Banning of Pro-Israel Speakers at UC Berkeley Student Groups

[Left Coast]

That is a wonderfully broad definition and can then include most any group -- I just never thought of Goth kids as an ethnic group, but they are distinguished by their culture.

I have heard Judaism called an ethno-religion: it is a belief system with genetic elements.

Goth kids share common ancestry? Lol.

Yes, I've heard the term ethnoreligion before as well. Ie an ethnicity as well as a religion.

 

[rosends]

Goth kids share common ancestry? Lol.

Yes, I've heard the term ethnoreligion before as well. Ie an ethnicity as well as a religion.

The options for determining an ethnic group seem expansive and include sharing a "society, culture" and membership is defined (again, according to the wiki article) by lots of things including "cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance"

So left-handed people, people who hate cilantro and police officers ("social treatment within their residing area") might all lay claim to being ethnicities.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm not exactly sure of your meaning here -- why are Jews an ethnic group?

It occurs to me that most the Jews I know
are atheist. They're Jews only culturally.

 

[Left Coast]

The options for determining an ethnic group seem expansive and include sharing a "society, culture" and membership is defined (again, according to the wiki article) by lots of things including "cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance"

So left-handed people, people who hate cilantro and police officers ("social treatment within their residing area") might all lay claim to being ethnicities.

So again, do you not consider Jews an ethnic group? Or a racial group perhaps?

What is your view of the policy change of these college groups?

 

[PureX]

Too many tangential criteria are being rolled into one, here. Religion, politics, ethnicity, and Zionism are all DIFFERENT criteria. Banning Zionists is not banning Judaism, Jewish ethnicity, or Israeli politics. What is specific to Zionism is the idea that Israel is an exclusively Jewish state, and anyone that disagrees or is not a Jew should not be living there. It is the promotion of this idea that is being banned. Why it's being banned, specifically, is not explained. But my guess is that it has to do with the ongoing persistence of those who wish to promote it among the next generation of U.S. political influencers attending a major university's law school.

 

[rosends]

So again, do you not consider Jews an ethnic group? Or a racial group perhaps?

What is your view of the policy change of these college groups?

I consider Jews to be a religious group with overtones of ethnicity and race, plus some other stuff. That definition of "ethnic group" certain includes Jews but seems too broad to be useful.

My view of these groups' move is that it is ill defined and ill considered. Not that an individual right doesn't have the right to decide whom it hires to speak, but the wording that I read in that original article has many complicating variables and factors.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

On one hand, you simply invite speakers you want. In the other, you go out of your way to say speakers with other perspectives are not allowed.

And the way an organization with members and a board of directors establishes "what they want" is by putting the potential criteria to their members, giving the members the opportunity to amend them, and then vote on a final version that's binding on the directors.

IOW, they pass a by-law just as they did.

As I mentioned before, the groups could get the same outcome without the unnecessary backlash if they went with option 1.

So you don't have a problem with the course of action they took; you just think it should have been done in secret.

 

[Left Coast]

And the way an organization with members and a board of directors establishes "what they want" is by putting the potential criteria to their members, giving the members the opportunity to amend them, and then vote on a final version that's binding on the directors.

IOW, they pass a by-law just as they did.


So you don't have a problem with the course of action they took; you just think it should have been done in secret.

It's not about "doing things in secret." It's about PR. If you want to play in the sandbox of politics, strategy becomes relevant. Amending this bylaw did nothing but create controversy and invite unnecessary criticism of these groups as being antisemitic and anti-free speech (ie playing right into the narrative of the Fox News types of the world). When they could have invited exactly the same speakers as they would have anyway without the amendment or the giant unnecessary controversy.

As to the content of the bylaw itself, I think that if how it's applied is that "Zionism" encompasses anyone who thinks Israel has a right to exist, it goes too far on the merits anyway.

 

[dybmh]

Question: Does Israel still prohibit BDS and Pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country? In the past, they would go so far as searching an individual's social media posts to identify political opposition and keep them out of the country. If so, and if this is acceptable, then it's also acceptable for non-Israeli groups to prohibit Pro-Israel individuals from inclusion in their programs. Even if that individual is not speaking on that subject, if Israel is blocking access, then other groups should be able to block access too.

