Last spring term, the Arab Student Association (ASA) allowed T-shirts to be distributed at its screening of the film “Occupation 101.” The T-shirts featured an Israeli flag with a swastika next to it marked with a big red ‘X’, insinuating the annihilation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. In order to further degrade Jews and Israelis, the T-shirt shirts read “Stop the Zionist Nazis,” equating myself and fellow Jewish students with those who annihilated half of our people during the Second World War. The T-shirts were handed out to and taken by my fellow students, some of whom wore the T-shirts throughout the screening.
I photographed the T-shirt, and along with a fellow student, submitted an official complaint to the Bias Response Team, which is run by the same people who run the LGBTQA. Its response to my complaint was that this does not break any clear rules, as it falls under “free speech,” and that there is not much the Bias Response Team can do to address the distribution of such T-shirts. The ASA is funded with our tuition money, and the building in which the T-shirts were distributed (150 Columbia) is state property paid for with our tax dollars. I eventually met privately with the leaders of the ASA, who promised to write a letter of apology to the Jewish community but in the end never followed through with their pledge. It is with great confusion that I am witnessing such an extreme reaction against the use of the swastika when it targets the queer community, whose leaders evoke “freedom of speech” when the same symbol is targeted at Jews and Israelis. As an openly gay, Jewish-Israeli man, I find it outrageous that when I am threatened with the swastika as a Jew and as an Israeli, “freedom of speech” is evoked and there is no response from the campus community. However, it is only when my gay identity is attacked that people suddenly use words such as “hate crime” and “feeling unsafe.”
I find it ironic that those who are put in charge of fighting bias respond themselves in a very biased manner when the swastika is used to target Jews and Israelis versus when it is used to target gays and lesbians. Every day on campus, I see the same students who distributed and wore these T-shirts, which for me is even more threatening than anonymous vandalism.
Slideshow from the Prefontaine Classic
72 comments
dont' ever fall for this young man's pathetic apologist ideology. Never raise up a man of color by demeaning a man of "other" color.
don't just read jeff gates. read about other peoples with other problems. you are not a self-hating jew, you are just a self denying human.
the hypocrisy is the problem. the asa has every right to complain about israel - but where is the self criticism? where is the anti-arab actions protest or tee-shirts about Darfur? how about how the UAE treats Filipino maids, or any other of the atrocities Arab led governments commit to their own citizens and neighbors. if israel is constantly boxed into a corner, while other nations are given a free hand - then of course there are going to be these stupid back and forths.
the hypocrisy is the problem. the asa has every right to complain about israel - but where is the self criticism? where is the anti-arab actions protest or tee-shirts about Darfur? how about how the UAE treats Filipino maids, or any other of the atrocities Arab led governments commit to their own citizens and neighbors. if israel is constantly boxed into a corner, while other nations are given a free hand - then of course there are going to be these stupid back and forths.
“Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to [Islamic] Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians. Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers—already you see the world had already fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing Christianity!”—Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) Leader of the left-wing National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI)
Do you know how Amina and Sarah are? You should. Two teenage girls murdered by their father for bringing shame to the family...here in the US. He had to "protect the family honor" as they were becoming too Westernized. You probably are unaware that Egyptian forces fired on Palestinians trying to get in to Egypt...through or over the wall that was built by the Egyptians to keep the Palestinians out. Why I wonder? Do you? Well, I know why. You should find out for yourself. It's easy to do...use the search engine of your choice. The Egyptian wall gets no press but the one tweenst Israel and "Palestine" do. Who was the leader of "Palestine" before Arafat? ???
“Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to [Islamic] Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians. Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers—already you see the world had already fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing Christianity!”—Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) Leader of the left-wing National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI)
Hitler was a Christian? Copied and pasted...does that make it untrue?Joseff Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, noted:"The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed."Hitler thought ill of Christianity, preferring Islam for its warrior spirit:"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good?
"The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
(Adolf Hitler, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 96, Inside the Third Reich.)
I await the next lie.islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.
“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world…. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says, kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! ...Whatever good there is, exists thanks to the sword, and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient, except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! ...Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”—Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989) Iran’s Supreme Leader from 1979 to 1989—the highest ranking political and religious authority of the nation.
A disciple of the historian and Holocaust denier David Irving, Finkelstein typically places in quotation marks his references to the “six million” Jews exterminated by the Nazis – to demonstrate his belief that the figure is a grossly exaggerated fabrication. In an interview with the German paper, Die Welt, Finkelstein said: “Not only does the ‘Six Million’ figure become more untenable but the numbers of the Holocaust industry are rapidly approaching those of Holocaust deniers…. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud.”
British journalist Brian Whitaker, Middle East editor of the Guardian, dismisses MEMRI as "basically a propaganda machine."Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, accuses them of "outright distortion," and former CIA case officer Vince Cannistraro has written that "they (MEMRI) are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud."With characteristic bluntness. Norman Finkelstein has written: "MEMRI is a main arm of Israeli propaganda. Although widely used in the mainstream media as a source of information on the Arab world, it is as trustworthy as Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer was on the Jewish world." (Der Sturmer was a rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper, and Streicher a notoriously cruel Nazi.)
And THAT is your way of refuting what is posted here? Is there a problem with those that know islam for what it is coming here to post? Is the Truth that is posted here any less truthful because of the fact that we were invited here to take part in the discussion? You can't kill the Truth so you try to demean those that post it...because we were invited to participate?
Stick to the facts if you can. Refute what I and others have posted here if you can.
You're damned right I'm against islam...just as I am opposed to any tyrannical regime that enslaves its people, makes cattle of their women and abuses children in the most heinous of ways. And you...you defend this? You call Truth about islam anti-islam. That's hilarious!! Point out one lie, one falsehood that I have posted here. You are exactly right. The Truth about islam will always be anti-islam. That's how Truth works.
Deal with the facts, not where they come from. Your attempt to kill the message by attacking the messenger is quite outdated and useless.
I am gratified that you have found and mentioned Jihadwatch. Come. Debate those there that have full knowledge of islam and the tyranny that it is, that it forces on free men/women...if you have the guts and the inclination. You might learn something about that which you so blindly embrace and defend. No islam...Know Peace
Know islam...throw up.
“Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he [Mohammed] humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST.—TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant ... While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.” [The words in caps are as originally printed].— John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) Sixth President of the United States