Sounds like typical politically-correct stuff to me.

Hello,

At the link provided in the post,

http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~cpb/OLIVE%20TREE%20INITIATIVE.html

There does not appear to be anyone listed by the name of "Jow Haider" in the list of 'Olive Tree Initiative Students'

Problem Solved ?

Sounds like a pretty hateful, ignorant, discrimantory peice you have here Jonathan.

For some one with such opinions one would think you were in some way involved in dialogue or trying to educate these so-called uneducated Muslims on campus (ps. you know you went to the same school as them right? so your education is no better). Instead we can find you in the shadows of lecture halls, silent, except for the occasional ridiculous question that shock speakers into going off on a rant about the absurdity of your question.

Good luck in the navy. Will your brother/camera man/only friend be at your side for a photoshoot there too?

ps. When was the last time you got a standing ovation from room of 500 people? .... thats what I thought...

Jonathan,

Your closed mindedness is really shocking. I was at the OTI event, and it was amazing to hear the students' perspectives and experiences. They reminded me much of the 9 months I spent in Jerusalem from 2000-2001, studying at the Hebrew University.

Though the students had diverse opinions, they were all willing to engage in dialogue. I think a similar trip would do you well.

Tell me Todd, will the same cast of characters be out spewing their hatred this school year on the tax payer's dime?

As for anonymous, the only place I can find you is commenting anonymously on this blog. Unless, you are one of those numb-skull terrorists whose idea of freedom is to shout down speakers and push student journalists around.

Interesting you feel this way since the Jewish federation was one of the largest financial supporters of the group and plans to continue funding and supporting further events and trips. Also the Olive Tree Initiative was invited to speak to the University Synagogue and, after this event, was invited to the homes and events of several Jewish community members who appreciated and encouraged their message. How about instead of yelling YOUR blind, hateful opinions from your lonely corner in web space and join the conversation constructively on how the two sides can engage in more than this pointless banter. Or is that all you can add to the world?

Dear A UCI Student,

How about being skeptical of a group's intentions? How about being skeptical of the proclivity to spread more hate, while disguised as dialog. What did Neville Chamberlain say, "it is the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again" following the culmination of Anglo-German Naval agreement in 1938?

I do think the non-MSU students have good intentions, as do their sponsors. I however think they are sadly mistaken if there will be sincere efforts to eliminate tax payer funded hate speech on campus.

Let me ask you, at the OTI, did you hear any of the MSU members renounce any of their own speakers including Amir Abdel Malik-Ali, Muhammed al-Asi, or Imam Musa? In light of their trip to Israel, are they willing to renounce al-Asi when he said last May?

"You left the ghettos of Europe, there were no ghettos to speak about in Muslim Countries. You left those ghettos and came in the fashion that you did, with all the bloodshed that went with it and still continues."

or when he said?

"You came to the holy land, which you desecrated and blasphemed with every decision that you made and still are making and then you realize that you are in a territory of hostilities around you. These hostilities didn't come from nowhere, these hostilities are a reaction to all the misery and all the hostility that you brought with you."

How about when Amir Abdel Malik-Ali said when referring to Israel?

"There will be peace when your gone."

Or how about when on the annual apartheid wall the MSU sang the praises of terror group Hamas?

(http://www.redcounty.com/rccampuswatch/2008/05/msuuci-campus-supporters-of-te/

If you could produce an MSU member that specifically renounces this type of behavior (speeches from al-Asi, etc) from their own organization I will be eternally grateful and happy to post it. Then my friend, we can see real dialog occur.

Warmest Regards,

Jonathan

"Your closed mindedness is really shocking."

How can anyone who follows a prophet who subjugated and killed everyone who disagreed with him make a statement like this? LOL.

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. "

Fight everyone who "beleive(s) not in Allah" sounds pretty close-minded to me.

I was also at that event. What I saw was a truly remarkable attempt to understand the issue deeply. That you saw some kind of hate-fest is a result of your own projection. I am sorry for you. I know one of the students from the MSU on that trip well and another I have met a number of times. They are both fine young people. You should be ashamed of yourself for maligning them. I don't know what your agenda is but shame on you for spreading such lashon hara (evil speech) against well-meaning students and faculty who made a genuine attempt to understand a very complex situation for themselves.

Lee,

My goal is simple: to defeat Islamic radicalism. And if you attended any of MSU events, I am sure you would understand this issue a lot better.

To spread evil speech, is to do what the MSU does on a quarterly basis on their wall and through their speeches (anti-semitic and anti-American propaganda). But then again Lee, you are only interested in hearing one side of the story.

