san francisco state marches for palestine

It would definitely be great to see more action at SFSU, more community type of folks, as opposed to more of the usual UC Berkeley liberals rallies and on-campus marches. I'm highly disappointed that I can't find any pictures or more coverage of what happened at SF St. on Indybay/SF-IMC, but instead more of the same-ol Berkeley thing. Might as well be the UCB-IMC!!

to add to the report....
The General Union of Palestinian Students was denied by the administration a march on campus, which was the initial plan. It appears that one of the older Palestinian organizers either got the SFPD to allow the march to take place on 19th (off-campus), or his call at the end of the rally was out-of-the-blue and everyone followed. By what others have described, it appears it was the latter.

I saw the ISO speaker at the rally preceding the march. She contributed little or nothing whatsoever to the rally with her "workers unite" type of solution/ISO rant about the US, Israel, and the Middle East. And I'm not the only one who felt this way or this mildly.

Gladly though, GUPS didn't seem to organize this with the ISO's or such, and I respect and admire them for going solo. I hope in the long-run this type of rallies by GUPS on campus and in the community also include other anti-war communities of color organizers, students, and speakers in solidarity with Palestine (we do exist!).

During, and shortly after, the ISO speaker some folks began to leave (I was above the plaza, terrace-level, it was obvious) and Ramón, from Committee for a New Colombia, went up and saved the energy in Malcolm X Plaza. He spoke about the situation in Colombia, including from personal experience, and related it to the situation in Palestine. I thought he was an awesome addition, I wish I could have brought a Colombia flag.

Once the rally moved up to 19th/Holloway, students got on 19th, stopping the MUNI on its tracks and all the traffic. There were a lot of cameras out there. Some kids tried burning an Israeli and US flag early on, but enough of us were able to stop them so that we wouldn't give the cops an excuse to come in on us, and I personally didn't want Jewish folks in support to feel alienated by a flag-burning. It's difficult alredy for them to support Palestinians, as they are seen as traitors by many of their own folks. Also, I believe it was Holocaust commemoration day or something of the sort, and it was probably not the time for such a strong anti-Israel expression.

The march made a U-turn at 19th and Winston, by Stonestown Mall, and came back up to SFSU, but then continued on into RESIDENTIAL (take that Berkeley! the revolution right at your doorsteps!) areas near SF St.

On a final note about SF St... Everyone felt really charged by what happened that day. There hadn't been anything like this in quite a while, and this is the school of the 3rd World Strike, the "birthschool" of Ethnic Studies.

-To all those liberals, radical wannabees, peace activists and organizers at SFSU: IF YOU WANT TO ORGANIZE, LEARN! You lack a lot of the 101's of organizing, especially in relation to the community and people of color. Stop being such "independent" individualist activists, and get used to letting groups like GUPS take the lead, and get used to them not wanting to work with you!

-To the organizers/activists of color, including those in MEChA, BSU, La Raza, and the likes at SFSU: get active, do something, you've been very disappointing to folks in the community, including myself, organizing against the war and its effects on us. I'm a student at SFSU, but this sentiment comes mostly from the community--those mostly affected, those dependant on us with the privilege of higher education. Hate me or love me, I am CALLING YOU OUT because we need you.

I fear that Tuesday's charge of activism at SF St. could have died right there. We need to admit we need to prioritize the movement for liberation NOW! We need to recognize that the community needs us college students to use our privilege to the benefit of our communities (from SF to Bogotá to Bethlehem, wherever the struggle is in our hearts), otherwise whatever it is that you do in your activism is only for yourself.

in love and rage for my peoples,
Ramsés

"por mi raza hablará el espíritv"

Since the outbreak of violence in the Middle East on September 29, 2000, much concern has been raised about media bias. And as is becoming painfully clear, a key aspect to the Mideast struggle today is the manipulation of media to influence public opinion.

We expect journalists to maintain independence and objectivity -- and certainly not pledge "cooperation" with one side of an armed struggle. But when a representative of Italian state television issued an apology in Arabic over the filming of a brutal lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah, and promised to cooperate more fully with the Palestinian Authority in the future, Western sensibilities were shaken.

