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November 8, 2010 | 3:45 pm

Bibi’s G.A. Hecklers: Young Jews [VIDEO]

Posted By Rob Eshman

The heckling came in well-coordinated waves. As Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a packed ballroom of 300 delegates Monday in New Orleans at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, the first protester started shouting, forcing the Israeli prime minister to stop.  Security personal grabbed the protester and rushed him out of the room.

If they came to delegitimize Israel, Netanyahu said, they came to the wrong address. The crowd erupted in applause


The pattern repeated itself four times in the course of Netanyahu’s half-hour speech. Each time the prime minister returned to the rhythm of his major annual address to north American Jewry, another single protester stood up and shouted. Security rushed each of the obstructionists out as the crowd chanted “Bibi, Bibi,” in approval.

The constant interruptions were the same tactic anti-Israel protesters had used against Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren during a speech at the University of California, Irvine last February.  Constant shouts and catcalls eventually drove his remarks to a stop.

Though the protesters Monday at the General Assembly used the same strategy, there was a marked difference: Where the protesters in Irvine identified themselves as Muslim students, these protesters were young Jewish college students who see themselves as representing the best interests of Israel.

“What were they against?” one Israeli journalist in the audience asked rhetorically. “The loyalty oath? The occupation? Gaza? Most Jews would agree with them.”

For many, the drama echoed the GA in Boston in 1969, when Jewish college students held a sit-in that actually shut down the GA business. Monday’s protest was just the second time the GA had faced that level of dissent.

In comments to the press, the ejected protesters sounded like a younger generation of Jewish activists, rather than the often anti-Semitic protesters who make up left-wing anti-Israel movement.

These protesters, who worked their way into the GA by virtue of being Jewish college students—the GA’s organizers have boasted of the 700 college students participating in what is usually a generally older skewing conclave—are not questioning Israel’s legitimacy, but rather specific policies. They see a moral urgency in questions of Israeli policy that the mainstream of American Jewry is content to seeworked out at a pace of the Israeli government’s own choosing.

“Hey, we talk about getting the younger generation involved in Israel,” said one GA attendee. “Here they are.”

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Interrupting a public speech by Israel’s PM is not the way to get a question asked - and, more importantly, answered.

If these #%*&@+* have such strong feelings, they need to make aliyah, pay Israeli taxes, serve in the IDF - in other words put their lives where there mouths are.

If they don’t make aliyah they have no moral right to tell the democratically elected government of Israel what to do.

Comment by paul jeser on 11/08/10 at 4:25 pm

They need to go back to their grandmothers and learn how to behave.

Also a day at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and another at Yad Vashem might give them some pride.

Comment by Dick on 11/08/10 at 5:41 pm

When college students were protesting in the 70’s, I was in my late 20’s and been in the army stationed in Georgia, Korea, and France in my three year stint.  It was amazing what America had contributed to the far east and Europe.  Most of the students I spoke with then had insufficient experience to protest anything and I still feel the same way about the young.  They are young and inexperienced and have no manners.  It is fun to watch them, but they add nothing but energy to the conversation.

Comment by Ilbert on 11/08/10 at 6:21 pm

I couldn’t disagree more Ilbert.  Perhaps you should reread your Hesse?  In the late 70’s I was a freshman protesting the last year of a war that cost us the dissemble of the Great Society.  DIck suggests that these young intellectuals are devoid of victim-hood, which I can only understand as evolution in the Jewish culture.  They suggest that genocide is an ongoing atrocity and they are not segregate in it.  They are brave and uncommon, ready to stand against injustice.  They are rebels and they have my respect and encouragement.  Sitting back and chuckling at them or condemning them from a cat bird perch of home / income safety seems a bit far from the examples of your ancestors.  Shame on you.  Shame on you for turning your backs on your youth… brighter and more courageous than you.

