Strange. I have none of the MSU speakers at UCI this week speak of this.

Today, the Muslim Student Union continued their "Palestinian Holocaust" Week at UCI. Today's featured speaker at noon was Anna Balzer, a young Jewish-American activist, who has traveled often to Israel and the Palestinian-occupied territories. She is a Palestinian sympathizer, and is associated with the International Women's Peace Service.

I should state that Ms Balzer does not come across as a "bomb thrower" (no pun intended.) Her presentation argued that Palestinians are being treated unjustly by Israel in the name of maintaining a Jewish state. She did not blast the United States, unlike many of the other MSU speakers. She is opposed to Israel as a "Jewish state".

It was what she didn't say that I would criticize. Nowhere in her talk did she mention the suicide bombings that led to the creation of the wall. Nowhere did she mention the rocket attacks that are lobbed regularly from Gaza into Israel. In describing the poor conditions under which Palestinians are living in Gaza, she neglected to mention that they are under the control of Palestinians, not Israelis, specifically, Hamas.

In the question and answer session, a Jewish student asked her about the suicide bombings. In her response, Balzer described them as horrific and conceded that human rights abuses are being conducted by both sides. She then added that the Palestinian violence has to be considered in context; in other words, one could hardly expect the Palestinians to act non-violently in the face of their suffering. She also advocated deinvestment and boycotting Israeli products.

Balzer was preceded to the microphone by Dennis Lopez of the Student Worker Alliance, a radical group that condemns everything the US does. He described (among other things) the Iraqi War as being driven by a desire for US corporations to enrich themselves with Iraqi oil (even though the US has not taken Iraqi oil from Iraq). Though speaking in a calm and rational manner, the occasional buzz words came out: imperialistic US, imperialistic powers, capitalist US-you get the picture.

Finally, there was a brief spiel by Israeli (anti-Zionist) professor, Ilan Pappe, who previewed his speech later this evening by encouraging his audience to visit Israel to learn about the situation, inform others about the injustices committed by Israel and to protest. (Pappe is detested by many in Israel because of his anti-Israel activism.)

Today's speakers, at least during the noon hour, were subdued. I noted that Craig and Cindy Corrie were in the audience. I sincerely hope they stay around for tomorrow's appearance by the vicious, racist, anti-Semite, Amir Abdel Malik Ali. It might be an eye-opener.

gary fouse
fousesquawk