‘It was never meant to describe the focus of the event, only the views and perspectives of that panelist’
A description of an upcoming panel event at UC Berkeley that claimed the assaults and rapes against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2024 were “debunked” has been removed after it prompted controversy and backlash.
The now-deleted event description had stated it will “look at how Zionism has weaponized feminism, so as to serve Israel’s genocidal intent, by upholding debunked accusations of systematic Hamas mass assault, while ignoring documented reports of Israeli abuses.”
Now, the updated event page for the Feb. 11 Zoom event titled “Feminist and Queer Solidarities with Palestine” has “no description at all, just the names of the participants and attendance details,” the Jewish News of Northern California reported.
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof told the outlet that the wording “was an abstract written by a participant in the panel discussion. It was never meant to describe the focus of the event, only the views and perspectives of that panelist.”
Haaretz reported that in addition to the description, the event itself prompted alarm.
A complaint written by law school Professor Steven Solomon described the event as “a disgustingly antisemitic new low, even at Berkeley,” the outlet reported.
It cites another letter by Mark Brilliant, a history professor at UC Berkeley, who wrote: “I’m all in favor of academic freedom, but academic freedom does not entail the freedom to propagate antisemitic lies — Zionism weaponizes feminism (whatever that means); Israel is committing genocide; Hamas did not engage in mass assault — and with the vice chancellor of research lending credence to it to boot by ‘moderating’ an event that is is neither moderate nor requiring moderation since it doesn’t appear to involve any conflicting points of view. It’s hard to imagine an event better designed to provide ammo for the new admin to defund the humanities (rather than the police) and defund UCB.”
The event will be moderated by Paola Bacchetta, UC Berkeley’s vice-chair for research, gender and women’s studies, director of the Institute for Gender and Sexuality Studies, and co-director of the Decolonizing Sexualities Network.
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