13 thoughts on “UCLA: Adam Milstein’s Pro-Israel Student Mentor Network and BDS Obsession – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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    1. @ Hefe: No mention in your comment that the students who questioned Rachel Beyda approved her nomination and she is now on the committee she was seeking to join? No mention that the confusion of ignorant non-Jews about the difference between “Jew” and “Israel” is caused by megalomaniac Israelis like Bibi who deliberately conflate the two. Why not?

      1. No. Beyda’s nomination was initially denied. Only after a faculty advisor (a ‘grown up’) interceded did the students reverse their decision.

        ‘Ignorant non-Jews’?

        Really?
        The (Jewish) student President of the Undergraduate Students Association Council immediately interrupted the interrogation and pointed out the questions directed at Beyda were discriminatory. Nonetheless the Student Association went ahead and voted down Beyda anyway.

        As I said, 3 of 4 of the students who initially voted down Beyda were BDS members. Doesn’t BDS explain to it’s student members the difference between “Jew” and “Israel”? They really should make that point.

        1. @ Hefe: READ CAREFULLY WHAT I WROTE and do not claim I said anything that isn’t true. Everything I wrote is true. Of course I know the first vote rejected her. But the second vote approved her. The students didn’t have to reconsider even at the behest of the faculty advisor. But they did. She is now on the board. Only hysterics, Likudists and lachrymose Zionists have turned this molehill into a mountain.

          BDS does not have “members.” Is it now a cabal, a secret society like the Freemasons or Elders of Zion??

          You expect that because Avi Oved, a paid (with Milstein money) pro-Israel hasbara operative tells them something they’re going to believe him? Why would they?

          You may not expect BDS to make a distinction between Jews and Israel when your own prime minister refuses to do so.

    2. Re: Do we want paid internships for pro-Israel students with UCLA Hillel?

      Richard you’ve done a good job of outlining that problem, but you may have overlooked the fact that the government of Israel’s parastatal agencies help staff Campus Hillels with their own political operatives (shlichim), See for example this article about The Jewish Agency Israel Fellows to Hillel http://www.jewishagency.org/shlichim-israeli-emissaries/program/291

      Re: No mention of the fact that three of the four UCLA student/thugs who questioned a sophomore Student Government applicant for being Jewish are pro-BDS activists.

      They didn’t question her for being Jewish. They asked if she could be unbiased given her involvement in Jewish community organizations like Hillel? After all, Hillel International has threaten lawsuits against the Swarthmore Open Hillel for simply staging the “Social Justice Then and Now: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement” event, featuring three activists who worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. Hillel’s President readily admits that its paid professional staff and volunteers are “combating” perfectly legal BDS student activities on campuses and encouraging officials to engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination on behalf of a foreign power, e.g. See “Hillel is taking on BDS’s circus of hate” http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hillel-takes-on-bdss-circus-of-hate/ One thing is for certain, the US Supreme Court has ruled that universities cannot provide a public forum or invoke state meeting laws while engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

      So let’s summarize: Hillel and the other Jewish community organizations in question, including a sorority, dispatch students to Israel in order to receive propaganda training or employ paid professional Israeli agents here in the USA to staff Hillels and conduct agit-prop activities on behalf of the State of Israel. They have also filed a number of meritless lawsuits against the UC system and the BDS movement that have been dismissed by the state and federal courts. It isn’t as if these organizations are above suspicion, they openly admit that they do all of these things, and then complain that it is anti-Semitic to ask if their members can remain unbiased when confronted with a viewpoint discrimination case.

      1. @Haver said:

        “They didn’t question her for being Jewish.”

        “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” Fabienne Roth asked.

        No mention of Hillel or other Jewish organizations in that question.

        Haver said: “They asked if she could be unbiased given her involvement in Jewish community organizations like Hillel? ”

        Haver. Should Ms Beyda’s Jewishness or involvement in Jewish organizations have been an obstacle?
        Well. Two of the four who voted against Beyda were themselves active members of faith- and ethnic-based organizations. Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed is vice chair in the Iranian student group and Sofia Moreno Haq is active in UCLA’s Muslim Students Association (MSA).

        Should Negeen’s Iranian roots and activism have been an obstacle to her getting elected? No.
        Should Sofia’s activism and Muslim faith have been an obstacle to her getting elected? No.

        We know that Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed and Manjot Singh were among the co-sponsors of the BDS resolution, while Sofia Moreno Haq has publicly endorsed BDS on Facebook.

        So really. Whose biases got in the way of their impartiality when considering this Jewish student’s appointment?

