On Tuesday, I told a colleague that after several visits to UCLA's campus this week and last week, it was possible that a group of pro-Israel people would lose patience with the university and simply storm the "Palestine" encampment.
I joked that L.A. Jews weren't Ashkenazi intellectuals like me, but rather Persian Jews who fled the Iranian revolution. As one sign at the pro-Israel counter-protest Sunday at UCLA said: "My parents didn't leave Iran for this shit."
Insert compulsory condemnation of vigilantism here, but note that it was only the arrival of the vigilantes that triggered local and state law enforcement to do anything, after letting the thugs at the encampment bully people for days.
Local media are picking up the activists' mantra that police took too long to arrive at the scene of the battles overnight. No -- police were told to stand down from the moment the encampment arrived. UCLA coddled the thugs.
Jews lived through a version of 1930s Germany as the thugs, running security and giving orders to university contractors, were able to police the perimeter of their own encampment, denying students access to classes and the whole area.
I personally was assaulted by the thugs when I tried to exercise my right as a journalist (and a member of the public) to film the encampment. The whole situation was intolerable and the university and the governor were OK with it.
After Sunday's counter-protest, and counter-counter-protest, I told friends that I was surprised there hadn't been violence already. There were no police around and UCLA was relying on the Palestinian activists/thugs for security.
So you'll hear complaints this morning about the long time it took police to arrive. The fact is that UCLA, the UC leaders, and the governor kept police out and let the thugs run things for a week. A reaction was almost inevitable.
If you watch video of the confrontations, you'll hear pro-Israel vigilantes cheering the arrival of the police, chanting "USA! USA!". That's what they wanted all along. It's a shame that it took violence and vigilantism to get it.
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Topics:
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- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
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This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
