Personal account of campus protests and police interaction

4.2.12 WC: 191694 As it turned out, I was not able to express my opinions anyway, even in response to their outrageous mischaracterization of my viewpoint or their comparisons of me to the most evil men in the world. When I turned to answer one of the bigoted chants, as I always do in these situations, the police officer in charge gently but firmly insisted that I walk directly to my car and not engage them. It was an order, reasonably calculated to assure my safety, and it was right. The officer climbed into my car with me and only got out a few blocks away, when we were beyond the range of violence. The intimidation had succeeded. I had been silenced, and the false and horrible message had gone unanswered in the plaza near Faneuil Hall. I have experienced similar hatred around the world: in California, Toronto, Trondheim, Cape town, London and Paris. I needed police protection—sometimes with shields and bulletproof vests—when I spoke about Israel. I never saw anything like this hatred directed at the South African Apartheid regime in the 1970s and 1980s. Even during the worst days of McCarthyism, there was nothing like this even directed at Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China. And there was nothing like this directed at the German Nazi regime or the Italian Fascist regime in the 1930s. The hatred directed at Israel—calling it worse than Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa—is sui genesis. It is unprecedented on campuses around the world, and it was inevitable that it would cross the line into old fashioned and crude anti-Semitism, as it has done on many campuses and in many lecture halls. I could not remain silent in the face of this dangerous phenomenon. I decided therefore to prioritize my legal and human rights work in defense of Israel and the Jewish community as long as this threat persisted. I had wanted to write a book called 7he Case For Peace, in which I criticized both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict for not doing enough to bring about a compromise peace. Instead, I decided to write Zhe Case For Israel, in order to provide students with a factual basis for responding to the untruths that are rampant on campuses. The book became an instant best seller, both on campuses and around the world, where it was published in many languages. It helped change the terms of the debate on many campuses and it changed the minds of many people. One example is particularly gratifying. An Arab man named Kassim Hafeez wrote an article in October of 2011 entitled From Anti-Semite to Zionist. In it, he described his journey as follows: “Growing up in a Muslim community in the UK I was exposed to materials condemning Israel, painting Jews as usurpers and murderers. My views were reinforced when I attended Nakba Day rallies where speakers predicted Israel's demise. My hate for Israel and for the Jews was fuelled by images of death and destruction, set to the backdrop of Arabic melodies about Jihad and speeches of Hizbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah or Osama Bin Laden. There was also constant, casual antisemitism around me. My father would boast of how Adolf Hitler was a hero, his only failing being that he didn't kill enough Jews. 354 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017441