Why is the media biased? It could be they are intimidated by Palestinian strongmen into covering only the "positive" side, while Israeli democracy permits more open coverage of the Israeli position. Or it could be that it's more exciting to root for the underdog. Or it could be that the world applies a double-standard of morality to Israel.

Whatever the reason, if truth is to prevail, we can't just "read" the newspaper. Be discerning and become part of the process. Otherwise, you're just a passive object of someone else's agenda. As Mark Twain once said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."

Conrad Black is CEO of Hollinger International, and publisher of The Spectator (London), The Jerusalem Post, and other publications. He writes:

"The British media habitually apply a double standard when judging the Israelis and Palestinians. Behind the spurious defence of merely seeking justice for the Palestinians, most of the relevant sections of the BBC, Independent, Guardian, Evening Standard and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are rabidly anti-Israel."

How can readers discern the truth between the lines? Listed here are common methods employed by the media -- intentionally or not -- to influence public opinion. By being aware of these methods, we can avoid becoming a pawn in the media war.

Here are the "7 Violations of Media Objectivity":
1. Misleading definitions and terminology.
2. Imbalanced reporting.
3. Opinions disguised as news.
4. Lack of context.
5. Selective omission.
6. Using true facts to draw false conclusions.
7. Distortion of facts.

See the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, and additional resource material on media ethics,- courtesy of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Violation #1
Misleading Definitions and Terminology

By using terminology and definitions in a way that implies accepted fact, the media injects bias under the guise of objectivity.

EXAMPLE: In March 2001, two separate acts of terrorism occurred a few days apart, providing the opportunity to compare the media's selective use of terminology. The BBC's article on an IRA car bomb in London carries the headline "BBC bomb prompts terror warning," and the word "terror" (or its derivatives) is used 5 other times in the article. The IRA alerted police ahead of time, and one man was slightly injured in the blast.

But after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israeli civilians (without prior warning) in Netanya, the BBC purposely avoided the label "terrorist," and instead used the far milder term "militants."

EXAMPLE: The New York Times subtly altered its reference to the Temple Mount, which unbiased historians have always acknowledged was the site of two Holy Jewish Temples. In apparent deference to Palestinian leaders who claim that no Jewish Temple ever stood on the Jerusalem hill toward which Jews have prayed for millennia, The Times began appending the phrase to include "which the Arabs call the Haram al Sharif."

Then, a few weeks later, The Times referred to "the Temple Mount, which Israel claims to have been the site of the First and Second Temple." It was no longer established historical fact -- but a mere "claim." Then, in a subsequent article, The Times described Israeli troops as having "stormed the Haram, holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, where hundreds of people were at worship." No mention whatsoever of its status as the "Temple Mount" or the single holiest Jewish site.

EXAMPLE: Ariel Sharon, the democratically-elected leader of the State of Israel, is consistently referred to by derogatory monikers like "hard-liner" and even "war criminal." Curiously, no such appellations are attached to Yasser Arafat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #2
Imbalanced Reporting

Media reports frequently skew the picture by presenting only one side of the story.

EXAMPLE: In February 2001, Deborah Sontag of the New York Times and Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian (UK) both reported on the opening of a new exhibit in the West Bank town of Ramallah dedicated to the memories of 100 Palestinian "martyrs."

Curiously, both reporters use nearly identical language in their reports:

SONTAG: "Israeli critics would say that the exhibit, '100 Martyrs - 100 Lives,' glorifies death and encourages the cult of the shaheed, or martyr."

GOLDENBERG: "Israeli critics would argue that the exhibit glorifies violent death, and promotes a cult of martyrdom."

Issues of plagiarism aside, what is most disturbing is the way both Sontag and Goldenberg assume what Israelis critics "would say" -- had the reporter bothered to ask. Media watchdog smartertimes.com, wrote about the Sontag piece: "Israeli critics 'would say' that, if they had actually been called or quoted by the Times, rather than having their criticisms assumed. Funny how the Arabs in the article are interviewed and allowed to speak for themselves, rather than having their views summarized by a reporter estimating what they 'would say' had the reporter bothered go to the effort to ask."

