12 Arrested For Disrupting Israeli Ambassador At UC Irvine
February 8, 2010 by politicaltheatrics
Filed under Western Imperialism
Twelve people were arrested this evening during a raucous lecture at UC Irvine where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren came to talk about U.S.-Israel relations.
Oren was interrupted 10 times while trying to give his speech before 500 people at the UCI Student Center, where there was heavy security. Oren took a 20 minute break after the fourth protest, asked for hospitality and resumed his speech, only to be interrupted again by young men yelling at him every few minutes. Many members of the audience also applauded Oren.
After the 10th interruption, several dozens students who opposed Oren’s talk got up and walked out and staged a protest outside. It is not clear whether they were members of the UCI Muslim Student Union, which issued an email earlier in the day condemning Oren’s appearance on campus.
Oren continued talking, completing his speech at 6:42 p.m. Originally, he planned to take questions from the audience. But that wpicture-2as canceled after the repeated delays.
The second person yelled about “Zionism.”
The third yelled, “Israel.” The fourth could not be clearly heard.
UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey said it is not clear whether any of the protesters are UCI students.
Petracca lost his temper and yelled, “This is embarrassing … Shame on all of you.”
UCI Chancellor Michael Drake also told the audience that he was embarrassed by the outburst.
Drake and Petracca were booed by many people, and applauded by others.
Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members “condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined.”
Although I believe freedom of academia should happen & people like this man should be allowed to speak, often the forums are not academically free & so the only way to make them so is to protest and interrupt. These students did good. I highly doubt the University or the speaker would have allowed an academically stimulating discussion to move forward, this is too often the case when the topic is Israel.
Moonstar i totally agree with you.
The 1st Amendment RULES!
Someone needs to investigate and find out if that professor that was threatening to fail outspoken students makes good on his threat. Does UC Irvine give out diploma's only to the well behaved sheep, or are their diplomas for people that have studied and demonstrate an understanding of the subject matter?
Lets invite all the Israeli war criminals to UCI and hopefully arrest them.
I was there. These outbursts were NOT examples of free speech or first amendment rights. The ambassador WANTED the protestors to remain and listen, and then to ask him whatever questions they wished. That is what academic dialogue represents. The protestors certainly have the right to express their opinions, but shouting slogans meant to do nothing more than disrupt an orderly event is not free speech. One cannot walk into an office and start yelling slogans, or stand up in the middle of a movie or athletic event and do the same, without expecting to be removed. If the protestors cared about the issues more than grandstanding for the cameras (several even asked whether their friends had cameras ready to film them before they stood up), they would have listened to the ambassador and then asked their questions in a mature, intelligent fashion. The ambassador wanted nothing more from this event than to have the opportunity to engage in such a discussion, especially with those who disagree with him, but the protestors prevented that from occurring. It was a shame that an excellent opportunity was instead turned into an embarrassing display of poor behavior.
Free speech is permissible only when you invite war-criminals to speak,is that right?
This was a clear-cut example of free speech \”Concerned\”,nothing less.
Having camera's benefited them as well as aided in producing evidence as to what occurred – your point isn't much in that sense.
The ambassador should be shunned,not welcomed.
This is hypocrisy of the highest order – seeing that one would not invite any diplomatic figure who speaks on behalf of the Nazi party to speak to a body of men and women after the Holocaust,why then should we not speak out against allowing an ambassador of Israel to speak only one year after the massacre in Gaza?
Embarrasing display of poor behavior???
What do you call forty years of illegal occupation? a picnic
What do you call continiuous home demolitions? an oversight
What do you call forced evictions from homes and direct land theft? a piddling
What do you call destruction of farms, loss of livelihoods and eradication of crops? trivial
What do you call openly racist laws enforcing segregagtion? minor
I'll tell you what I call all of the above……….Israel. a criminal, murderous, cruel state that is a cancer to the planet.
1.Myth of the Palestinian suicide bomber:
(a) http://bit.ly/aIaFNp
(b) http://bit.ly/aAJ70Q
Thank you
In any conflict it takes both parties to resolve an issue. With both sides so convinced they are right, there will NEVER be enough integrity or moral courage to find the common ground necessary to actually resolve this issue. Anyone who thinks that only one party is at fault is a fool or a liar and therefore incapable of constructively adding to the discussion. If the Palestinians truly wanted to resolve this issue they would stop terrorist attacks, period. If the Israelis wanted peace they would allow the creation of a Palestinian state. Instead both peoples doom their children with hate and violence.
What terrorist attacks? You mean the \”attacks\” which are in retaliation to the Israeli massacres? You mean the \”attacks\” set off due to lack of food,water and fuel?
Please ??
Read your history books….not the comic books from Israeli government and the lies from Israeli supporters.
Read Illan Pape a courageous and honest Israeli scholar who lays bare the truth behind plan dalit and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the premeditated destruction of six hundred villages and the forced evacuation of 700,000 people.
Read Benny Morris, a bigot, who gushes over the bullying and murder of Palestinians
Read Israel Shahak a great man who has sadly passed but exposed some of the worst behaviors of Israel and Israelis.
Anyone who does not see that Israel and her enabling western allies is blind. Please come to your senses and wake up. This nightmare will end only when good people of all faiths from around the world stand up and state that they will not tolerate racism, theft, and murder.
Peace will only come when Palestine is liberated.