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The Controversy Over Anti-Semitism on College Campuses and the Trump Administration's Attack on Universities
Are the protests against Israel's war in Gaza really a cover for anti-Semitism?
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Below is my post, which I mentioned earlier today, on the controversy over the allegedly pervasive anti-Semitism on American college campuses and the Trump administration’s response, vividly illustrated by its threat this month to deprive Columbia University of $400 million in federal research funding.
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Rajan
Anyone who follows the mainstream media can be forgiven for concluding that anti-Semitism has run wild on this country’s campuses—that Jewish students, faculty, and staff live in constant fear. There has been an uptick in incidents of anti-Semitism—and Islamophobia, let it be said—at universities and colleges. Neither should be tolerated; nor should any variant of harassment or intimidation be allowed. No matter how passionate the feelings (one way or the other) about the war Israel has waged in Gaza following Hamas’s killing of 1,200 people and abduction of 251 others, hate speech, not to mention violence or incitement to violence, is unacceptable—period.
But to stipulate this is entirely different from accepting the now-common claim that anti-Semitism has become pervasive on American campuses. Anti-Semitism—slurs, conspiracy theories, threats, and violence directed at Jews as a people—has deep roots in Western history. Its climax was the Shoah, the Nazis’ extermination of six million Jews: even today the number of Jews worldwide is smaller than it was before the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism is a poisonous, murderous prejudice dressed up as an ideology. That’s precisely why it should not be an accusation flung about casually to score political points, something politicians are falling all over themselves to do these days. Their opportunism, in the service of political polemics, electioneering, and careerism, besmirches the memory of Hitler’s innocent victims
Anti-Semitism, defined precisely, is not, in fact, rampant on our campuses—unless, of course, it is conflated with protests against the policies of a particular Israeli government, most recently the war in Gaza, which, by the end of last year, had killed 45,000-plus people, most of them women and children, and according to other estimates well over 60,000. Those lucky enough to have survived faced acute shortages of basic necessities—food, water, shelter, and medicines—because Israel imposed draconian restrictions on the inflow of humanitarian aid that made no distinction between Hamas and the rest of Gaza’s population. In fact, some Israeli leaders, including then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, stated openly that all Gazans deserved to be punished because they were “human animals.” Gaza, home to more than two million people, has been reduced to rubble, 50 million metric tons of it, that used to be apartment buildings, shops, schools and universities, hospitals, waterworks, and sewage treatment plants—in short, just about everything needed to sustain even a minimally normal life.
On March 2, Netanyahu imposed a total blockade on Gaza, another act of collective punishment prohibited by international humanitarian law. He then resumed the war—after violating the January 15 ceasefire agreement, more than once. To claim that critics of Netanyahu’s actions are nothing but cheerleaders for Hamas, condone, even advocate, terrorism, or hate Jews is an attempt to shut off debate when debate is precisely what we need, not least because the United States cannot separate itself from the Gaza war. Trump, who has been back in office for barely two months, has already approved close to $12 billion in weaponry for Israel. Biden, too, was no slouch in this domain: he authorized nearly $26 billion.
Recognizing that Hamas’s October 7 attack was an atrocity does not require endorsing the kind of war Israel has chosen to wage in response. Indeed, criticism of, or non-violent protests against, the scale of Israel’s military response and its resort to collective punishment is free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment and is distinct from engaging in terrorism or providing material support to terrorist groups, both of which are unlawful.
Moreover, the claim that criticism of Israel, or even Zionism, is a mask for anti-Semitism is belied by the reality that Jews have been prominent in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, even as others say they have been made to feel unwelcome or anxious on campuses. Jews have also demonstrated against the Trump administration’s arrest of Palestinian Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and his detention—in Louisiana, an obvious maneuver to separate him from his New York-based lawyers and to ensure that his appeals are heard by judges who can be counted on to stand with the Trump administration.
