Your UC Student Association took a match and lit democracy on fire. Not only did it trample on your ability to assemble, but it also deprived you of your own voice in your own backyard.
Remember that intense meeting held by the UCSA — which current ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahryar Abbasi sits on — last week?
The UCSA board brought in scores of students from diverse communities, and intense debate ensued. What was being discussed? A bill introduced by members of UCSA containing two major components. Firstly, the bill condemns California Assembly House Resolution 35, which calls on academic institutions to condemn anti-Semitism on campus and equates certain anti-Israel speech as anti-Semitic speech. This assertion can hold true in certain scenarios, but HR 35 goes too far in some of its classifications. Free speech must be cherished; let people form their opinions.
In addition to talking about HR 35, the UCSA bill also calls on higher education institutions — UC Berkeley included — to stop profiting from human rights violations. However, the only country with such human rights violations listed in the bill is Israel. Not Saudi Arabia. Not China. Not any other country. This unfair singling out of Israel strikes a particularly controversial chord at Berkeley, where divestment ran rampant in spring 2010.
But wait, it’s difficult to remember last week’s meeting, which was coincidentally held on the Jewish Sabbath, because almost no one except the board and some supporters knew this UCSA bill was being discussed until after voting finished. But where was the opposition? Not there. No agenda was published online saying this item would be discussed, mainly because no agenda was published online for the UCSA meeting at all until after it occurred. Furthermore, the exact meeting location was unavailable to the average student — the only information to be found on the UCSA website was that it was occurring somewhere on UC Berkeley’s not-so-tiny campus. The opposition was deliberately shut out by certain members of our campus community. Innocence before proving guilt is generally a fun concept, so until seeing the email acquired below, extreme negligence by the UCSA board seemed the likely culprit.
Flashback to 2010 and ASUC Senate Bill 118. Hundreds of students packed MLK for a senate meeting to debate the merits of divesting from American companies General Electric and United Technologies, accused of aiding Israeli human rights violations. One student broke down in tears at the podium, lamenting the divide the bill had created between her and her friends. Others cried about family members trapped in the whirlwind of violence common to the region. In the end, the bill failed to garner the votes to overturn the ASUC presidential veto, and that was that.
The UCSA bill’s similarities to SB 118 are apparent, and just as apparent are the immoralities attached with having no Facebook event, no timely agenda and no mass email explaining and inviting students to discuss this subject. The board voted overwhelmingly in support of the bill, with twelve votes in favor and two abstentions, the former of which included current Abbasi.
The absence of an opposing voice — considering the vote count and attendance — on such a controversial topic strips the body of its legitimacy and transparency. This was not spontaneous, according to UC San Diego External Affairs Vice President Olamide Noah, who said the UCSA board had been working on the resolution since its congress in August. Abbasi’s lack of outside input, not necessarily his choice in voting, undermines the trust promised during his campaign last spring.
An email sent out by Luma Haddad, a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine, to core members in the organization reveals the most shocking part of this lack of transparency. Haddad explains to the members why “there was not much word spread about this in the last few days that led up to the meeting.” She then establishes that this was done “in order to prevent unwanted lobbying/intimidation tactics.”
When you lower a basketball hoop and dunk, you do not accomplish the same feat as doing so at its normal height. If you cheat on a test, you do not morally earn that A. When an opposing voice is actively neglected from a major debate on legislation, that body and that legislation becomes permanently tainted. Whether or not members of the UCSA board purposely committed this withholding of information is unclear, but the fact that that sentiment explicitly existed by some of its key supporters destroys the democratic process supposedly involved in the vote.
In a time where higher education begs for our undivided attention, UCSA has great potential. But a body that acts without publicized agendas, without disclosed meeting locations and without transparency loses credibility.
This systemwide representative body and our EAVP failed in their responsibilities to both proponents and opponents of this bill. For the opponents, this silenced their voice. For the proponents, this cheapened their victory. When we work to fight for higher education this November, how will UCSA have any clout if it continues shutting out the opposition?
