EDITORS' CORNER
Anyone who signed letter would have to be ‘lunatic,’ regent says
University of California System regent Jay Sures said he is “disgusted and appalled” after UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association condemned a recent campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov.
Sures (pictured) sent a letter to the student government Friday to condemn its decision, calling it a “missed opportunity,” according to Jewish Insider.
“Like many University leaders, I am disgusted and appalled by the Council’s recent statement condemning an on-campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov,” he wrote.
“Rather than hearing the perspective of a 23 year old peer abducted by terrorists at a music festival and held hostage by Hamas for 505 days, those of you who voted for the letter of condemnation chose not to listen at all,” the regent wrote.
Sures also noted that Shem Tov is not an Israeli government member, but rather a young student “whose life took a horrific turn” when he was kidnapped and “tortured for months underground without contact to the outside world.”
He further condemned the student government for ignoring the crimes committed by Hamas.
“While your letter expresses concern over ‘a troubling disregard for Palestinian life,’ it says nothing about the Israeli lives lost on Oct. 7th, including the shooting of many of Omer’s close friends. Nor does your letter mention the countless rapes and massacres carried out by Hamas on that day. It is as if none of that happened,” the regent wrote.
Finally, Sures wrote that the council claims to promote balanced discussion but isn’t truly interested in hearing different perspectives.
“You claim you want balance in programming and more than ‘a single narrative’ from speakers at UCLA … By condemning this speaker’s public appearance on our campus, your words and actions make clear you have no interest in balance at all,” he wrote.
Sures also told Jewish Insider that anyone who signed the condemnation letter would “have to be a complete lunatic.”
He added that there is a “small number of people who have a very loud voice that love to spew antisemitic hatred” on UCLA’s campus. The “administration has done an excellent job at cracking down on this and having a zero tolerance towards it.”
A UCLA spokesperson defended the event organizers in a statement shared with JI.
“The event’s message was one of resilience and respect for human rights and dignity — a message we support. We stand by UCLA Hillel, UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and the UCLA Chapter of Students Supporting Israel’s invitation to have this very important dialogue,” the spokesperson said.
The school is reviewing the “process by which this letter was issued,” as it is “antithetical to the values” of the school, the spokesperson added.
In its letter condemning the event, the student government said Hillel and other organizers are guilty of “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence” by Israel, The College Fix previously reported.
The council also claimed the event displayed “a troubling disregard for Palestinian life.”
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