The recent article by a Jewish Columbia graduate student, Jonathan Ben-Menachem, decrying Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, the creation of “deportation target lists,” the doxxing of protestors, and raids by ICE and DHS agents is but one indication that the campus protests don’t pit Jews and against non-Jews and cannot rightly be reduced to anti-Semitism. If you’ve not read Ben-Menachem’s piece, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Zeteo
As a Jewish student at Columbia University, I was disgusted by the White House’s cynical, smirking claim that it is acting in the interests of Jewish safety in detaining my Palestinian comrade, Mahmoud Khalil, last weekend. To announce Mahmoud’s abduction, the White House pushed social media posts reading “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” The Christian fascists are gleefully, wickedly invoking the Hebrew goodbye as they terrorize us…6 days ago · 911 likes · 34 comments · Jonathan Ben-MenachemIn addition, Jewish academics have written public letters making the point that, though they may have different views on Gaza as well as on what constitutes anti-Semitism, they agree that the government’s attack on free speech, its attempt to deport protestors, and its weaponizing of Title VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, all supposedly to protect Jews, in fact uses them as a means realize its actual goal: declaring war on American universities. One such letter had, as of March 22, 529 signatories. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-0lkZCSzUbrBpyxCRSM-rIU8Xdh9Xbe/view?pli=1)
Likewise, Jews with fundamentally different conceptions of anti-Semitism have engaged in spirited public debates, as Peter Beinart of CUNY and Jeffrey Lax of Columbia did recently.
The Beinart Notebook
Last week, I recorded a Zoom conversation with my CUNY colleague, Professor Jeffrey Lax, Founder and Chairman of S.A.F.E. Campus, “a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism in academic environments.” We differ radically in our definition of antisemitism, and how to combat it on campus. But despite our dismay at the other’s views, we m…3 days ago · 50 likes · 39 comments · Peter BeinartAmerican universities are hardly flawless—my 40-plus years in academe taught me that—but they are nevertheless the envy of the world, in part because they serve as forums for unfettered debate, often on highly controversial questions. They certainly have a responsibility to ensure the safety of students but not to shield them from discussions and demonstrations that make them “uncomfortable.” Indeed, part of a good education involves grappling with ideas that are unfamiliar, even unsettling. One can agree or disagree with those who maintain that what’s occurring in Gaza amounts to genocide, that Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank to build Jewish settlements violates international law, or that the entirely different legal regimes that apply to West Bank Palestinians and Israeli settlers living in that territory resembles apartheid. But the charge that even raising these questions is a variant of anti-Semitism makes no sense given that they have been answered affirmatively by Jewish scholars, writers in the Israeli press—for example, Ha’aretz and +972 Magazine—and human rights organizations such as B’Tselem. Similarly, the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” which has been labeled as anti-Semitic, can be found in the founding platform of Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu’s political party, which asserts that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty.” It’s also on the Twitter/X site of his son, Yair.
American universities have rarely been more vulnerable: consider the March 13 demand—from the General Services Administration and Departments of Education and Health and Human Services that Columbia place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department (MESAAS) decree in receivership, an unprecedented assault on academic freedom, one not even preceded by any formal investigation. Columbia, which was also charged with violating Title VI and Title VII, was directed to comply or lose $400 million in federal research funding, and perhaps more. The government justified its demands on the grounds that the University was allowing anti-Semitic “violence and harassment” to thrive, but without following the procedures mandated in those parts of the Civil Rights Act. Columbia is hardly the only university to face this threat: 59 others have as well. True to form, Trump has gone much further. In a March 10 post on his Truth Social platform he called Mahmoud Khalil, who has not been formally charged with any crime, “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student,” and added that “there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it”
The leaders of universities have reacted by running scared. In response to pressure from the government and campaigns, including on social media, by organizations such as the ADL, as well as Betarand the Canary Mission, they have long since shut down campus protests in any form. And following the Trump administration’s threats to cut off research funding, university presidents have tried placation instead of filing law suits; but supineness will surely lead to additional demands because, as part of their servility, they have conceded that the government’s allegations have a basis in fact. This will be evident to anyone who reads the abject March 21 response to the government’s directives by Columbia’s Interim President, Katrina Armstrong.
There is a time to stand firm and refuse to bow to the government’s unconstitutional actions, and those at the helm of our universities bear a special responsibility when the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and, most recently, the top law firm Paul Weiss, have already shown themselves to be spineless. We cannot afford profiles in cowardice—least of all these days.
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