Thanks to 8opus, I visited standwithus.com today. Stand With Us is a campus pro-Israel advocacy group. They recorded this must-see speech/sermon by a Muslim speaker to a crowd of Muslims at University of California, Irvine. The talk seems to have coincided with the display of the bombed-out Israeli Bus # 19 which has been traveling around some campuses in the U.S.

If you want to make it fun for yourself, try to count how many times he uses the word apartheid. For bonus points, you can then rent The Passion and count how many times Gibson has the Jews chanting “Kill him” when Pilates has Jesus as his prisoner.

Oh, I almost forgot. If you listen carefully, you’ll note this speaker really has no issue with Jews, just Zionist Jews.

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themiddle

13 Comments

  • ck: Of course, you don’t have to click on anything – it’s a free country.. Whether the sentiment is true or not can be left up to the reader to decide. Certainly it’s true that anti-semites like David Duke use anti-Zionism as cover, but this type of generalization is clearly a case of painting many unrelated groups of people with an overly broad brush, as it lumps legitimate and eloquent and legitimate Jewish moral criticism and racist KKK cranks together as if there was no distinction between them. I think we all know it’s a crock, and a thought-killing smear to immediately write off anyone who disagrees with Zionism as an anti-semite.

    However my point was merely to say that the MLK quote is bogus, and it is.

    And I think if people stop and think about it, what Zionism would be have been referring to anyway? Mapai or Aham Ha’am style socialist Zionism which promoted cooperation between Jews and Arabs, or Jabotinsky style ethnic nationalism ?

    Doesn’t it seem a bit out of character that MLK would endorse ethnic nationalism in which minority groups have less rights?

    Further, he never got to see what Zionism transformed into in the aftermath of the 6-day war. I wouldn’t doubt that MLK supported Jewish liberation or self determination for a second however.

  • JB: Do I really need to actually click on that article? It is in Zmag after all. Not exactly unbiased, eh?

    So MLK’s letter may be a crock. So what. MLK was still on record as having said that the bulk of anti Zionist criticism is merely anti-semitism masquerading as legit criticism. The author is a noted anti-racist activist but his article is an extremely one-sided, un nuanced piece of tripe. He used the whole MLK thing to launch into a stupid, boring recollection of Zionist crimes. Boring. He adds nothing and merely parrots extreme left rhetoric. He may be right about the origins of the article, but he also kinda proves the sentiment.

  • Safiyyah, the word Zionist has become such a political and even moral ‘football” that many Jews these days use it in a disparaging manner.

    Unfortunately, many of the criticisms we hear about Zionists by people who claim they only have issues with Zionists, not Jews, reveal an odd resemblance to traditional forms of antisemitism. Anti-Zionism has become a convenient way to attack many Jews. So, for example, you’ll hear not only this speaker in the video but many others rail against Zionist bias in the media…which they then tell us is controlled by Jews…

  • I would be laughing if I wasn’t already crying. Yes, it is sad and shameful to me, especially because I am a member of the Muslim community and so these things bother me more. I won’t even try to defend this guy. Do keep in mind though that the vast majority of people don’t understand how nuanced the word “Zionism” is. I’ve learned from my Jewish friends that there are varied interpretations, but most non-Jewish ppl don’t see it like that. I’ve heard some people saying that though they have no problem with Jews, they do have issues with Zionists.

  • “Zionists for Palestinian Rights” are the ones using terms like “apartheid,” no?

  • I dunno. Small steps.

    Sometimes I think it would be interesting if there were a group around called “Zionists for Palestinian Rights” which carried banners in the various parades. Watch the sparks fly and all that — but a weird opportunity, nonetheless.

    (Ducks, covers.)

  • Geoff, you are right. Sadly, the odds are pretty much against us. If you recall, “liberal” used to a nice word until every Right wing, Conservative, or Republican speaker in the U.S. began to use it in a disparaging way.

  • Somehow, some way, we need to take the word “Zionist” back from its current use as an epithet.

  • I work at UCI every week and I this guy really takes the cake. He is such a rabid anti-Semite that Goebbels would be proud. He hates Jews, Hates Israel, and hates the USA. I had a lot of naches on the following day teaching my parsha and pizza class, and shmoozing with the Jewish students about the Islam-nazi who had just been their the day before.

    Since the MSU brought him, we hope that they will be kicked off campus for bringing such drivvel and crap to the UCI.

    Then again, this is a repeat of last spring, and well, the admin organized some meetings to let the students get their feelings out.

    I went to one of these, and it was pathetic.

  • His message is very clear. What’s amazing is how this not only has come to our shores, but that this type of language and conversation has moved beyond certain Islamic and dar Left circles into a far more mainstream orientation. If you repeat a lie often enough…

  • I think someone else linked to that — wasn’t me. Cute how he renames it “The Apartheid State of Israel”, though. This is a man who knows how to stay on-message.