The Daily Californian deliberately lies.
What happened was a violent provocation by Students for Justice in Palestine. What was immediately rushed onto the internet was a deliberate distortion of the facts and an attempt to paint Jews as violent racists.
This is not the first time that the Daily Californian has been caught violating the truth and promoting an extremist pro-Palestinian agenda.
This is the version originally posted:
SJP statement on violent anti-Palestinian attack on campus
November 14, 2008-- (Berkeley, CA)
Contact: admin@calsjp.org
Student organization "Students for Justice in Palestine" (SJP) is extremely concerned about a violent attack on three Arab Palestinian students on the evening of November 13, 2008 around 6:00PM, and calls upon campus administrators and authorities to immediately investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice.
According to dozens of witnesses on the scene, three organizers for the "Zionist Freedom Alliance" attacked one male and two female Arab students who stood nearby the event holding a Palestinian flag. The assailants were identified by the Daily Californian to include current ASUC student senator John Moghtader, Cal alumnus Gabe Weiner, and performer Yehuda De sa. The paper also reported that all three had been cited by the UC Police Department on several counts of battery.
The three Arab students had decided to display the flag as a silent statement after hearing offensive anti-Arab remarks at the concert. They did not attempt to interfere with the event. Shortly after they put their flags on display, the assailants were seen angrily rushing into Eshleman Hall and disturbing several meetings to reach the protestors who were located on the 2nd floor balcony. Students on the scene report that the men were yelling racial epithets directed at Arabs and Palestinians.
When the assailants arrived at the balcony, they attempted to push the protestors aside and take their flags away. Witnesses claim that the assailants eventually knocked one protestor against the balcony railing, with a scuffle ensuing where two Arab students, one male and one female, were hit several times. Within a few minutes the assailants began to rush away, though a small group of their supporters had followed them upstairs. Throughout the process the assailants and their supporters were also overheard making remarks like, "we're about to take care of some f***ing Palestinians," and "you Arab dogs, we will kill you."
The group of assailants was eventually pushed away by a crowd of students who were waiting for the police to arrive and collect statements. One of the assailants accused his victims of assaulting him, causing citations to be issued on the victims despite the testimony of several witnesses on the scene refuting the claim. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt during the ordeal.
SJP is concerned by the willful and concerted escalation to violence by these individuals, who are members of student organization Tikvah. SJP disagrees with the Daily Californian's characterization of the event as the result of "tensions between Palestinian and Jewish students." In fact, the incident was isolated, and the assailants are not representative of the Jewish community at Cal. After a series of similar threatening encounters with a handful of individuals this semester, SJP members began to document these incidents. Two of the attackers, John Moghtader and Gabe Weiner, were involved in another outburst at a campus lecture last month that led the Jewish Student Union to place Tikvah on probation [1, 2].
SJP calls upon campus administrators to pursue the incident immediately, and for students to remain committed to resolving their political differences through peaceful dialogue and discussion.
This is the version subsequently put on the Daily Cal site:
Fight Erupts at Israel Liberation Week Concert
By Will Kane and Vincent Quan
Daily Cal Staff Writers
Friday, November 14, 2008
Category: News > City > Crime
A previous version of this story was removed by editors after we became aware that some facts in the story were incorrect. That story has been replaced with this updated version.
The Daily Californian holds itself to high journalistic standards and always strives to produce objective and accurate content. The Daily Cal follows the ethics policy laid out by the Society of Professional Journalists, which is available at http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.
If you have any comments or questions regarding this article or our policies, please contact me at editor@dailycal.org.
-Bryan Thomas, Editor in Chief & President
Tensions between Palestinian and Jewish students on campus ran high Thursday night after a fight broke out on an Eshleman Hall balcony overlooking a concert promoting Israel Liberation Week.
At about 5:45 p.m., as rap artists performed on Lower Sproul Plaza, three Palestinian students hung up two Palestinian flags on the building's second floor balcony, witnesses said. The students said they were responding to the anti-Palestinian lyrics they heard.
Upon seeing the flags, ASUC Senator John Moghtader, former senator Gabe Weiner and Yehuda De sa, the concert's opening act, went up to the balcony in an attempt to remove the flags. All three men are Jewish.