Contact Noah Ickowitz at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter @noahickowitz.
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Noah, this is how you write an op-ed. http://www.dailycal.org/2012/09/25/jewish-students-support-ucsa-vote-on-hr-35/ Note, be a little more human would you: ” Previous op-eds on the UCSA decision lament that the issue of divestment
— removal of university funds from companies complicit in Israeli human
rights violations — is “divisive.” I am also disappointed that this
issue is so divisive. But not because disagreement on an issue should be
silenced, rather the fact that support of human rights should not be
contentious. It should be a no-brainer to support human rights of
Palestinians, and to instead prioritize defending Israel’s government
from criticism, no matter what it does, is profoundly anti-human.”
So what you’re trying to say is that it was an “undemocratic majority.” I wouldn’t equate all instances of majoritarianism to democracy.
The “immorality of not posting a facebook event”? Really? I would reserve such charged language for other, more impactful issues. You certainly aren’t leaving yourself much room for escalation in future columns, not that I am interested in reading more of this hyperventaliting hyperpbole
awesome and dead on.
So you also think HR 35 unfairly excludes Arab and Muslim groups, right?
What Happens When an Arab Defends Israel?
We’ve all seen outrageous reports about Israel
from Arab sources. Reading the Arab press, you might be forgiven for assuming
that when Israel isn’t sending Mossad sharks into Arab waters, it’s busy
plotting ways to sow disease in Arab society.
But what happens when an Arab writer defends
Israel, or suggests that the Arab world may have something to learn from the
Jewish state? Well, Lee Habeeb, a writer of Lebanese origin,
found out the hard way.
First came the letters to the editor, then the
personal insults. It was as if I’d broken a secret code I didn’t know existed.
Some secret blood oath, which goes something like this: Arabs don’t speak
unkindly of Arabs in public, or kindly about Israel.
After pondering the backlash he experienced and
looking at the effect this Arab groupthink has on the wider culture, Habeeb
came to some very important conclusions.
It is all about Arab self-doubt. It is all tied
to a profound lack of cultural self-confidence, and a deep-seated fear that
maybe, just maybe, Arabs won’t be very good at the self-governance thing. That
Arab nations won’t be capable of building democratic cultures that engender the
flourishing of human freedom, and that these nations won’t have the ability to
tap the God-given talents of their people the way Americans and Israelis do.
That maybe, just maybe, the Arab world will
never measure up to America or Israel.
No wonder the Arab world is happy enough to
vilify Israel at every turn. It’s much easier to scapegoat a regional minority
than to deal, head on, with one’s own inadequacy.
man, i bet even some of the zionists on this discusson board wish you’d shut up (some of them, though perhaps some of them might share some of this racist views when not in mixed company)
anti-racist,
Islam is a religion not a race. I understand what a difficult concept this is for you, so just take my word for it.
If quoting Lee Habeeb, a writer of Lebanese origin, who engages in self-criticism of his own culture makes one a racist, then quoting Norman Finkelstein who criticizes his own culture must make one an antisemite.
There were Africans who sold the majority of slaves who were sent in chains to the New World (in fact, a majority of people sent into slavery were originally captured by fellow Africans for that purpose). And there are Jews such as Jeffrey Blankfort, Barbara Lubin, and KPFA’s Dennis Bernstein who, along with those in JVP and Kesher Enoshi, are anti-Semitic. Indeed, Norman Finklestein is among the most anti-Semitic pieces of dung you will find. It happens.
“The opposition was deliberately shut out by certain members of our campus community.”
Oh wow! How so very Zionist of them!
hahaah
I think you’re making it sound as if this resolution was particular, while in reality there is never much direct interaction between the UCSA Board and individual students on the 10 campuses. The UCSA is not an association of students but of student associations, so it’s twice removed from its constituents (the only link of accountability between UCSA and all Berkeley undergrads is the ASUC EAVP). Yes, the Israel-Palestine question has been one of the most contentious on this campus, but it is not the only issue that would deserve a broader debate that it gets right now.
