Berkeley Administrators Have Offered No Apology to Israeli Speaker Accosted by Anti-Semitic Mob
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
University of California, Berkeley, administrators have offered no apology to Israeli lawyer Ran Bar-Yoshafat, whose speech to a campus Jewish group was abruptly canceled by the university after violent protesters choked a female student attendee, spit in another attendee's face, and broke into the auditorium where Bar-Yoshafat waited onstage.
"I've had no apology," Bar-Yoshafat told the Washington Free Beacon . "No one from Berkeley has contacted me since, or tried to contact me, even."
Only about 10 to 12 student attendees had been able to make it into the university venue where Bar-Yoshafat had been moved for the third time when violent protesters broke down the doors and university police abruptly declared that the event would be shut down. Following this announcement, Bar-Yoshafat said, an unidentified staffer told him that he would have to leave. The staffer and security guards then showed him and his wife down a backstage corridor so that they could leave without having to navigate the violent protesters.
Before the lawyer could leave, however, two fully masked protesters jumped onstage and approached him with their hands in their pockets, without interference from security, and saw where he and his wife were going. Bar-Yoshafat said his university escorts showed him down the corridor, opened the door to the street, and left him and his wife outside alone with a "good luck." The couple had no idea where they were or how to get to their car until a staff member for the group sponsoring Bar-Yoshafat's U.S. speaking tour found them.
The treatment that Bar-Yoshafat describes is another black mark on Berkeley that shows the school's growing reputation for allowing anti-Semitism to fester on its campus. Last fall, a civil rights group sued the university for its "hotbed of anti-Jewish hostility and harassment." In 2022, the federal government opened an investigation into "deep-seated anti-Semitic discrimination" at the university's top-tier law school. And Berkeley is home to the inaugural chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine , which has been fomenting anti-Semitic fervor on campuses around the country.
The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One female Jewish student has described being choked by Monday's violent protesters and another was injured. Activists spit in a male Jewish student's face and shouted "Jew, Jew, Jew" at him.
Bar-Yoshafat's event was sponsored by a Jewish student group, which publicized the event as a chance to hear the lawyer "address Israel's international legal challenges," including whether Israel "violates international law, the rules of wartime conduct, and how the [Israel Defense Forces] can better protect civilians."
Bar-Yoshafat said he had experience with protesters and hecklers on American university campuses prior to Oct. 7— notably at UC Davis in 2012. Given the heightened vitriol against Israel and pro-Israel sentiment following Hamas's terrorist attacks, he was expecting trouble. But the violence this time marked a sharp change, he said, and the cancellation was "giving a prize to those who are not allowing free speech."
"This is a collapse of Western Civilization," he said. "You are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Now you are guilty and you are not even given the chance to defend yourself. I'm sorry, that's not going to work in a normal society."
On Thursday, masked protesters again targeted Bar-Yoshafat's speech at Los Angeles's landmark Holocaust museum, the nation's oldest, which was founded by Holocaust survivors. The protesters shouted, "Israel can go to hell," among other chants, while waving flags and shouting at Israel supporters. The museum, however, maintained tight security, and the protesters weren't able to break into the event and disrupt the lawyer's speech.
Bar-Yoshafat, who said he would return to Berkeley if invited, is on a speaking tour sponsored by Club Z, a national education program for Jewish teens that was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is seeking to answer questions about international law and the Israel-Hamas war, in which he has first-hand experience as a reservist with the Israel Defense Forces.
California has witnessed particularly vitriolic anti-Semitism since Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks. Anti-Israel protesters shut down the State Assembly in January and forced the state Democratic Party to cancel some of its convention events in November. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.), meanwhile, called off the state capitol's traditional live Christmas tree lighting ceremony to avoid planned protests in December.
One female Jewish student has described being choked by Monday's violent protesters and another was injured. Activists spit in a male Jewish student's face and shouted "Jew, Jew, Jew" at him.
. Yet another act of repulsive racism at one of the nation's foremost progressive campuses. I wonder why this story has not dominated national headlines since this happened. Strange
I guess the media only cares if tiki torches are involved....
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I wouldn't send my dog to Berkeley, and she's probably smarter than most of the faculty and students there. Same goes for Harvard.
Berkeley has long been a bastion of intolerance.
SOSDD
Berkeley, in the 60's, student activists there formed a Free Speech Movement advocating for unconstrained political speech on campus. The irony was lost on the current mob rule there.
Bazinga
In the 60s Berkley Students joined a protest that was instrumental in helping start a movement that took on much bigger problems than this incident (not that this isn't disgusting) I guess that they forgot what free speech and civil rights are.
This paragraph from the article is stunning:
No one including security did anything to help them out...WTF
If the speaker had been from another group, the reaction would have been different. Maybe even to Governer would have gotten involved.
What has happened to being civilized? Had the speaker been pro-Hamas there was bound to be a protest, but not violent on the part of the protesters. What happened at Berkeley is almost worse than Jan 6. The antisemitism in America is becoming barbaric. IMO a lot of Americans do not have the right to be critical of other nations until they fucking well grow up themselves.
Be easy Buzz. Don't go by one right wing report.
This story comes from the Washington Free Beacon which is a far-right wing propaganda outlet. Much of what they write is innuendo and lies.
Their 'reporters' have been known to start riots just to cover them.
Yep, right up there with Huffington Post and The New Yorker.
Hardly! [Deleted]
Really? Here is an article from the SF Chronicle that corroborates the story and further discusses the damage done by hundreds of anti-Israel protestors, many of them masked.
Will CBS News suffice?
This is not an isolated incident. It's just that incidents like this don't make the front page in the mainstream media. Doesn't mean it isn't true or a serious problem. Just means it doesn't fit the political narrative of those who control most of the major media outlets. When journalism dies, the truth dies with it.
Thank you Freewill. You might note that I do not pay attention to cjcold's comments. I do not reply to them or vote them up.
The reporting of the truth of what college kids do is not something I pay much attention to.
There are protests on both sides of the aisle on many college campuses.
Can't fault anybody for their beliefs on this topic no matter which way they feel or believe. The middle East is a very complicated situation.
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Exactly, Jewish kids are frequently preventing antisemites from speaking on campus.
Not a lot of people do, except those hard core leftist liberals that share his particular views.
"Protest at UC Berkeley shuts down talk by Israeli think tank leader
A door at the Zellerbach Playhouse was broken into and at least one window was smashed. University officials did not immediately confirm any injuries but UCPD’s incident log had several references to reports of ‘injury/illness’ near the playhouse around the time of the protest."
Just another right-wing, reactionary rag.
Slam dunk!
Horseshit! didn't happen like that at all.
"Anti-Semitic Mob" is a serious stretch. Jews were booing.
Berkeley students have never cared for far-right wing fascists.
It's been that way there since the 60s.
Spout right wing hate speech at Berkeley and you get grief.
Okay.
See 6.1.1
See 6.1.4