Episode Transcript
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Do not disperse.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Shame on you.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Hi, again. This is Dick Flax with the talking strategy making history podcast with my partner collaborator, Comrade Doraka. Hi, Doraka.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Hello. Good morning.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: And we are here right in the couple of days after the big arrests at Columbia University, 108 students who were peacefully protesting on campus in behalf of palestinian justice were removed by the president of the college, recalling the New York City police force onto campus, which is not a usual occurrence or a generally accepted occurrence. And that was done in ways that not only were appalling on their face, but really bothered me as a sixties veteran who with great memories, great memories and impact of particularly the Columbia revolt of 1968, to look at the video of the police arrest, there was a familiarity with, visually, those past scenes that was upsetting. So it prompted me to reach out to Diraka and say, let's do this recording of a new episode in the Israel Palestine set of episodes. We've been working on focusing on what's happening on the campuses, using the Columbia situation as the springboard for a number of other stories, incidents and so forth that I think are instructive and that we might learn from close examination of. At least that's the goal that I have. So my reaction, Diraca, to the Columbia situation was that not just calling the police, but the procedure that was accepted and believed on campus was that the president would not call the police unless the faculty senate gave its consent. They were not consulted. The students who were on the DIag, or whatever they call it there, had set up an encampment. They have a series of demands about, basically Columbia divesting from companies that, as they put it, profit from the occupation and from the war on Gaza.
Many of the students were garbed in Kefiyyah and otherwise. And it's hard to tell from looking at it which students are actually Arab or Muslim or palestinian and which are students in sympathy, but they all, the fact that they all were looking the same maybe is part of what they were trying to express. Anyway, they were all suspended with no due process. That's another point. Not only were they suspended en masse, but without any normal process of hearing for them to defend themselves. They were suspended in order for the university to charge them with trespassing. Presumably, if they were enrolled students, they would be hard to be charged.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: So they were suspended. They were sort of suspended pro forma before they were.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: That's my understanding. And, and the consequence of suspension, as I understand it, it's not just don't go to class people, I think, and I don't want to go overboard in claiming we know exactly what's happening.
They can't get back into their dorm rooms. They're not given the right to be students during the period of suspension.
So that's part one. So part two is the president's appearance at the congressional hearing the other day. She was obviously geared to do something. The other elite college presidents who lost their jobs after testifying. She was geared up to do something different. And what she was there to say apparently was not only are we against antisemitism, but we are intending to get to eliminate from campus or punish those who we define as expressing that. And there were questions about individual faculty because Columbia has established a rather strong. It's one of the main academic centers in this country for palestinian related scholarship. Edward.
[00:05:37] Speaker C: Yeah, it was just the critical Middle east studies.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: And Edward said was there, and now Khalidi and there are other faculty. And so these were, I think, brought up in the congressional hearing by the rather demagogic members of Congress, Republicans.
What about this person? And what about what this guy said and so forth? And she was basically doubling down on what the committee was wanting, that, yeah, we won't tolerate this. We won't tolerate that. The protests on campus continue to this moment. They haven't cleared the encampment, really. There's, you know, it's, I'm sure, ramped up, and I'm not sure what actions various faculty groups are taking, but they're part of this struggle. So. Oh, I know. I did see today that one group of faculty have started to a movement to boycott the commencement at Columbia because of what the president has done. So predictably, you know, this is part of what amazes me. It's predictable that this escalation would be the outcome of these moves on her part. And I was struck by something in an editorial in the student paper, the Spectator, which I just happened to notice is a one 50 year old student newspaper. They said the administration at Columbia has always, in recent years, honored the activist history of Columbia. It's an interesting point because, you know, in 68, the students were painted as evil in the same way that the current students are being portrayed.
But now the historical understanding at Columbia and Berkeley and a lot of other schools, including UCSB, is that the student protesters had righteousness on their side and are honored by actual physical, you know, placards and namings and so forth. So the editorial pointed out the total hypocrisy of the administration in that regard. So this is a dramatic episode, just as the 68 Columbia revolt was not by far not the only protest going on at that time against the war. It was one of, you know, hundreds and hundreds of campuses. But the Columbia revolt then was global in its impact because the police behavior was so brutal and bloody. Faces were seen all over the world's media as a result.
