Recently Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, who is an academic historian and a political moderate, was invited to speak at the University of California at Irvine. I know Michael well and have heard him speak many times. He is one of Israel's most effective advocates, particularly on university campuses. He speaks about peace, about the two-state solution and he brings a historical perspective to his analysis. Because he is so effective, anti-Israel zealots try to prevent him from speaking and his audience from hearing his views.
That's exactly what happened at the University of California at Irvine when Oren began to speak. This tactic of censorship will be tried at other universities as well, if it is permitted to succeed.
Let there be no doubt about it, these radical anti-Israel zealots are trying to censor Michael Oren. After repeatedly disrupting his speech and making it impossible for him to continue, eleven of them were arrested and now face possible disciplinary action from the University of California, a public institution.
They and their supporters now claim that it is the eleven disruptors' right of free speech that is being violated. They are threatening legal action to defend their right to prevent a speaker from expressing his views and an audience from hearing those views. This is a topsy turvy view of the First Amendment.
It is true that an individual heckler may have the right to shout in opposition to a speaker, so long as his shouted words are brief and non-recurrent. But any fair viewing of the videotape, available on YouTube, proves beyond any doubt that this was a concerted effort to silence Michael Oren and to prevent his audience from hearing his point of view. The university was correctly embarrassed at this attempt at censorship.
I too speak on college campuses, trying to make the moderate, two-state solution case on behalf of Israel. My speeches have been greeted with shouts of disapproval and efforts to silence me. When I spoke last year at the University of Massachusetts, a similar effort was made to prevent me from expressing my view. I refused to remain silent and I simply shouted over the ruckus. Eventually the University had to end the event. When I spoke at the University of California at Irvine several years earlier, there was also some heckling, but there was no coordinated effort to stop me from speaking. Similar groups have succeeded in preventing other pro-Israel speakers, including Israel's former Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, and its current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from speaking.
These attempts to prevent college audiences from hearing pro-Israel speakers must be taken very seriously by universities. As Michael Oren explained in the beginning of his talk, universities are places where full and complete freedom of speech must be given a high priority. Freedom of speech does permit the right of audience members to express views different from a speaker, so long as they obey reasonable rules and do not prevent the speaker from expressing his or her views. Reasonable rules include permitting the holding of signs, so long as they do not block anyone's view, the handing out of leaflets, an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the talk and sporadic and non-recurrent booing or shouting of brief comments.
I have defended students who have been subjected to discipline for shouting a single word, for holding a sign or for making an obscene gesture. But I would not defend a so-called right of a group of students to act in a coordinated manner in an effort to prevent a speaker from expressing views that the audience is entitled to hear.
There are several rights at stake in any such case. First is the right of the speaker, who has been invited by the university to present his point of view. Second is the right of the audience to hear his point of view. Third is the right of audience members who disagree with his point of view to express opposition. These rights need not be in conflict, so long as there is no effort to prevent the speaker from conveying his point of view to the audience.
From what I saw on the videotape, it seemed clear that there was a coordinated effort of censorship, and not merely an exercise of free speech by audience members who disagreed with what Oren was saying. If such a coordinated effort at censorship is established by the evidence, then discipline is warranted.
America stopped being an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians a long time ago. Time to resolve that dispute fairly, by having the occupying nation stop building settlements on Palestinian territory and sit down at the negotiating table.
In the illustrious words of Ronald Reagan, "tear down that wall".
Americans need to hear the other side . . and they want to be better imformed the heckling can be seen as a sign of "we see through you" . . . we are not with you . . . and that is a very healthy sign
And mackdee, there's a reason defenders of the Israelis seldom mention the Gaza strip. Conditions in Gaza, essentially a gigantic refugee camp into which the Israelis have prevented access to aid and food since 2005, are appalling, particularly following the recent air assault in which over 1000 civilians died.
Jewish values clearly demonstrated for millennia, in virtually every country but especially in the scriptures written in their ancient homeland, would demand a just solution for their cousins in Palestine who are suffering. Many of the Palestinians are Christian too, and one consequence of the modern conflict is the displacement of most of the Christians from the home of that faith.
All of these things should be fair game for discussion in any university.
They are only people that have a special United Nations Relief Fund ; U.N.R.A.W., since '48 and still in existence, which no other identifiable group has received who were displaced after W.W.2. Palestinians are also not different then Arab Jordanians, Syrians, or Egyptians in culture, language, or genetics.
You are also ignoring proper order of history! Palestinians could of agreed to 2 state solution back in '37 and in '47 and they would of had the majority of the land which already 80 percent was taken away from Jewish/ Israeli citizens and given to Arab people , that area as we now know called Jordan! Instead they listened to their Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanian brothers, and decided War was the better option and they figured they would leave and come back to their lands after the Jews in Israel were all killed and removed.
….. Well they gambled and lost, and now they figure they should still be entitled to getting back their lands from the same people who they were hoping would be destroyed and were dealing with the recent aftermath of the holocaust.
If that were true what you say about Gaza being prevented by Israel for receiving aid and food since 2005 then over a million Palestinians would be dead by now, yet that's not the case. Their population is increasing not decreasing so they must be receiving food, medical aid, and some who are willing to go to Israeli Hospitals have received medical treatment and care. And the numbers of civilian casualties, which Hama's is more responsible for then Israel, is a count that is debatable, just like other times where numbers of casualties were proven inflated by the Arabs in past Wars.
The values in question is the values, of the Palestinians not the Jewish Israelis who for most part just want to live in peace and have demonstrated that from inception. It is even in biblical scripture appropriate to defend one self. Why should Israel be different then any other Country or State, and not be given that right as well? The double standard seems to be applied here.
I am a scientist and I have never seen a scientist in my life who would plant the flag and religious simbols of his or her nation on the stage of the host academic institution.
I am curious to find out why speekers of other fields seem to think that to be approprite.
He is not Israel's ambassador to UCI
I think I have given proper toughts to the subject before making my comment, which also included the subject of decorative use of religious simbols within the framework of an academic presentation. I have been present at presentations by Nobel Laurate physicists representing Israel, who never used flags and religious simbols, yet enhanced the respect of Israel and the Jewish People enourmously .
Political Speech is particularly chilling. What ever happened to the old saying
"I may not like what you say but I will defend your right to say it". Either side
of this issue must be encouraged to speak wherever and whenever they want
without restrictions.
Itchy.