> In addition to talking about HR 35, the UCSA bill also calls on
> higher
education institutions — UC Berkeley included — to stop
> profiting from
human rights violations. However, the only country
> with such human
rights violations listed in the bill is Israel. Not
> Saudi Arabia. Not
China. Not any other country
That is why many of us have adopted Stalin’s term “useful idiots” for liberal/left-leaning activists. Political Correctness is far more important to them than any sense of justice or touch with reality.
That’s how Students for Just Us in Palestine operates. Deception, lies and hatred. No matter where you go, from California to Massachusetts, they all behave the same way.
don’t see the hatred. or the lies. and in terms of deception, its sort of a stretch to say that one person in a the group not wanting to tell the people who are trying to silence her about a bill written to condemn that silencing is deception. that seems more like common sense (imagine: come debate with me why you would like to prevent me from being allowed to debate in the future). its not like the dozens of people on the ucsa and their staff were blindsided by this. the fact that not one of them thought to strongly oppose it or alert Zionists speaks more to the marginal p;ace of these viewpoints on campus. I mean, really, out of all the schools not a single rep or staff person felt there was a need to bring in an anti-free speech pro-HR35 viewpoint into the conversation, so that tells you a lot about how numerous these voices are.
Apparently you aren’t so good with how democracy works. The whole point of bodies like these are that they are speaking FOR the students of the University of California school systems. A resolution passed in the dead of night which nobody knew about (and therefore not discussed) is the opposite of representative of the student body.
One might ask: if you are so sure there would not be a single (as you call them) “anti free speech viewpoint” than why did these Students for Just Us in Palestine work so hard to make sure that nobody besides them knew that the debate was happening? Like I said, deception and lies are their stock in trade.
By your deeds shall you know them.
Turkey
has killed between 30,000 and 40,000 Kurds in the last 30 years; it occupies
North Cyprus; it blockades Armenia and denies its own historical genocide.
Sri Lanka killed about 25,000 of its own civilians in the course of repressing
an insurgency.
Sudan has killed something in the order of 200,000 people in Darfur, with
countless rapes and tortures.
Iran rapes and tortures and murders its own dissidents who ask for democracy;
it hangs young gays, it oppresses women.
Egypt persecutes Copts.
Russia kills 25,000 to 50,000 Chechens, and almost completely razes the capital
city of Grozny; its soldiers inflict hideous tortures on their prisoners before
killing them; investigative journalists are murdered.
China kills somewhere between half a million and one and a quarter million
Tibetans in the course of quashing Tibet’s independence.
In Pakistan, Christian churches are burned, hundreds of Ahmadiyyas are killed,
violence towards women is endemic.
In Saudi Arabia, no churches are allowed, women are subject to gender
apartheid.
Congo: More than that 5 million – 5 million – people have been killed in its
wars, alongside innumerable rapes and hideous tortures.
The USA and the UK initiate a war in Iraq in which more than 100,000 Iraqi
civilians are killed.
France trained and armed the Hutu genocidaires who killed around 800,000
civilians in the Rwanda genocide, and continued to protect them even as they
lost power to the incoming Tutsis.
These examples have involved far worse horrors than anything Israel has done.
But Israel is the one which is subjected to the BDS campaign. Only Israel. Why
is this?
(factual information credited to Eve Garrard)
Because Israel is a Jewish state, and the reservoir of anti-Jewish sentiment in Western culture runs centuries deep. Anti-Israel propaganda, which often is tinged with the code words of antisemitism, resonates within Western culture and hence the only Jewish state in the world is singled out for “special treatment.”
If you can’t criticize Israel without references to “powerful” Jewish or Zionist “cabals” that “control” the government, media or financial matters, then the manifesto titled “My Struggle” written by an early 20th century Austrian dissident and World War One veteran holding the rank of corporal would resonate with you.
·
If
you want to see a BDS supporter squirm, ask them why Israel existing as a
Jewish state is unacceptable and racist but Palestine existing as an Arab and
Muslim state is a noble cause worth supporting.
