Please put this in context:

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine Attack Jews at UC Berkeley Hip-Hop Concert
While the event referenced below was not a Tikvah event, we want to express solidarity with the Jewish students who were attacked by members of Students for Justice in Palestine after the Jewish students made a civil request for illegally draped Palestinian flags to be taken down. The Zionist Freedom Alliance statement is below. Dozens and dozens of eyewitnesses, some of which are Tikvah members and others who are not, attest to this statement.

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Members of Students for Justice in Palestine Attack Jews at UC Berkeley Hip-Hop Concert
(Berkeley, CA- November 13, 2008)

We, the Zionist Freedom Alliance student group at Cal, are deeply concerned by the latest in a series of attacks on Jewish and pro-Israel students at UC Berkeley perpetrated by members of Students for Justice in Palestine. On the night of November 13, 2008 at around 6:00 PM, members of Students for Justice in Palestine disrupted our hip-hop concert that celebrated the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. Then they attacked students who asked them to stop their disruption.

Three members of the Students for Justice in Palestine illegally draped large Palestinian flags behind the stage of the concert, which was part of Israel Liberation Week. Yehuda De Sa (one of the performers), Cal alumnus Gabe Weiner, and current ASUC Senator John Moghtader walked to the balcony from which the flags were hanging and asked the students to remove the flags as they misrepresented the concert's message. The SJP members immediately became hostile at this request and current SJP leader Husam Zakharia instigated a physical altercation by striking Weiner on the head. As Weiner and the performer tried to defend themselves, Moghtader stood away from the scuffle and then made a successful effort to break up the fight.

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine shouted anti-Semitic epithets referencing the Holocaust throughout the ordeal. Zakharia and others from SJP were detained by the police and charged with battery. Citizens' arrests were filed against SJP members who took part in the altercation.

The violence, intimidation, and harassment exhibited by members of Students for Justice in Palestine at the concert is only one act in a pattern of similar behavior that they have exhibited towards Jewish and pro-Israel students on this campus. Last year, multiple charges were filed against SJP and some of its members citing harassment, violence, intimidation, and violation of numerous other campus rules. These charges all went ignored by Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard.

We call on state officials, the President of the University of California, the Chancellor, the Dean of Students, faculty, and the student body to take a unified stand against the continued harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students on this campus, particularly by members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

tikvahsfi.blogspot.com/2008/11/members-of-students-for-justice-in.html

After months of villification, a videotape was found that completely exonerates the Jewish students.

None of this makes sense without the back story. Thanks

Israeli Apartheid Week Mirrors Recall

www.dailycal.org/article/104942/israeli_apartheid_week_mirrors_recall

We're in Berkeley, where I know the Bible isn't very popular, but I think a line from Deuteronomy has suddenly become very relevant to students at Cal. "Justice, Justice, you shall pursue" it reads, and now, more than ever, is the time to pursue justice.

During the first week of March, Tikvah: Students for Israel put on Israeli Peace and Diversity Week. We hosted a variety of events celebrating the diversity that exists in the State of Israel as well as the nation's desire for peace with its neighbors. We hosted Israeli basketball star LaVon Mercer, an African-American who moved to Israel to play professional basketball and who, after falling in love with the country, decided to become an Israeli citizen himself. We had displays on Upper Sproul Plaza educating people about the unparalleled LGBT rights in Israel and the country's tremendous aid to refugees. We also screened a movie about an Ethiopian boy who escaped to Israel, where a Jewish family took him in as their own.

While we sought to engage the campus in a positive series of educational events, a different group, Students for Justice in Palestine, was once again spreading hate, misinformation and negativity across our campus. When they weren't misleading students about what's going on in the Middle East, they were busy spreading vicious lies about a fellow student in a malignant effort to further their extremist agenda on our campus. Israeli Apartheid Week and the SJP-CalSERVE led recall of John Moghtader are more linked than you might think, and they reveal a disturbing trend that exists on our campus. We have allowed malicious lies from SJP and their cohort CalSERVE to go unchecked for far too long. These destructive and divisive groups are forcing Berkeley in a direction that we don't want to be going.

In the face of injustice, we Cal students cannot simply look the other way. We cannot simply accept that what we hear is the truth. Rather, it is essential as independent thinkers to seek out the truth, to stand up, and to challenge. The SJP-planned, CalSERVE-promoted, smear campaign against Israel during Israeli Apartheid Week mirrors their smear campaign against Senator Moghtader: They simply spewed lies about a person or party and hoped that they would stick. And as we've seen lately, their claims about what happened on November 13th in Eshleman Hall turned out to be false.

It's ironic that the Students for Justice in Palestine have complete disregard for justice. Justice is not smearing an innocent man for personal gain. Justice is not lying to the student body and wasting $20,000 of student fees to achieve your own dastardly schemes.

It is time for the students of UC Berkeley to stand up and make a statement. We demand honesty from our ASUC officials, not the enabling of corruption and injustice like those that were committed by the dangerous CalSERVE machinery, from current President Roxanne Winston down to executive candidate and SJP member Kifah Shah. We demand honest reporting to UCPD, not the blatantly falsified reports that were given by students desperately trying to implicate John. Finally, we demand honesty when student groups promote their causes, not the predictable hate-filled rhetoric that took place during Israeli Apartheid Week.

Let us hope that we can learn from the corruption and deceit that SJP-CalSERVE plagued our campus with this year. We must hold them accountable. It is our responsibility to leave this campus in better shape than when we arrived. We must throw out the wrong, and pursue what is right. Justice, Justice we shall pursue.