BUZZ
His ‘strategic silence … amounts to sanctioning violence’
The University of California Ethnic Studies Council is demanding the resignation of UC Regent Jay Sures for speaking at an event at which an “Islamophobic” guest also spoke.
The council, “formed in response to highly coordinated, politicized attacks” against its academic field “and its world-transforming potential,” posted on Instagram that Sures was at the Jewish American Summit on August 30 along with “former Israeli spy” Mosab Hassan Yousef.
According to The Daily Californian, at the event Yousef told Muslims to “get the f— out of the United States” and “go back to the s—holes where you came from.”
The council’s social media post notes Yousef also said “I don’t want Muslims in America” and told Muslims “You disgust me.”
But Sures was the main target of the council’s criticism.
“Regent Jay Sures did not condemn it,” the group’s Instagram post reads. “This is not an isolated concern. Sures has repeatedly used his position as a UC Regent to condemn Palestinian advocacy and challenge students and faculty whose speech he considers unacceptable.
“Yet when Muslims are explicitly told they don’t belong in America, he is silent. That is a double standard.”
Sures previously condemned Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine for hosting failed Palestinian suicide bomber Israa Jaabis.
Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Professor Christine Hong, a member of the UC Ethnic Studies Council, told the Daily Californian via email that the council “contextualize[s] Sures’s failure to speak out against Mosab Hassan Yousef’s call to ethnically cleanse Muslims from the United States within Sures’s long history of targeting students and faculty who have stood up for the Palestinian right to life.”
Hong added that Sures’ “strategic silence […] amounts to sanctioning violence when it comes to structural discrimination and state violence against Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians.”
Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine called Sures, who is Jewish, a “bigot” for “being comfortable” around someone like Yousef.
Early last year, UCLA suspended the groups Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA for protesting outside of Sures’ private residence during which they “banged drums, left paint on garage door, and said he would ‘pay’ until he saw his ‘final day.’”
The former group had referred to Sures as a “virulently Zionist capitalist.”
Sures had attempted to get a restraining order against the student he deemed the “ringleader” of that protest; however, a court ended up ruling he had to pay the student’s legal fees totaling over $150,000.
MORE: UC regent rebukes UCLA students for condemning event featuring Israeli hostage
