11 University of California Students Arrested During Michael Oren Speech
On February 8 at University of California-Irvine, a number of protesters heckled Israel’s ambassador to the US Michael Oren, apparently in excess, which caused several students to be arrested. So, when all was said and done 8 UC-Irvine and 3 UC-Riverside students were arrested (although the video below says 12 were arrested, these were the numbers I found most prevalent).
Here’s a clip from the ocregister.com, which can also be viewed here:
Everybody’s screaming at everybody, and it’s all what we’ve grown to expect. But I ultimately want to know, what crime did these students commit? Wouldn’t escorting them out of the lecture hall have been enough?
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Watching that makes me sad.
—Ari Hart · February 10th, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would think that escorting those who created the disturbance would have been sufficient. I would NOT have advocated arrests. But Justin asks what crime they committed. The news reports are as follows:
The arrested individuals will be charged with disturbing the peace and violations of the university’s student code of conduct, Elcott said. Campus Chief of Police Paul Henisey confirmed that three UCI students were arrested along with nine others, who he said may be students at other universities. Campus police will submit investigative reports on the UCI students’ activities to the university conduct officer for disciplinary hearings, which could result in probation, suspension or expulsion, Henisey said. The department will provide information on the other students to their campus administrators. Charges against all 12 will also be submitted to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
—Meir Eynaim · February 10th, 2010 at 8:04 am
I hate this kind of protest. Reminds of the worst about student lefties.
It helps ‘show’ that supporters of Palestinians are thuggish and don’t support free speech.
—Jew Geuvara · February 10th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Doing this is a better option: www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/obama-asked-why-us-doesnt_n_440816.html
—xisnotx · February 10th, 2010 at 11:44 am
The students probably wanted to get arrested, to prove their point, no?
—Jonathan1 · February 10th, 2010 at 11:56 am
But why would the police have an interest in helping them prove their point?
—BZ · February 10th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Do the police really care about any of this stuff? Maybe they were just following police procedure? Maybe they had a quota to fill?
—Jonathan1 · February 10th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I went to UC Davis (the quieter, less militant UC) and we dealt with this kind of protest all the time.
The reality is that we don’t have all the info. Odds are that the Israeli Supporters and the Palestinian Supporters all have long records with the campus PD over such violations. These students may or may not have done something else outside of the scope of the video. While this show of “resistance” is depressing it is nice to know somethings don’t change in Cali, even when more pressing issues (like keeping the UCs open so Free Speech can be violated) are effecting the student body.
Long live the UC Resistance Fighters!
—dcc · February 10th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Watching their antics, you could be forgiven for thinking that these students come from a culture of contempt for western freedoms.
—DK · February 10th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Unfortunately, this event at UCI doesn’t sit in a vaccuum. There have been SERIOUS on-going (over 5 years) issues on that campus between the Muslim Student Union (different than the Mid-East coalition group on campus) and the Jewish students (Hillel, Anteater for Israel, ICC, etc). There is a fine line between freedom of speech and hate speech … and while I wasn’t there, have heard from many Jewish professionals who were there and according to them, it crossed the line. In the past, for the most part, the University leadership has maintained it all as free speech and hasn’t stopped it or spoken out about it. My guess is that if students were arrested (and I know there is a conversation about suspending or expelling some) then the University saw something worse than it had seen all the times before.
—rf · February 10th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I tend to agree that Michael Oren should be vigorously protested – he represents the policies of a state that should be vigorously protested. It is as simple as that. While I’m no advocate of douchebags yelling in his face, the right to tell Michael Oren, who proclaimed J Street a danger to Israel, that he is misguided and a poor representative of American and Israeli Jews, is unmovable.
—eli aka gyp the blud. · February 10th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
thanks for finding that, ME. their conduct doesn’t seem overly disorderly to me, and breaking a student code seems to demand academic remand, and not arrest. for the students who were from off campus, perhaps trespassing, but i don’t think of that type of behavior as disorderly conduct, and I’m not sure US law does either. I’m not trying to defend the actions of the protesters. I think that type of interruption is appropriate, but only when the speaker is deserving of it because of the nature of their words, but just general interruption is never appropriate.
and thank you, rf, for the context. having gone to a college that was very vocal and active on both the palestinian cause and anti-israel cause with a group of students (myself included) working on israel advocacy, I can understand that these events generally do not happen ex nihilo, so to speak.
i think everyone who was shouting acted inappropriately, at least in the video above (well, not so much the faculty member)
—Justin · February 10th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
@J1-
If the President or the Board of Regents of UC-I invite the police onto campus and ask to arrest people, the police, as far as I understand, are compelled to do so.
—Justin · February 10th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
also, it appears from the video the students were aware they were to be arrested, as they CALMLY and on their own free will left their seat and quietly left the room. again, not so disorderly.
—Justin · February 10th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
eli aka gyp the blud wrote,
“I tend to agree that Michael Oren should be vigorously protested – he represents the policies of a state that should be vigorously protested. It is as simple as that.”