My proof of this is examples of the Palestinian National Charter:
“Article 1. Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people;
it is an indivisible part of the greater Arab homeland, and the Palestinian
people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”
And from the basic law of Palestine:
“Islam is the official religion in Palestine.”
So why isn’t there a movement to boycott the Palestinians, seeing as how they
make it clear they intend to make a theocratic, ethnic-based state?
i’m a bds supporter and against either state (if the palestinian one is ever to exist) being religiously or ethnically defined (that’s called secularism and binationalism).
notsquirming,
And I’m for the tooth fairy so we have something in common.
Notsuirming is obviously ignorant of Middle Eastern realities. Secular revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have been completely hijacked by radical Islamists. That is what will happen in some future Palestine. Wake up and smell the hummus!
Look, ASUC repeatedly approved resolutions for divestment against the Israeli occupation. Only a veto by a very questionably-elected President saved Israel.
So don’t come crying about “democracy” now.
By the way, ASUC should vote now for total boycott against Israel, before it blows Iran off the map.
And the veto was upheld by a majority of the UCB student senate when the pro-Israel side had the opportunity to present its case. That divestment bill was also sneaked in at the last moment by pro-SJP senators, trying to get it passed before anyone noticed. This is SJP’s standard operating procedure. Who is crying about democracy? Certainly not SJP.
no. only 5 of 20 senators voted to uphold the veto. get your facts straight. 13 of 20 voted to override it (they needed 14). reality-based dscourse, please.
Israel will most likely blow Iran off the map before Iran-as its leaders have promised-liquidates Israel. All nations are obligated to defend its own people, you anti-Semitic, pro-genocidal cocksucker.
[By the way, ASUC should vote now for total boycott against Israel, before it blows Iran off the map.]
As usual, you LIE and DISTORT THE TRUTH. It’s the leadership of IRAN threatening to wipe ISRAEL off the map, NOT the other way around!
I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Israel does, but when another nation whose leader repeatedly threatens to wipe you off the map, and is feverishly working on weapons that can strike your major cities within minutes, I don’t blame the Israeli leadership one bit for contemplating some type of pre-emptive strike for the sake of their own survival. Unlike miserable little shits who live in some left-wing community removed from reality, these people are surrounded on 3 sides by people who have demonstrated the ability and intent to kill them, and on the fourth side by the sea.
You piss and moan about what the Israelis are doing, but when was the last time we heard cowards like you voice equal condemnation for car bombings or missiles deliberately targeted at civilian populations? You and your ilk are nothing more than pathetic little turds who are so indoctrinated in your “Palestinians are victims” party line that you can’t see that that 98% of the problems suffered by the Palestinian population are brought upon by themselves. Get a clue, loser – we know where you really stand.
I don’t thnk the procedure was any different for this issue than any other the UCSA considers. I think some people wish it didn’t pass and have produced these very effective talking points about voices being silenced, procedure issues etc in order to make it go away or something.
yeah, i mean isnt that what the losing side always does, decry the process?
If we as a school want to send a message to countries that engage in human rights abuses by declining to do business with their companies, that is our right. There is nothing inherently wrong with a divestment bill. However, Noah raises a crucial point in that we cannot illiberally apply these sanctions against Israel. If we want to divest from companies that operate in congruence with the Israeli government, there is no logical basis for not also divesting from companies that operate in congruence with the Chinese government. To say otherwise is not a defensible position. Whether or not it is rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment (and it may very well not be), the UCSA’s recommendation to divest only from Israel is inequitable. If they believe this is an effective method of protest, apply it to the Chinese case as well. Then, the UC can rest comfortably knowing that none of its funds are going to support human rights abuses.
