Cal Irvine students met with Hamas leader [from creeping sharia]

Posted on April 4, 2011 by creeping

via Cal Irvine students met with Hamas leader | Jewish Journal.

Students from the University of California, Irvine met with a Hamas leader during a student trip to Israel.

The Institute for Jewish and Community Research said it learned recently that the university’s branch of the Olive Tree Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian peace organization, arranged for a meeting between the Irvine students and a Hamas leader in the West Bank while the students were on a trip to Israel in September 2009. The communal organization is protesting the meeting.

According to an October 2009 letter sent to Irvine’s chancellor by the Jewish Federation of Orange County, California, the students were told to keep the meeting secret. That was to avoid problems re-entering Israel, the letter alleged, and angering local Jewish organizations, including the federation, which is the initiative’s biggest funder.

The letter said the federation had reviewed the trip itinerary ahead of time with the faculty member and graduate students in charge, and were “surprised to learn” afterward “that they conducted an unapproved, off-itinerary meeting with Aziz Duwaik.” The federation has demanded that the university investigate the incident.

Duwaik is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, but the federation letter pointed out that for years he had been a leader of Hamas, which the United States classifies as a terrorist organization.

The Institute for Jewish and Community Research this week is adding its voice to the federation’s, urging UC Irvine to “respond to this serious misuse of funds and gross violation of public trust.”

The University of California system is facing federal anti-Semitism complaints against its Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses. In December 2007, a federal civil rights investigation into similar allegations at UC Irvine by the Department of Education found “insufficient evidence” that the university failed to respond to complaints by Jewish students that they were being harassed.

Hat tip to Europe News, and more from the OC Register, Group: UC Irvine students met with Hamas leader:

Cathy Lawhon, spokeswoman for UCI, said “meeting with people of many different points of view is consistent with (Olive Tree’s) mission.”

“Their stated mission is to hear varying points of view, and to take people of varying points of view over there,” Lawhon said. “It’s not a homogenous group at all.”

…

Duwaik, who holds a doctorate in regional and architecture planning from the University of Pennsylvania, was arrested by Israel in 2006 for belonging to Hamas and jailed until mid-2009. Within the group, he is regarded as somewhat moderate, arguing that calls for eliminating Israel are unrealistic.

Lawhon said more trips to the Mideast have taken place since 2009, but that she is unaware if additional meetings with Duwaik or other Hamas officials were held.