Cauce and Effect
UW president Ana Mari Cauce just can't win.
Last week, over the night of November 13th-14th, University of Washington president Ana Mari Cauce discovered the true colors of the anti-Israel protest movement festering on her campus, and those colors are black and red spray paint.
In a celebratory video on Instagram, figures are seen destroying the exterior of her private home and car with paint and graffiti. The account, escalate_seattle, which set the footage to “Ambition for Cash” by rapper Key Glock overlayed with what appears to be a 1978 speech by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader George Habash at a rally in Lebanon (catchy, but two serious copyright violations), is likely run by a socialist/anarchist embedded in local shenanigans. Just two organizations are tagged in the post, a self-described “South Asian militant org” and a “Socialist Pan-African Political Party.”
The vandalism took place just hours before the Board of Regents meeting, the first one since the aborted September meeting that anti-Israel protesters hijacked during speeches by Jewish community members expressing concern about campus safety. The vandalism is a response to the fact that the Regents have pushed off discussions about divestment. In the penultimate frame of the video, threatening text addressed to Cauce and the Regents reads: “you will not know peace until you meet the demands of our movement.”
What movement? The “UW Liberated Zone” encampment with which Cauce reached a settlement last spring?
Little is known at this point about the attack on her home. But it’s easy to connect the red string from last spring’s encampment to last month’s protests against the Regents to this moment. It’s also very easy to connect the red string from campus anti-Israel activism to numerous shapeshifting far-left, socialist/communist, anti-war, anti-Israel, anti-Boeing groups to terrorist entities like Samidoun, which was recently designated a “sham charity” and a front for…wait for it…the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that promotes Arab nationalism via the destruction of Israel.
Could someone gift Cauce a subscription to The Cholent so she can catch up on these people?
Recently released public records about the UW encampment resolution reveal that the UW Liberated Zone negotiators tried to wield power over the university administrators by making demands about their meeting spaces and attendees. The administration consistently responded with restrained politeness to address their demands and stave off escalation. Just one example:
Many will place the blame for last week’s vandalism right at Cauce’s feet. Clearly, appeasing the encampment would bring temporary quiet but long-term ongoing turmoil. How did she not see this coming? But in truth, she probably really didn’t see it coming. In the logic of peacemaking, compromise brings results, not humiliation and thousands of dollars of damage to your personal property. Maybe now she understands.
While no one has come forward to claim responsibility (when they are caught they are not exactly going to be liberating any prisons), it’s notable that none of the anti-Israel, anti-war groups involved with the protests have said a word. Do they condone this? What do they know? And what might they be planning next?
In other news…
A counter letter by Jewish UW faculty, students, and alumni to the anti-anti-Semitism task force letter by Jewish UW faculty, students, and alumni is circulating.
Confused? Go back three spaces and read this:
The anonymous authors of the new letter defend the work of the task force and express fear that taking the arguments of the opposition seriously will lead to the dismissal of real danger:
We are concerned that this manufactured controversy distracts from the urgent work at hand. The silencing tactics, bullying and harassment we have all seen over the past year - including the shut-down of the September Regents meeting and the shocking vandalism of President Cauce’s personal home and property on Nov. 14 - are not only antisemitic, they are harmful to the free speech upon which our university’s excellence depends.
The task force’s anti-Semitism chair, epidemiologist Janet Baseman, shared with The Cholent her shock at the opposition to the report. Baseman has been attacked on the basis of the methodology and her Jewish bona fides; she’s neither a Jewish studies scholar nor an avowed anti-Zionist.
Baseman defends the data-driven study and characterizes the criticism as ideology and turf wars. “If I’m dealing with people whose ideology is more important than data, then we are just not going to see eye to eye on things,” she says. “It goes against all my training. And it’s just frustrating to have to deal with outlandish claims.”
Further reading for the weekend
UW professor emeritus Paul Burstein expresses tired pessimism about the university in the LA Jewish Journal this week:
The UW mentions that this year’s new students were told during orientation sessions that antisemitic and Islamophobic discrimination are not allowed at the UW; but, we should ask, why the need to spell this out? What would the students be expecting otherwise?
Up in Vancouver, BC, the home of the Samidoun leader and his wife, Charlotte Kates, was raided by police. Samidoun, remember, was recently designated a terrorist entity by Canada and the US, and Kates is under investigation for violating hate crime laws.
And to stick a fork in it all, watchdog organization StopAntisemitism graded the University of Washington with a big fat “F.” Read the report here.
Wishing you a Shabbat shalom.
Community Announcements
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Shoutouts
Shoutout to SHA for a lovely Kindergarten event this week! — Dina Levitan
When people tell you what they intend to do it would behoove one to pay attention. How President Cauce did not understand who she was dealing with is hard to fathom. What happened to her was horrific. These groups are only interested in dialogue that gives them what they want. Their idea of compromise is do what we ask. The UW administration cannot just kowtow to their wishes. Someone has to stand up.