SJP seeks to turn logic on its ear at UCSD

By Bruce Kesler

ENCINITAS, California–South of here on the Interstae 5, a group of students at the University of California San Diego claim exclusive rights to wear clown costumes, and accuse anyone else wearing one to be clownaphobic. Ridiculous, right?

Then, keep reading.

After the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine at UCSD lost the vote in the student government for divestment from Israel, they have turned to baseless and in this case utterly absurd attacks upon anti-divestment members of the campus.

First they made up charges against a music professor that he’d intimidated a student, which the official UCSD Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination investigated, clearing the professor.

Now, beclowning themselves, Students for Justice in Palestine accuse a campus-wide elected member of the student government, who voted against divestment, of being Islamaphobic, denigrating Moslems, and being culturally insensitive. The pretext: the student Senator wore an Arabic costume at a costume party.

The student is a Persian Jew, with Moslem family members. He bought the outfit in Dubai, and wore it there for comfort when it was very hot. On that same trip, as a guest of the Indian government along with other US student government leaders, he’d also bought Indian garb, but it was at his family’s house in L.A. If he’d worn that Indian garb, would he be Indianaphobic? Ridiculous.

At the costume party a photo was taken of him, standing with three female friends, two of whom are Moslem. One of the females posted the photo with a humorous subtitle, “three wives?” That’s what the pro-Palestinian fanatics call an insult to Moslem polygamy practices

Guess what, the pro-Palestinian students, and Moslems in general, do not have a monopoly on desert garb that keeps one cool in the hot sun.

The UCSD Students for Justice in Palestine are clowns, dangerous clowns, who themselves dress up as Israeli soldiers to tell students at UCSD that Palestinians are harassed at checkpoints in the West Bank.

Pro-Palestinian activists are proud of their clownery, and claim exclusive rights to be clowns. They’ve proven that they are.

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Kesler is a freelance writer based in Encinitas. He may be contacted at bruce.kesler@sdjewishhworld.com