EXAMPLE: A related violation, yet particularly insidious, is where the media presents a speaker from one side of the conflict who merely ratifies the opposing viewpoint. For example, under the guise of "balanced reporting," the media is fond of quoting Michael Lerner, a California rabbi who called Prime Minister Barak's policies "racist" and "oppressive," refered to the IDF as "barbarous" and "brutal," and accused Israeli citizens of perpetrating "classic Russian pogroms on Palestinian civilians."

EXAMPLE: CNN.com offers a list of web sites relating to the Middle East. Under the heading of "General Information Sites," all 12 sites are Arab-related, including one specific Palestinian site. There are no Jewish or Israel-related sites listed in this category.

The same CNN page recommends web sites within each Middle Eastern country. For example, five sites are listed for the tiny under-developed country Yemen, and five sites are listed for Palestine. The Israel category lists four sites.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #3
Opinions Disguised as News

An objective reporter should not use adjectives or adverbs, unless they are part of a quotation. Also, the source for any facts and opinions should be clear from the report, or alternatively it should be stated that source is intentionally undisclosed.

Even so-called "opinion pieces" must bear a modicum of objectivity. James Hill, the managing editor of the Washington Post Writers Group, writes:

"You have to hold columnists to the same standard as anyone at the newspaper. If a column writer is making egregious errors in the process of stating his or her opinion, eventually it's not the columnist who's doing that, it's the paper that's doing that."

EXAMPLE: On February 7, 2001, "The Early Show" co-host Bryant Gumbel interviewed former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross about what Ariel Sharon's election victory meant for the peace process. Gumbel abdicated his role of objective journalist by repeatedly asking Ross leading questions, loaded with venomous descriptions of Sharon. Gumbel said:

"But does he [Arafat] even have a chance with -- with Sharon, when many objective observers view him as -- as not only a racist, a terrorist, a murderous war criminal?"

EXAMPLE: Even photos are subject to editorializing. A "news" photo from Reuters depicts Palestinians youths throwing stones. Poetically surreal, the Palestinian attackers are heroically silhouetted on a mountaintop, their stones floating triumphantly through the majestic clouds.

EXAMPLE: A Los Angeles Times editorial cartoon depicted an Orthodox Jew praying at the Western Wall, with the stones of the wall forming the word "hate." The caption read: "Worshipping their God."

In defense, L.A. Times artist Michael Ramirez pointed out that that a second man in the cartoon (who was sprawled on the ground and much less noticeable) was actually a Moslem praying. Unfortunately, the keffiah which would identify him as a Moslem is practically invisible. Furthermore, Ramirez was unable to explain why the chosen venue of "hate" was the Western Wall, a site sacred only to Jews, which has never been a place of Moslem prayer. (Following reader protest, the Los Angeles Times altered its cartoon, deleting the unique Herodian frame around the Western Wall stones, to make it look more like a generic wall.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #4
Lack of Context

By failing to provide proper context and full background information, journalists can dramatically distort the true picture.

EXAMPLE: A BBC photo depicts two Palestinians, hands tied behind their backs, and kneeling on the ground. Standing over them is an Israeli soldier with a rifle pointed at their heads.

There is no context identifying this photo, just the benign caption "Tension has been high around the Jewish settlements." But who are the Arabs in this photo? Did they just murder Jews in cold blood? Or were they innocently buying bread at the local market? BBC does not say. And why is the soldier pointing the gun? Is he guarding dangerous prisoners until reinforcements can arrive? Or is he about to blow off their heads at point-blank range? BBC lets the implication stand for itself.

