UCLA Divestment from Israel Hearing, Resolution Defeated 7-5

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On Tuesday night, the UCLA undergraduate student government heard public testimonies for nearly 9 hours — from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m. — on whether or not the university should go forward with a resolution to boycott and divest from businesses that allegedly “profit from the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.”

The meeting, attended by over 500 people, began at 7 p.m. Tuesday night and ended 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. Ben Shapiro, TruthRevolt.org Editor-in-Chief and UCLA alum, crashed the divestment hearing to blast both the student sponsors and those considering the anti-Semitic measure. Here’s the transcript:

My name is Ben Shapiro. I’m an alumnus of this university. I’m also a local talk show host on 870 [AM] in the morning, and I got out of bed and left my one month old baby there when I saw what was going on here tonight. I’ve never been more ashamed to be a Bruin. I’ve never been more ashamed to be an alumnus of this university than to see this divestment petition being considered at this level.

To pretend this is about occupation, to pretend this is about peace, to pretend that this anything other than vile, spiteful Jew hatred is a lie!

There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Saudi Arabia. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Iran. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Palestine. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing the vast bevy of human rights violations that happen every day in the Middle East, exponentially worse that what happens in Israel.

Any gay or lesbian that is targeting Israel in this room seems to have forgotten how high they hang gays from cranes in Iran. Every person of liberal bent who suggests that Israel is the problem in the Middle East seems to have forgotten that there is only one country in the Middle East that actually has any sort of religious diversity in it. The countries that are apartheid countries are those that are Judenrein – like, for example, Palestine.

So, for us to sit here and pretend that Israel is somehow on a lower moral plane is a direct manifestation of anti-Semitism. And to hold Jews to a different moral standard than any other country or group on the face of the earth represents nothing but an age-old and historic hatred for the Jewish people. All the folks here who are pretending that the B.D.S is about anything other than that, I would like to see a poll of those folks, and see how many of them actually believe in the existence of a Jewish state, qua-Jewish state, not as a state like any other, but as a Jewish state. They don’t. They don’t acknowledge that existence. They don’t believe in that existence. They don’t believe in peace. All this is about, pure and simple, is a desire to target the Jewish people.

“Judenrein” was a Nazi term to mean “clean of Jews.”

According to the Daily Bruin, the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) shot down the resolution by an anonymous vote of 7-5. Despite protestation, the USAC decided the ballots would be secret when some members voiced concern for their safety.

Students in favor of the resolution offered no comment, saying they were “too disappointed.” Video of one particular protester has circulated: