On a more serious note, I'd previously blogged on the deafening silence from the media regarding Senator Holling's assertion that Israel and American Jews were somehow the driving force behind the Iraq war in a vast Jewish conspiracy.



The tacit acceptance of the paranoia expressed by Holling is disturing, but what's been going on at Berkely is worse:



This article in the East Bay Express chronicles the experiences of Jewish students on campus:



"He remembers pro-Palestinian protesters insisting that Israeli border crossings are as bad as Nazi death camps. He remembers the glass front door of Berkeley's Hillel building -- where he attends Friday night services -- shattered by a cinderblock, with the message F*CK JEWS scrawled nearby. He remembers the spray-painted swastikas discovered one Monday morning last September on the walls of four lecture rooms in LeConte Hall accompanied by the chilling bilingual message, 'Die, Juden.'" . . .



"Student Daniel Frankenstein recalls being heckled and called a "conservative Zionist bastard" when he ran for student-body president last year. "One girl working on my campaign was followed around by someone who kept asking her, 'Are you a Jewgirl? Frankenstein's a Jew, so isn't everyone who's working for him a Jew?'" he said."



Eugene Volokh blogs about the article, and includes quotes from the clash between invited speaker Daniel Pipes and student protesters:



""Why was the World Trade Center attacked?" Pipes asked. "What was the reason?"



"Zionism!" someone yelled.



When Pipes proposed that global unrest can be addressed only "when we call it what it is: not a war on terrorism but a war on militant Islam," a chanting chorus erupted: "Ra-cist! Ra-cist!"



"Let him speak!" came a strangled yell. "Freedom of speech!"



"Ra-cist! Ra-cist!"



"It's so satisfying to see one's theoretical points proven so quickly," Pipes said in his best butter-cookie voice.



When he went on to call for Palestinian acceptance of Israel's existence, hisses swirled in the hall like steam. "No!" shouted many in the crowd.



"Death to Zionism!" proclaimed a voice."





I have no problem with the intelligent debate, peaceful protest, and reasonable criticism of Israeli politics and policies regarding the Palestinian people. It would take volumes to expound on my views on the conflict in the middle east, and you really don't want to read it all. But this level of hatred goes well beyond the pale. Why does it seem to be acceptable?



(NOTE: Censorship on the f-bomb was mine).