Anti-Trump protest morphs into 'anti-Israel' rally at UCI
University of California, Irvine students loudly condemned President Trump for his alleged hostility toward refugees Tuesday night, even as they professed to be “anti-Israel” and “anti-Zionism.”
In video footage obtained by Campus Reform, a crowd of students on hand for UCI’s version of the “No Ban, No Wall” protest movement begins a chant of “say it loud/say it clear/refugees are welcome here,” after several iterations of which a female student takes the stage to challenge them for focusing their rage solely on Trump’s recent executive order temporarily blocking refugees from seven countries he claims are “sources of terror.”
[RELATED: Students plan wave of protests against ‘demonic’ Trump EO]
According to The Telegraph, six of the seven countries affected by the order (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) themselves ban any traveler with an Israeli passport, with five of those six countries (Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) going so far as to ban any traveler with evidence of previous travel to Israel on their passport.
“I just want to remind you guys that this is about Muslims being targeted these are Muslim-majority countries that are being banned,” the student rebuked her classmates, complaining that “none of these chants kind of even say the word ‘Muslim’ and that's very upsetting to me because it is directly affecting us.”
The student proceeds to inform the protesters exactly what she thinks they should be protesting, asserting that Trump’s rhetoric regarding illegal immigration is copied directly from Israel’s approach toward the West Bank and Gaza.
“I want you guys to be about anti-Islamophobia; I want you guys to be anti-Zionism; and I want you guys to be anti-Israel because Trump didn’t come up with these things on his own,” she tells the crowd. “He got the idea of the wall from Israel.”
She then leads students in a new chant, shouting, “from Palestine to Mexico/all the walls have got to go.”
[RELATED: College admins blast Trump EO as ‘bad idea,’ offer counseling]
Shortly thereafter, another student takes the stage to level an even more provocative charge, calling the United States “the true terrorist” while downplaying the deaths caused by terrorist attacks.
“I read something: lightning kills more people than terrorism does in America,” the student said. “Lightning has killed more people than terrorists have, and personally I believe that America is the true terrorist.”
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