In February, the campus played host to the first national conference of the pro-Palestinian student movement. In April, against the backdrop of escalating Middle East violence that followed the Passover suicide bombing in Netanya and the resulting Israeli incursions in the West Bank, an estimated 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters massed for a demonstration on campus that ended in the occupation of a central campus building and 79 arrests.Go get 'em, kids.
This semester things at Berkeley have been quite different. Oren Lazar, a former chair of the campus's Israel Action Committee, said that probably the most substantial pro-Palestinian action of the fall semester was a protest against an Israel Action Committee-sponsored campus address by former prime minister Ehud Barak. Lazar scoffed at the protest's impact, saying it "wasn't much of a protest. It's a wonderful turn of events, as far as I'm concerned, when they're being the reactive side, they're on the defensive; and we're out there setting our agenda, putting our message out, and dictating what the dialogue on campus is going to be."
PS Stefan Sharkansky had an interesting time with a camera at the Barak speech. Even if you already read Shark's original account, there are some comments there now that are worth a look.
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