EXAMPLE: In February 2001, when a Palestinian killed eight Israelis by ramming his bus into a crowd, the front page of the Los Angeles Times carried an Associated Press photo which shows the damaged bus, and the Palestinian driver still behind the wheel, laid back with a sad face. The caption reads:

"Palestinian bus driver Khalil abu Olbeh, 35, sits wounded after leading police on a 19-mile chase. Family members said that he was distraught over financial problem and upset by current unrest."

The caption and photo sympathetically suggest that this mass murderer is somehow a victim of "Israeli aggression."

Meanwhile, the Guardian (UK) defended the bus driver as "a sort of Palestinian everyman who finally snapped because of the combined pressure of the four-month uprising and Israel's economic blockade." Despite his having admitted to carefully planning the attack, the Guardian said the attack was "far from being the calculated aim of a dedicated terrorist," and claimed that the killer was merely drowsy from medication.

EXAMPLE: The October 23 edition of Teen Newsweek, a magazine distributed to middle school students across America, features is a prominent photo of three Palestinians, with the man in the middle holding up his blood-covered hands. The caption reads: "In the West Bank city of Ramallah, bloodied Palestinian protestors express their rage."

The implication is that the Palestinians are bloody because they are victims of Israeli aggression. There is no mention whatsoever that these Palestinians are bloody because they just got finished beating, stabbing, burning and disemboweling two innocent Israelis. And how does Teen Newsweek's photo caption refer to these heinous murderers? As benign "protestors."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #5
Selective Omission

By choosing to report certain events over others, the media controls access to information and manipulates public sentiment.

EXAMPLE: Ever since the violence began, media outlets routinely refer to the Intifada as being "sparked by Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount." This is despite the admission by Palestinian Minister of Communications Imad el-Falouji that the Palestinian Authority pre-planned the outbreak of violence. As reported in the semi-governmental Beirut "Daily Star" (March 3, 2001):

"A Palestinian Cabinet minister said on Friday that the five-month-old uprising against Israel had been planned since the Camp David peace talks failed in July, contradicting past contentions of a spontaneous outburst from Palestinians on the street. Imad Faluji, the Palestinian National Authority's Communications Minister, said during a PLO rally in Ain al-Hilweh refutifada, in which more than 400 people have been killed, was planned."

However, a search of the entire CNN website for the name of the PA minister, Imad Falouji, reveals one lone reference, buried in three short paragraphs near the end of an article. Was the PA minister's assertion that the Intifada was planned not newsy enough for CNN? And shouldn't CNN stop referring to Sharon's visit as "sparking the Intifada"?

EXAMPLE: On October 24, 2000, The New York Times referred to a case of Palestinian incitement:

"Israelis cite as one egregious example a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two [lynched] soldiers. 'Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,' proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza city mosque the day after the killings."

But The Times utterly failed to convey the main message of the inflammatory sermon. In fact, The Times appears to go out of his way to choose a one-sentence quotation that could be seen as innocuous when taken out of context. The salient point of the Gaza mosque sermon, broadcast live on Palestinian Authority TV, is as follows:

"Even if an agreement for Gaza is signed, we shall not forget Haifa, and Acre, and the Galilee, and Jaffa, and the Triangle and the Negev, and the rest of our cities and villages. It is only a matter of time... Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them."

EXAMPLE: MSNBC nominated a series of photos for "Pictures of the Year 2000," ( including one entitled "A Death in Gaza," which depicts 12-year-old Mohammed Aldura huddled behind his father moments before being shot to death. Of the 49 photos up for consideration, most are of nature scenes. The only two politically-related photos both carry an anti-Israel message: the Gaza photo, and a photo of a young (presumably Arab) boy in a damaged West Bank home. A more obvious choice, the photo of the Palestinian's bloody hands at the Ramallah lynching, was not nominated by MSNBC.

The Gaza photo is used as a demonstration of the cruelty of Israeli soldiers, but does not provide any context, leading to the false conclusion that the boy was directly fired upon in full view of Israeli soldiers. Although been Israeli crossfire may have caused the boy's accidental death, there is serious doubt whether Israeli soldiers were positioned to do so.