        1. Re: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” Fabienne Roth asked. … No mention of Hillel or other Jewish organizations in that question.

          You said “they” and claimed that three individuals were BDS supporters who were doing the questioning. That’s only one person. FYI, according to the written minutes of the meeting Beyda had just brought up the subject of her role in the Jewish community organizations, including her vice-presidency of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi Sorority, as part of her introductory remarks. The follow-up questions dealt with that subject and asked if should could be unbiased, i.e. “Sadeghi-Movahed says maybe possible to rephrase the question. Given that the recent judicial board cases dealt with conflicts of interests leaning a particular way, how would you be able to keep an unbiased view? https://www.usac.ucla.edu/documents/minutes/Minutes%202%2010%2015.pdf

          Please note that Movahed didn’t mention the word “Jewish”. The Judicial board cases in question were conflicts of interest over funding of trips to Israel and that was certainly a proper subject for discussion, since both Hillel and the national philanthropy that her sorority is officially affiliated with (American Jewish World Service) sponsor paid trips to Israel.

          Re: Haver. Should Ms Beyda’s Jewishness or involvement in Jewish organizations have been an obstacle?

          That depends on how she defines and applies Jewishness to the issues. In this case it didn’t, but only because (a) she answered for the record indicating that she would apply the law, not personal opinions; and that (b) that if she felt like she could not be unbiased, she would remove herself, but that she doesn’t think she will be in that position.

          I’ve already pointed out, Hillel International is actively involved in Israeli propaganda activities and campus lawfare activities. It has even threatened to sue or shutdown its own chapters over the issue of BDS, anti-Zionism, and discussions about equal civil rights for Palestinians. Unlike the State and Federal Courts or The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Hillel International and other pro-Zionist organizations have adopted an official position that anti-Zionism, the BDS Movement, or any other anti-Israel campaigns on campus are inherently anti-Semitic and violate Jewish students right to an educational experience free from intimidation, i.e. See Hillel International Partners with Simon Wiesenthal Center to Combat Anti-Semitism on More Than 550 College Campuses” http://www.hillel.org/about/news-views/news-views—blog/news-and-views/2014/12/11/hillel-international-partners-with-simon-wiesenthal-center-to-combat-anti-semitism-on-more-than-550-college-campuses and “Students and professors: If you are aware of anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli incidents on your college or university campus, please contact lawyers at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.” http://brandeiscenter.com/

          The head of the Brandies Center, Ken Marcus, initially admitted in a journal article that political speech critical of the State of Israel’s policies is constitutionally protected and is not prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but you’d never know that by visiting the LDB Center website today. See Kenneth L. Marcus, Anti-Zionism as Racism: Campus Anti-Semitism and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
          15 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 837 (2007), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol15/iss3/4

          Once again, there have been cases and lawsuits in the recent past over conflicts of interest or involving positions taken-up regarding the BDS movement on campuses that are shared by the State of Israel and Hillel, but not by our national Courts or the Department of Education Civil Rights division. There is nothing wrong with asking a candidate if they can apply the law impartially despite membership in a organization that disagrees with it.

        2. @ Hefe: I’m with Haver on this one. If Iranian & Muslim campus groups were receiving funding either directly from Iran or Saudi Arabian official or quasi-official sources; if they were sent on paid junkets to those countries; or if they were sent on paid junkets to organizing conferences at which pro-Iran or pro-Saudi Arabia hasbara would be offered–then you bet questioning them would be totally appropriate. That happens at UCLA regarding Hillel, Aipac, Standwithus, CAMERA, & a myriad of other campus hasbara groups that spend tons of money on such pro-Israel advocacy.

  1. Richard, Thanks for this interesting and important reportage. Send it to the Obama and the IRS. Don’t expect much action tho. pro-Israel IRS-violations are probably too hot to handle.

  2. @ Richard
    Concerning the photo posted by Adam Milstein: the guy in the photo is the owner of the Facebook account, Mashhoor Qasem (at least two other photos taken on another occasion where he’s wearing the same black t-shirt with the blue print), this is definitely NOT from Gaza (the cut rocks used for the construction is not Gaza-style anyhow, and contrary to what Milstein says they’re not hanging on a fence but directly beneath the window on the wall). Anyway, here’s one of many photos of Mashhoor Qasem wearing the uniform of the Palestinian National Security Forces (wiki has an entry where people can verify), only operating in the West Bank, and affiliated with the PA: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=408175492609930&set=a.103595533067929.5895.100002524479831&type=3&theater
    (It seems he was ‘playing’ with his nephews)

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