Samuel M. Edelman: A Week of Uncivil Discourse on Campus
[Cutting Edge contributor Samuel M. Edelman is executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.]
Anti-Israel individuals and groups on college campuses are beginning to show a pattern underlying a shift in the form of their anti-Israel activities which attack the very core of what many consider the most important aspect of the university experience, the free flow of information and opinion. Just in the last week we have seen the following events take place at UC Irvine, UCLA, and York University in Canada, Cambridge and Oxford Universities in Great Britain....
That these five events had very little press coverage outside of the Jewish community is telling all by itself.
The disruption of pro-Israel speakers on campuses has been around for some time now. We witnessed another such act last year in February at San Jose State University when Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor was interrupted in his speech on campus by anti-Israel demonstrators who were both from the campus and from outside groups. At this time no students or groups were punished by the San Jose State administration for this act on incivility. To see five such events in one week shows a kind of escalation.
The ultimate result, beyond the drama of the confrontation, is to stifle dialogue and even debate, to restrict information that may be in opposition to the views of the protestors and to intimidate. What is most interesting is the makeup of the groups involved in these attacks on civil discourse. The groups are often a mélange of representatives of Muslim Student Associations, Students for Justice in Palestine, and other such Palestinian student groups and a variety of leftist groups and in some cases rightwing groups. Sometimes we see these groups joined by anti-Israel Jews of varying political perspectives. In all cases, no matter the makeup of the protesting groups, the goal is the disruption of civil discourse.
This attack on civil discourse is not new. We have seen it played out time and again in the US debate on healthcare reform as well. What makes these recent attacks on civil discourse significant is that each and every one of them has been held in a public forum on a university campus....
In the end, universities who do not punish or sanction individuals or groups who abridge the freedom of speech of others become silent partners in the death of civil discourse on the campus. They are affirming that the protestors have a veto over who may or may not speak on a campus. Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right. When one’s freedom of speech ends another’s freedom of speech then something must be done and done fast before we see an epidemic of campus uncivil behavior. We must always remember that it took the Nazis only ten years or so to completely destroy a functioning democracy and start a world war. One of the early places they began was on German university campuses disrupting the speeches of those they opposed....
Read entire article at The Cutting Edge
Anti-Israel individuals and groups on college campuses are beginning to show a pattern underlying a shift in the form of their anti-Israel activities which attack the very core of what many consider the most important aspect of the university experience, the free flow of information and opinion. Just in the last week we have seen the following events take place at UC Irvine, UCLA, and York University in Canada, Cambridge and Oxford Universities in Great Britain....
That these five events had very little press coverage outside of the Jewish community is telling all by itself.
The disruption of pro-Israel speakers on campuses has been around for some time now. We witnessed another such act last year in February at San Jose State University when Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor was interrupted in his speech on campus by anti-Israel demonstrators who were both from the campus and from outside groups. At this time no students or groups were punished by the San Jose State administration for this act on incivility. To see five such events in one week shows a kind of escalation.
The ultimate result, beyond the drama of the confrontation, is to stifle dialogue and even debate, to restrict information that may be in opposition to the views of the protestors and to intimidate. What is most interesting is the makeup of the groups involved in these attacks on civil discourse. The groups are often a mélange of representatives of Muslim Student Associations, Students for Justice in Palestine, and other such Palestinian student groups and a variety of leftist groups and in some cases rightwing groups. Sometimes we see these groups joined by anti-Israel Jews of varying political perspectives. In all cases, no matter the makeup of the protesting groups, the goal is the disruption of civil discourse.
This attack on civil discourse is not new. We have seen it played out time and again in the US debate on healthcare reform as well. What makes these recent attacks on civil discourse significant is that each and every one of them has been held in a public forum on a university campus....
In the end, universities who do not punish or sanction individuals or groups who abridge the freedom of speech of others become silent partners in the death of civil discourse on the campus. They are affirming that the protestors have a veto over who may or may not speak on a campus. Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right. When one’s freedom of speech ends another’s freedom of speech then something must be done and done fast before we see an epidemic of campus uncivil behavior. We must always remember that it took the Nazis only ten years or so to completely destroy a functioning democracy and start a world war. One of the early places they began was on German university campuses disrupting the speeches of those they opposed....