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Edinburgh students shut down lecture by Israeli diplomat

Liam | 03.02.2011 12:43 | Education | Palestine

Edinburgh University Students for Justice in Palestine successfully shut down a lecture last night by Ishmael Khaldi, advisor to Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The event, hosted by the University's Jewish society and held in Lecture Theatre 1 of Appleton Tower, was re-arranged only the night before after the International Relations society refused to host Khaldi, due to the fact that Palestinian were living under “Apartheid”

The talk was scheduled to start at 5pm but was delayed until 5.30pm, with the organisers citing 'security concerns'. When it did eventually get under way, one SJP member interrupted immediately shouting “Where is the freedom of speech for the 1,500 massacred in Gaza? Where is the freedom of speech for the Palestinian students in Israeli dungeons?”



The protesters - approximately 50 people - were the majority of the audience and compromised of students activists, members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and members of the local Palestinian community. The demonstrators proceeded to occupy the platform of the lecture theatre and chanted slogans such “From Cairo to Ramallah, globalise the Intifada”, “Boycott Israel” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

University security soon arrived but the peaceful demonstration continued unabated for a further 45 minutes until Khaldi finally got the message that he was not welcome and left the lecture theatre. The majority of the people present in the lecture theatre had made it clear that they were not interested in listening to Israeli propaganda.

Earlier in the day, Edinburgh University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) hosted US Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner who spoke of the link between US Imperialism and the suffering of the Palestinians. He urged the students present to fight against imperialism and for justice in the Middle East.

President of Edinburgh University SJP, Liam O'Hare, said “We sent a clear message today that those who come to our University to represent an Apartheid state and to defend the dropping of white phosphorous on children are absolutely not welcome. Khaldi works for the openly racist Avidgor Lieberman, a man who has called for the execution of Arab members of the Knesset 1(Israeli Parliament). The recent leak of the 'Palestine Papers' has proven beyond any doubt that Israel does not seek peace and that it is purely a colonial settler state which seeks to indefinitely oppress the indigenous Palestinian population. We will continue to protest events where representatives of a racist state are present and fully support the global campaign of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Apartheid Israel until it abides by international law”

President of the International Relations Society, Ledys Sanjuan, said “The IR society had a long discussion about hosting Ishmael Khaldi. At the end we came to the conclusion that providing a platform for a representative of the Israeli state would be at the expense of the millions of Palestinians who live under Apartheid.”

Liam
- Homepage: http://sjp.eusa.ed.ac.uk/

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great

03.02.2011 13:07

well done

soas

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Further information

03.02.2011 15:18

Although the start was delayed from 5pm until 5.30 this was because Ishmael Khaldi was delayed in traffic and not because of the protest, to claim otherwise is just a bit silly really. Also you fail to mention perhaps the most crucual part of this event, that Ishmael Khaldi gave his lecture the same evening about 10 metres away in another building while you carried on with your demo to an empty room.




I do of course realise that in keeping with Indymedia rules my corrections here to the original article will be hidden because I have told the truth about a Palestine / Israel linked event.

Edinburgh student

Should have let him speak

04.02.2011 14:04

Would it not have been better to listen and debate during the time for questions rather than prevent people speaking you don't agree with? If the roles had been reversed no doubt Indymedia would have been filled with angry posts.

You state the majority of people "were not interested in listening to Israeli propeganda" So don't go along then if you can't find the decency to argue your position. Perhaps if you had let him speak it might have challenged your own views - were you afraid of that?

Richard

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unjustified

05.02.2011 23:15

I notice a lot of the protesters are foreigners, and the rest are a mix of apologist hand wringering academics, and other flavours of race-traitors.

What about all the Israels that the palestinians have killed with rocket attacks?
Where is their justice?

Max

Well done.

07.02.2011 17:52

These people prevented a propagandist and apologist for an Apartheid state. Let's face it, the guy is a hack. Would you suggest that debating a propagandist for 5 minutes at the end of his speech could possibly result in anything "constructive"?

These people did a damn good job of keeping apartheid israel's token arab off their campus and the majority of the people at this action were students. I was after all actually there.

Some people think we should have let him speak, I heard what he had to say to the people protesting his presence, a couple of his priceless one liners were: "you're not palestinian" "I'm not a muslim" "this anarchy is what prevents peace"


Frankly I was shocked at the sheer lack of intelligence and tact demonstrated by Mr Khaldi.

And for the record, he was NOT at risk during this demonstration, the fella was flanked by TWO mossad agents and security staff were present before he arrived.

Andres

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You did Israel and Zionism a favour

08.02.2011 20:41

By your loutish and thuggish behaviour, you showed a Palestinian Arab Bedouin Muslim like Khaldi precisely why Jewish students in Edinburgh need a Jewish state.

cormac
mail e-mail: conchovor@gmail.com

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Not the best and brightest of Edinburgh University, evidently

08.02.2011 22:04

'The protesters - approximately 50 people - were the majority of the audience...The majority of the people present in the lecture theatre had made it clear that they were not interested in listening to Israeli propaganda.'

The 'audience' (from the Latin 'audire', meaning 'to hear') were only those that were there to +hear+ Khaldi. The protesters were there to make sure they didn't hear Khaldi.

What a bunch of charlies: Jews are a minority, Jewish students relatively few and Jewish societies commensurately small. It is among the easiest, and least courageous, things to insert a majority of your own, in this case largely culturally Christian or Muslim, and disrupt their meeting, to force their meeting to come to stop.

It's bullying. It's the use of force to bully a minority into silence.

Liam O'Hare actually boasts that he and his crowd intimidates Khaldi into "hiding behind his body guards": that is a boast of an intention to intimidate. Napier actually prevented Khaldi from speaking by physically ripping the microphone from its podium, an act of vandalism and de facto an act of violence.

He then proceeded to deliver a string of lectures-rants at the Edinburgh Jewish Society, as did several of his fellows, WITH MEGAPHONES! What else could the members of Edinburgh Jewish Society do except sit in silence. If they tried to responded, they were just drowned out by a bunch of demagogues high on the gas of their own fumes!

Unfortunately for O'Hare, Napier et al., this direct assault on a Jewish society meeting constitutes "the socialism of fools".

Anyhow, Jenni Frazer, deputy editor of the Jewish Chronicle has sounded the alarm about this physical assault on the rights of Edinburgh Jewish students:

 http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/unbelievable

cormac
mail e-mail: conchovor@gmail.com
- Homepage: http://Clearly not EU's best and brightest

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Not very bright

08.02.2011 22:47

I'd be very interested to know how many sons of Bedouin herdsmen have risen through the diplomatic ranks of Arab countries.

Joe Millis
mail e-mail: jmillisesq@hotmail.com

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No, this is just horrific

08.02.2011 22:56

I cannot condone this in any way AT ALL

David
mail e-mail: a@a.com

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The mirror...

08.02.2011 23:06

So, for the sake of the freedom of Arabs, an Arab is denied the right to speak. One can't help but think of the fascists, and their denial of the right to free speech. Or, indeed, the lack of free speech in the Palestinian areas. Ironically, Robert Fisk, who is highly anti-Israel, noted that he has more freedom in Israel, than he does in Britain. It is actions like this which show that freedom is dying in Britain.

Yet, why the ferocity of the attacks? The answer must be because, despite evidence, there is a belief that Israel is an apartheid state. Forget Arab MKs, forget Arab ministers, forget the 20% of the Israeli voters who are Arab, forget the huge number of senior Arab officers in the army (and hence, Jews reporting to Arabs), forget all this because it doesn't fit the dream. When, thus, a real living proof that the dream of apartheid, and hence, justification for being anti-Israel, comes to your country, you must attack, completely, utterly, totally, and deny the right to speech, then defend your actions, on the grounds that the man, the proof, is a puppet.

However, this is not just denying yourself the right to hear, and oppose, it's denying others.

Of course, it's interesting to read the justification, and to note that Israeli use of phosphorous as a illumination is slammed into, and yet, Palestinian use of it, as an actual weapon, and against, specifically, Jewish children, is not mention. This raises an ugly ghost, namely, to only vilify attacks by (mostly) Jews, but, not against them. If the use by side was condemned, one might still be reviled by the moral equality apparent in putting defensive and offensive together, but, it wouldn't be called racist.

