Students shocked by Nazi-Israeli claim

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., April 30 (UPI) -- Two students at the University of California-Santa Barbara say they were shocked when a professor compared Israeli actions to those of German Nazis.

University of California-Santa Barbara senior Rebecca Joseph said sociology Professor William I. Robinson acted inappropriately when he sent students a message comparing Israel's Gaza offensive to the Holocaust, the Los Angeles Times said Thursday.

"I was shocked," Joseph, 22, said. "He overstepped his boundaries as a professor. He has his own freedom of speech but he doesn't have the freedom to send his students his own opinion that is so strong."

"I just want to bring awareness," said junior Tova Hausman, who has joined Joseph in accusing Robinson, 50, of violating the school's faculty code of conduct. "I want people to know that educators shouldn't be sending out something that is so disturbing."

The Times said Robinson, who has also been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has defended his January e-mail message.

"That's like saying if I condemn the U.S. government for the invasion of Iraq, I'm anti-American," Robinson, who is Jewish, told the newspaper. "It's the most absurd, baseless argument."