Update: The U.C. Berkeley attorney general on March 12 filed a suit with the student-run judicial council seeking to invalidate the recall of student senator John Moghtader, claiming the charges against him were based on false evidence. The council has agreed to hear the case.
The suit was filed after Attorney General Michael Sinanian watched a video that appears to support Moghtader’s version of events surrounding a campus fight between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students last fall.
Sinanian and staffers at the Daily Californian, the U.C. Berkeley newspaper, viewed the video, which purportedly shows Moghtader at the scene of the November incident, but making no aggressive moves. His accusers claimed he had physically assaulted women allied with the pro-Palestinian group.
“In light of the recently revealed evidence, the degree of injustice committed upon Senator Moghtader and the ASUC is disturbingly grave,” Sinanian wrote in his charge sheet, as quoted in the Daily Californian. “It is in the hands of the Judicial Council to restore justice (and his Senate seat) to him.”
Moghtader told the newspaper he has not made the video public on advice from his attorney. He is now moving ahead with further legal steps including a libel lawsuit against one of his accusers.
At U.C. Berkeley, the people have spoken. All 3,700 of them.
Student Senator John Moghtader, who gained notoriety as a pro-Israel activist on campus –– and who believes his in-your-face Zionism inflamed his detractors –– was recalled in a special election held Feb 23.
The final tally: 2,689 (72.48 percent) voting for the recall, 1,021 (26.52 percent) voting against. The total amounts to slightly more than 10 percent of the university’s 35,400-member student body.
“I was shocked I got as many votes as I did,” said Moghtader, who reacted stoically to the election results. “I was expecting much less than 1,000. But if every student knew what was going on, the results would have been different.”
The recall drive started last November in the wake of an altercation between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, Mogh-tader among them. He says an on-campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), spearheaded the recall effort.
Moghtader, a junior who co-founded U.C. Berkeley’s 150-member Jewish organization Tikvah, calls the election result “a really sad day for the Jewish community.”
“I was democratically elected by Jewish students and others, but I represent pro-Israel students, and here is SJP telling lies –– the oldest trick in the book. It’s one thing for SJP to bring in speakers, but when they can get a Jewish senator removed from office, the sirens should be ringing. I’ve just fallen victim to bullying and lying.”
In the weeks leading up to the election, Moghtader had met with and sought support from Jewish organizations such as Berkeley Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League.
ADL regional director Jonathan Bernstein criticized the recall organizers for harboring not-so-hidden motives. “A number of students behind it were motivated by John’s outspoken support for Israel more than any other reason,” Bernstein said. “If you look at the actual language of the recall, there’s nothing there, no real serious allegations.”
Berkeley Hillel interim director Rabbi Dorothy Richman also met with Mogh-tader in the weeks before the election, calling him “a valued voice in our Berkeley Hillel family.” She noted that the recall results may fuel questions whether there is a “level playing field” at U.C. Berkeley.
“Berkeley Hillel is committed to building and ensuring that there is a level playing field for all of our students,” Richman said, “and we have stepped up our communication with the administration of the university, working with groups like JCRC and the ADL, and of course continuing to support our students.”
The campus newspaper, The Daily Californian, reported this week that the Associated Students’ attorney general, Michael Sinanian, intended to file a charge with the student-led judicial council, invalidating the recall results because they are based on false evidence. The results of that appeal were not available at press time.
According to the Daily Californian, the recall election cost the Associated Students of the University of California approximately $20,000. It further reported a new effort to toughen the rules regarding recalls, to make it harder to do in the future. One ASUC senator, Tara Raffi, was quoted as saying, “It was alarming for me that so many students had no idea what the recall was, who John Moghtader is. More students should have a say if such large amounts of money are being spent.”
Moghtader worries his case might have divided the Jewish community, but he hopes unity ultimately prevails.
“The opposition is so united,” he said. “Moving forward, I want to see a strong Jewish community united for a common goal. We’ve seen with this recall what can happen if that’s not the case.”