Antisemitism returns to school
Summer vacation is over
When concern for the freedom of one group of people manifests as violence and oppression against another group of people—especially if the latter group is oppressed and has faced genocide many, many times in its history—then the concern isn’t for FREEDOM or PEACE or JUSTICE at all. For anyone.
Summer is coming to an end. Kids are returning to classrooms. University students are headed back to campus. The presidential election has taken a sharp and exciting turn, reverberating down ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in her speech to accept the Democratic nomination for president, was adamant in her support for Israel and the Jewish people.
And let me be clear. And let me be clear. I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.
When Harris says that she and President Biden are working to end this war, I believe her. Harris did not ignore the war in Gaza in her speech, although some deplored her use of the passive voice, which didn’t ascribe blame to Israel for the war: “What has happened in Gaza over the last 10 months is devastating.” She is an astute politician who knows well that much of the left wing of the Democratic Party blames the entire situation in the Levant on Israel, portraying Israel as the sole aggressor, as well as settler colonialists and imperialists, and Palestinians as freedom fighters and innocent victims.
That story continues to hold sway among the “pro-Palestinian” left. I find it infuriating in its lack of nuance and cultural understanding. I feel profound compassion for the Gazans and Israelis caught in this war. I don’t support Israel’s right-wing government. But Hamas makes Gazans’ lives a living hell, caring more about ideology than any people who may get in the way.
Like the Biden/Harris administration, I believe we need to work for a peace that frees Gazans from Hamas and keeps Israel safe. But I am convinced that for the U.S to terminate its support of its long-time ally is to abandon Israel to utter destruction. Israel remains under daily bombardment; few news outlets report this. The only reason there have been relatively few Israeli casualties is because of Israel’s superb defense system.
This is why I can’t support an arms embargo against Israel, as much as I want to support any arms embargo because I hate the tools of war. This is why “just stop sending them weapons” seems like a naive oversimplification.
Th Israeli writer Hen Mazzig reports on Instagram that some who claim to support “Palestinian liberation” have pivoted to racist attacks against Black people, especially women, who support Kamala Harris. But as Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are showing us in their unprecedented campaign, division weakens us. It is counterproductive and cruel to pit Black people against Jewish people, Arab people against Black people (understanding that there are Black Jews, Black Arabs, Arab Israelis, and so on).
Speaking of Arab Israelis, news broke Tuesday morning that the IDF rescued Farhan al-Qadi, a Bedouin Arab and Israeli citizen who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. Al-Qadi is the first hostage to be rescued from inside a tunnel. Three other Israeli Bedouins remain in captivity. The vast majority of hostages taken on October 7 are still in captivity, or their bodies are. The Israeli people, of all ethnicities and faiths, are celebrating al-Qadi’s rescue. From his hospital bed, al-Qadi thanked the courage of the IDF in rescuing him.
A white lefty I know posted to her Facebook page that while she understands the strategic argument for supporting Democrats, “Kamala stans” make her want to throw up.
In unrelated news, CBS news reports that voter registration among young Black women is up 175% in 13 states compared to August 2020. Registration is also way up among other Black Americans, and among young Latinas.
Kamala Harris, we stan.
This past Monday was the first day of classes at Cornell University. Anti-Israeli activists vandalized the main administration building on campus, smashing windows and spray painting messages like “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands.” 150 students also marched on central campus.
The UAW, which represents food service, custodial services, and maintenance at Cornell, has been on strike for a week. (Yesterday the news reported that a tentative agreement was reached late Tuesday night.) I support the workers in their strike for cost of living and salary increases. Unfortunately, the president of the union region spoke at the anti-Israel march on Monday and criticized Cornell for supporting the “Zionist state.” He linked the struggle of workers for a fair contract with the plight of Palestinians.
Jewish Insider reports that this past December, the UAW became the first major union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In July, the UAW led several unions in calling for an arms embargo. (The UAW has also at times called for the release of Israeli hostages.) It was the UAW who called for a Palestinian-American speaker to appear at the Democratic National Convention, after Israeli-Americans Rachel Goldberg and Josh Polin took the stage to bring attention to the plight of their son, Hirsh, who is held hostage in Gaza.
Historically, American unions have supported Israel and Israeli workers. It is disheartening to see this support falter, especially given the importance of Jewish Americans in founding and sustaining the US labor movement. The problem is that Israel is depicted as the sole aggressor and perpetrator in what is in fact a complicated and long-standing conflict.
