Zionists Call for Donation, Enrollment Boycott of UC Irvine, Slam Chancellor

Last year, the ZOA complained to university about a May MSU-sponsored event that included a speaker who compared Jews to Satan and "characterized them as slick, sneaky and conspiratorial."

Drake was singled out at that time for failing to respond to the MSU's solicitation of funds on campus for Viva Palestina, "which may have furnished material support and resources to the terrorist group Hamas," a violation of federal law. The group's founder, "Israel-bashing radical British politician" George Galloway, spoke at the event.

Drake and campus officials have said they will have no comment on the latest ZOA maneuver. But UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon did say the arrested students face disciplinary action that could range from warnings to expulsions. The Orange County District Attorney's office will decide whether to press criminal charges against them.

Meanwhile, Lawhon said, the university is still investigating whether the MSU violated school policy by conducting fundraising on campus last May, adding that the ZOA complaint was forwarded to the FBI.

The call to boycott UCI enrollments and donations was not made lightly by ZOA National President Morton A. Klein, Chairman of the Board Michael Goldblatt, Vice Chairman of the Board Steven M. Goldberg, Chairman of the National Executive Committee Alan Mazurek and ZOA Center for Law and Justice Director Susan B. Tuchman, according to the organization's statement.

"Many of the problems could be rectified if the Chancellor would hold student groups like the Muslim Student Union to the university's clear standards of conduct," reads the statement. "Instead, the Chancellor has sent the inappropriate message that promoting misrepresentations and outright lies about Jews, Zionism and Israel is tolerable and acceptable.

"UC Irvine must now pay the price for its inaction. We call on all decent people, both Jews and non-Jews, to stop supporting, with their money and enrollment, a university that has been complicit in promoting bigotry. It's the right and moral thing to do, until the university makes it crystal clear that it will stop tolerating anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism and that the perpetrators will be held to the same standards of conduct as everyone else."

Drake and the university can't win. The Monday edition of the New University campus newspaper carried an editorial by the MSU's Hadeer Soliman defending the arrested students' right to protest, calling Oren the "official representative of a state that engages in war crimes and crimes against humanity," and warning that selectively enforcing university policies to punish the disruptors "is undoubtedly sending a political message and chilling all students' First Amendment rights."

The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council of American-Islamic Relations have also condemned the arrests by campus police.