Jerusalem Mayor Tries to Speak at San Francisco State University

Jerusalem Mayor Tries to Speak at San Francisco State University

[TBC: On April 6, 2016, Mayor Nir Barkat of Jersualem was at San Francisco State University. He was shouted down by Pro “Palestinian” students, who shouted slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” (i.e., all of Israel will be eliminated). Here is a perspective from an eye witness, Aaron Parker, via Times of Israel Blog.]

“Today I witnessed something I’m still shaking from. The Mayor of Jerusalem came to San Francisco, and I attended his planned speech at San Francisco State University, where he was prevented from speaking in a high profile public humiliation of Israel and the Jewish community. The media are reporting he was shouted down by protestors, which makes for a nice headline, but it isn’t the real story. The real story is the university’s decision to let it happen...

Public university administrators and police stood and watched as the Mayor of Jerusalem, the Jewish student organization that sponsored him, and all of us in attendance, were permanently bullied off the stage. Officers with guns, and the power that comes from the barrels of those guns, were instructed to stand, watch, and do nothing, as freedom of speech was replaced with a policy of whoever shouts the loudest wins, at least when it comes to shouting down a visiting Israeli dignitary. Those whom we thought were there to protect us and restore order, stood, watched, and did nothing...

Eventually, Mayor Barkat asked us to huddle around him so he could speak to us over the mob’s chants, but it was a lost cause.

The underlying question of course is why was the event allowed to be scheduled at all if the university planned not to protect the speaker or his audience? Why did it give him a forum only to publicly humiliate him, along with the campus Jewish community and the broader Jewish community?

We can only speculate the answer, but it would seem the spectacle was intended to send a message to campus Jews. Don’t invite Israeli dignitaries. They aren’t welcome. We won’t protect you, and we will humiliate you, your guests, and the Jewish community if you do. If this was the intended message, it was received.

As a Jewish San Franciscan, I was profoundly shaken by the experience. I was prepared for the anti-Israel movement to be there. They’ve grown chillingly disciplined in recent years. I expected them to be given a space outside the event to yell hateful rhetoric and engage in theatrics. I was prepared for the likelihood of having to pass them on the way in, threatening me, calling me anti-Semitic epithets, because it’s how they roll. What I didn’t expect was for them to be given the power by the university to control who speaks and who does not. I left shaken to my core..."

(Times of Israel blog by Aaron Parker, April 7, 2016)