And it was a major, elite university where this was happening and where ultimately, the president was deposed. And the story turned around after. After as it unfolded. So maybe this current Columbia revolt will have some similar effects on the public understanding and how we all view what is going on on the campuses.
By the way, just to add one other point, this president, this is not the only repressive move made contrary to normal procedures. She is suspended jewish voice for Peace and the pro palestinian organization at Columbia for a period of time last semester, not for any direct violent, or, you know, protest, but because they were said to be contributing to anti semitism. She then promulgated a series of rules, again without the normal process of consultation and deliberation, that said, you can't protest at Columbia at all if it's not during the hours between noon and 06:00 p.m. And you have to give two days notice for your protests. In other words, you create rules which can't be complied with, and therefore you have further grounds for this kind of punishment. I think all of this is bizarre and crazy from the point of view of practical control. But. But that is. And it's, to me, as far as I know, the most extreme example of efforts to just simply repress the pro palestinian movement.
And it's not just pro Palestinian as a label, but what we might call the peace movement with respect to Gaza, the ceasefire movement, the demands are not only about palestinian freedom, of course, but which is part of it, but also about ending the war, which itself is an atrocious genocidal dynamic. I'm not saying it is genocide because I respect the idea that application of the word requires kinds of evidence which remain to be collected and so on and so forth. But genocidal meaning, in my mind, behavior on the face of it, of bombing hospitals, of starving people and so forth, is, on the face of it, give you reason to think that genocide might be going on. Is that a fair statement?
[00:11:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's pending research, as you say, but it's certainly. I've been using the word, yeah, words like genocidal or possibly genocidal or potentially genocidal, because we're in that realm. I'm also sensitive to wanting to be precise with any kind of language like that, but when there is explicit rhetoric from members of a government saying that they're trying to ethnically cleanse an area and the other major enclave of palestinian community in the east bank. Sorry, the West bank, we've got this racist settler movement harassing and murdering people and also openly stealing land with the support of the current israeli government. So luckily, not to get too much of a tangent on the G word, but the genius of the legal definition, international law definition of genocide, is that it doesn't have to look exactly like the shoah. It doesn't have to look like we found the notes from the meeting where the government said, we're going to have camps where we exterminate people in order for this to be a genocide. And there's a whole series of very thoughtful criteria that were meant exactly to keep governments from being able to hide behind technicalities when they're destroying a people. And that is certainly the effect of Israel's war in Gaza right now. So is the destruction of the palestinian people.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: So, yeah, so there's a dimension to the use of that word, not to, as you say, dwell on it forever, but the dimension of strategy that if you're trying to build a. Which I hope is what we are trying to build, we all who are seeking a movement to stop the war and to finally provide equality and justice for the people of Palestine, that because the word genocide comes from what was done to the jewish people, Europe, it is profoundly threatening and frightening to Jews to hear the word genocide applied to Israel, even though everything we've just been saying points in that direction, even if.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: The shoe indeed fits so well, if I could take off from that point, because I think that's an important one, which is that what's happening at Columbia, what we're seeing at the University of Southern California, where the administration canceled the speech of the valedictorian, not because of something that was in her speech, but because she once linked to another, to someone else's website that called for palestinian liberation and the destruction of the state of Israel, very explicitly, by the way, like the destruction of the state of Israel, replace it with Palestine, where Jews and Arabs can live together in peace and freedom. So what happened is that groups and individuals that have been working overtime to codify the concept of the definition of antisemitism to include being against the state of Israel's existence.
Right. Or even. Or accusing the state of Israel of genocide. You hear that, too? That's an anti semitic statement, according to some people. So here we have. Somebody was canceled from their speech representing the student body at commencement because they linked to someone saying, I think the state of Israel should be replaced by a state called Palestine, and it should be for both Jews and Arabs.