So, mirrors: in name of freedom, you deny it; in the name of defending Arabs, you attack one; in the name of anti-racism, you only attack one side. There is a small irony, in the picture one protestor appears to be making a Nazi salute; accident, or deliberate?

Peter Rock

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The answer to Liam O'Hare's original question....

08.02.2011 23:14

The question with which Liam O'Hare, or whoever it is, opens this video

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfKo0SLsj4E

is 'What about the rights of the people of Gaza?@

Good question.

Why don't you ask Hamas, which dedicates the people of Gaza to eternal jihad under the extinction of any kind of Israel?

Not entirely unlike SJP's and SPSC's crusade-jihad to dissolve the one Jewish state in the world for its alleged apartheid qualities; into the surrounding sea/desert of Arab, Islamic societies, including the Palestinian; which by those criteria can only be described as apartheid, with regard to Jews at least, but also a good many others, based on their history of at least the last 100 years, and arguably a good deal before.

It's funny how they equated their support for Egyptians' throwing off the military junta that has ruled them since 1952 with their struggle against the existence of the Jewish state of Israel: that military junta came to power in no small part because of the preceding imperfect democratic government's failure to abort it.

The difference between Mubarak and his preceding dictators was that he didn't dedicate the Egyptian people to perpetual struggle against Israel's existence. Mubarak accepted the US aid which saved the economy that was on the verge of collapse because of the failure of Arab Socialism, and the cost of Egypt's war against Israel. The US's chief sin, perhaps, is that it propped up an economy that should have been reformed years ago.

In any case, it is sad that EU SJP, allegedly students, and, to that extent, intellectuals, and SPSC buy into the same myth, ubiquitous in Egypt and the Arab world: that the one Jewish state in the world is the chief source of its woes. Like it was Israel that installed Nasser and established a military tyranny in Egypt in the first place.

Perhaps if they had listened to Khaldi, instead of shutting him up, they might have learned something about that, instead of pleasuring themselves with their rants at Jewish students against the only Jewish state that exists, while professing to defend an Egyptian society that, in fact, ethnically cleansed itself of all its Jews decades ago.

cormac
mail e-mail: conchovor@gmail.com

No free speech for war criminals.

09.02.2011 12:32

We do not allow the racist and anti semitic English Defence League and British national Party to speak, nor do we allow apologists for the war crimes of Israel to speak. When there is free speech for all in the future Palestine/Israel secular state, we will welcome that nation's academics, trade unionists, feminists, and many others to universities, colleges and community centres, just as we welcomed South Africans of all races after the collapse of Apartheid. Forward to the end of Israeli Apartheid!! Gordon Davie

Gordon Davie
mail e-mail: davie728@hotmail.com

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Racist against Bedouin, I see

11.02.2011 15:43

'Frankly I was shocked at the sheer lack of intelligence and tact demonstrated by Mr Khaldi. '

Hilarious.

a) he is not a native English speaker and

b) you didn't let him say anything, you fascistic creep!

cormac
mail e-mail: conchovor@gmail.com

EU Secretary Kim Waldron: 'we can never let what happened, happen again'.'

16.02.2011 14:05

'Tim Abraham, Edinburgh JSoc president, said: "Protesters called Mr Khaldi a Nazi and other provocative names, showing middle fingers and attacking the JSoc as a 'religious club that supports violence and unjust behaviour'.'

'After the Board of Deputies' senior vice-president Jonathan Arkush intervened, University Secretary Kim Waldron pledged to put measures in place to avoid future disturbances.

Mr Arkush said: "Dr Waldron said to me 'we can never let what happened, happen again'.

"Edinburgh is now working on ways to prevent incidents like this happening in the future. The Board, and UJS, will play an important role in this process."

Mr Abraham and JSoc members also held a meeting with student union representatives and the university's chief chaplain to voice their concerns.

Professor Lorraine Waterhouse, university vice-principal for diversity and equality, said the university disapproved of the demonstrators' actions.'

 http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/44967/university-act-after-israeli-diplomat-mob-riot

cormac
mail e-mail: conchovor@gmail.com
- Homepage: http://Edinburgh University Secretary Kim Waldron: 'we can never let what happened, happen again'

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