{"id":275315,"date":"2024-09-30T12:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=275315"},"modified":"2024-09-24T05:22:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T04:22:38","slug":"weaponizing-antisemitism-101-a-back-to-school-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/09\/weaponizing-antisemitism-101-a-back-to-school-special\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaponizing Antisemitism 101: A Back-to-School Special"},"content":{"rendered":"

23 Sep 2024 – <\/em>It is irony at its most bitter. Not so very long ago, hundreds of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. With tiki-torches held high, they\u00a0chanted<\/a>\u00a0\u201cJews will not replace us!\u201d And yet here we are, seven years later, and apparently these fanatical card-carrying antisemites have indeed been \u201creplaced\u201d in the minds of many Americans. Why? Because a deceitful campaign now portrays anti-genocide college students (including many Jews) as the leading purveyors of \u201cthe world\u2019s oldest hatred.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>But for anyone \u2014 including a Jew like myself \u2014 who hasn\u2019t stubbornly closed their eyes and covered their ears over the past eleven months, one thing should be obvious: it\u2019s simply absurd to label outrage, protest, and despair over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as \u201cantisemitism.\u201d Period.<\/p>\n

Last October 7th, Hamas and other armed groups unleashed a\u00a0brutal attack<\/a>\u00a0in Israel. Several hundred civilians were killed, over 200 were taken hostage, and the fear, agony, and trauma experienced by the distraught and the grief-stricken are profound and unrelenting. But these horrors \u2014 amplified and distorted by vengeance-stoking\u00a0misrepresentations<\/a>\u00a0from Israeli officials \u2014 can never justify the response that followed.<\/p>\n

Ever since that dreadful day (and after the immiseration of a decades-long\u00a0occupation<\/a>),\u00a0<\/strong>an unfathomable humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza. Israel has\u00a0killed<\/a>\u00a0over 40,000 Palestinians \u2014 most of them\u00a0women and children<\/a>\u2014 and more than twice as many have been injured. Gaza\u2019s\u00a0health care<\/a>,\u00a0education<\/a>, and vital\u00a0water<\/a>\u00a0systems have been systematically destroyed. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been\u00a0displaced<\/a>\u00a0once\u00a0or more<\/em>.\u00a0Starvation<\/a>\u00a0is increasingly widespread. \u00a0\u00a0Paralytic polio<\/a>\u00a0has now emerged. And all of this has been made possible by the United States\u2019 ongoing provision of political cover and lethal\u00a0munitions<\/a>\u00a0to the Israel Defense Forces.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging the\u00a0genocidal dimensions<\/a>\u00a0of this assault stirs controversy \u2014 even though Israel\u2019s leaders were quick to make their intentions known from the very outset.\u00a0Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2014\u00a0who has insisted that\u00a0he\u00a0speaks<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca\u00a0representative of the entire Jewish people\u201d \u2014\u00a0vowed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmighty vengeance\u201d and\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0the conflict as \u201ca struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.\u201d President Isaac Herzog\u00a0warned<\/a>, \u201cIt is an entire nation out there that is responsible.\u201d IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0that the focus would be \u201cmaximum damage.\u201d And Defense Minister Yoav Gallant\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last November, distinguished\u00a0Israeli historian and genocide scholar Omer Bartov\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, \u201cthere is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza.\u201d But in an essay published in\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>last month, Bartov\u00a0abandoned<\/a>\u00a0his optimistic view:<\/p>\n

Last November, distinguished\u00a0Israeli historian and genocide scholar Omer Bartov\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, \u201cthere is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza.\u201d But in an essay published in\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>last month, Bartov\u00a0abandoned<\/a>\u00a0his optimistic view:<\/p>\n

I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans \u2013 most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so-called safe zone \u2013 demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming evidence of profound and recurring\u00a0violations<\/a>\u00a0of international law in Gaza\u00a0<\/strong>has seemingly left inveterate defenders of Israel \u2014including most politicians in Washington, DC \u2014 with only one card left to play (over and over again). Unwilling or unable to present a convincing defense of Israel\u2019s policies, they indiscriminately and unfairly target critics with accusations of antisemitism. As we\u2019ve seen,\u00a0Israeli\u00a0government officials<\/a>\u00a0and their apologists have repeatedly sought\u00a0to discredit, demonize, and silence anyone \u2014 non-Jew and Jew alike \u2014 who speaks out against the country\u2019s abhorrent actions or in support of Palestinian rights, a humanitarian ceasefire, or an arms embargo to end the killing. The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) provided a memorable example of this demagoguery when he\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0progressive Jewish organizations like\u00a0Jewish Voice for Peace<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0If Not Now<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0\u201chate groups, the photo inverse of white supremacists.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that antisemitism \u2014 when reasonably\u00a0defined<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cdiscrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)\u201d \u2014\u00a0is a very serious and growing threat. Recent\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0shows that such antisemitic attitudes\u00a0become increasingly more pronounced as one moves ideologically from the left to the right, especially among young people.\u00a0But when antisemitism is intentionally\u00a0conflated with\u00a0legitimate criticism of Israel, we can lose sight of the fact that\u00a0the primary danger to Jews (and other at-risk groups around the world) is found among the fascists and\u00a0white nationalists<\/a>\u00a0on the right, not among the left-leaning, pro-Palestinian activists \u2014 of all faiths \u2014 on college campuses today. Indeed, oversized attention to the latter draws much needed scrutiny away from the former\u2014and from\u00a0the virulent\u00a0antisemitic acts<\/a>\u00a0that demand a dedicated and comprehensive response.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that there aren\u2019t opportunistic agitators taking advantage of the horrors in Gaza to foment hatred of Jews more generally. Indeed, white nationalist organizations actively promote recruitment to their own ranks by piggybacking onto and hijacking the efforts of others engaged in urgent and non-violent human rights advocacy. Last October, for example, a leader of the deadly 2017 \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally in Charlottesville\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0a crowd gathered in front of the White House,\u00a0\u201cWe Americans have been snookered into supporting [Israel] by Jewish control of our banks, our media, and our politicians.\u201d Now\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>is antisemitism, nurtured by a range of\u00a0conspiracy theories<\/a>\u00a0that encourage\u00a0violence<\/a>\u00a0against\u00a0Jews, Muslims, Blacks, and immigrants (among others) in order to prevent the \u201creplacement\u201d of White Americans.<\/p>\n

