. (More on that in a later post.) Nabulsi also appears to be media-savvy, as he released an edited video purporting to present the protesters as the victims, and now pre-emptively has filed a complaint (along with other student protesters) with the university claiming the protesters' rights were violated. (I requested a copy of the complaint from UT, but have not yet received it.) [caption id="attachment_150234" align="alignnone" width="600"] [UT-Austin anti-Israel protesters with Attorney Brian McGiverin][/caption]Seriously, the people who disrupted the event and screamed arguably-threatening chants for an Intifada toward Israelis present in the room now claim their rights were violated. The American-Statesman reports:

Yesterday morning we posted about an incident at UT-Austin, in which protesters from the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), led by law student Mohammed Nabulsi, disrupted an event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT’s Institute for Israeli Studies.  The invited guest speaker was Dr. Gil-Li Vardi from Stanford University. For full details, see Anti-Israel students target UT-Austin Israeli Studies prof after disrupting his speech. Since then, the dispute has gone national with attempts by PSC and its supporters to get Prof. Pedahzur fired based on an edited video released by PSC. The edited video, however, shows the protesters refusing to leave or to participate, and instead shouting down others and chanting "Long Live the Intifada." The Intifadas have been the bloody series of uprisings which included suicide bombings (the Second Intifada which led to construction of the security barrier) and the current Knife Intifada which is ongoing. They also chanted "We want '48, we don't want two states" (a reference to the desire to undo the creation of Israel in 1948). The edited PSC video does not show, contrary to PSC claims, an assault by Prof. Pedahzur; rather, it shows him trying to get the protesters to stop the disruption and to participate in the event. Legal Insurrection has obtained exclusive video of the end of the event from the hallway outside which backs up Prof. Pedahzur's account. The video starts with the chants (shown at the end of PSC's edited video). As the protesters move outside, they scream that pre-Independence Jews cooperated with the Nazis, and then they continue their chants. Prof. Pedahzur exits the room into the hallway and again asks the protesters to participate in the event, but they just scream at him some more.

UPDATES:

• New Video supports UT-Austin Israeli Studies Prof. after confrontion by protesters
• Did UT-Austin students who disrupted Israel Studies event violate campus code?
• UT-Austin anti-Israel student leader called for “support” of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP

--------------------------- The intimidation of Israeli and pro-Israeli speakers on campuses continues unabated. We recently covered the disruption of a speech by an Israeli professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and of an Israeli diplomat at the University of Windsor. It just happened again at UT-Austin on November 13, 2015, but the video has just been posted. Twelve members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) disrupted a public event hosted by Professor Ami Pedahzur of UT's Institute for Israeli Studies titled "The Origin of a Species: The Birth of the Israeli Defense Forces' Military Culture." The invited guest speaker was Dr. Gil-Li Vardi from Stanford University. The protesters and the anti-Israel propaganda machine including the national Students for Justice in Palestine are trying to turn the perpetrators into victims, with a video release being shared on Facebook and YouTube. The students not only disrupted the speech, when Prof. Pedahzur and another person (not clear if a professor or just a member of the audience) tried to get them to stop, they increased the volume of their chants calling for the destruction of Israel and "Long Live the Intifada". This video was prepared by the anti-Israel group to try to present them as the victim. The person grabbing the flag is NOT Prof. Pedahzur: This is beginning to look like the intimidation tactics that were used against Prof. Andrew Pessin at Connecticut College. The UT Palestinian Solidarity Committee is trying to get students to file complaints against Prof. Pedahzur: