Students Physically Attacked for Interrupting Israel Talk in New Mexico

A short note before you read this article and look at the videos...I have seen the videos and I have read a number of articles on this incident. But why have I not heard of any arrests and charges of assault being laid against the people who assaulted the dissenting students (as proven by the videos you can view below)? Because I can bet you anything that if it had been Palestinians or Arabs who decided to beat on the dissenters (which incidentally would not happen), every one of them would be in jail! 

Someone please explain this to me! Or on second thought, please don't. This is a rhetorical question.

~ Sofia Smith

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Originally posted by the Atlantic Wire at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/02/students-physically-attacked-interrupting-israel-talk-new-mexico/49120/

Written by Alexander Abad-Santos

A group of University of New Mexico students "mic checked" an Israel Alliance talk on their campus Thursday night, when audience members got up out of their seats and physically attacked the protesting students.

"Mic check! Nonie Darwish speaks for Israeli apartheid!," yell the students at around 15 seconds into the video.  "And genocide at the hands of the IDF [Israeli army]!” From there, older male audience members begin to slowly walk their way up to the students (some of them young women), and start physically pushing and attacking them. At 55 seconds in, you can see one of the students goes flying over a row of seats.

We're still trying to gather the facts on this story, but according to the promotional flyer (right),  the title of the talk was "Why the Arab Spring Is Failing" and was being lead by speaker Nonie Darwish.  

According to uploader of the video, the students eventually filed a police report.  (Un)Occupy Albuquerque has this statement on the video:

A group of people, who were acting in solidarity with the Palestinian people, questioned Darwish's fear-mongering and her unqualified support for Israel. They were shouted down by pro-Israel members in the audience, who assaulted a woman, pulled her hair, and forcibly pushed another person over a row of seats. A third person was punched in the face. Pro-Israel members also destroyed a phone that was used to record the assault.

And here's one more angle of the protest and scuffle:

We'll keep up with this story and add updates as they come in.