Opinion: The moral panic of antisemitism on college campuses and in US public life – National & International News – TUE 12Dec2023
Recent hearings in the House purported to shine a light on rampant antisemitism on college campuses. Since then, one university president has been forced to step down and others are in peril. This is part of a growing trend in US public life towards conflating “antizionism” with “antisemitism” in order to silence criticism of Israel and those calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
by Liz Shiverdecker
Calls for “genocide” or “freedom”?: The moral panic of antisemitism on college campuses
Last week, there was a hearing in the House of Representatives on the rise of antisemitism on elite college campuses and how the presidents of those universities are addressing it. Present at the hearing were Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Liz Magill, President of the University of Pennsylvania.
Several clips went viral showing Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), her voice quavering, as she called on each of the presidents in turn to answer “yes or no” on whether “calls for genocide of the Jews” would be in violation of their campuses’ codes of conduct. To Stefanik’s ever-growing indignation, each of the presidents answered it would depend on the context. Particularly, it would depend on whether the speech “crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation” as Gay put it.
As a result of the contentious hearing, during which Stefanik called for all the university presidents to resign, a backlash ensued. Penn president Liz Magill has been forced to step down due in part to threats by wealthy Penn benefactors to withdraw their donations.
Harvard’s faculty and student body have stood firmly behind their president Claudine Gay. Despite the backing of the university’s highest governing body, several of Harvard’s benefactors have said they will be withdrawing their funding as well.
Stefanik’s question essentially amounted to asking, “When did you stop beating you wife?”. Implicit in the question is the assumption that university campuses are rife with “calls for Jewish genocide”. But Stefanik herself cited no such examples.
What are the “calls for genocide” Stefanik referred to?
What wasn’t featured in most of those widely-circulated clips was the speech that Stefanik construed as calling for “genocide of the Jews”. During the course of the nearly 4-hour hearing, Stefanik specifically cited the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, as well as calls for “intifada” as being examples of calls for genocide. These are slogans commonly used by pro-Palestinian protesters.
While some have construed the slogan “From the river to the sea” as a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, for most of the people using the slogan, this is far from the case. This includes Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American Congresswoman from Detroit, who has described the chant as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate”. Tlaib and other members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire in Gaza have drawn well-funded primary challengers, backed primarily by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (commonly known as AIPAC).
Some peace activists conceive of “river to the sea” as a call for a one-state solution in Israel. Many no longer believe a two-state solution to be viable due to Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements in Palestinian territories. A “one-state” solution would mean that every person in Israel – be they Jewish, Palestinian, or of some other group – would have equal rights and the power of the vote, which is not the case now. It is the consensus of international human rights groups that Israel currently functions as an apartheid state.
The 1977 election manifesto of Israel’s right-wing Likud party (the party of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) similarly stated: “Between the sea and the Jordan, there will only be Israeli sovereignty”.
“Intifada” literally means in Arabic “revolt” or “resistance”. The term has become historically loaded by the First Intifada (1987-1993) and Second Intifada (2000-2005) in Israel. The First Intifada was largely non-violent in its early phases, though violence escalated once Israel brutally cracked down on peaceful protests and labor strikes. The Second Intifada was characterized by extreme violence and terrorism, including suicide bombings on public conveyances like buses. Considering most of the people chanting “Intifada” on college campuses weren’t even born during the Second Intifada, it seems disingenuous at least to interpret this as support for terrorism or an expression of anti-Jewish sentiment. Especially since many of those participating in pro-Palestinian protests are themselves Jewish!
Since October 7, there certainly have been incidents of antisemitic chants. Notably in Australia, a group of protesters chanting “Gas the Jews” justifiably received worldwide condemnation. However, neither “from the river to the sea” nor calls for “intifada” can properly be construed even as antisemitic, much less as a call for genocide against Jews.
The dangerous conflation of “antizionism” with “antisemitism”
In recent years, and especially since October 7, there has been an effort to redefine the term “antisemitism” in US political and media discourse. Antisemitism refers to specifically anti-Jewish sentiment, such as that embraced by those who chant “The Jews will not replace us”. Zionism, and consequently antizionism, are loaded terms with a range of meanings. Most typically in the current age, zionism refers to the desire or support for a Jewish state and antizionism refers to opposition to such a state. However, in practice, many US politicians and media figures are using the terms “antizionism” and “antisemitism” not only interchangeably, but broadly to include any criticism of Israel’s government or its actions.
There are, in fact, many Jews who identify as “antizionist” in the generally understood meaning of the term. Many object to zionism in its current manifestation as an ethnonationalist state. In any ethno-state, anyone who is not a member of the preferred ethnicity are by default relegated to the category of second-class citizens, at best. In this vein, there are many Jewish groups, such as Jewish Voice For Peace, Not in Our Name, and others who vocally oppose the actions of the state of Israel against Palestinians.
In addition, the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Neturei Karta (some members of which are pictured above) has long opposed any recreation of a state of Israel on religious grounds. Members of Neturei Karta and other antizionist orthodox Jewish groups can often be found front and center at protests, standing in solidarity with Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian liberation.
This did not stop the House of Representatives from recently passing House Resolution 894. H.R. 894 explicitly equates “antizionism” with “antisemitism”. This resolution passed, it should be noted, over the objections of several Jewish members of Congress, including Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Daniel Goldman (D-NY) Jerry Nadler (D-NY). Raskin, Goldman and Nadler argued that the intent and effect of H.R. 894 was to stifle any criticism of Israel in both political and public arenas. Consequently, it would also erase or silence antizionist Jews. Despite these objections, any representatives who voted “no” on this H.R. 894 were, predictably, accused of refusing to condemn antisemitism.
In this context, the hearing in the House last week – and the carefully calibrated moral panic which surrounds it – are plainly not intended to combat antisemitism. Instead, they are attempts to silence anyone (even Jews) calling for an end to Israel’s illegal 50-year occupation of Palestinian territories, its apartheid, and the ongoing bombing campaign and invasion of Gaza. Since October 7th, over 24,000 people have been killed in Gaza, over 22,000 of whom were civilians (over 9000 children, nearly 5000 women), according to Euro Med Monitor.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!