That you, Lergnom. Sure, there are times that people conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But this is a thread about pretty unambiguous cases of targeting of Jewish students. To turn this into a referendum on Israel’s politics is nothing more than derailment.
Oh, an the reason that sometimes people conflate criticism of Israel with anti- Semitism would be because sometimes criticism of Israel DOES cross the line into anti-Semitism. It is totally reasonable, IMO, for an organization dedicated to assessing the climate for Jews on college campuses to use level of support for BDS as one metric by which to judge probable degree of anti-Semitism. All people who support BDS are not anti-Semitic, but SOME are, and thus a campus with a robust BDS movement is likely to experience a proportionally higher degree of borderline or blatant anti-Semitism.
Beyond that, I do have serious questions about the level of intense focus on the single Jewish country in the world. I’m no supporter of Netenyahu. But by almost every conceivable standard, Israel is by no means the world’s key offender on human rights issues. Nor is it the only country to hold disputed territories, or the only country that has killed civilians in retaliation over terror attacks (anyone want to take odds on the chances that everyone killed in French airstrikes in Syria is a combatant?)
Plenty of minorities incarcerated in America actually are guilty of crimes. Some of these crimes are serious. But when the criminal justice system is disproportionately harsh to minority of offenders - well, there’s a word for that.
It is very hard to separate it out. But I tend to agree with @Lergnom . Let’s TRY to keep the discussion limited to antisemitic acts on campuses. But there is a lot of overlap. @Lergnom the article that you linked to in the original post, in fact, says this:
It’s impossible to tease apart real and perceived antisemitism on campuses from Israeli policies. A lot of Jews take any criticism of Israel is being antisemitic. And a lot of those who insist they are purely being critical of Israeli policy do come off as antisemitic.
It’s one thing to support boycotting products made in the settlements, or to hate Netanyahu. It’s entirely another to make excuses for people stabbing old ladies to death on the street or murdering American Jewish college students in Tel Aviv (or to threaten and shout epithets at them here), or to hold up signs with a Jewish star, an equal sign, and a swastika, or to parrot nonsense about there never having been a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, or to argue that the Jews of Israel should go back to Poland, all in the name of the “intifada,”
The statement that anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism is repeated so often that it’s a knee-jerk truism, but it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes it very much equals anti-Semitism, or at least relies heavily on age-old anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes including demonization of Israel and all Israelis.
Especially when it goes far beyond criticism of the present Israeli government or Netanyahu or the settlements (all of which I share), and insists that Israel commits “genocide” on a daily basis (the least effective genocide in history!), and tries to shoehorn the entire “demon Israel vs. Saint Palestine” dispute into an entirely simplistic and ahistorical “white colonialist European settlers vs. indigenous peoples” paradigm. Hence the fury at, and unwillingness to engage with, anyone Jewish who’s suspected of any remote “Zionist” tendencies.
Obviously, the situation is worse at some schools than others, but it’s incredibly disingenuous to pretend that everyone involved in these activities makes a polite, careful distinction between “Jews” and “Zionists/Israel.” After all, it’s well known that a large percentage of Arabic-language media (in Palestine and elsewhere) doesn’t even pretend to make such a distinction. Never mind the kind of people who set out to (and did) murder Jews in Paris in January, or stabbed them recently in Marseilles and Milan, or murdered them in Mumbai and Belgium a few years ago, even apart from what happens inside Israel.
While I’m against what the PRC has done to Tibet, its people, and its culture, it’s not accurate they have almost completely annihilated the Tibetan people. While the Tibetan people have been made an effective minority in their own land and their culture being overshadowed by the dominant Han majority, they are still there.
Ironically, Israel and China have had much collaboration in areas of technology and weapons development for the last few decades. Sometimes to the consternation of the US government.
One very recent example of this is the relatively newly introduced J-10 jet fighter which has been cited by several warplane experts as being heavily derived from the aborted Israeli Lavi fighter project in the 1980’s.
All of these are true and some of this has shown up on my LAC’s online alumni discussion forum.
One frustrating thing is that whenever the topic comes up on the college’s alumni discussion forum, it causes much heated discussion with some ad hominem back and forth among the most extreme advocates of both sides which drowns out other college related postings.
This ranges from one anti-BDS alum who went so far as to say that there’s no such thing as Palestinians and they are a complete fiction which aroused much ire about his “attempted erasure” in a manner which some Pro-BDS groups likened to what transpired in the US with Native-Americans to one Pro-BDS alum arguing Israel has no right to exist because it’s a modern incarnation of a European colonialist occupation of non-Western territories and peoples on behalf of Western European/US interests.
Because the anti-Jewish actions on campuses are often linked to protests about Israel and Israeli policy. Jews in America are paying a terrible price for Israeli government pigheadedness. It’s been especially hard on my kids who grew up in a pluralistic community with both Jews and Palestinians. It’s hard on me.
While I was in college, one of my college friends father was killed when Israel bombed his home in Lebanon. I can see posts by one of my kids’ friends from HS who now lives in Bethlehem and has had her friends shot and killed by IDF forces. I am also “Facebook friends” with someone I went to elementary school with who is Israeli, has sons my kid’s age serving in the IDF and is very right wing. Her posts in Hebrew horrify me. It’s a complex world. Jews who know and care about Arabs are in a world of constant agony.