The media fails to bring crucial background information: Palestinian children are encouraged onto the front lines, used as intentional sacrifices to garner world sympathy. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that the boy was killed by a Palestinian gunman standing near the Palestinian cameraman -- all staged by Palestinians at the beginning of the intifada to garner world sympathy (which it did).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #6
Using True Facts To Draw False Conclusions

Media reports frequently use true facts to draw erroneous conclusions.

EXAMPLE: In February 2001, when Ariel Sharon was elected Israeli Prime Minister, the Christian Science Monitor tried to delegitimize the voters' choice by claiming that voter turnout "was an unprecedentedly low 60 percent," and claiming that "at least 62 percent of eligible Israeli voters did not vote for Sharon."

In reality, only despotic countries like North Korea or Syria report 99 percent voter turnout. Truly free elections mean that citizens are also free not to vote. In the United States, only 51 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2000 presidential elections. This means that President George W. Bush received fewer than 25 percent of the eligible votes; additionally he did not even win the popular vote. To paraphrase Cobban's calculation, "At least 75 percent of eligible American voters did not vote for Bush." In years when only congressional elections are held, American voter turnout drops to 36-38 percent. But no one makes such charges undermining the American president's authority or legitimacy.

EXAMPLE: Many articles report that "hundreds of people have been killed, the vast majority Palestinians." This is an indisputable fact, yet without qualifying these figures, the reader is led to the false conclusion that Israeli soldiers are the aggressors and have used excessive force.

However, if Israeli forces were actually doing what they are accused of -- shooting indiscriminately into crowds with automatic weapons. If that were the case, many thousands of Palestinians would be dead. In reality, the ratio of deaths is less than one per riot.

EXAMPLE: Teen Newsweek, a magazine distributed to middle school students across America, published a chart illustrating the number of Palestinian and Israeli children killed since 1987. The Palestinian numbers, represented in bright red, many times exceed Israeli losses, shown in a less visible yellow. There is no explanation of circumstances how these children died. The implication is that there is equivalency -- even though the Palestinian children were killed while attempting martyrdom in the context of violent attacks on Israeli forces, while the Israeli children were killed while sitting on a public bus or in a cafe, blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violation #7
Distortion of Facts

In today's competitive media world, reporters frequently do not have the time, inclination or resources to properly verify information before submitting a story for publication.

EXAMPLE: In reporting on violence of Joseph's Tomb, CNN writes:

Meanwhile, at least 77 people, mostly Palestinians have died during several fierce clashes at Joseph's Tomb during the past week. The lone Israeli soldier to die during the clashes bled to death in the tomb as rescuers tried for hours to reach him.

CNN's claim that 77 people died in one week of clashes at Joseph's Tomb is a gross factual inaccuracy. Since one Israeli was killed, 76 were obviously Palestinian. Yet in truth, six Palestinians and one Israeli soldier had died during that week of clashes at Joseph's Tomb. In other words, CNN cited the total number of Palestinian casualties in all clashes, and juxtaposed that figure with the Israeli casualty of one isolated event.

EXAMPLE: The New York Times, Associated Press and other major media outlets published a photo of a young man -- bloodied and battered -- crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots -- with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier is the one who beat him.

In fact, the bloodied "Palestinian" depicted in the photograph was Tuvia Grossman, a 20-year-old Jewish student from Chicago, studying in Jerusalem. And the assailants were not Israelis, but members of a Palestinian mob who beat and stabbed Grossman mercilessly for 10 minutes. And the infuriated Israeli policeman with a baton was deterring the Palestinians from finishing their lynching.

Media bias assumes that if there's a victim, it must be a Palestinian. Yet who are the real victims and who are the aggressors? The truth is often the opposite of how it appears.

By being astute media observers, we can make a difference. In response to public pressure, The New York Times reprinted Tuvia Grossman's picture -- this time with the proper caption -- along with a full article detailing his near-lynching at the hands of Palestinians rioters.

