04/12/2004: "Palestinian calls for SF intifada"

Some bizarre people took to the streets of San Francisco this weekend (I know, I know, that's redundant) to protest American policy in Iraq. Lots of it was the usual garbage, but this excerpt from the remarks of a University of California�Berkeley lecturer in Near Eastern Studies, Hatem Bazian, was notable for its advocacy of violence (words of parentheses are crowd response):

"Are you angry? (Yeah!) Are you angry? (Yeah!) Are you angry? (Yeah!) Well, we�ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we�ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don�t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream...giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we�re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it�s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every�they�re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical�well, you haven�t seen radicalism yet!"

So here's a guy, foreign-born, who gets to come to the United States, get a doctorate at a public university and then go to work on the public payroll, who gets to stand up at a public rally and call for armed rebellion, without fear of any action being taken by his employer (as would undoubtedly not be the case in any predominantly Muslim nation). Is this a great country or what? Dr. Bazian, may we have your opinion on that? Dr. Bazian?

(Thanks to LGF for the quote.)