A problem with consistency.

This is old news, from back in May of this year, though it's still topical: it's an account of the climate of Jew-hatred at UC Berkely, and is all too sadly familiar to anyone who's spent more than a minute in the company of a modern leftist discussing Israel. (There are some notable and laudable exceptions to the modern left-wing tendency to hate Jews, but they appear to be a minority these days, at least in Europe and in academia.)

Weinberg graduates this month as a student whose days at Cal were marked by what he calls "pinnacles of horror," in the pinched tone of a man betrayed. He remembers pro-Palestinian protesters insisting that Israeli border crossings are as bad as Nazi death camps. He remembers the glass front door of Berkeley's Hillel building -- where he attends Friday night services -- shattered by a cinderblock, with the message FUCK JEWS scrawled nearby. He remembers the spray-painted swastikas discovered one Monday morning last September on the walls of four lecture rooms in LeConte Hall accompanied by the chilling bilingual message, "Die, Juden."

But you have to understand ... if only Israel would stop its oppressive ... root causes ... occupation ... no alternative ... grievances ... resistance ... justified....

Anyway, the piece includes an account of the protests against Daniel Pipes when he arrived at the university to give a speech. I felt compelled to comment on this snippet:

As campus police assembled at the entrance to the hall and prepared to open its doors, a kaffiyeh-clad protester hoisted a placard that read: "What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." The quote was attributed to Mahatma "Ghandi" in 1938, albeit a decade before there was an Israel. A silver-haired man, older than most in the crowd, burst out of the line to confront him.

"Do you know what it's like to be on a bus, and to see that bus blow up and see heads roll down the street?" the older man shouted, arms wild at his sides. "I've seen it -- in Israel."

The sign-bearer stood firm. "Well, they should have been killed," he yelled, his voice rising. "They should have been killed! They should have been killed because it wasn't their land! They should have been killed and it should have been more."

"You don't know history," the older man yelled. "You don't know anything."

The protester gave as good as he got: "You can leave. Get your ass out of here and back to Israel."

Back to Israel? Gosh. Regardless of what one might think of this protestor's views, one can't help but notice that he is dooming himself to a life of dissatisfaction through his desires for (a) Jews to get out of Israel, and (b) Jews to go back to Israel.