Are these same students vigorously protesting the police torture states of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran?
In the off chance that these Muslim students are only vigorously protesting Israel, we have to assume they are being motivated by something very different than solidarity with JStreet’s right to lobby.
—DK · February 10th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
“While I’m no advocate of douchebags yelling in his face, the right to tell Michael Oren, who proclaimed J Street a danger to Israel, that he is misguided and a poor representative of American and Israeli Jews, is unmovable.”
Perhaps a letter or voicemail would have accomplished the task? But that’s so much less fun than screaming at the Ambassador from Infidelity.
A “poor representative of American and Israeli Jews”? Maybe somebody should have told that to Israelis and Americans, where Oren’s generally held in high regard and built a serious body of scholarly work before his diplomatic career began.
A poor representative of American and Israeli leftists, perhaps. But nothing suggests that Oren’s been anything less than a fine ambassador for the Israeli people so far.
—Eric · February 10th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Man, some of you guys clearly are a long way from college. When I was at Berkeley, this kind of stuff hapenned all the time- in face, I can’t think of a single major speaker we ran where we didn’t have these issues. The main Pro-Israel group (IAC), unlike some crazies, said we would never do such a thing at a talk, and we never did. To even those involved on this issue, to say nothing of those who are coming just to hear a speaker, these kind of antics seem, at best, misguided. But, frankly, these protesters are more indicative of these movements on campus than anything.
—Josh · February 10th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Jewlicious has a post with some follow-up and some examples of UCI anti-Israel events in the past.
According to the OC Register, they were cited for “disrupting a public event.”
—themicah · February 10th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Can anyone say “disproportionate use of force?”
—Jacob · February 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
DK –
I don’t follow your logic – I wrote that Michael Oren called JStreet a danger to Israel. Though I may not have the same politics as some of the people who protest him as a representative of Israeli state oppression, does not mean that I can’t stand in solidarity with those who protest him as a representative of an Israeli government that doesn’t demonstrate any of my values. I could care less what these protestors think of Iran, or even if they are fanatically pro-Islam.
—Eli · February 11th, 2010 at 12:05 am
If you’re going to stand with people who support terrorism and reject the Jewish nation’s right to exist, then do it. But don’t pretend that you can protest against “an Israeli government that doesn’t demonstrate any of my values” in a decontextualized vacuum. You make your choices about who to stand with, and that says something about your values.
Anyway I’m glad we’ve progressed from the claim that Oren is somehow “a poor representative of American and Israeli Jews” to the real issue; which is that he’s a poor representative of your ideology.
—Eric · February 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
If there actually ever is a partition and the emergence of a Palestinian state, will we still see these kinds of protests? . . . .
I mean some of this stuff just doesn’t make sence–like the guy in the red shirt screaming that the Israeli government is an accompliss to genocide??????
—Jonathan1 · February 11th, 2010 at 1:42 am
some people feel that the occupation, at this point in the game, amounts to genocide or ethnic cleansing. that’s not to say I agree with them, but that individual is presumably one of those people. so it’s not that it doesn’t make sense, it’s that you (and I, and many others) disagree with the definition of the term, or the nature of the occupation, or both.
—Justin · February 11th, 2010 at 1:58 am
If the Jewish presence in the West Bank counts as “genocide” then I’d say genocide’s pretty darn good for all concerned. Somebody should tell all those Darfuris to stop complaining.
—Eric · February 11th, 2010 at 2:20 am
i think it’s more in reference to the lopsided death rate rather than residence in any particular place, when it comes to the claims of genocide
—Justin · February 11th, 2010 at 2:30 am
poor representative of American and Israeli Jews
Just to be clear, Michael Oren is the Israeli ambassador to the United States – which means, as I understand it, that technically he isn’t called upon to represent Jews of any kind, and certainly not American Jews. His job is to represent the state of Israel – home of multiple faiths and many ethnic groups – to the United States. He isn’t supposed to be a representative of American anything, any more than the Thai ambassador to the US is.
I understand all the reasons why Michael Oren is clearly in a different boat than the aforementioned Thai ambassador, but I think it’s important to remember what his actual role is. He may very well have done a poor job of representing Israel, but that’s a different story.
—miri · February 11th, 2010 at 8:44 am
so it’s not that it doesn’t make sense, it’s that you (and I, and many others) disagree with the definition of the term, or the nature of the occupation, or both
Ok. I should have written “it doesn’t make sence to me, based on my understanding of what genocide means.”
—Jonathan1 · February 11th, 2010 at 11:09 am
He isn’t supposed to be a representative of American anything, any more than the Thai ambassador to the US is.
Thank you, miri.
—Jonathan1 · February 11th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Michael Oren and the Israeli Embassay stepped down from their boycott of J Street this week, by the way.
DK, I find your comment on the protesters ignorance of Western values damn offensive. Please refrain from making judgements about individuals based on their race.
—Kung Fu Jew · February 11th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Where did DK mention “race”???
—Eric · February 11th, 2010 at 3:39 pm