I am dismayed at the violence, intolerance and myopia of the anti-Israel demonstrators of yesterday. They yelled about how Palestinian children are dying - indeed they are because Palestinian adults exploit them as suicide demonstrators to put themselves in harm's way. The Palestinians live in stressful conditions of poverty in large part because their own Arab brethren have diligently worked to keep them poor and isolated. Every Arab countries seeks to avoid absorption of Palestinians, and denies significant financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority. In fact, it should be noted that in Lebanon, Palestinians are prohibited from working, owning land, and voting. Meanwhile, Israel has provided Palestinians within Israel and outside of Israel the highest standard of living they have achieved in the Middle East. Yesterday's pro-Israel demonstration was a Pro-Peace act, wherein students sand songs of peace and reached out to anti-Israel demonstrations to converse rather than confront. Last, it should be noted, however much Palestinians would like to forget, that Israel won the 1967 war after it had been attacked by several Arab armies, and as with any military victor, Israel earned the spoils of war - namely the land it won. Should Palestinians desire their own homeland, they might look just over to Jordan, where a Hashemite King forcefully presides over an overwhelming Palestinian majority. Jordan is the Palestinian home, and they should direct their energies toward rectifying the undemocratic government of Jordan which should rightfully be a Palestinian government.

Thomas:

answer me then why it is that there are 3rd generation Palestinian refugees (this is in reference to dying children, as opposed to the bullshit stereotype/myth of suicide bombers being all children) in Israel and why Israel doesn't allow them to go back to the lands they're from, according to UN resolutions? answer me why the Israeli Jews keep uprooting Palestinians off their land, breaking down their homes, and filling it with their own settlers. answer me why the Zionist state of Israel gives second class citizenship to Palestinians? answer me why Jews are given 1st class citizenship.

can you answer anything WITHOUT white SUPREMACIST, racist against Palestinians and Arabs, rhetoric BULLSHIT??? of course not. you have little or no argument. answer me why Israel is one of, if not THEE, number one violators of UN resolutions??

and yes, the Jews would've been "driven into the sea" in 1967. not because Arabs like to hate jews, but because Israeli Euro Jews were committing ethnic cleansing on Palestinians since 1948. the only reason Israel "won" the '67 war is because they were provided with numerous 1st world weapons. why da fuck should Arab countries "absorb" Palestinians? WHO DA FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO BE DECIDING WHERE AND WHAT THE PALESTINIANS SHOULD BE AND DO???

i can dismantle all the supremacist/Zionist bullshit inquiries, and so can many others on this site, but can you answer LOGICALLY any of our questions?

i don't condone violence or suicide bombers, and i actually work with plenty Euro/U.S. jews, but i don't condone apartheid/segregation/Zionist racism and ethnic cleansing either.

===============
Historical Background on Zionism:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/05/127426_comment.php#127702
===============

I like your last line JC,
"some of my best friends are jews".

Nice touch

It may be America's ugliest outbreak of anti-Semitism since the war began. Last month at San Francisco State University, a coalition of "pro-Palestinian" groups--"Associated Students, GUPS (General Union of Palestinian Students), MSA (Muslim Student Association) and WIA (unidentified)"--put up a poster around campus depicting "soup cans" labeled "Palestinian Children Meat."

http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/Full&cid=1021464444452


The poster, which Scott Armel-Funkhouser, a scientist at UC Berkeley, has reproduced on his Web site, depicts what appears to be a dead infant, with the following caption (emphasis mine): "Slaughtered ACCORDING TO JEWISH RITES under American license." Armel says the poster's production was funded by the Associated Students, which means that SFSU students and California taxpayers are subsidizing this Nazi-style propaganda.

http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/%7Earmel/bloodlibel.html


Then, last Tuesday, the Jewish student group Hillel held a peace rally on campus and were set upon by "a large, angry crowd of Palestinians and their supporters," according to a first-person account by Laurie Zoloth, who directs SFSU's Jewish Studies Program. In a widely circulated e-mail that FrontPage magazine has reproduced, Zoloth continues:

They screamed at us to "go back to Russia" and they screamed that they would kill us all, and other terrible things. They surrounded the praying students, and the elderly women who are our elder college participants, who survived the Shoah, who helped shape the Bay Area peace movement, only to watch as a threatening crowd shoved the Hillel students against the wall of the plaza. . . .

