As part of the initiative to improve Israel’s image on college campuses, the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs (SWU) brought two Israelis to the University of California-Davis on Thursday night, in an event sponsored by Chabad.
An Israeli soldier named ‘Ran’ and a Druse woman named ‘Ranya’ came to the university hoping to provide a balanced, accurate portrayal of Israeli actions and policies. However, Ran and Ranya did not get very far before they were confronted by an extremely hostile and viciously anti-Israel crowd, who sought to dispel the event altogether.
“By the time the talk was scheduled to begin, approximately 125 students and community members had swarmed into the lecture hall-filing the room to ‘over capacity’-meaning that at least 20 students had to stand against the side and back walls of the room,” the popular blog israelstreet.org stated.
At least half of the 125 attendees were clearly identifiable as ‘pro-Palestinian’ students, as they were wearing kaffiyehs and Free Gaza T-shirts and waving ‘Palestinian’ flags, and other paraphernalia.
As soon as Ran mentioned the word “Israel,” approximately 40 of the ‘Palestinian supporters who were seated, stood up and walked out.
Others started yelling, “How many woman have you raped? How many children have you raped? You are a child molester.”
“The heckling continued unabated for the next 15 minutes. The speaker did his best to continue, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying, said israelstreet.org.
The police standing by did nothing to intervene and stated, “we have been instructed by our supervisor not to stop hecklers, and if you try to stop the hecklers, we have been instructed to close down the program.”
“Then the question and answer period started, and quickly devolved into accusations of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian babies and civilians (met with shouts of approval and loud applause from the crowd),” the blog continued to state. “It wasn’t long before the moderator judged that the students were so disrespectful to the speakers and to the rules of procedure that the program has to end.”