And that being defined as anti Semitism is this really calculated and aggressive, multi pronged campaign to stifle any kind of pro palestinian speech by drawing these red lines around what you can and cannot say. And again, and that's how, as you mentioned, what's going on in Colombia and the president, they're sort of doubling down on sounding draconian.
Their colleagues from Harvard and other elite institutions are still reeling because when asked in a totally gotcha moment if someone on campus was calling for, you know, exterminating Jews or something, it was unclear in the question, frankly, you know, would you stifle it? And their answer was, well, it depends which was the right answer. Right? Because it does. It totally depends on the context in which what is protected speech and what isn't, and so forth. All of these nuances have gone out the window in this, I think, unfortunately, very successful effort to just paint entire swaths of public opinion as beyond the pale and unspeakable, which then allows you to crack down on campus protest in ways that just completely destroy debate and discussion and everything that a university is.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: So let's go unpack that a little, because what you're pointing to is the reality that I wanted to highlight today, which is, we could call it the weaponization of anti semitism, the use of the charge of antisemitism for political ends that really are not about anti semitism per se, necessarily. So the first point is that members of boards of trustees in these different universities are part of the story, as we know from Harvard, which has been.
[00:17:38] Speaker C: Very well, and alumni, not even alumni.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Just rich alumni, very wealthy alumni, mobilized not only for their particular schools, but in general, for this campaign of weaponization of anti semitism.
And that is presumably what is a lot of what is affecting someone like the president of Columbia being. And so that adds to my distress as a naive academic believing in the values of the university, that the university policies are now being dictated by rather brutal behavior by donors and trust, you know, rather than bold, bold stances of independence on the part of those who are supposed to be defending the institution's values. So that's point one. But those donors have been organized. They are not themselves necessarily the most important agents of the campaign. And I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but in this case, I do think it's a kind of conspiracy, because their organization, it's not at all a conspiracy.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: It's not a campaign. It's not. It's a campaign.
It's out in the open. It's fine. Bullets. There's nothing.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: I was being ironic, you know, being ironic.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Yeah, but it is organisms. It's stupid and naive to talk like.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, it's right. You sound.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: You're talking about the protocols of the elders of Zion because you're accusing jewish people of doing things together like, no.
And again, it's a very right wing, very right wing network of folks that do not represent by any means the views of the average American. Jewish American.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: That's right. And we'll get to that. I wanted to finish the laying out of what I think the ingredients of this campaign are. So AIPAC, notoriously is.
Is the jewish lobby in favor of Israel's interest. It works hand in glove with the israeli embassy and. Which is maybe partly calling some of these shots. But the most disturbing group, as far as I'm concerned, is the anti defamation League, which is supposed to be the watchdog of anti Semitism. That's the purpose of the anti Defamation League. So they have taken on themselves to openly and clearly state that essentially anti Zionism is anti Semitism. They have made a point of saying that Israel's validity and existence and is totally bound up with jewish identity. They're trying to create the story that Jewish Americans are jewish. In large part. Their jewishness is intimately connected to Israel. And one consequence of that story is that Jews in general then become a target. That's what contributes to the atmosphere that appears to be anti semitic.
If the jewish official organization in charge of antisemitisms definition is saying Jews and Israel are one, then if someone sees a jewish dean, let's say, behaving in ways that are anti palestinian from their point of view, the attack on that Deen is made to appear anti semitic. But from the point of view of those who are criticizing the deen, I'm bringing a. Because I want to talk about a specific case in Berkeley, are said to be anti semitic. But the story, the official story, frighteningly coming from jewish sources, is that, yes, Jews are responsible for Israel no matter where they live, and even. And Zionism is integral to jewish identity.
And so I just want to say I resent this deeply because my jewish identity is completely not connected to Israel or Zionism. And there's a whole set of other traditions that are very evident and still existing and may be growing now, again, that are not Zionists, that are diasporic on purpose and so, but, so that's part of the campaign.
And I guess.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: But I do want to be clear. There's a really horrible tradition surrounding antisemitism, of blaming Jews for antisemitism.