At that point, a fight broke out, police said. Witnesses added that the fight prompted up to half a dozen members of the audience to run up to the second floor. Police said two students and one non-student were cited for battery. Weiner was one of those students.
"I went up to the second floor because the message they were sending was an abomination to our national rights," Weiner said.
Senior Husam Zakharia, who was hit in the face during the altercation, said the rap lyrics he heard spurred him to hang up the Palestinian flag.
"We're going to go up and we're going to put up our Palestinian flag in silent protest-exercising our freedom of speech to say we're here and we exist," he said, adding that he was surprised by the violent reaction.
A number of UCPD officers and Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard spent at least two hours interviewing students and witnesses, attempting to piece together the series of events.
According to police, the fight was related to incidents of vandalism earlier this semester. In September, a bus stop sign outside Eshleman Hall promoting Israel was vandalized. That vandalism was followed by pro-Israel graffiti in a classroom in Dwinelle Hall, increasing tension among Israeli and Palestinian advocacy groups on campus.
As the altercation on Thursday night took place, Eshleman Hall's second floor was full of ASUC officials including President Roxanne Winston.
Many senators who saw the fight expressed shock that such an incident could happen among students, most notably former and current ASUC senators.
"I'm very strong now in my sentiments in that there should be immediate disciplinary action," said ASUC Senator Kifah Shah. "If it culminates to violence where three members of SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) are hit ... then that's just ridiculous."
Tags: Student Life, crime
Article Link: http://www.dailycal.org/article/103566
Background: As the Daily Cal is well aware, Students for Justice in Palestine has over the past several years promoted an atmosphere of intolerance on campus, in which Jewish and Israeli students, and their supporters, have been threatened and intimidated. Their actions have carried over into the Berkeley street, and have resulted in several incidents in which a pro-Israel view has been shouted down, speakers have been insulted and manhandled, and property vandalized.
This is mirrored by similar acts at other university campuses in California, notably at SF State and at UC Santa Cruz. School administrators and student body functionaries have not only been unwilling to step in, several are on record as stating that Zionism has no place on campus, and that Jewish support for Israel is, ultimately, the cause of such friction.
The atmosphere on the Berkeley campus was already nauseatingly anti-Semitic and poisonous before this provocation; it remains to be seen how much more vile it will become. This blogger does not expect any significant attempt by authorities and campus police to get to the truth of the matter. Especially given the increasing financial influence of certain foreign regimes in academia.
We wish the Jewish students on California campuses God-speed and the best of luck. It is a foregone conclusion that pro-Palestinian provocateurs will seek to make the academic environment even more poisonous and dangerous for Jewish students than it ever was.
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14 comments:
I had already heard that Berkeley was a poisonous atmosphere, this only confirms it. There are problems with being so far left that anti-Semitism seems normal.
Don't forget that Yaman Salahi of SJP (Is he the same Yaman that works for Jewish Voice for Peace?)is the one with a proven record of lying under oath. Last year Yaman lost a suit in small claims court in spite of the the lawyer provided by JVP - the judge found he had committed libel against journalist Lee Kaplan.
Granted, Lee's a bit of a Charles X Kinbote type character- but apparently Yaman posted Internet porn under Kaplan's name. Real mature behavior.
Yaman, ever the grownup, had his doctor daddy pay the $7500 judgement for him.
I guess he hasn't learned his lesson about lying under oath yet.
yeah, right, take everything Lee Kaplan says seriously, he would obviously never lie to smear a pro-Palestine activist.
There are dozens of witnesses to yesterday's events, you don't need Yaman for that.
The dozens of witnesses were all with SJP. Impartial community members and other students dispute SJP's version of the story.
The dispute between Lee Kaplan and Yaman is a matter of public record. Three separate judges found Yaman guilty.
He tried to play the "poor victimized Arab" card, and one of the judges said-
"Give it a rest, son." Most people can see right through this rhetoric of victimization. Sorry you can't.
I am a Muslim and I am disgusted that these grown men attacked some Muslim women. Am I an "extremist" for thinking that men should not hit women?? If the Zionists want to hit someone, let them try to hit me. Stop beating up on the women. And yes, they are Jewish and they are racists--they hate Arabs, calling them "dogs" and so on. I am not an Arab but I am a Muslim. I am not an extremist. People like you who beat up women or who justify it on the internet are the extremists. Go to hell, you fucking assholes.
