The Piterberg Doctrine: Free speech for me but not for thee

Opinion

April 20, 2012

by Roberta Seid and Roz Rothstein

Youd imagine every campus faction would have welcomed University of California President Yudofs statement on March 8. He called on the UC community to follow the basic rules necessary to protect free speech on college campuses. President Yudof denounced recent incidents during which demonstrators tried to shout down speakers, declaring that such actions are not protected speech but rather an effort to deny others their right to free speech. But the seemingly noncontroversial statement incensed UCLA professor Gabriel Piterberg, a prominent anti-Israel ideologue, and his allies. To condemn both the statement and President Yudof, Piterberg led a teach-in on April 12 that was sponsored, surprisingly, by the UCLA Center for Near East Studies.

Piterberg did not object to the principles that President Yudof outlined. Rather, in his convoluted presentation, he denounced the statement because it used the principles of free speech to condemn tactics that anti-Israel activists have been using with increasing frequency. Piterberg charged that the statement criminalized political dissent.

In fact, the statement was prompted by anti-Israel tactics. It specifically referred to an incident at UC Davis on February 27, when the student Chabad club and StandWithUs sponsored an Israeli Soldiers Stories (ISS) speaker program. The event deteriorated into near chaos because a heckler continually screamed invectives, and members of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace hurled continuous insults at the speakers. Such disruptions have become a favored tactic of anti-Israel activists, most notoriously when Muslim Student Union members almost succeeded in preventing Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking at UC Irvine in February 2010. Their goal is to let mainstream pro-Israel speakers know they are not welcome on campuses, as the UC Davis protesters themselves said just before the ISS incident at a meeting that was caught on video. The unspoken objective is to create an atmosphere in which Israel and its supporters are regarded as pariahs on campuses with no right to present their case.

President Yudof also condemned another practice commonly used by the anti-Israel movement. He specifically denounced the recent defacement of an Israeli flag on display at UC Riversides Hillel, underscoring that Jewish students who identify with Israel have rights and sensitivities like other minorities, and symbols important to their identity should be respected. This rebuke was unacceptable to the anti-Israel activists who regularly mock or deface Israeli and Jewish icons and symbols, from exploiting a picture of Anne Frank to juxtaposing swastikas with the Jewish Star of David.

President Yudofs statement did not take a side in the debate about Israel, but it let anti-Israel activists know that their tactics, which violate free speech and Jewish sensitivities, are unacceptable.

Rather than recommend that anti-Israel activists moderate their behavior, Piterberg went on the attack. He charged that the statement was biased and showed unwarranted, disproportionate concern for Jewish students and alleged that it ignored harassment and threats to Palestinian and Arab students and their allies, though he could not cite any comparable examples of anyone disrupting their events. He denied that defacing Israeli symbols was an affront to Jewish students, declaring that it is racist to associate all Jews with Israel. He ridiculed the idea that anti-Semitism is a problem on campus, mocking such concerns as a figment of overwrought imaginations. To prove his point, he showed a Seinfeld clip satirizing such concerns.

Piterberg then argued that anti-Israel activists actions do not deny the free speech of others. He accused pro-Israel groups of misrepresenting the extremism of these incidents. Then, in a breathtaking inversion of reality, Piterberg contended that when incidents did become menacing or violent, it was because pro-Israel groups fomented or initiated the threatening atmosphere, essentially blaming the victims. He excoriated StandWithUs because it brings mainstream, pro-coexistence speakers to campuseshe apparently considers programs featuring such speakers to be extremist. Indeed, the UCLA Center for Near East Studies no longer includes such mainstream speakers in their programs.

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The Piterberg Doctrine: Free speech for me but not for thee