Something to think about as you loosely and libelously apply legal terms to people:

"When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty." -Confucius

Jonathan

"What I saw was a truly remarkable attempt to understand the issue deeply. That you saw some kind of hate-fest is a result of your own projection. I am sorry for you. I know one of the students from the MSU on that trip well and another I have met a number of times. They are both fine young people."

Maybe you start reading Andrew Bostom, Lee.

The Muslims hate Jews (Surah 2:65), and the Muslim Brotherhood is an antisemitic organization founded by Hassan al Banna:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2008/07/cairo-to-damascus-meeting-hassan-al-bann/

If you want to explore the legal contours of "lashon hara" that is best done in another context. As to the rest of your comments about who I am and my motives they are baseless and inaccurate.
Actually, I have attended EVERY single MSU event in relation to Israel for the past two years. (I believe that I am one of the very few if not the only Jewish community member to do so.) I have also devoted time to actually talking to MSU students both at these events and outside. (Again, I am one of the very few members of the Jewish community to do so.) I have also attended MSU events that were not related to politics at all. I don't like all of their messages. I may not approve of them in style or content but a University is a place for open discussion and debate. Students are there to test ideas and to learn. Painting college students exploring and experimenting with their own spiritual and social values (including political) as hardened "jihadis" is simply not accurate. It's not fair. In my interactions with these students which have been many, I have not found them to be anti-semitic. I have found them to be eager to engage in intelligent inter-religious discussion.
Even during the anti-Zionism week events the MSU made an effort to distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political ideology. You may or may not accept that distinction. It may not really be possible to entirely separate the two. Students or visiting speakers may have failed in several instances to really make that distinction properly. Nevertheless, it was a recurring theme of the presentations. I know from discussions with students that planned those events that it was a honest attempt NOT to send an anti-semitic message to the Jewish community.
I am more than willing to hear what you have to say. I have read these blogs with great interest. For over two years, I have been flooded with emails about the "situation" at UCI from folks who have never stepped foot on campus. I have heard about the secret inner motivations of the MSU students from those who don't know these kids and don't want to know these kids. I speak up as one who is trying to take the time to understand the situation. I don't claim to understand it fully yet. I am listening. I hope you are too.

Lee,

If I perceived what you said correctly, I am happy that you re-thought your earlier hasty comments. I am also happy that you are willing to listen to me.

I don't know if you read this whole thread but I gave specific examples of campus hostility above, including these remarks by Muhammad al-Asi during the MSU's anti-Israel week:

"You left the ghettos of Europe, there were no ghettos to speak about in Muslim Countries. You left those ghettos and came in the fashion that you did, with all the bloodshed that went with it and still continues."

--and--

"You came to the holy land, which you desecrated and blasphemed with every decision that you made and still are making and then you realize that you are in a territory of hostilities around you. These hostilities didn't come from nowhere, these hostilities are a reaction to all the misery and all the hostility that you brought with you."

This is not the failure to distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, its the explicit intent not to. There are many more examples I am willing to share with you.

As for the students themselves, they are adults who are fully aware of the content they bring to campus. Year after year inviting the same speakers and hearing the same drum beat for violent militancy, intimidating student journalists who dare to film their events, erecting the same wall with the same depictions of anti-semitism and anti-Americanism is certainly not experimentation "with ones own social and political values." It's uncivilized, and doesn't remotely measure up to a peaceful environment meant to foster academic exchange and deliberation.

So I conclude with my goal to defeat Islamic radicalism: to foster an academic environment free of intimidation and violent overtures to annihilate a whole group of people inhabiting a small bit of land in the Middle East, and similarly calls for the destruction of a country who has sacrificed so much to insure liberty at home and extend it to the rest of the world.

If the students-MSU can agree to these principles, at that time it is appropriate for a dialog to occur. If not, all legal means should be used to remove tax payer funded hate speech from campus and revoke club status.

Lee,

Your use of the term "Loshen Hora", does not apply here and you should know that.

Second, you are not the only one from the Jewish community who has attended these MSU hate fests or spoken to it's members. And you certainly are not the only apologist for MSU from the Jewish community. This kind of "mishugas" is nothing new in the history of the Jewish people. It is great that the kids are getting together and trying to peacefully resolve their differences. But, alongside the hate speakers, Jewish and non Jewish supporters have been physically and verbally harassed. You know that as well. Yet you chose to ignore this. Debate and criticism are crucial in a learning environment, but to bring people on campus who denigrate the Holocaust is reprehensible.

Wake up Lee and smell the kasha! You should be grateful that people like Jonathan who are looking after the welfare of the Jewish people and greater society as well. I'm not holding my breath.

The Qur'an says that Jews are the sons of apes and pigs (Surah 2:65). Any Jew believing the Muslims are just working towards some sort of greater purpose in Israel, or that they would be content with just a two-state solution, are completely out of their minds. There was no such thing as "Israel" when Mohammed slaughter the Jews of Khaibar or the Jews of Banu Quraizah, but he did it anyway. The current Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar University in Cairo (the nearest thing to an Islamic Pope), wrote an entire doctoral thesis on Islamic antisemitism and its justification. Google "taqiyya" and "kitman" and see if you're not a victim of both, Lee.

I wish the majority of Jews I encountered didn't engage in this suicidal starry-eyed idealism regarding the Muslims, but sadly, they do.

Having (many times)personally witnessed the likes of Muhammad al Asi, one of the "darlings" of MSU (or Malik or Ward Churchill) spew their rabid anti-Semitic blather is bad enough. What really turns my stomach is seeing Jewish "community members" sitting for photo ops with MSU members as they proclaim, "look folks we really like Jews! It's those nasty "Zionists" we hate." (sound familiar, Lee?) As a Jew, and a Zionist, it disgusts me.

Mr Weissman,

With all due respect, Sir, if you have attended the speeches of Al-Asi and Malik Ali, have they not left an impression on you?

I am no campus outsider. I have taught part-time at UCI for 10 years and have attended as many of these events as my class schedule would allow so that I may report on them. You may be impressed with the MSU students who are willing to engage you in dialogue, but these are the same students who regularly bring these vitriolic speakers to campus to speak for them. I have also noted that many of these speakers also have hatred for their own country-the US. If I were to regularly bring in a KKK speaker and cheer his words, could I claim not to be a racist?

Last month, UCI History Dept. had a speaker from the Muslim Brotherhood (Ibrahim el Houdaibi) who told his audience that the MB was a peaceful organization that opposed terror. But when I confronted him with a MB memo that spoke of infiltrating America from within and destroying its "rotten culture", he pronounced it a forgery-even though it was a govt exhibit from the Homeland Foundation trial. Later, I had an exchange of emails with him, in which he suggested I read the writings of MB founder al-Banna and top MB scholar Qaradawi. When I did so and confronted him with both men's writings that belied the mb's claim to be preaceful, he broke off the exchange.

Sorry, Sir. Some of us will not be fooled. At any rate, the next round of MSU speakers will tell us if the Olive Tree Initiative had any effect on MSU attiutdes.

gary fouse
adj teacher
uci-ext

As I read through this thread, I can't quite figure out why we are talking about the MSU at all. To my knowledge, The Olive Tree Initiative has no official (or even unofficial) relationship to the MSU. As I said at the outset. The trip and the public event that I attended it were not the "hate fest" you claimed. It was easier for you to shift your ground to talk about Amir Malik etc. than to address the simple truth that your characterization of the Olive Tree Initiative and the event was inaccurate.

As for Prcaldude's reading of the Quran. I guess I should be grateful that he reads the Quran and not the Talmud. Your results might be equally garbled and misleading. You missed both the first part of the verse (that indicates that it refers to those who break the sabbath) and vs. 62 above it that promises a reward to Jews who are observant. The verse is not about anti-semitic invective but about religious observance. You may not like that message much better but at least get it right.

What I don't see here is any sincere attempt at gaining understanding. The Quran mistake is just sloppy. It just means you don't really care to understand. Its for arguments sake and not for truth. There are hard hard issues here. This is not the way to deal with them. I don't know where this will get you. I am pretty sure that it is not where we should go. I wish you luck on your journey.

Mr Weissman,

I do not criticize the Olive Tree Initiative's aim. If it gave greater perspective and understanding to 15 students, great. However, as a UCI event, what I hope to see come out of it is moderation on the part of UCI's MSU. That was my point. Malik Ali will be returning to UCI next week. That is a discouraging sign to me, but we will have to wait and see what he says this time.

Our focus is on the MSU, the speakers and the refusal of UCI's administration to specifically condemn anti-Semitic statements made by these speakers, such as Mohammed al-Asi calling Jews, "low-life ghetoo dwellers" and Ali calling suicide bombers, heroes and martyrs. As long as this continues, I and others will be there to speak out.

Fair enough?