Miko Peled at UC Irvine

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine is off to a stumbling start in the first two days of its annual bash-Israel week of "events". Today's noon speaker was Miko Peled, an Israeli who hates everything his country stands for. I will be posting the video, but suffice to say, his talk consisted of trashing his country from one end to the other. You would have thought he was talking about Nazi Germany. There were about 35 people in the room, mostly MSU members as well as some Hillel members, a couple of pro-Israel Jews from the community and 3-4 middle-aged people whom I would call "useful idiots" (More about that later.) Of course, at the outset, the moderator announced that no videotaping could be done without the "express consent of the MSU". I dutifully raised my hand and once again informed them of the right to film. I said that unless I was ordered to stop by a campus police officer or a dean, I would film, and I did. The dean of students was in the room and made no move to stop me.

During his talk, Peled referred to me breaking the rules and being rude by not following the directions. I replied that I was following the law and that this was the United States of America. I kept filming. Having seen previous videos of Peled speaking, he was clearly off his game.

The useful idiots in the front row were giving me dirty looks.

In the beginning of his speech, Peled referred to the so-called "Irvine 11" the UCI-UC Riverside students who were convicted of a misdemeanor for disrupting the speech of the Israeli ambassador to the US in 2010. Peled said he was proud to be speaking before the UCI-MSU.

As usual, the Q and A was designed to prevent audience members from really making points or asking follow ups. This time it was form a line to the right. We will take three questions. After you ask your question, return to your seat. After all three questions were asked, Peled would answer all of them together.

The result was that he didn't really answer anything. I chose to remain in my seat. If an Israeli guy hates his own country that much, what's to argue about? Things got heated when one of my Jewish friends tried to ask a question but kept getting interrupted. Rabbi Zevi Tenenbum, whom I had blasted in a posting earlier this morning walked up to the mic and asked Peled how he could be proud to speak at the same podium where Jew-haters like Amir Abdel Malik Ali had spoken. He got no real answer. I complemented Rabbi Tenenbaum after the event and told him I was making an addition to my earlier post.

Another Jewish friend of mine went up to Peled after the event and asked him about his effort to stop someone from filming in the US. He ignored the question and was ushered out the door by his MSU retinue as my friend called him a coward.

In addition, the dean of students came up to me afterward and told me he had explained to the students that I did, indeed, have a right to film.

But the creme de la creme was when one of my Jewish friends was being lectured by one of the aforementioned useful idiots as she criticized Israel. At one point, my friend mentioned something about the Boston attack as "American citizens killing American citizens". To that the woman replied, "We still don't know yet if it was the Tsarnaev brothers".

I will close on that note. I am planning to skip the evening event because it will be the same arrogant speaker. I have heard enough.