California Federal Judge Rules Assault On Jewish Students By Muslims Is 'Protected Speech'

No, I'm not kidding.

Over at UC Berkeley, Muslim students and were holding an anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” demonstration sanctioned by the university and conducted by the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and their assorted leftist allies on campus in 2010.

For anyone who's never been to these little gatherings, they feature anti-Semitic,inflammatory rhetoric as the main course along with street theater like trampling and burning Israeli flags ( which contain a religious symbol, by the way)and simulated 'checkpoints' blocking off essential parts of the campus and forcing students to run a gauntlet of violent and intimidating students to get by.

At the 2010 protest at Berkeley, 20-year-old Jessica Felber and a few other Jewish students in the pro-Israel Tikva group had the courage to confront this mob by mounting a small pro-Israel demonstration in response.

The anti-Israel crowd responded by issuing violent threats against the Jews, culminating in leader of the Students for Justice in Palestine, Husam Zakharia, assaulting Ms. Felber and ramming her from behind with a loaded shopping cart.Ironically, Felber was carrying a sign that read “Israel Wants Peace” when she was assaulted.

Zakaria was later arrested but the local district attorney apparently declined to prosecute him.

In an interview, Felber said Zakharia has been involved with numerous violent incidents involving Jews:

According to her, physical intimidation has frequently been employed as a tool by SJP to silence students opposing their anti-Zionist activities on campus. “SJP students have been terrorizing us for three years with intimidation, accusations and threats. This incident is simply the culmination of it all and we are not going to tolerate it anymore.”

SJP’s tactics backfired on at least one occasion when, in November 2008, the group attempted to disrupt a concert organized by the Zionist Freedom Alliance during “Israel Liberation Week” on the UC Berkeley campus. After striking a ZFA activist in the head, Zakharia found himself beaten to the ground. Following the incident, Zakharia and two fellow SJP members, along with two Zionist activists, were cited for battery but no charges were officially filed.

Felber then decided to file a civil rights action against the University of California at Berkeley, the Regents of the University of California and their ranking officials. The complaint stated that Defendants were fully aware that Zakharia, the SJP and similar student groups had been involved in other similar incidents on campus against Jewish and other students, but took no reasonable steps to protect Ms. Felber and others.

The complaint charged that the assault was the result of the university having essentially sponsored and encouraged similar incitements by the SJP and the MSA and failing to discipline them for past incidents.

It documented how the university had ignored numerous complaints from students about the poisonous climate on campus and accused the university of tolerating 'the growing cancer of a dangerous anti-Semitic climate on its campuses' thus violating the civil rights of Ms. Felber and other students to enjoy a peaceful campus environ.

Now, if Ms.Felber had been black and was injured by, say, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood or White Aryan Nation during a campus demonstration, you know without even guessing that the Obama Department of Justice would be in this up to their necks and providing DOJ lawyers for her by the busload. Instead, she was forced to hire private counsel.

The case went to trial in Federal Court in Oakland and was heard by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, an Obama appointee.

He dismissed the case out of hand.

He claimed that the harassment constituted 'protected political speech':

Seeborg said the university did not have any obligation to intervene in any dispute where a private individual on campus was allegedly interfering with another’s constitutional rights. He instead appeared to indicate that the incident was an outcome of Felber’s counter protest.

“The incident in which Felber was assaulted with a shopping cart, for example, did not occur in the context of her educational pursuit,” Seeborg wrote. "Rather, that event occurred when she, as one person attempting to exercise free speech rights in a public forum, was allegedly attacked by another person who likewise was participating in a public protest in a public forum."

Now, I always thought that freedom of speech involved talking, not ramming someone from behind with a shopping cart. But apparently the rules are different when it comes to Muslims...and Jews, for that matter.

If attacking someone physically is now protected speech, would that also apply if a bunch of young Jewish men grabbed a few baseball bats and exercised their freedom of speech in breaking up what amounted to a racist assault on their people and their right to self-determination?

Well, your 'Honor'?

I smell the stench of something very old and pungent here...

(hat tip, Louie Louie)