For those who have faith in the power of civil discourse to expose and isolate radical nonsense, there was a small victory this week at San Diego’s prestigious University of California campus.
The faculty and grad students of its Ethnic Studies Department issued a Statement one-sidedly accusing Israel as racist for its actions in Gaza, the Statement failing to consider Gazans’ fault or, indeed, that Israel itself is a multi-racial society where Sephardic (mostly Middle Eastern) Jews as well as Arabs have more rights and economic opportunities than in any Islamic country. The Ethnic Studies Department scheduled a forum on campus for Wednesday, Feb. 25, to further their charge.
From on and off campus, there was vigorous written refutation of the charge, and criticism of the Ethnic Studies Department’s lack of academic standards. The refutations were informed and civil. I wrote a column in the San Diego Jewish World on the matter (including a link to the Statement and comment thread on it), pointing out that the Islamist and pro-Palestinian groups alliance with far leftists on campuses has graduated anti-Semitism from singling out individual Jews to eradicating the Jewish state.
The UCSD Ethnic Studies Department cancelled yesterday's forum, claiming that the “character” of counter-writings is threatening. This is another of such groups’ canards and excuses, actually further revealing their fear and inability to stand up to determined factual and sane rebuttal.
Each campus is different but, regardless of outcome, this incident demonstrates the power of civil discourse. If not exercised by those who believe in it, the field is surrendered to those who don’t.