 

[Revoltingest]

So again, do you not consider Jews an ethnic group? Or a racial group perhaps?

What is your view of the policy change of these college groups?

If "Jew" is a race, then these guys are the same race, eh...

 

[Revoltingest]

Question: Does Israel still prohibit BDS and Pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country? In the past, they would go so far as searching an individual's social media posts to identify political opposition and keep them out of the country. If so, and if this is acceptable, then it's also acceptable for non-Israeli groups to prohibit Pro-Israel individuals from inclusion in their programs. Even if that individual is not speaking on that subject, if Israel is blocking access, then other groups should be able to block access too.

I don't go along with the legal aspect of comparing
a foreign country with a USA university student
group....but it's a thoughtful comparison.

 

[Left Coast]

If "Jew" is a race, then these guys are the same race, eh...

I have no clue who either of them are.

 

[Revoltingest]

I have no clue who either of them are.

Oh, you must be really young.
Sammy Davis Jr (the black one)
& Woody Allen (the white one).

 

[Left Coast]

Oh, you must be really young.
Sammy Davis Jr (the black one)
& Woody Allen (the white one).

I'd heard the names, but didn't know the faces.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'd heard the names, but didn't know the faces.

It's like we're from different planets.

 

[Left Coast]

It's like we're from different planets.

What were things like back in Jesus' day?

*runs away*

 

[Revoltingest]

What were things like back in Jesus' day?

*runs away*

I'm not that old.
But Abraham Lincoln & I did often discuss history.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Too many tangential criteria are being rolled into one, here. Religion, politics, ethnicity, and Zionism are all DIFFERENT criteria.

Especially given the characterization inherent in the following exchange ...

So all zionist are crap promoting for ethnic cleansing?

Yes and no. They don't advocate violence unless and until the Palestinians within the Israeli state object to being so marginalized and abused and stripped of their power and possessions that they dare to try and fight back. Then violence is quite acceptable to the zionists, and in excess.

Let me be absolutely clear. I am a Zionist. I insist that Israel has a right to exist. I favor neither ethnic cleansing nor violence to achieve it. This is a position held by a plethora of progressive zionists. Baselessly characterizing me as some violence prone genocidal Jew is defamatory and reprehensible.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Especially given the characterization inherent in the following exchange ...

​

Let me be absolutely clear. I am a Zionist. I insist that Israel has a right to exist. I favor neither ethnic cleansing nor violence to achieve it. This is a position held by a plethora of progressive zionists. Baselessly characterizing me as some violence prone genocidal Jew is defamatory and reprehensible.

I think part of the issue seems to be the term "zionist" itself. For example, I believe in Israel's right to exist as a state, but I would not call or consider myself a zionist. Most people I know use the term zionist to refer to people who support the state of Israel in the sense of supporting THEM in their conflict with Palestine. In the same way that I wouldn't call myself a "supporter of Russia" in the context of the Ukraine war just because I support Russia's right to exist as a nation. In this context, to say I "support Russia" indicates some support for Russia's actions in Ukraine, not solely supporting the sovereign right of the state of Russia to exist. In the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict, to say you are a "zionist" to me indicates more than mere support of the right of the state of Israel to exist, but of an implied agreement with Israeli foreign policy, flauting of international law, and the continued persecution of the Paelstinian people in aid of the state of Israel.

This may just be a linguistic difference in how the term is used versus how it is broadly defined.

 

[PureX]

Let me be absolutely clear. I am a Zionist. I insist that Israel has a right to exist.

That is NOT the criteria for being a Zionist. By that criteria I am a Zionist. So are most of the humans on the planet. Few people would dispute that Israel has a right to exist. It's the idea that Israel's existence is for Jewish people, only. That anyone else living there should either leave, or should be completely subjugated to Jewish superiority and rule. THAT is the criteria of Zionism. Do you believe Israel exists for the Jews, and only for the Jews? Do you believe that anyone else living in Israel should either leave or be subjugated to exclusively Jewish rule? Do you agree with all the steps that have already been taken to annex land to the state of Israel and jubjugate or banish the people living on it, are valid? Do you believe Jerusalem should be ruled by Jews, alone? Then you are a Zionist.