Muslim Students Convicted of Being Mean to Israeli Ambassador

First of all, they planned to disrupt him long before the speech and not knowing what he would say. So it's rather silly to use the article that their disuptions were in response to any specific statements.

I'm having trouble posting links for some reason but if you google "Michael Oren UC Irvine" you can see the video of the event in question and it's clear that the interruptions came right from the start in response to innocuous things, not to anything provocative. 

But furthermore, NO, if hes saying things that "go against your understanding of what's happening in Palestine", you certainly do NOT have the right to interrupt him or try to shut him down. You have the right to ask questions and challenge him and engage in debate. You don't have the right to ruin the ability of hundreds of other people who are interested in hearing what he has to say to be able to do so.

I think you're arguing this issue based on your feelings towards Israel/Palestine. I'm arguing based on my committment to free speech. So, let's reverse it. Let's say a Palestinian speaker came to campus to give a talk and a group of thugs from the Jewish Defence League showed up and repeatedly screamed at him and interrupted the speech, would you defend them as well? Again, in such a case, I don't think they'd deserve criminal charges but I also certainly wouldn't call them "true heroes". Just a bunch of immature bullies who can't stand to have someone say anything that they don 't like.

Rebecca West wrote:

I disagree.  You cannot define free speech as something orderly, something coloured inside the lines - so to speak.  The Muslim students wanted to shut down the speech of the Israeli ambassador.  Since the position of the ambassador is over-represented in the US and elsewhere, and the ambassador comes from a position of relative power and privilege, there is no curtailing of freedom of speech.  The students were exercising their own right to free speech and freedom of expression.  When you have two competing interests vying for verbal territory, you cannot apply freedom of speech and expression to one or the other.  Given that Israel's violent occupation of Palestinian territory, their human rights abuses against Palestinians, etc., etc., etc., continue unabated and supported by the US government, I have no sympathy for the Israeli ambassador and fully support the actions of the Muslim students.

I salute you for your honesty in acknowledging that the goal of the protesters was to "shut down" the speech. 

Since we are in agreement on the basic facts, that makes it possible to have a more nuanced and thoughtful discussion on the appropriateness of the action.

That the ambassador comes from a position of "relative power and privilege" vis a vis the students in attendance, while accurate, isn't that meaningful and opens up a pandora's box. I'd argue that pretty much any invited speaker at a campus about to give a talk to hundreds of people has "privilege and power" disproprtionate to the students in the audience. If a Palestinian official or a critic of Israel like Noam Chomsky were speaking, tehy to would hold disproportionate pwoer and privilege compared to the audience. By that logic, do students have the right to shut down any speaker they choose?

And while your comments about Israel/Palestine may also be accurate, I also don't think they're what's important to the fundamental issue at hand. Free speech isn't about who is right and who is wrong. I support free speech for the idiot as much as for the genius, for the asshole as much as for the hero. I think the issue is whether they have the right to speak and whether their audience has the right to hear.

I'll confess that I'm not a huge fan of Maya Angelou's poetry. But if she were invited to give a poetry reading on campus in front of hundreds, should I and 10 friends feel free to shut her down? After all, poets are "over-represented" in the US and elsewhere and Dr. Angelou, by virtue of her book deals, media profile, numerous speaking engagements, financial status, etc. holds a position of "relative power and privilege" compared to anonymous, little me, who will probably never be invited to address a campus audience. Unless it's a lecture to the dental school. In which case I now hold the power and privilege. And, I suppose, can therefore be shouted down. And, well, it's just a viscious cycle....

The position of privilege was not inherent in Oren's position at the lectern, but as a representative of a government coddled by the one superpower and a government that is considered to be committing, and to have committed, war crimes and crimes against civilian populations. 

It's disingenuous of Mr. Tea to liken the ambassador of that rogue state to a poet.   A poet, however much one may dislike her or him, certainly does not represent the kind of abusive power that elicits the kind of behaviour that is -and I grant this- an expression of relative powerlessness.

Hoodeet wrote:

It's disingenuous of Mr. Tea to liken the ambassador of that rogue state to a poet.   A poet, however much one may dislike her or him, certainly does not represent the kind of abusive power that elicits the kind of behaviour that is -and I grant this- an expression of relative powerlessness.

Well, lets take someone even worse. Let's take the worst exercise of free speech that I can think of in the United States, those yahoos from that church in Kansas who protest people's funerals by waving signs that say "God Hates Fags." You'd be hard-pressed to find a more reprehensible example of speech. I think those people are disgusting. But I support their right to be disgusting within reason. So, as much as it bothers me, I support their right to stand on a sidewalk across from the church where the funeral is being held and waive their ugly signs and chant their ugly slogans. However, if ten of them go into the church and repeatedly get up and disrupt the eulogy, they've tehn violated the free speech of the person giving hte eulogy and of the people listening to it.

I'm not basing my argument on the content of the speech in question. I have much more smpathy for the protesters at UC Irvine than I do for the protesters outside the funeral, in terms of message. The question isn't their message but their actions. If the UC protestors didn't actually try to shut someone down, this wouldn't be an issue.

Rebecca West wrote:

So, you're saying a poetry reading is analagous to the political issues of Palestinians and Israelis?

No, I'm saying that my right to sit in an audience and listen to a poetry reading is analogous to my right to sit in an audience and listen to a discussion about Palestinians and Israelis. 

Mr.Tea wrote:

First of all, they planned to disrupt him long before the speech and not knowing what he would say. So it's rather silly to use the article that their disuptions were in response to any specific statements.

......

I think you're arguing this issue based on your feelings towards Israel/Palestine. I'm arguing based on my committment to free speech. So, let's reverse it. Let's say a Palestinian speaker came to campus to give a talk and a group of thugs from the Jewish Defence League showed up and repeatedly screamed at him and interrupted the speech, would you defend them as well? Again, in such a case, I don't think they'd deserve criminal charges but I also certainly wouldn't call them "true heroes". Just a bunch of immature bullies who can't stand to have someone say anything that they don 't like.

There is however a difference in comparing these two.  One is that Israel alone has the ear of Western power, to the exclusion of the other main party in this 'dispute' now.  Another is that its pretty much a foregone conclusion what the amassador is going to be speaking for, especially under this government

Freedom to listen is an aspect of freedom of speech. The reason the protestors got into trouble is for interfering both with the ambassador's ability to give his talk and with hundreds of people who came out and wanted to hear what he had to say.

Erik Redburn wrote:

 Another is that its pretty much a foregone conclusion what the amassador is going to be speaking for, especially under this government

That it's a "foregone conclusion" what he's going to say so, therefore, he can be disrupted is a silly argument. If a theatre company is doing a production of Hamlet, it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to perform Hamlet. Doesn't give me and 10 friends the right to interrupt the performance. Nor does the fact that Hamlet is already a popular play and very well-established within the theatre community and that you can easily see the play elsewhere is also irrelevant. The actors have the right to perform the play and the audience has the right to watch it and not have that interfered with by people disrupting it.

Mr.Tea wrote:

Erik Redburn wrote:

Another is that its pretty much a foregone conclusion what the amassador is going to be speaking for, especially under this government

That it's a "foregone conclusion" what he's going to say so, therefore, he can be disrupted is a silly argument. If a theatre company is doing a production of Hamlet, it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to perform Hamlet. Doesn't give me and 10 friends the right to interrupt the performance. Nor does the fact that Hamlet is already a popular play and very well-established within the theatre community and that you can easily see the play elsewhere is also irrelevant. The actors have the right to perform the play and the audience has the right to watch it and not have that interfered with by people disrupting it.

Were not talkiing about a theatre group though, on a harmless nights entertainment, however 'controversial' it might be.  We're talking about an ambassador to one of the most uncompromisingingly reactionary goverenments in the WEst.  One which gets far too much slack as it is, more even than loony religionists picketing funerals.  One which has a decided negatoive influence on costly regional conflicts we too have been dragged into.  Therefore what could arguably be taken as heckling is as permissable as in any other theatrre of politics or war.     Except that this 'disruptive element maybe facing more serious c0nsequences than simply being tossed out.

