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By Jessica Felber

We Are Number 12

Pro-Israel activists launched their We Are Number 12 campaign at UC Irvine last week in response to the infamous "Irvine 11."  The "Irvine 11" refers to a group of 11 MSU students who refused to allow Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, to speak at UCI last year.

Now that the Orange County District Attorney's Office has decided to charge the students with "conspiring to disrupt a meeting," Muslim students and supporters across the county have joined together in protest

calling the interruption an act of free speech.

But what about the free speech of the Jewish students on campus?  In the words of UC Irvine student and incoming Hasbara Fellow Cathy Shutaya, "What about my free speech? How about Michael Oren’s free speech and everybody who were [sic] there to listen to the intellectual discourse that evening?"

This unanswered question has inspired the Hillel of Orange County Social Media team, consisting of both students and Hillel professionals, to create the We Are Number 12 campaign.  "The Number 12 represents the students, community members, and others who were stripped of their free speech that evening and many other events that take place just like this," explains Shutaya.

The We Are Number 12 movement consists of a Facebook page that anyone can "like," and a website where one can "become" Number 12, and join the movement, by signing one's name in support of Free Speech, because, as Noam Chomsky so eloquently puts it, "‎If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do not believe in it at all."