However…given the amount of companies that operate in China and Israel, just about the largest company the UC can invest in is Top Dog….
i’m pretty sure everyone on the ucsa board would support such a universal standard (i mean most students would, right?). i think they mention israel in the bill because its specifically israel that HR35 says we can’t boycott or divest. its the pro-israel-no-matter-what crowd that is applying the exceptionalism.
in fact, just looked up the language of the ucsa bill. it says explicitly that they support a general standard and are calling israel out because of the exceptionalism hr35 and israel apologists apply when it comes to applying human rights/and ethical investment standards: BE IT RESOLVED that the UCSA recognizes the legitimacy of boycotts and
divestment as important social movement tools, and encourages all
institutions of higher learning to cleanse their investment portfolios
of unethical investments in companies implicated in or profiting from
violations of international human rights law, without making special
exemptions for any country;
Don’t fool yourselves. In the last decade there have been numerous attempts by SJP and their supporters to get UC student governments to divest from Israel, and only from Israel. There have been no other attempts, by student lobbying groups or by student governments, to address China, Russia or Sri Lanka. Your comments are out of context, and show either a lack of understanding of the history of this issue in the UC system, or you are deliberately trying to throw sand in people’s eyes.
So this web of deception was orchestrated by SJP because they knew it was the only way they could get it passed? They should lose their funding. Thats so underhanded
Where is the deception? ucsa doesnt have public comment. there’s not
opportuity for student debate, that wasn’t avoided by anyone. whoever
pushed for the bill didnt officially represent sjp, like noah’s stolen
email
mentions- sjp didnt know about the meeting either, and they were likely
avoiding
the kind of intimidation tactics the other oped goes into. things like
aipac and threatening emails to senators have no place coercing
decisions of the ucsa. i’m glad the ucsa could make their decision based
on facts. public comment would be nice, lots pf people would have loved
to speak for the bill, jewish students included, and students could
speak against too. but there is no conspiracy here, it just didnt
happen. they met on a saturday, that’s when ucsa meetings are once a
month. and i
wish people would stop saying no jewish students were there, it’s
simply false
SJP admitted they knew about the meeting. the information was deliberately withhld from students that might have a different opinion. this was done specifically to stifle opposition. Someone appalled by this forfiture of the democratic process leaked the information for which I’m personally grateful. The only way this was passed was by bypassing transparency and openness. That’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
you’d probably benefit from looking at alf’s comment above. this is what REPRESENTATIVE democracy is. representatives debate, as the ucsa did, not direct constituents. If you dont’ like representative democracy then i can sympathize, but its not like the ucsa did anything wrong regardless of what one person who has no power over them said in an email. she couldn’t stop any of the ucsa reps from telling anyone and her decision (if indeed she had any connection to the bill at all) to not broadcast it to her political opponents is what lobbyists and legislators do every where. i mean really, do you think unions when they are lobbying issue press releases to their bosses to come fight against them (or vice versa). the representatives elected are elected from different campuses to reflect the diversity of opinions in the uc. if not one of them thought to mention this to a strong HR35 advocate then that just means the pro-HR35 crowd is not reflective of majority opinions on campuses.
You said “sjp didnt know about the meeting either”. Do you speak for SJP?
However, it’s quite obvious Luma Haddad, a member of SJP, did know about it, and even wrote an article in today’s Daily Cal.
Therefore, UCSA deliberately shut off voices from Jewish student groups while fully informing Palestinian groups about the upcoming vote. Can the UCSA still claim it represents all UC students?
Luma,
Did your ideas about democracy come from the Arab world? What country are you from?
What you and SJP call “intimidation tactics” and “coercion” are the hallmarks of the democratic process. Democracy is all about lobbying one’s elected representatives, it is all about citizens freely forming associations (whether it be AIPAC or AARP or CAIR or NAAA or SJP) and meeting or writing their respective elected representatives for the purpose of trying to convince them to vote their way. I suggest that you look at the Brown Act passed in 1953 by the California State Legislature, which guarantees the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings of local legislative bodies. At the very least, the UCSA, which is funded by student fees, violated the Brown Act and usurped the constitutionally guaranteed rights of pro-Israel students to a fair hearing of their viewpoints in an open democratic legislative body.