Comment by Gwendolyn H. Barry on 11/09/10 at 9:12 am

Given Gwendolyn’s comments I reread the article to see if I could get beyond the fact that a bunch of young Jews were exhibiting bad manners.  Were they objecting to Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s treatment of its gays and women?  Were they objecting to the cowardice of the American press when it comes to criticizing Muslim terrorists?  Where they objecting to the treatment of a black male journalist by NPR?  I could not tell from the article, but I know who is posing a danger to the world and to our freedoms in the United States and it is not Israel, unless Israel’s existence is the problem. I get it, be an activist where there is no danger to your person or family.  You get to pretend you are doing good, make friends and when you decide to grow up, go and make a lot of mony.  It is the American way.

Comment by ilbert on 11/09/10 at 9:59 am

Sunset Over The Zionist State

and the coming dawn?

Palestine, reborn and free

Comment by jacobo on 11/09/10 at 1:33 pm

It is 1947 and the Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews are told by the U.N. General Assembly (by resolution) that they can each have a state on the remainder of Palestine (while under it control, power and jurisdiction granted by the League of Nations, the English separated the eastern portion of the Palestinian Mandate and allowed Arabs to create the state of Jordan for one of its royal family friends).  We know that the Arabs, thinking that there was no way to lose a war in 1947, vacuated many of the Arab occupants and residents in Palestine with the promise that the Jews would be pushed into the sea and Arabs could return triumphant.  So much for Jacobo and his fairy tales. When the Arabs wake up in a 100 years and discover that tney have wasted their time fighting a fairy tale, they may decide to start a state without their anti-Jewish nonsense.  I hope so for the Palestinian people’s sake.

Comment by Ilbert on 11/09/10 at 5:05 pm

While I am dismayed at the tactic used by these demonstrators, I am pleased to see that they demonstrated against Netanyahu.

Comment by Norm Green on 11/09/10 at 5:24 pm

What is more important, being polite or being right?

People of conscience have tried being polite and going through the “proper” channels for decades. Things have continually gotten worse, to the point where “atrocity” is the only legitimate description for what is being done.

If a popular definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” then maybe it’s time that the moral center of Judaism and of America are (re)gaining their sanity.

Yasher koach to the dissenters!

Comment by Jeffrey on 11/09/10 at 6:16 pm

Over the years I have visited concentration camps in Germany and the Holocaust museums in both Washington and Jerusalem. The thoughts I had while on my most recent visit to the Jerusalem Holocaust museum was that what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians now is reminiscent of the early treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. We should know better.

Comment by Richard on 11/11/10 at 8:28 am

Perhaps if you want to hear how they felt, you could read about the reasons for their actions in their own words.

Two participants wrote about the action:
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/jewish-values-vs-israeli-policies-why-five-young-jews-disrupted-pm-netanyahu-in-new-orleans.html#share-absolute-div

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/we-would-not-have-had-to-interrupt-netenyahu-if-the-world-listened-to-palestinian-voices.html

Comment by M.G. on 11/19/10 at 11:18 am

And another:

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/why-i-disrupted-bibis-speech-response-to-ben-sales-at-new-voices.html

Comment by M.G. on 11/19/10 at 11:19 am

Leviticus 19:16: “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD.” I see these protestors as talebearers.  They mouth the propaganda of the enemies of the Jewish people and the state of Israel without shame, not caring about the facts and danger the facing the State of Ireal.  Why?  Because they are young, arrogant and have no wisdom.  I remember the early 60’s when many of my college friends carried the Mao’s Red Book, not caring about the millions of chinese killed by Mao.  These young Jews do not care about the thousands of Israelis killed by the Palenstinians and their Arab allies.

Comment by ilbert on 11/20/10 at 12:38 am

Richard states:  Over the years I have visited concentration camps in Germany and the Holocaust museums in both Washington and Jerusalem. The thoughts I had while on my most recent visit to the Jerusalem Holocaust museum was that what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians now is reminiscent of the early treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. We should know better.”  The Palestinians are wearing crest and moon patches to identify themselves.  Israel is burning down mosques and shooting Palestinians down in the streets like dogs.  Israel is putting Arab Palestinians in ovens and/or gassing them.  I know, either Richard is a Palestinian or one very obtuse Jew.

Comment by ilbert on 11/20/10 at 12:46 am

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