MORAL ROT AT UC BERKELEY (moved to top with corrected link): UC Berkeley chancellor not ‘interested in blame’ in response student-government chaos. A group of pro-Palestinian students displayed celebratory posters of terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians. A student introduced a resolution to the student government condemning the display. The Palestinian group disrupted the meeting with chants of “Free Palestine.” Here’s what university Chancellor Carol Christ had to say:
“Students who support the Palestinian cause have a right t o celebrate those they see as fighters for that cause, and their rights to express that support are fully protected by our country’s constitution,” she continued. “By the same token, Jewish students have a right to feel dismay and concern after seeing a poster they perceive as honoring those who killed, or attempted to kill, unarmed Jewish civilians. Each side has an equal right to express and have heard their perspective.”
Yes, the students have a “right” to celebrate terrorists who murder Jews, and the chancellor has the “right” to not draw moral equivalence between those who celebrate such terrorists and those who object to such terrorism. And yet she didn’t exercise it. Note, by the way, the use of the weasel word, “perceive.” The terrorists in question did murder Jewish civilians, and suggesting that the Jewish students only “perceive” it that way is a way for Chancellor Christ to evade responsibility for her horrific moral equivalence.
It’s also worth noting that the pro-Palestinian students do NOT have a right to disrupt a student government meeting (which no one seems to deny), or to harass other students (which is in dispute).