Like, oh, you guys wear your hair weird and you eat weird food and you live together and that's why everybody hates you. It's your fault. And that's there, and that's real. And I don't want to contribute to that in any way. Right. But the focus being. But there is this other move that gets made in saying that an attack on the existence of Israel, not believing and wanting that state to exist, is inherently anti semitic. And it doesn't matter. I mean, the line is, it doesn't matter who it comes from. If a jewish person says that they're.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Anti, they're self hating.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: If a black person says that they're anti semitic, if a white, if a German, if anybody says that they're anti semitic and that, I hope, I hope we can draw a line between calling that out as a move, as a cynical move, as a problematic move, and not saying like, oh, hey, Jews, stop being so different. And people will like you, you know, because I do. We're, we. That wound, it was like the sister said. Sister from jewish current said, right. Like we're talking about a community with traumas on top of traumas on top of traumas. And, like, that's not a wound that I'm interested in.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Like, well, there's more. There's more to the anti semitic tradition, and that includes the trope that jewish money determines the world and that jewish money is all powerful. And so the image of these donors throwing their money around is so appalling to those of us who want to prevent anti semitism. These people are almost acting as if, yeah, let's act out what we're being accused of.
And so that's an example of what I'm talking about.
If these folks who say they're so concerned about anti semitism really cared about it, they would be thinking much more carefully about what it is they are presenting and doing, suppressing views they don't like, using their money power to change institutional behavior, claiming, that's the point. I mean, you're right that this all has a certain ulterior motive, which is to, in my opinion, one of the motives is a longstanding one, which is, can we get the american jewish population out of the Democratic Party and move it to the right?
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: There's a realignment play going on and attacking the university system. That's nothing new from the right wing, and this is being all lent to that.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: Well, maybe, actually, if I could just very quickly. That's the thing that frustrates me a lot about this, is that there's a right wing attack on academia. There's a right wing attack on the left. There's a right wing attack on academic freedom. All of these.
The war on woke has, as some of its most brutal battlegrounds, are higher education.
And here's a way where a group of people who have an agenda that is not friendly to jewish people, like not friendly to Judaism, embodied by this wackadoo woman who led the charge in Congress, who has openly endorsed the great replacement theory. You know, these are the people that have seen an opportunity to be like, ah, yeah, also, we hate the woke left because they're anti semitic. And just like, watching liberal jewish folks fall for that trick is really sad because, you know, I'm just sitting here like, pro. They're coming for you next. Are you kidding me? Like, what, today? Today you'll be on their side because they're going to kick the pro palestinian people in the teeth and you're mad at them. But, like, tomorrow it's going to be civil liberties. It's going to be like the right to not be an evangelical christian. It's going to be the right to choice. It's going to be all of these other things that they're going to directly make jewish life harder, and they're just feeding it, and it's just sad.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Well, that's a good.
Leads to a good segue thing to the Berkeley Law School Dean story, which is not in itself a hugely important moment, except the way it's being, the way it has been perceived, defined by Dean Chemerinsky himself, as well as the various ways it's been seen. Part of the point I want to make in using this episode is a more general one, which is that I just feel so strongly that many of the episodes described publicly that happen on campuses, my experiences, they always turn out to have much more to them than what we hear in public.
But that nuance, those nuances and those other contextual things don't get reported, which.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Pretty much if you hear a story that emanates from a university and it's like a sensational example of political correctness run amok, there's more to it. Like just guarantee.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: So in this case, the first thing I noticed, and Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean at Berkeley. He is very legitimately honored for his great legal scholarship, advocate of really strong interpretation of what free speech means, so much so that his original appointment at the Irvine Law school was tried to be overturned by right wing efforts at that time. So he has all the right credentials as an honorable, extremely honorable person, liberal figure in the best meaning of the word liberal.
And he's probably been a critic of Israel like so many other liberal american Jews.