I understand that those who oppose Israel believe that the formation of the state in 1948 was itself an act of aggression against Arabs, but this is a misleading narrative; indeed I’ve come to see it as propaganda.
It is a common move on the anti-Israel left to claim that all our liberation struggles are connected—they are all the same struggle. That is a pretty-sounding sentiment, but it’s bullshit. First of all, the struggle of Jewish people to live free from antisemitism is not included in “all our struggles.” The desire of people, in Israel and elsewhere, to live free from terrorism is not included in the uber-struggle. The struggle to live free from violence and oppression—for women in Iran, for queer people living under autocratic rule and religious governments, from Arab imperialism—is not included. “All our struggles” is a farce. We can, and should, form bonds of solidarity, but not with those who would see us dead. Not with imperialists, not with religious fundamentalists, not with those who hold illiberal beliefs and want to legislate them.
On other American university campuses in the last few days:
At MIT, there was a teach-in by “The Palestine Academy” on “Palestine 101.” Students received a handout explaining “Israeli colonization of Palestine,” “the Zionist movement,” and “Israeli apartheid.” You can go to their website at thepalestineacademy if you have the stomach for it. The photos from MIT depicted an auditorium full of students holding “Palestine 101” flyers. (Photos posted on Threads by dcnussbaum.)
At the University of Michigan, the anti-Israel “Shut It Down” movement won seats in the student Student Assembly in the spring and are now withholding all funds, raised by student fees, that support various campus organizations, from LBGTQ+ groups to the ballroom dance and ultimate frisbee teams to, yes, Palestinian student groups. (That’s right, the fees were collected, and the Student Assembly is withholding them.) They say no funds will be disbursed until the university agrees to divest from all companies with ties to Israel. Yesterday protestors, some wearing PFLP headscarves, disrupted welcome week activities. (The University of Michigan is my alma mater, and I have a Jewish niece who’s a junior there.)
At Columbia, Within Our Lifetime and Palestinian Youth Movement tore down the decorations that had been put up to welcome new students to Columbia. (Via CU Jews and Israelis on X.)
Also at Columbia, an op-ed titled “On Being Jewish at Columbia,” and under the byline “Jewish Voice for Peace” appeared in the student paper demanding that Jewish people must reject Zionism and claims of indigeneity in order to find community on Columbia’s campus.
At UPenn, a group calling itself “UPenn Faculty for Justice in Palestine” hosted a Zoom event where the PFLP flag was shown and plane hijackers were praised. One of the faculty members on the call was Khaled Barakat, of the University of Alberta, Canada. Barakat is a senior member of the PFLP, which is a designated terrorist organization. (Via Amelia Adams and Eyal Yakoby on X.)
At Baruch College, a CUNY campus in NYC, a small group of protestors gathered to target Hillel on campus and to call for war in the United States. Signs included “Bring the war home” and “Let the intifada pave the way for people’s war.”
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL reports that a new survey shows that 44% of Jewish college students are afraid to tell their classmates they’re Jewish.
And elsewhere:
A synagogue in France was firebombed. The arrested suspect was wearing a Palestinian flag and carrying a Molotov cocktail before the attack.
Three people were killed in a knife attack in Germany. The arrested suspect, a Syrian man who had been rejected for asylum, was inspired by ISIS and claims he committed the crime “to avenge Muslims in Palestine.”
The New Communist Party in Italy, a far-left political party, published a blacklist of over 100 Jewish people and “supporters of Israel,” labeling them as “Zionist agents” who must be “condemned and fought.”
When concern for the freedom of one group of people manifests as violence and oppression against another group of people—especially if the latter group is oppressed and has faced genocide many, many times in its history—then the concern isn’t for FREEDOM or PEACE or JUSTICE at all. For anyone.
Thank you Sara!
Progressive causes are not worth supporting. If every progressive cause has been co-opted by anti-Israel activists it just shows how unserious they are about their stated cause. Palestinians aren’t part of the US nor does their cause have a thing to do with the US - not race, not poverty, not equality, not the environment. The Hamas are a totalitarian Islamist far right terrorist group, and of the far left supports them this vehemently then I don’t believe the far left stand for anything other than anti-Jewish racism.