A new chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East was formed at
the University of California at Los Angeles in October, 2006, and was
registered and granted official recognition as a UCLA faculty group,
with 35 subscribers.
The chapter instituted a speakers series on campus, in combination with the UCSC chapter of SPME, to educate faculty, students, and community members to the threat emanating from Radical Islam. With the support of the American Jewish Congress, and UCLA departmental sponsorship from Israel Studies and Center for Near East Studies, Professor Barry Rubin, Director of the Global Research
in International Affairs, Herzliya, Israel, spoke November 13, 2006 at UCLA. In his talk titled, “Back to the Future in the Middle East,” Barry Rubin discussed what he sees as a very dangerous movement by Islamic nationalism to unite the Arab world into a single, united state, blaming their lack of economic change and civil rights’ reform on external forces, Israel, and the West, that must
be defeated. In the evening, he spoke at a private SPME dinner party.
Under the auspices of a grant from the Taube Philanthropies to SPME in collaboration with JNF, we then brought Ms. Melanie Phillips, award-winning British journalist and author, and Phyllis
Chesler, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York, to lecture at both UC Santa Cruz and UC Los Angeles. Ms. Phillips lectured at UCLA January 22nd, with the co-sponsorship of the Department of Political Science, to an audience of approximately 70 students, faculty and community members. Her title was “Londonistan: Radical Islam in England and
Beyond.” She advanced the theory that global jihad is facilitated by the collapse of Western values, self-confidence and national identity. She charged that under the creed of “multiculturalism”,
academia and the media have transformed the meaning of the term from a decent respect for all cultures to the view that the minority, as an oppressed people, is always right and the majority always wrong. Phillips warned that the West, including Israel, has not recognized that we are “ceding the battleground of ideas” to Islam that wants ultimately to establish a medieval caliphate over the
world. The Los Angeles Jewish Journal’s article about her UCLA talk can be seen at
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=17119>http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=17119
Professor Chesler, pioneering feminist, psychologist and author,
spoke on April 16, 2007, with the co-sponsorship of Stand With Us and
the UCLA chapter of the Zionist Organization of America to an
audience of 65 at UCLA. Her title was “Feminism, Islam, and the
Jews.” Using personal experience, analytic thought, and heart-felt
advocacy, she described female oppression in the Muslim world, and
indicted feminists and human rights’ organizations for their lack of
protest. Under the guise of respect for multiculturalism, many who
portray themselves as women rights activists excuse gang rape, honor
killings, genital mutilation, and repression of Muslim women, Chesler
reported. The Daily Bruin, the UCLA student newspaper, reported on
the
lecture.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/apr/17/lecture_focuses_islam_women/
Our other activities included publishing a rebuttal to an article
published in UCLA Today that accused Israel of being an apartheid
state. Our article, “Apartheid accusations: impediment to peace”,
also published in UCLA Today, can be seen at
http://www.today.ucla.edu/voices/professors_israel-palestine-response/
Moreover, our correspondence with the editorial board made them
change their editorial policy so that in the future, articles on both
sides of a contentious issue, such as the Israeli/Arab conflict,
would be solicited and published simultaneously in the same
issue. We also protested to the Vice-Chancellor about a conference
on the Lebanese/Israeli war, organized by Humanities students, and
co-sponsored by several departments, that was held on Passover and
effectively excluded any Israeli voices or the Israeli perspective.
We were helped in our efforts by two student groups, Bruins for
Israel and the UCLA chapter of Zionist Organization of America, as
well as the community organization, Stand With Us.
Leila Beckwith
Professor emeritus in pediatrics
UCLA
Bert Raven
Professor emeritus in psychology
UCLA
