Ben Shapiro speaks on UCLA campus and anti-Israelites protest from own Sukkah! Zionists arrive to counter more quickly than April

At UCLA, organized, Islamo-Marxist demonstrators crashed a rare, pro-Israel rally on April 30th

On Monday 21 October, the Wall St. Journal referenced the U.C.L.A. antisemitism task force report published last week in an article by Joe Pisani, "Jewish Students at UCLA Were Harassed, Threatened and Assaulted on Campus, Report Finds."

Jewish students and staff at the University of California, Los Angeles, were harassed, threatened and assaulted as pro-Palestinian protests spread on campus. The university prioritized free speech over stopping protests, which were among the most violent of the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations, WSJ's Joe Pisani wrote.

UCLA anti-Israel protest starts day of Ben Shapiro's
speech on campus  (photo: UCLA Daily Bruin)

Also on Monday, the Islamo-Marxist movement whose encampment was uprooted in May, resumed camping on the UCLA grounds - this time under the pretense of a ritual Jewish Sukkah tent. This coincided with the appearance of alumnus Ben Shapiro returning to his alma mater to speak - under the auspices of the D.C.-based, Young America's Foundation. 

Yitzy Frankel, a Y.A.F. board-member, prefaced Mr. Shapiro's remarks with a reference to UCLA having cancelled its previous, scheduled group talk with JihadWatch founder, Robert Spencer, in May. 

Mr. Spencer characterized the offense thusly: "UCLA has proven once again that our universities are not centers of higher learning, but radioactive wastelands of far-left-indoctrination - that are run by fascists - and that train fascists - who cannot stand the light of truth to be shone on their activities."

The YAF audience welcomed Daily Wire founder, Ben Shapiro, rousingly. He began his address recounting the trouble he had with leftist culture at UCLA while pursuing his Bachelor's degree. Editors for the UCLA Daily Bruin newspaper censored his two columns about radicalism among the Muslim Student Association. Soon after, they fired him. 

Ben Shapiro addressed a full, UCLA auditorium

Mr. Shapiro discussed the beliefs that bind together a coalition of individuals at the institution, which he refers to as the "Coalition of Losers," and the importance of individuals taking responsibility for their actions and building civilization. 

Shapiro also touches upon the clash between those who believe in duties and contributing to the community and those who prioritize tearing-down systems. The conversation covers topics such as climate-change solutions, the legitimacy of President Trump's claimed immunity from political prosecution, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Throughout the discussion, Shapiro emphasizes the importance of personal agency freedom of speech, and the belief in the logic of the universe.

00:00:00  Yitzy Frankel of Young America's Foundation (YAF) discuss their ongoing efforts to hold events at UCLA despite the university's past blocking of their events. He introduces Ben Shapiro, the speaker for the night, who shares his history with UCLA. Shapiro recalls coming to the campus in 2000 at the age of 16, meeting his wife, and writing for the UCLA Daily Bruin. However, he was fired from the paper after they refused to publish his columns critical of the Muslim Student Association's radicalism. Despite this, Shapiro continues to engage with the campus community, speaking in the very room where he once wrote for the Daily Bruin. The event is part of YAF's Things that Matter lecture series, and Shapiro thanks the anonymous sponsor for making it possible.

00:05:00  Mr. Shapiro speaker recounts two incidents at UCLA from a decade ago and more recently, where the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel was being discussed. During the first incident, the speaker attended a hearing and delivered a speech against BDS, arguing that the movement's focus on Israel was due to anti-Semitic sentiments. The second incident involved a tent encampment on campus, where students and faculty were demanding amnesty for those involved. Mr. Shapiro expresses concern that the university has become a haven for various groups, united by their hatred of the system, and that these groups have become more emboldened over the years. He believes that this coalition of privileged individuals is engaged in a battle against those who wish to build and produce, and that their belief in the absence of duty to others fuels their desire to tear down existing structures.

00:10:00  Mr. Shapiro discusses the beliefs that bind together a coalition of individuals, which he refers to as the "Coalition of losers." He outlines three principles that define this group: (1) all disparity equals discrimination, (2) failure equals victimization and success equals victimizer, and (3) if there is any group that is both victimized and successful, that group does not exist. Shapiro argues that this coalition includes imported students who don't like American values, Marxists who believe capitalism is the root of all evil, transgressors who seek to tear down institutions, and racialists who deeply desire to divide Americans by group identity. He also mentions that there is evidence suggesting that some of the protests on campus are funded from abroad by terrorist groups and foreign front organizations.

Lessons from an (election) year of post-October 7th, anti-Zionist conflict

For many of today's Leftists & Muslims, even one Jewish-state on Earth - has become one too many.

Excerpted from "The real lessons of October 7th must not be ignored" by Jonathan Tobin in JNS, Oct 6th, 2024.  

A man wearing a yarmulke holds a small Israeli flag over his head as 1000's
 of pro-Palestinian supporters rally in front of the Israeli Consulate in Los
Angeles, on Oct 14, 2023 (Photo: Jay

L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

While there are individual Palestinians who may believe in the idea of peace with Israel, they are isolated and overwhelmingly outnumbered by supporters of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the so-called “moderates” of the Fatah party (whose nearly 89-year-old leader Mahmoud Abbas serves as the head of the Palestinian Authority). 

They have all made it clear over and over again in their organizational charters, statements, and rejection of every effort at a compromise peace plan over the decades - that they deny the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.

The only relevant debate

To Israelis and those elsewhere who have been paying attention to Palestinian rejectionism, this is nothing new. Post-Oct. 7, belief in the myth that the conflict can be solved by partitioning the country beggars the imagination. The point of the mass terror attack wasn’t to end the “occupation” of a coastal enclave that had been evacuated by Israelis 18 years earlier or to push for a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. It represented a Palestinian desire to turn back the clock to 1947 or even 1917 and destroy the State of Israel, even within the borders that existed before 1967.

Marxist speakers with Black Lives Matter L.A, Latino & Muslim Unity / Shutting it Down for Palestine, protested Christmas Shopping for Black Xmas, Dec 23, 2023 at La Cienega Park

The widespread support among Palestinians for this effort (and for the atrocities that ensued) lays bare the futility and the insanity of any attempt to force Israel to make territorial retreats to accommodate yet another attempt at a Palestinian state. Palestinian political culture is solely predicated on the premise that Zionism and a Jewish state are incompatible with the minimum demands of their national identity.

This is something that ought to be clear to all Americans by now. Oct. 7 should have ended the debate about two states and the peace process for the foreseeable future. That is frustrating and hard to grasp for Americans who believe compromise is always possible or for Jews who are hard-wired to believe in millenarian solutions even when the facts on the ground argue otherwise. At the moment, the only debate about Israel that is relevant is the one that the pro-Hamas mobs that took over America’s streets and college campuses since Oct. 7 have been wanting to have: whether one Jewish state on the planet is one too many.

Calling out the antisemites

That is a position many on the American left have increasingly adopted. Indeed, it is the reason why anti-Israel protesters chant “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.” The whole point of woke ideology, such as critical race theory and intersectionality, as it applies to the Middle East, is to delegitimize Israel as a “settler/colonial” state. Seen from that perspective, nothing it does in its defense—even against the most barbarous opponents, like Hamas and Hezbollah—can be falsely characterized as “genocide” since there is virtually nothing Israel could do to defend itself that could be justified in their eyes. And it’s why the same people dismiss the atrocities of Oct. 7 (which, like Holocaust deniers, they simultaneously justify and minimize).

And so, it is incumbent on Israelis and friends of Israel elsewhere to stop bickering over peace plans or pretending that Israel should be “saved from itself,” as former President Barack Obama believed it should.

In the absence of a complete transformation of Palestinian society that is nowhere in sight, any advocacy for a Palestinian state in the post-Oct. 7 world from those who claim to support Israel is a unique form of delusionary thinking.

The only logical way to defend Israel going forward must begin by recognizing this truth and stop treating those who wish to deny Israel the same rights granted to every other nation in the world as if their opinions were reasonable and well-intentioned. We must not hesitate to label those who seek to “flood” cities like New York with protests glorifying the Oct. 7 massacres as justified “resistance” and call them out for being antisemites and proponents of foreign terror groups.

After Oct. 7, we must no longer treat those who oppose Israel’s existence as if there was some distinction between their position and that of classic Jew-hatred. The brutal truth is that whether or not they root their stand in what they call “anti-racism” or even if they claim to be Jewish, those who wish to eradicate the only Jewish state on the planet are, at best, the “useful idiots” of the Oct. 7 murderers, rapists and kidnappers. At worst, they are their active supporters.

As much as Israelis can and must sort out the crucial questions about who bears the lion’s share of the blame for the success of Hamas’s brutal surprise attack, there are more important lessons to be learned from this episode than just another repeat of the same questions that were asked after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began with a similar failure. Doing so will be extremely hard for liberal Americans who believe in the two-state myth as if it were a religious doctrine handed down from Mount Sinai. But if we fail to learn them, then they will set the stage for more such tragedies, just as much as if the IDF chose to repeat its pre-Oct. 7 complacency.

This Israeli-American woman was entering a Oct. 7th commemoration at the Nova Exhibition in L.A. and addressed the anti-Zionism that Jewish students attending colleges like the University of Wisconsin at Madison (such as her daughter) are still subjected to this semester. How well does she believe that legacy, Jewish communal management has managed the crisis?

To read the beginning part of Jonathan Tobin's original article (end has been excerpted here) just click or tap here

Approaching 12th-month of anti-Zionism since Oct 7, '23, realistic reform rabbi calls for tougher Jewish defense

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch delivers sermon in Manhattan synagogue

NYC rabbi reflects on Rosh Hashana: 'The most challenging year in my career' by Sharon Crowley and Amanda Geffner, Fox5NY.com 2 Oct '24.

With the start of Rosh Hashanah, many are approaching the Jewish New Year with mixed emotions. 

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch leads the historic Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side. Hirsch is preparing to celebrate the high holy days on the calendar. "We don't celebrate the new year with fireworks and getting drunk and wild parties. It ushers in 10 days of reflection on what we did wrong, how we can do better, and atonement by asking for forgiveness," Hirsch said.

This year, for many, the emotions will be extraordinarily powerful, given that the midpoint of the 10 days spanning Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is Oct. 7 — the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and triggered the still-ongoing war in Gaza.

For Jews in the U.S. — the world’s second-largest Jewish community after Israel — the past 12 months have been challenging in many ways linked to Oct. 7. There’s been a surge in antisemitic incidents, and many college campuses were wracked by divisive pro-Palestinian protests.

Jews grieved for Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas; many also are grieving for the tens of thousands of Palestinians subsequently killed during Israeli's military offensive in Gaza.

 

"This has been the most trying and challenging year in my career and the life times of many of our people," Hirsch said. At the same time, there is pervasive anxiety about a rise in antisemitic incidents over the past year. Major Jewish groups have been tracking this trend, which was confirmed last week in the FBI’s 2023 Hate Crime Report. It found that the Jewish community was the most-targeted religious group, with 1,832 anti-Jewish incidents accounting for 67% of all religiously motivated hate crimes recorded by the FBI. That was up from up 1,124 incidents the prior year. The incidents include vandalism, harassment, assault, and false bomb threats.

As a prominent figure in the Reform Jewish community, Rabbi Hirsch's first day of Rosh Hashana sermon, "The Tests of Our Time" may surprise you. We start with excerpts from it (with links to the video on his Twitter page). 

“For Jews, our deepest anxieties for the safety of our people — the product of centuries of repressed traumas — have reawakened and our confidence in the West’s ability to withstand the test of civilization has been shaken,” says Rabbi Ammi Hirsch on Rosh Hashanah, warning that what was unleashed against Israel on October 7th “threatens the West as much as it does the Middle East...” 

https://x.com/AmmiHirsch/status/1841935240228422130  

✡️ On the seriousness and resurgence of antisemitism: “One of the saddest developments since October 7 is the shock experienced by American Jews, who, for the first time in their lives, are encountering pervasive antisemitism...”
https://x.com/AmmiHirsch/status/1841935244267819379 

🇮🇱 On today’s manifestations of anti-Zionism: “...the intent of anti-Zionism is to generate intense hostility to Judaism and Jews themselves… How easily do anti-Israel passions lead to violence against Jews and Jewish institutions…” “If you understand the history of classic antisemitism, the connection to today’s anti-Zionism stares you in the face. The Jewish state has become the Jew of the world, humanity’s ultimate villains, and accused of our era’s worst transgressions..” 

https://x.com/AmmiHirsch/status/1841935248155672745

🗽 On post-October 7 society and the test of Western civilization: “For years now, some of us have been warning of a deteriorating commitment to liberal values, camouflaged by a torrent of high-sounding words like ‘progress, civil and human rights, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism.’ Ideologies that divide people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character; philosophies that reduce all human conflict to oppressor and oppressed, subjugation and freedom fighting, racists and anti-racists — are not liberal values… These are illiberal and dangerous ideas that threaten the future of our country and Western civilization.”

https://x.com/AmmiHirsch/status/1841935251708510495

 💪 What can we do? “Recognize the urgency of the times. We must win this battle of ideas and reassert basic norms of Western liberal morality. Do not be in denial. Do not be complacent. Fight back… fight back hard!” 
https://x.com/AmmiHirsch/status/1841935248155672745

Above is the entire speech worthy of watching by Jews of all denominations and viewpoints. Recorded on Thursday 3 October 2024. 

Excerpted from 00:18:23 "Protesting to relieve the carnage of war is fine.  I, too, am devastated by the destruction, and have spoken of my anguish many times. Even not liking Jews is fine. “Who can fathom the human heart,” Jeremiah preached. “It is beyond cure.” And therefore — Jeremiah concluded: “God rewards a person by his deeds.” All of us have our prejudices and predispositions. What matters is how we act on them. We are judged by our deeds, no matter what disturbing, disconcerting and discouraging desires we harbor in our hearts.

No country, no government and no community is beyond criticism. Even if I disagree, I will listen to your critique and endeavor to learn from you. We will study your narrative of the history of this awful conflict. We will debate with you all the terms and conditions of an eventual two-state solution that will bring dignity and coexistence to both peoples. We will consider your accusations of excessive force in Gaza and Lebanon, and study your suggestions, learned or not, on how you would have handled the military campaign differently, in a manner that would have reduced civilian casualties while still achieving security for Israel. We will reflect on your views when and how a ceasefire should have been effected. These are all legitimate issues. 

But we will not debate with you whether the Jewish state, of all the countries of the world, has a right to exist. We will not debate whether we have a right to live. If we cannot persuade you to leave us alone - we will defend ourselves!  What other choice is there? We have already tried everything else. The days of prostrating before the marauding murderers are over."