UCLA, UC Berkeley: Pro-Israel views not welcome here

UCLA, UC Berkeley: Pro-Israel views not welcome here [Excerpts]

The University of California appears to be creating an environment of fear for anyone who may be pro-Israel, or at least anyone who is not adamantly anti-Semitic.

Carla Hesse, dean of social science at the University of California, Berkeley, first suspended the "Palestine: A Colonial Settler Analysis" course after 43 Jewish and civil rights groups complained it was politically motivated.

But Tammi Rossman Benjamin of the pro-Israel group AMCHA Initiative was not surprised when the course was reinstated.

"I really believe from the get-go that the faculty especially would be very irate that this course was suspended and would put pressure on the administration," she tells OneNewsNow. "And I believe that's what happened."

Since the faculty, which is responsible for vetting courses, only made "cosmetic" changes to the syllabus before reinstating the course, Rossman Benjamin feels this sets a disturbing precedent.

"Now there's a precedent for the university administration being … attacked for actually doing their job and telling the faculty that they hadn't done their job, that now the administration will think twice before doing that," the AMCHA Initiative director poses.

Rossman Benjamin says the course is blatantly aimed at indoctrinating students to hate the Jewish state and to take action to eliminate it.

At the university's Los Angeles campus, the president of the Graduate Student Association has chosen to finish his degree at another school after being subjected to months of harassment by pro-Palestinian students.

As association president, Milan Chatterjee reportedly remained neutral on the issue of the Students for Justice in Palestine demanding the school use boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) to punish Israel. Max Samarov, director of research and campus strategy at the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, says because of that, SJP severely chastised Chatterjee.

"They're trying to create an environment where student leaders are afraid to speak out certainly in support of Israel, but also to express any kind of opposition to the extremism of BDS or any kind of anti-Israel activity," Samarov laments.

The SJP chapter demanded an investigation after Chatterjee threatened to rescind funding for an event that hinted at supporting the BDS Movement and then leaked information about the investigation.

(Kellogg, "UCLA, UC Berkeley: Pro-Israel views not welcome here," OneNewsNow Online, September 26, 2016)