But when October 7 happened a couple of days later, he almost immediately jumped into print with an op ed piece that I felt at the time was surprisingly over the top, buying into the anti semitic construction of what the pro palestinian movement was about. And I think it was in the LA Times. So I feel like that fact that he did that set the stage for how many of the students at Berkeley law might be perceiving him, or maybe an indicator that he has a lot of sensitivity, you might say, in a zionist way about what is going on in Israel. So anyway, fast forward to the actual notorious incident. So he has this practice of having groups of law students come for dinner at his house, which some reports are that the house is one of the things the university provides. The dean. I don't want to say that that's absolutely true, but it could be true.
But those dinners are part of his deanship activity, and they are part of the understanding of what the law school customs are. They're not just private dinners among a bunch of people. They are, they have an official quality. And I think that's an important little element in this story because the idea was immediately declared, this is his private home and this was a private party. And what happened in terms of protest doesn't belong.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: And just for, I mean, we should put links to this in the show notes, like all of these sort of incidents. But someone got up at the, at this dinner, right, and gave, started to give a pro palestinian speech.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Well, someone, it should be important. And this wasn't that well reported. She was invited. She was the head of the arab american law student group.
She's a graduating law student. She came with a microphone.
That's odd behavior in a way, but presumably, obviously it was a planned idea that it, at this dinner, she would get up and say something and people should take a look. I guess we'll try to put a link to this. There's, you know, online, we do have video of what happened. She got up and made two sentences talking about Ramadan and the fact that there's a fast in Ramadan. And I think what she was intending to say was, we are not. We, the arab students who are here, intend to respect Ramadan rather than eat the food that you are serving, and then to proceed with some kind of declaration about Palestine, the palestinian cause, she's immediately interrupted by Catherine Fiske, Professor Catherine Fiske of the Berkeley law, who is the wife of Erwin Chemerinsky. She grabs hold of the student around the neck, is what I saw, trying to get the microphone away from her.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: It was awkward at best.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Very awkward. And you see her that, you see Fisk backing away, realizing that she could be seen as assaulting the student.
And maybe some people will think she did assault the student. I don't want to make a judgment. And then Dean Chemerinsky is in the picture yelling, this is my house.
You have no right to do it. And what the student says is, she said, well, we think we do have a free speech. Right at this event. And he said, no, I'm an ex. You know, he basically implied, I'm the expert on free speech, and you don't. And that's an, you know, it's not the most important point, but they actually did have. Someone from the national Lawyers Guild had told them that this kind of event could be construed as a having First Amendment rights. Why.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: But why are we. Why are we even having that?
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Well, I wouldn't. I don't want to dwell on it, but it's just.
[00:33:41] Speaker C: You know what I mean? No, no, I'm not. I'm not signaling you out. It is a part of people are debating this. But what I don't get is it was a protest. Sometimes protests break the law.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Exactly right.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: And it's a protest about. About an incident, a process, a thing that's going on, an event in the world in which we are every single day opening up our proverbial or virtual newspapers and reading about the mass death of children.
And people get upset about that, and they might break the law to speak out about it. And I don't understand why these liberal boomer professors can't just be like, hey, you know, you're going to give a speech, give a speech. You're protesting. This is life. This is living in a democracy. Wait till she's done. Have a chat, go home. The way they responded, I just think.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: That is actually the point I was going to lead to, which is so he very self. So she said, I'm leaving. And he said, good. So he then puts out a statement saying how appalled he was at this behavior, how much of an invasion of his private space this was, and that he would have called the police. And then he said, and I'm contemplating letting the bar association know about the conduct of the students who did this. And I thought, what an.
[00:35:12] Speaker C: You're gonna. Oh, I'm, now I'm gonna mess with the careers of this young lawyer because she came to my house and gave a speech.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Well, so, so here's my. My reaction was, what good did any of that, Erwin? What good did any of that do for anybody? That kind of reaction? You could have said to her, I share the pain you are feeling about what is happening in Gaza. That is, I'm interpreting what you're doing right now as a way to deal with the pain and horror that you feel about what is happening Gaza. And I understand that. I don't approve of this thing that you've done, but finish what you're going to say, and then let's go on with what we're trying to do with this dinner, something like that.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: Or even. Absolutely. Or even. Even argue and yell back, you know, and just be like, you're wrong, because this, this and this. And here's why. You're full of shit. That's great. Fine, too. That's democratic.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: But.