As the counter demonstrators poured into the plaza, screaming at the Jews to "Get out or we will kill you" and "Hitler did not finish the job," I turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter demonstrators from the Plaza, to maintain the separation of 100 feet that we had been promised. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, "it would start a riot." I told them that it already was a riot. Finally, Fred Astren, the Northern California Hillel Director and I went up directly to speak with Dean Saffold, who was watching from her post a flight above us. She told us she would call in the SF police. But the police could do nothing more than surround the Jewish students and community members who were now trapped in a corner of the plaza, grouped under the flags of Israel, while an angry, out of control mob, literally chanting for our deaths, surrounded us. Dr. Astren and I went to stand with our students. This was neither free speech nor discourse, but raw, physical assault.

http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists2002/zoloth05-13-02.htm


The university's response to all this has been somewhat encouraging. In a letter dated May 7 (the same day as the riot), Ken Monteiro, the dean of human services, wrote that SFSU president Robert Corrigan has protested the blood-libel flier, and the organization responsible for it (Monteiro doesn't say which one) "responded to the president's letter with an apology for the act and a statement of what they had done to correct the issue."

http://www.sfsu.edu/%7Enews/prsrelea/fy01/114.htm


This Monday, Corrigan issued a letter about the riot, in which he promised to punish the evildoers:

The University's code of student discipline and event policy allow for individual and group sanctions ranging from warning to suspension to expulsion for certain violations, and some of what took place on Tuesday may well fall within that area. Our videotaped record of the event is being reviewed now by SFSU Public Safety to note violations and identify violators so that the University's disciplinary procedures can begin. In one instance, that of a protestor who seized and stamped on an Israeli flag, the case has already gone forward. I fully expect to see other cases presented. If we identify violations of public law, we will refer cases to the District Attorney, with our strong recommendation for full prosecution.

http://www.sfsu.edu/%7Enews/response/values.htm


"The letter isn't bad," writes Glenn Reynolds. "But so far this event, and the university's tepid response, is simply the latest stage in a long-standing and widespread trend of giving some student groups the permission to engage in behavior that the university would not permit for a moment if it came from groups not favored as politically correct."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,52888,00.html


Political correctness is such an old story as to be a cliché, but perhaps some sort of awakening is under way at SFSU. Will Corrigan be true to his word and deal harshly with his campus's anti-Semitic thugs? The world is watching.

read this:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/response/summary.htm

you stupid pro-Israel ZioNazist fuck! quit distorting the truth.

zoloth's letter was bullshit enough.

there was no "riot", quit crying for something that never happened, fucking imbecil!

no taxpayer dollars were spent on that flyer/poster either, you stupid lying piece of shit.

DOWN WITH ISRAEL, DOWN WITH ZIONAZISM

LONG LIVE MY PEOPLE OF PALESTINE!!! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!!!

now go try to feed bullshit at some pro-Israel website, fucking idiot!!

:-)
Aren't the palestinians the most retarded people in the world?

Ugly AND retarded?? a nasty combination.

I can forsee the end of the state "israel" is coming soon.... even sooner than i had expected. I had thought it would be during my childrens lifetimes but it seems that finally the world has opened it eyes and is willing to join the noble struggle for Palestine. No longer are people accepting the zionist lies and myths, the twisting and distorting of facts which has been their trait and best weapon. Thousands of supporters are going to Palestine in solidarity from allover the world of all faiths and nations.

The zionist aims to isolate the Palestinians and to equate the palestinian struggle for freedom with terrorism has backfired. I always knew that truth would be revealed about zionism and its murderous legacy. They did after all elect a war criminal responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. His aspirations for genocide of the true inhabitants of this land, the Palestinians, can be read in his autobiography and in various newspapers. But these evil aims will not be fullfilled for God is great. The Palestinians, armed with stones, have smashed the 4th most powerful army.

