The anti-Israel fanatics are overreaching, and the results are great. SJP and Student Voice for Peace decided they would try to force student government candidates at UCLA into hate-Israel pledges–by swearing that they would never visit Israel on trips sponsored by Jewish organizations. Anti-Semitic much? The reaction has been pretty much against the BDSholes.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement to the campus that he was “troubled” by efforts to “delegitimize educational trips offered by some organizations but not others.”
Block added that political speech which “stigmatizes or casts aspersions on individuals or particular groups does not promote healthy debate, but debases it by trying to intimidate individuals and groups.”
UC President and former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said she shares “Chancellor Block’s concerns about students at UCLA who target any student seeking to participate in student government who has a relationship with, or wants to travel to, Israel on trips sponsored by certain groups.”
While this was a successful pushback, let’s not forget that a Presbyterian pastor was fired for going on trips to Israel sponsored by Jewish organizations. This is a wave they are trying to create. Thankfully, UCLA is a public university, not a private, anti-Israel church organization.
On the good news side of things, the new Prime Minister of India is a big fan of Israel, and the Israel-haters are extremely unhappy about it.
And may I say: Good.