Police arrested 12 hecklers who interfered with an address being delivered by Israeli Ambassador to Washington Dr. Michael Oren, who was speaking in Irving University in Los Angeles. The people taken into custody simply did not permit Oren to continue with his address, shouting “murderers” and “how many Palestinians did you kill?”
Despite the interruptions, Dr. Oren received warm support from the audience, and after taking a break the event continued.
When University Chancellor Michael Drake expressed his sorrow over the incidents, citing he was embarrassed, his remarks were met with both applause and boos.
According to the coverage of the 12 arrests appearing in the Orange County Register, the ambassador was addressing an audience of 500 and the hecklers interrupted him no less than 10 times. UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey said it is not clear whether any of the protesters are UCI students.
The newspaper report adds that hours before the address, “Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members ‘condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined.’”
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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5 Responses
I wonder what the religion was of all of the hecklers?
Flatbush Bubby – while I’m sure (you’re right that) it was mostly yishmaelim, there were probably some good old American goyim AND some of our own extreme leftist liberal Jews.
I try to be dan l’kaf zechus of our fellow Jews.
YWN: Oy…here we go again. Please, please try to approach some kind of professional standard in your reporting. There is no such place as “Irvine University in Los Angeles.” This event occurred at the University of California at Irvine. The city of Irvine is about 40 miles south of LA.
With all due respect.
As I said in my previous comment that was not published (yet) and as lenco49 said in comment #4, there is no “Irving University” (mentioned in your first sentence) anywhere in California, though there is an “Irvine U” in Irvine, CA.
Even this, however, was not the location of the story. From the quote you did bring,”Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union”, the story clearly did not happen at Irvine University but rather at University of California (at) Irvine.
I understand an occasional spelling mistake (as unprofessional as it is for a journalist and editor to allow even one to slip through).
But do you not read the part of the original article that you, yourself, quoted? How can “UCI”, in your view, stand for “Irving University”?
Anyone who has spent any amount of time in this country should know that many states throughout the country have universities called “University of [state name]” and then append the name of the city or town that the particular campus is located in to that, to give you 3+ initials corresponding to “University of [state name] (at) [city or town]). At the same time, you could also have a separate private university named “[state or city] University”.
Please, at least keep the facts, if not the spelling, straight. And why not correct the article after these mistakes are pointed out to you? Does it help your advertising revenues to have unprofessional mistakes kept uncorrected for as long as possible?