My dreams of seeing the sights of the great mosques and churches of the holyland, or of tasting the oranges from the trees of yaffa will come true soon.

I just hope and pray that the friends of Palestine who have joined in our struggle will come and visit the land, and together help us to rebuild the country.

The last 54 years have been a blot on this lands history, the blood of Palestinians spilt has run deep into the soil. The dead of Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatila and the thousands of martyrs will be commemorated every hour and everyday. They will not be forgotten. Peace.

I can forsee the end of the state "israel" is coming soon.... even sooner than i had expected. I had thought it would be during my childrens lifetimes but it seems that finally the world has opened it eyes and is willing to join the noble struggle for Palestine. No longer are people accepting the zionist lies and myths, the twisting and distorting of facts which has been their trait and best weapon. Thousands of supporters are going to Palestine in solidarity from allover the world of all faiths and nations.

The zionist aims to isolate the Palestinians and to equate the palestinian struggle for freedom with terrorism has backfired. I always knew that truth would be revealed about zionism and its murderous legacy. They did after all elect a war criminal responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. His aspirations for genocide of the true inhabitants of this land, the Palestinians, can be read in his autobiography and in various newspapers. But these evil aims will not be fullfilled for God is great. The Palestinians, armed with stones, have smashed the 4th most powerful army.

My dreams of seeing the sights of the great mosques and churches of the holyland, or of tasting the oranges from the trees of yaffa will come true soon.

I just hope and pray that the friends of Palestine who have joined in our struggle will come and visit the land, and together help us to rebuild the country.

The last 54 years have been a blot on this lands history, the blood of Palestinians spilt has run deep into the soil. The dead of Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatila and the thousands of martyrs will be commemorated every hour and everyday. They will not be forgotten. Peace.

>I can forsee the end of the state "Israel" is coming soon.... even sooner than i had expected. I had thought it would be during my childrens lifetimes but it seems that finally the world has opened it eyes and is willing to join the noble struggle for Palestine.


Don't count your homocide bombers before they're detonated.

Oh, and for heaven's sake, PLEASE don't reproduce!

dsdadad
asdasd

Thank you for sharing.

A task force at San Francisco State University has put forward recommendations to "improve relations between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students." SFSU was the site of a May 7 melee in which, according to one account, the "pro-Palestinian" students chanted such things as "Death to Jews" and "Hitler should have finished the job." Among the recommendations, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is the creation of "an Arab and Islamic studies program."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/10/BA245037.DTL

As it turns out, SFSU's Web site features a press release boasting of an alumnus's "achievement":

SFSU alumnus M. Javad Zarif, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees in international relations in 1981 and 1982, respectively, was recently named permanent representative of Iran to the United Nations.

Prior to his current appointment, Zarif, 42, served as Iran's deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, a position he held since 1992. Previously, he was deputy permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.

http://www.sfsu.edu/%7Enews/2002/73.htm

"Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2001," reports the U.S. State Department. SFSU is PROUD to have an alumnus who's a mouthpiece for a terrorist state?

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/html/10249.htm

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Iran's figurehead president, Mohammad Khatami, visited Afghanistan, where he complained that "since Sept. 11, this [American] administration has taken an angry approach to foreign policy." No doubt when the rulers of Khatami's land call us the "great Satan" they mean it in the least bellicose way possible. The AP adds that Afghan president Hamid Karzai met Khatami at the airport and the two rode to the presidential palace "under heavy American and Iranian security." The Iranian security men, I suppose, were needed to keep their American counterparts from lashing out in a fit of anger.

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,60257,00.html

Zionism has a much longer history of evil than just what they did to the Palestinians. How about what they have done to the Jews? How about when they collaborated with pogroms in Russian and the Holocaust in Germany, in order to justify their twisted cause? How about when they murdered Jewish proponents of a non-racial secular state?

I support neither Israel nor Palestine's idea of its own racist state. Let's have a normal democracy in the region, a modern nation with equal rights regardless of race or creed.