I previously posted about the latest rash of scandalous photos coming out of Afghanistan showing U.S. military atrocities under Obama’s command, and wondering if the media would pick up on it the way they did when it was Bush’s army… Well, here’s a twist I wasn’t expecting: yes, one of the U.S. media, Rolling Stone, [...]
Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic, cast a spotlight on yet another disgustingly overt example of pure bias in the mainstream media, particularly at the anti-Semitic Reuters newswire. He points to a Reuters news item which contains the following despicable sentences: Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian [...]
In the [sparse] reporting of the Palestinians’ massacre of the Fogel family, several newspapers stand out with their distorted sense of “balance”, i.e., where they feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable describing the barbarity of the Palestinians without at least taking a swipe or two at the Israelis, no matter how patently irrelevant or disgustingly disrespectful it comes [...]
Muslim Students at UC Irvine Twist “Free Speech”
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About two weeks ago, Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States came to the University of California at Irvine to speak, by invitation of the university’s faculty. Muslim hecklers in the crowd interrupted him almost a dozen times, to the point where Professor Mark Petracca, chairman of the university’s Political Science department, issued a justifiably harsh and insightful reprimand:
This is no way for our undergraduate students to behave. We have an opportunity to hear from a policy-maker relevant to one of the most important issues facing this planet, and you are preventing not only yourself from hearing him but hundreds of other people in this room and hundreds of other people in an overflow room. Shame on you! This is not an example of free speech.
This was particularly insightful because he made sure to call them on their presumable “free speech” defense, which is an incredible farce. Too many people use “free speech” as a cover to stifle other people’s opinions. One such clown is Salam al Marayati, the Executive Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
As Dr. Albert Arking eloquently puts it:
Salam al Marayati is asserting a new civil right that has not heretofore been recognized: the right to deny other people their rights. He defends the action of the 11 students at UC Irvine who were arrested for attempting to prevent Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking. The defense amounts to an assertion that the students were exercising their rights when they repeatedly interrupted Ambassador Oren with loud shouting. The hecklers ignored the moderator, who implored the protesters to allow the speaker to be heard, after which there would be time for questions and discussion.
In making such an assertion, Mr. Marayati is making the work of his organization, in protecting the rights of Muslims against discrimination, that much more difficult. How would the Muslim Public Affairs Council react to someone asserting a right to prevent Muslims from speaking?
Of course, we all know the answer to that likely rhetorical final question, because anyone following Palestinian politics knows quite well the double standards that are employed almost as a matter of Palestinian policy. So, what’s considered “free speech” for a Palestinian would of course be “hate speech” or “discriminatory speech” for an Israeli.
To watch these Muslim students disgracing themselves (and to hear Michael Oren speak), the video can be viewed here: