Wall splits students

Students walking through the middle of UCI’s campus this week will witness free speech at work. Various groups — pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, pro-Palestinian and others — are inviting speakers and staging rallies to portray their own version of truth, their opinion on the conflict happening within Israel as two cultures continue to clash.

And standing at the middle of these protests is a wall, a replica of the one that borders Israel and Palestine. The wall, built by the Muslim Student Union, depicts violence against Palestine, anti-Zionist sentiments and the flag of Israel, blood-stained, soaring above.

“This is not a matter of our dead are more important than your dead,” said Muslim Student Union spokeswoman Nida Chowdhry, who said the stained flag was in protest of a government, not a people. “We are trying to draw attention to the causes of this oppression.”

Both the Muslim Student Union and Jewish groups on campus host events and speakers this week dedicated to differing opinions on the issues between Israel and Palestine, anti-Semitism, and UCI’s role in both.

The groups claim that the events raise awareness and provide information for the student body, but the question on some people’s minds is whether their efforts serve to antagonize each other more than they promote the peaceful exchange of ideas.

“The deterioration in discourse nationally and what we see in some of these speakers is not conducive,” said UCI Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Manuel Gomez. “It is just rhetoric coming back and forth at each other. My hope would be to get authentic dialogues going with discussion revolving around differences, not to agreement, but to understand different perspectives.”

Gomez added that UCI does not support, endorse, or sponsor the events taking place on campus between the groups.

The university has been called into question for allowing some of the politically themed events on campus, as some groups have called the Muslim Student Union’s message one of hate and some of its speakers and actions anti-Semitic.

Gomez said the university is following state and national policies for freedom of expression, but added that if someone’s rights were violated, the school would intervene.

The Muslim Student Union called its week of events “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust.” Some students have spoken out against the name, calling it an insult to the Jewish Holocaust.