Nah, Tea, you're not getting it. Israel routinely violates THE MOST BASIC Palestinian rights with virtual impunity, up to and including the right to life.

All the ambassador's fine words, whatever they may have been, dry up like so many autumn leaves, stop cold in the face of the reality of the actual deaths HIS administration daily realizes in its quest for Palestinian LAND. There is an unreal quality to all your talk of 'rights' and 'speech' when you and I both know that today, Essam Kamala, some Palestinian guy, was shot dead in a Palestinian village by Israeli soldiers as he protested Israelis ongoing land-theft. He won't be coming home to dinner. And his plans for tomorrow are DEFINITELY off.

Fuck, man! If the average Cairo man-in-the-street instinctively understands the proper way to treat Israeli ambassadors, why is it such a stretch for such a bright, western-educated cat like yourself?

Oh dear, the good liberals have definitely trolled their way into control of this and other threads.

There is a war on, in case Mr. Tea and his enablers hadn't noticed:  it's the war of a nuclear power with thousands of tanks and drones and helicopter gunships against a population whose land was grabbed in June 1967.  The occupying power  has been illegally enabling thousands of Israeli citizens to settle on that land which the United Nations and other international organizations have said time and again does NOT belong to Israel and that Israel does not have the right to settle, any more than it has the right to steal its water and uproot the olive trees and demolish the homes of the residents of that territory and assassinate or kidnap people inside that territory. 

The ambassador goes out to speak only to push the  propaganda of a racist garrison state  People who are engaged in trying to change the situation of the Palestinians consider whatever that ambassador has to say to be an act of propaganda to gain further support for his country's policies.

There. I think I've pretty much spelled it out for the good liberals who equate Oren with a representative of the Palestinian people or with a poet or a mediocre comedy.

Oren is no mediocre comedy act -- I wish he were, but he's a slick, effective speaker with the same sick script that exploits the memory of the Shoah to justify every outrage committed by his government. 

 If he is a poet in his private life, good for him, but he's not here to give a poetry reading or to promote anything but the increased support by the west  of  his militarized and increasingly fascistic state, which by the way is bankrupting itself in the construction of apartheid highways and walls and in the defence of the thousands of fanatics --most if not all of them foreign born-- who claim a God-given right to force native Palestinians off their lands to the other side of the Jordan river.

I think that's it in a nutshell for the good liberals who think we can continue business as usual in the face of the ongoing landgrabs and humiliation and assassinations of the legitimate dwellers of Palestine.

What a waste of our time, having to justify the politics of this website to apologists for NATO and now for Zionist propaganda.

The hypocrisy of American politics is disgusting.  How many tea baggers were arrested for shouting out at the town hall meetings where health care debates were happening?  Oh yeah none and not only that they got to shout down their opponents while carrying handguns for emphasis.

Pro-Israeli trolls like it when people are arrested for supporting Palestine, seems to be the main message in this thread.  Be nice to Israel or we will send you to jail unless you are in Palestine in which case we may just destroy your home and family with a missile strike.  

Quote:

The memo, authored by Robert MacGuffie, who runs the website rightprinciples.com, suggests that tea partiers should "pack the hall... spread out" to make their numbers seem more significant, and to "rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation...to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early.... to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda...stand up and shout and sit right back down."

MacGuffie is a volunteer for FreedomWorks, the industry funded group that helps organize and support the tea party protests. But he denies that his small group has any direct affiliation with FreedomWorks. "We are recommending with that memo that other grassroots groups that share our view should go to the townhalls of their members and use the strategy that we did," MacGuffie told me, confirming the memo's authenticity. "We are trying to get into that town halls to make them understand that they do not have the unanimous support from people in their communities."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/tea-party-town-hall-strategy-...

Northern Shoveler wrote:

The hypocrisy of American politics is disgusting.  How many tea baggers were arrested for shouting out at the town hall meetings where health care debates were happening?  Oh yeah none and not only that they got to shout down their opponents while carrying handguns for emphasis.