Legnorm, I think you’re a terrific CC contributor. Please don’t go. But with all due respect, you don’t get to dictate the discussion. It’s far more complex and personal than you are allowing for.
I had a Persian friend growing up who suffered tremendous persecution here during the Iran revolution. This was a kid who only cared about sex, drugs and rock and roll. He used to try to pass as Puerto Rican to avoid it. I’m friends with both Armenians and Turks.
History is filled with ignorant people who can’t make the subtle distinctions that you are asking people to make. Just read today’s paper. I’m not making excuses for any of them, I’m just saying it’s hard for people to draw the box just where you want it.
The only solution I can advocate is to foster good old American pluralism. Coexist.
I’m a Zionist two-state Labor peace now j street type of guy.
So when I’m with anti-Zionist BDS types, I feel more Zionist. It doesn’t help when I sense Israel has no legitimacy.
But when I’m with my Likud Sheldon Adelson type co-religionists, I feel the aspirations of the Palestian people. It doesn’t help when I hear the meme that there are no such people as Palestinains
It’s a tough needle to thread, and often painful. But recently there has been a greater diversity of opinion expressed among American Jewry thanks to J Street, and Likud messing with our domestic politics–although still not as much diversity as in Israel. I feel less of a minority when I hear my rabbi sermonizing that we have to march lock step with the Israeli government.
I don’t think BDS is necessarily anti-Semitic. It can be an opportunistic vehicle for those who are anti-Semitic. And given the conguence between Zionism and Judiasm, it can be hard not to hear it as anti-Semitism–particularly when it singles out Israeli for practices widespread among nations.
@cobrat, you are correct, I was incorrect to say that the Tibetans themselves have been annihilated, I misspoke trying to make my point so thank you for the correction. @ClassicRockerDad - your comment that jewish american students are paying the price for the conduct of the Israeli government totally infuriates me - if you have friends or family in Israel as you seem to imply, then you know it isn’t so simple as to blame Israel for all the problems with the Palestinians, it’s a much more complex situation and both sides share the blame for the lack of peace. So when you heap the blame on Israel for the anti semitism and anti Israel attacks affecting our kids, you appear to be part of the very problem we are discussing here. Once again, Chinese students in the US are not being made to answer for the politics of their home country, so why is it fair that Jewish kids in American schools feel unwanted or threatened because of what is happening in the mid-east?
Wow. This captures exactly how I feel. Thanks for expressing it so well.
But I think you are mistaken to think BDS is not antisemitic. Is there even a single person so committed to the cause–even Jews who say they support it–who is really boycotting all Israeli products? And I’m not just talking about Soda Stream.
This is basically the same phenomenon as what happens on college campuses when Israeli - Palestinian politics comes up – the most extreme and most racist people yell the most loudly and dominate the “debate”, while everyone else disengages because no one really listens.
@myjanda. I’m not blaming Israel for all of the problems. I agree there is plenty of blame to go around. Certainly, I reluctantly agree with Israel’s response to Gaza. But there were 8 years since Olmert’s made a credible peace offer in the wake of his indictment and resignation, where the Palestinian Authority was pretty much doing everything Israel wanted short of accepting an agreement. There was little to no violent reaction to Gaza from the West Bank because the Palestinian security forces kept it all in check. The Palestinian economy greatly improved. A new city was built. However, since Netanyahu came in, there has been a concerted effort to move Jews to East Jerusalem disturbing the status quo there - not helpful. Demolition of Arab homes? - not helpful. Abbas got absolutely nothing for his effort to promote non-violent resistance but a sizable increase in the Jewish population beyond the green line. He’s been so marginalized that I think we’re headed toward the abyss. Similarly, we’ve seen Settler terrorists kill and burn Palestinan children and burn Mosques and Churches as “price tag” acts. No reading of the Torah that I’ve ever partook in can justify any of that. Finally, the racist campaign that “Arabs are going to the poles in droves”, was not helpful. It became clear to anyone paying attention that Netanyahu never intended to allow the creation of a Palestinian state. Abbas correctly read his bad faith. He negotiated with Netanyahu’s predecessors and knew the difference between good faith and Netanyahu. The current government is so overtly racist that it’s causing all kinds of problems beyond my wildest dreams. Racism is much more in your face in Israel than in educated society in the US. There is a lot Israel can learn about pluralism from Americans.
I’m not totally blaming Israel for the antisemitism, but to ignore the fact that these offensive racist acts contribute to the hatred of Jews and to allow anti-semites to gain even the appearance of legitimacy is just ignorance. That’s infuriating to me.
Certainly the antisemitism isn’t justified and Jewish students are not to blame. But the current Israeli government does contribute to it, and I have just as much disdain for the anti-semites as I have for the people that contribute toward the sentiment. That’s why I can’t separate the issue. You want to cure anti-semetism, fight racism and injustice of all kinds.
@ClassicRockerDad - this thread is veering to much into politics and you and I are not going to come to an agreement on the bigger picture which is fine, I can respect your political reviews even if I don’t agree with them. But the bottom line is no action by Israel justifies any anti semitic act anywhere, particularly in this case on American college campuses towards Jewish kids. Just like poverty may be a contributing factor to someone robbing and murdering someone but doesn’t excuse the perpetrator or the act. I guess the Parisian victims were partially to blame for living in a country that has bombed ISIS and discriminated against Muslims, according to your logic…