[00:36:15] Speaker C: But they're like, I should have called the cops and blah, blah. And then the thing that really pissed me off and I sent you this, was this interview with UC regent and former assembly speaker John Perez where he did this whole. This is a guy who comes out of the labor movement. This is a guy who, the labor movement and chicano activism before that has given his imprimatur to many, many sit inside demonstrations at bosses houses, disrupting the dinners of private dinners of donors. Blah, blah, blah. All of that is fine. But then he sits there and judges, and it's just like, these students went too far. This was too much. It was beyond the pale. And this, there's something new happening on campuses in the left that they've just become, you know, super predators. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fuck that guy so bad. I was that. What a hypocrite. And what's really disturbing is that it's guys like that that sit on the kind of designated seats on the board of regents. It's like, supposed to be for progressives. And what does he do with it? He's there being like, well, you know, beyond the pale and protest.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Well, quite possibly because. Because of his admiration of Chemerinsky as a person might have colored him, but.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: Oh, no, you're strong. You're totally, totally steel Manning.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: No, no, no.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: Just like, I want to make sure he wants to run for some shit. He just wants to. He's just playing.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe so. That's a very good point.
But you know, and what this all speaks to is the sort of effect of this weaponization of antisemitism. It's like a growing, spreading poison and it's affecting people that we might have thought could be allies of the good and the righteous.
The scenario I was painting and that you were alluding to as well, of being accommodating and embracing of the student, even though you're pissed off. I mean, if you're the dean, you might say, yeah, yeah, I have an emotional, personal reaction. I'm upset that she's doing this. I don't like, I don't even like as a person on the liberal left, I don't want to be outflanked on the left by someone. There's so many emotions that not only is this my house, but you're putting me in a box I don't want to be put in.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: Totally understand.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: But then you put that aside. You put that aside for the purpose at hand, which is to bring a healing possibility of more common ground among people who want a moral, humane, just process coming out of this whole mess. And instead he's contributed to the mess. Very much so.
And that's the point I wanted to foreground as we talk today, similar events happening.
So this is a little bit of events not as dramatic here at UCSB that might be worth looking at. Just not to get into all the details because neither of us know everything. Yes, try to make the story short. There was an occasion when some signs were created by pro palestinian activists and put on the windows of a UCSB building.
And one of the signs says, Zionists not welcome.
And there were other signs directed at the president of the student, associated student, student government president, who happens to be a not only jewish woman, but quite active in pro Israel fashion.
[00:39:59] Speaker C: And there was something very threatening, very ominous.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: It seemed ominous. And then, and so there was legitimate reason to, for the university, to officials to really try to engage with those students and deal with what had happened. But there's more, as usual, more to this story than that. So the student body president, her first reaction was to turn over the names of many of the students that she could identify to a national anti semitic, antisemitism operation that immediately doxed all of these students. So she then she realized, or at least says that she realized that this was not the thing to do. So she took down or tried to reverse what happened, but she'd already done some harm. So that's an interesting. And then one of her, one of another associated student them senator, one of the members of the Senate who was an active member of Hillel. He encountered pro palestinian table and started really shouting at people in the most vile kind of way, really not necessarily overtly islamophobic, but close to it, like, I hope you people die, stuff like that. And of course, they decide to bring charges against him.
But the disciplinary body that was supposed to hear those charges said, well, he didn't cross the line. It was awful what he said, but it was his free speech. Right.
[00:41:53] Speaker C: But see, this is what seems to me is the problem, and I think we should wrap up. I'll let you have the last word.
The last thing I want to say is that I feel like we are letting those students down. We're letting the democracy down. We're letting people, Palestinians and Israelis down in many ways when we're trying to avoid having actual political conversations about these things and trying to just shut one another up with, like, rules and law and procedures and making everything juridical and attacks on one another.
I think that there is some, or I think there is anti Semitism in America, in the world, and also, therefore, in the pro palestinian movement or amongst people that are palestinian. I also think that there's some really sloppy political analysis that gets, like, by the time it's in the mouths of coming out of the mouths of a 17 year old undergraduate, has been just even more brutally oversimplified and so forth. I would love to have conversations about how inadequate and cold war oriented all of this rhetoric about settler colonialism is and so forth.
