Students win struggle against anti-Palestinian, anti-"free 
speech" resolution

Two notoriously conservative members of the student government at 
the University of Santa Barbara recently proposed a resolution 
"to support the state of Israel and oppose anti-Semitism in the 
University of California." Concretely, the resolution called for 
the elimination of the UC Berkeley course "The Politics and 
Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" and demanded "similar 
course[s]" at the UC Santa Barbara be banned. Apparently the UC 
Berkeley course "teaches that Israel has terrorized Palestinians 
for years." 

The resolution also parroted the ardent Zionists in the u.$. 
State Department, claiming "Arab terrorists have committed grisly 
and cowardly homicide bombings, killing innocent men women and 
children" and "Yasser Arafat has done nothing to curtail the 
violence in Israel."

MIM called on UC Santa Barbara students to speak out against the 
resolution at the student government's regular open forum. Our 
appeal read in part:

"Despite its denials, this resolution would (further) restrict 
free speech at the University of California -- and a particular 
kind of speech, namely, speaking the truth. It is not 'anti-
Jewish' or 'hate speech' to say that 'Israel has terrorized 
Palestinians for years': it is the truth.

"But don't take our word for it. A recently declassified Israeli 
intelligence report considered the following three factors the 
most important contributing to the emigration of 700,000 
Palestinians during and after the 1948 war:

"1. 'Direct hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements.'

"2. 'The effects of our hostile operations on nearby Arab 
settlements ...'

"3. 'Operation of [Jewish right-wing] dissidents.'

"The report listed 'Jewish whispering operations [psychological 
warfare]' as the fifth most important factors.(1)

"All of these actions should be considered terrorism, as should 
e.g. the attacks on the Sabra and Shatilah refugee camps in 
Lebanon coordinated by now Prime Minister Sharon, which Israeli 
journalist Ze'ev Schiff describes as 'a premeditated attack which 
was designed to cause a mass flight of Palestinians from Beruit 
and the whole of Lebanon.'(2)

"The list goes on and on . . . and is getting longer, thanks to 
operation 'Defensive Wall' and the systematic destruction of 
Palestinian lives, homes and infrastructure as at Jenin.

"There is a lot more crap in the resolution--e.g. placing the 
blame for the recent intifadeh on Yasser Arafat (who couldn't 
stop it anyway) instead of the brutal military occupation and 
colonial economic policies that ensured Palestinians in the 
occupied territories have 'nothing to lose but their chains'--but 
we hope the above suffices to get you to come out and speak out 
against this resolution.

"Academic freedom ain't shit if professors and students can't 
speak truth to power."

Other organizations like Student Action Forum on the Middle East 
and campus radio programs also encouraged students to attend the 
open forum and oppose the resolution.

And all that work on short notice paid off. MIM received this 
report from a RAIL 
comrade who attended the meeting:

"Last night's [student government] meeting went well actually. 
Tons of people showed up to support the Palestinian struggle and 
oppose the resolution, even some TAs who were angry that they 
were trying to censor what goes into our course catalog. At about 
9 p.m., the author of the resolution finally withdrew it and it 
never even got voted on. He claims that he only wrote it to get a 
discussion about the situation going ... I don't think he 
expected so much opposition."

Notes:
1. Farsoun SK and Zacharia CE, "Palestine and the Palestinians," 
Boulder:Westview Press, 1997, p. 132. 
2. Chomsky, N, "The Fateful Triangle," Cambridge:South End Press, 
1999, p. 370.