 

What point are you trying to make? Do you WANT the tea partiers to be arrested? Or is your position that since some people on the right disrupt meetings, the left should be able to do it to? Is it a question of "they behave badly so we should too"? Or is it that it's okay for the left to shout people down but not the right.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to oppose tea partiers disrupting health care meetings and also oppose UC protesters disrupting a speech.

I dont think either should go to jail, as I made clear in my first post. And these protesters won't. They got a slap on the wrists and no jail time.

Mr. Tea, the protesters didn't shut anyone down. The whole affair lasted less than a minute. The ambassador went on to give his talk. His freedom of speech was not compromised. he got to speak exactly as he intended to. The only difference is that he had to endure the stressful sights and sounds of people disagreeing with him and raising objections to his words. Poor baby!! Should we get him a tissue? Or you, perhaps?

People who interrupt me for a second are not removing my right to speak. People who arrest me for making one interruption are. Funny that you side with the latter and not the former, under the guise of defending free speech. Maybe you should think about this some more.

M. Spector wrote:

 

But badly misplaced. The Israeli ambassador has far more right to speech and far more access to the mass media to promote his racist, colonialist agenda than you or I or any of the Irvine 11.

 

That's completely irrelevant. Any campus speaker has more access to the mass media to promote their views. The question is whether they have the right to speak or not. I say they do. You say they don't cause you don't like what they have to say. Plenty of people, I'm sure, don't like what you have to say so I guess they should feel entitled to shut you down if they feel like it.

And, yes, this WAS about trying to shut him down. The protestors plainly stated that that was their intention. And, no, it didn't last "a minute". That's misleading. Te actual outburst may have lasted a minute, each followed by a lot more hooting and hollering from their supporters. If a professor is giving a lecture or an author giving a reading, should I be able to disrupt him, if only for a minute?

There was a Q&A session for after the event. They had plenty of opportunity to challenge him. They could have protested outside. They could have written editorials denouncing him. They could have brought in their own speaker to present the other side. Inside, they felt entitled to deny someone his right to speak and to deny 700 people who came out to hear what he had to say their right to listen. It's selfish, immature behaviour and completely unnecessary.

Actually both sides have the right to tell each other to shut the fuck up... not that neither one would listen to the other.

I like how Bill Moyers deals with hecklers...

deb93 wrote:

Do we have a law against "disturbing a meeting" in Canada? I sure hope not! That's a law that can be employed against free speech in a lot of situations.

If you "cause a disturbance" in a public place by, among other things, using insulting language, you can be charged with causing a disturbance under section 175 of the Criminal Code.

If you wilfully disturb or interrupt "an assemblage of persons met for religious worship or for a moral, social or benevolent purpose" or disturb the "order or solemnity" of such an assemblage you can be charged under section 177 of the Criminal Code.

If you are one of three or more persons "who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner...as to cause persons in the neighbourhood of the assembly to fear...that [you] will disturb the peace tumultuously" you can be charged with unlawful assembly under sections 63 and 66 of the Criminal Code. 

Once again Mr.Tea, the right to speak was quite obviously not denied because the man did get to speak. This is a simple logical equation. If he had actually been prevented from speaking then your arguments would have some merit, but he wasn't so you are arguing from the point of view of some fantasy world. They briefly disrupted his speech. Happens to me every day, and it is not denying me the right to speak. It's just interrupting me. The fact that you think this man should be so privileged that nobody should ever interrupt him shows where your bread is buttered, and it isn't on the side of freedom.

Hey maybe I should keep security guards around me at all times so I can arrest anyone who dares to interrupt my sacred words. That sounds reasonable doesn't it?

Personally I have only so much outrage and I don't have enough to be outraged at people for interrupting murderous politicians with blood on their hands. I do have enough to condemn those civilian killers. Its like having Cheney in town to promote his memoirs of torture for fun and profit.   Some things are wrong, wrong, wrong and having war criminals protected from voices demanding justice for the people they oppressed is one of them.  

Hate speech is hate speech and it includes standing on a stage and defending the genocide, murder and torture committed by militaristic states like the US and Israel.