But we can't have those conversations. We can't call out the real anti semitism. We can't talk about the over simplifications of the geopolitics of it. If the minute anybody says, hey, I don't support Israel, then we're getting out the tape recorders to try to get them banned or blah, blah, blah. And this is. And like, yeah, the incident at Berkeley is in some ways like a little microcosm of that, that we should know better. We should be able to lead with dialogue, lead with debate, lead with arguments, yell and scream, do whatever, but don't be shutting people down before we've had a chance to hear from one another.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Right. That's very well put. It's the same point that I wanted to get across, and I'd add this, that I think there are, there's not enough faculty, serious faculty engagement with the students in terms of the very matters that you are raising now that is trying to let me backtrack one step on this, that in my view, as a jew who's opposed to Israel, not only what it's doing in Gaza, but in general, the zionist perspective, I think is a big mistake in jewish history, actually. But I do believe, of course, that the millions of Jews who live now in Israel should not be displaced. They have every right to be there based on, you know, number, for a number of reasons that we, there are movements within Israel. They're there. And there's a movement called standing together, for example, that says both the israeli Jews and the israeli Palestinians, the Palestinians in, in Israel and in the West bank all have the valid claims we have. We're going to live together. We have to force represent, recognize that we are not moving. Neither side is moving. Let us come together in a new politics. We've talked about this in previous episodes. So that's my line and in order. And it seems to me some of the jewish advocates for people, an end to the war and for palestinian justice need to be present with concern about that the movement not fall into anti semitic tropes and traps, and that some of, as you said, younger young people who don't really know what antisemitism is about, don't always necessarily recognize. If you put up a sign saying no Zionists not welcome, it's inescapable that Jews in general are going to feel offended and worried, if not really fearful, when a sign like that appears on a university building.
[00:46:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. Also, how are you ever going to have a peace movement of Zionists aren't welcome?
[00:46:24] Speaker A: And there are Zionists who share most of the same critique that non Zionists do of what's happened in Israel.
And I don't expect the Palestinians in the palestinian movement to be foregrounding that issue. But the jewish allies need to be not simply accepting stuff that could be seen that way. And I think faculty in particular have an important potential role.
Be interesting to see what faculty at Columbia do in relation to what is happening there as a good example. So, and I hope that what we've been trying to do today would be something that would happen more, more extensively, which is that when these episodes come up, that people actually say, what's the evidence for what you're saying? What did happen there? What else happened there? Let's get the full story. There's very little reporting on what the Palestinians themselves on campus feel or what the pro palestinian students feel or what kind of internal discussions they have about strategy, about values and so forth. I'm sure it is far more, you know, complicated than what we're leading to understand. Absolutely. So anyway, there's a song, there's a song called we're going to conclude with, written by Malvina Reynolds during the civil rights movement, called it isn't nice saying protest isn't nice. And I thought of that song when this Erwin Sherman Chemerinsky incident happened. So we're going to play that going out. This has been the talking strategy making history podcast with me, Dick Flax, and.
[00:48:09] Speaker C: You, Dorocca Larimore hall.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: And thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.
Go to patreon.com to to be a sustainer of this program. Thanks for listening.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: It is nice to block the doorway? It is nice to go?
There are nicer ways to do it? But the nice way it always feels? It isn't nice, it isn't nice? You told us once, it told us once?
That's freedom?
We don't mind, we don't mind?
We don't mind?
No, no, no, we don't mind?
It isn't nice to dump the groceries what are sleeping on the floor?
What a shout out cry of freedom in the hotel or the store? It is nice? It is tonight? You told us once, you told us twice? When it does freedom, we don't mind, we don't, we don't mind?
We don't wanna know?
We don't mind?
Yeah, we tried negotiation and the token picket line?
Mister Charlie didn't see us any? Might as well be black?
When you deal with men of ice? You can't deal with ways so nice? But if that's freedom's power.