I am disgusted that these grown men attacked some Muslim women. Am I an "extremist" for thinking that men should not hit women??
How do you feel about honor killings, and targeting women and children with qassams?
Stop beating up on the women.
Stop hiding behind women. And stop attacking the women of the other side. And, while you are at it, stop treating your own women as expendable chattel.
People like you who beat up women or who justify it on the internet are the extremists.
Oh dear, did that upset you? I am so sorry. I would apologize in person on behalf of all of us, but judging by the tone of your argumentation you may be too hysterical to reason with. Is your bombelt a bit too tight? Does it itch? Does it give you a woodie?
Forgive me if I do not trust you and your type in any degree of proximity - been there already, done that, subsequently regretted it. At this point, I do not trust Muslim men at all, though judging from some of the women, they may be less inclined towards brutish behaviours.
It's a toss up - groping hands and potential molestation or flying spit and sharp fingernails.
Go to hell, you fucking assholes.
As opposed to going to Berkeley?
A much better option, I agree. Wearing a star of david or a kippah )or any other signs of "Jewness") on the Berkeley campus is more or less the equivalent of wearing a sign saying "kick me" - and you never know which f***ing a**hole will find it a legitimate target. Abuse or harassment - such choices.
You, Robert, and your type, are the direct cause of the problem. You are a racist, but you try to hide it by asserting that Jews are not an ethnicity, pre-judging an entire group, engaging in bait-and-switch rhetoric and political actions, and despite all evidence to the contrary insisting that you and your side are victims.
Have you considered growing up? Maturity is a very appealing characteristic.
You say you are a Muslim - does adhering to that particular faith preclude nuance and empirical processes? Have you ever thought of not embarrassing your faith-community by your bias, bigotry, and emotional outbursts? Or do you automatically flock to the banner no matter how provocative and opportunistic the actual Muslim cause of the moment?
Have to agree with Suzy. Seen enough fake incidents engineered by Muslims (fine gentlemen, all of them) that I instinctively disbelieve the Arab/Mulsim version of events.
Playing the victim, as is standardly done in their beheading videos, does not wash. No Arab admits victimhood unless there is money to be had. And Persians and Pakis, as is wellknown, are naught more than secondrate Arabs, with all the vices and none of the virtues of that ilk.
I assume that there are some virtues to the Arabs..... They ain't worth a flying fudge in any other way.
A worse bunch of bigots and self-satisfied pricks than Arabs and Pakistanis would be hard to find in any case.
Robert, are you a Pakistani?
---Grant Patel
The palestinian student threw the first punch then used the girls as human shields. Where have we seen that before?
Now they are screaming "hate crime".
Robert, how come you haven't responded? Did my query hit home - are you in fact one of those people?
I am so sorry for you. It cannot be easy knowing that you are a fairly despicable slice of humanity. Sab Pakistan-main bakri-choot hai. Islam mardabad.
---Grant Patel
"I am a Muslim and I am disgusted that these grown men attacked some Muslim women."
Husam threw the first punch.
Gabe was knocked to the floor.
Yeah, I was there.
"Am I an "extremist" for thinking that men should not hit women??"
No. Just a fool. What if the women are hitting you? What if the women are trying to restrain you so you can get pummeled by their big bad friend?
Doesn't chivilry take second fiddle to self protection?
I was there,and the only hateful things i heard were in Arabic, screamed by someone too old to be a student.
What is left is to see how many of the SJP are willing to lie under oath, becuase it looks like this is going to the district attorney
Lemuel
What is left is to see how many of the SJP are willing to lie under oath
All of them. Plus even the ones who weren't there.
It's standard Arab law-court behaviour. The most eloquent lier always wins. That is why so many of them are still taxi drivers. Despite everything.
Fuck the goddammed Palestinians. They're nothing more or less than racist cunt assholes and shitheads.
They do not deserve a future.
Fuck the goddammed Palestinians. They're nothing more or less than racist cunt assholes and shitheads.
They do not deserve a future.
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