The utter magnitude of death and destruction in Gaza makes it especially important to recognize the crucial distinction between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies. Unfortunately, however, \u201cpro-Israel\u201d organizations in the U.S., such as the\u00a0ADL<\/a>, instead\u00a0blur<\/a>\u00a0this difference. In part, they do so by relying upon and actively promoting the controversial\u00a0International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)\u00a0\u201cworking definition<\/a>\u201d of antisemitism, which encourages the view that criticism of Israel is intrinsically antisemitic (seven of the IHRA\u2019s eleven examples of antisemitism reference Israel).<\/p>\n

A\u00a0range<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0scholars<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0the IHRA\u2019s approach to defining antisemitism for its misplaced focus on Israel rather than on Jews as Jews. Moreover, the lead drafter of the IHRA working definition\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0several years ago of efforts to weaponize it in order to attack \u201cacademic freedom and free speech\u201d and to pursue legal sanctions against those who engage in political speech critical of Israel and in support of Palestinian rights. And this past May, over 1,300\u00a0Jewish\u00a0<\/em>faculty published an\u00a0open letter<\/a>\u00a0that called upon elected leaders\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to codify the IHRA definition into U.S. federal law. That letter includes this: \u201cBy stifling criticism of Israel, the IHRA definition hardens the dangerous notion that Jewish identity is inextricably linked to every decision of Israel\u2019s government. Far from combating antisemitism, this dynamic promises to amplify the real threats Jewish Americans already face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the ADL routinely presents \u201canti-Israel\u201d sentiment as indicative of broader \u201canti-Jewish\u201d prejudices. For example, consider the organization\u2019s \u201cAntisemitic Attitudes in America 2024\u201d\u00a0report<\/a>, based on a survey of a representative sample of Americans this past January. Three items that were included to measure \u201canti-Israel\u201d sentiment focused specifically on Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians: \u201cIsraelis are indifferent to Palestinian suffering,\u201d \u201cIsraelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible,\u201d and \u201cIf Israelis had their way, they would live in a world where all Palestinians were killed.\u201d The percent of respondents who said they \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d agreed with each statement were 43%, 42%, and 36% respectively.<\/p>\n

How should we appropriately interpret these findings? Do they actually demonstrate \u201canti-Israel\u201d bias as the ADL claims, or are they better understood as reflecting a reasonably accurate appraisal of reality? Two results from Pew Research Center polling of Israelis this past spring shed light on this crucial question, albeit imperfectly.\u00a0First<\/a>, when asked whether Israel\u2019s military response against Hamas in Gaza has\u00a0gone too far,\u00a0only 4% of Israeli Jews agreed\u00a0(in sharp contrast to 74% of Arab Israelis).\u00a0Second<\/a>, when asked whether\u00a0social media posts expressing sympathy for civilians in Gaza should be prohibited,\u00a070% of Israeli Jews agreed (compared to only 18% of Arab Israelis). These are striking figures. Whether they originate from fears of the future, traumas of the past, or denials of the present, how can we doubt that most Israeli Jews are, at best, seemingly\u00a0indifferent<\/a>\u00a0to the horrors in Gaza? And on what basis, then, is recognizing this an expression of antisemitism?<\/p>\n

As the new academic year begins here in the U.S., college administrators around the country have already adopted\u00a0draconian measures<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0further<\/a>\u00a0crack down on anti-genocide\u00a0actions<\/a>\u00a0and even\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0itself. The context in which this is all unfolding is monstrous: education has been\u00a0obliterated<\/a>\u00a0in Gaza \u2014 a clear case of\u00a0scholasticide<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with universities now buried under rubble. And yet false accounts accusing pro-Palestinian advocates of\u00a0abusive language<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0violent disruptions<\/a>\u00a0on campus \u2014 spread by \u201cpro-Israel\u201d groups, by\u00a0ambitious<\/a>, anti-diversity-equity-inclusion politicians, and by wealthy, arrogant\u00a0donors<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 have instead helped to turn the focus to the emotional distress experienced by Jewish students.<\/p>\n

Can actual data overcome this manufactured hysteria? I do not know. But toward that end, consider some findings of a recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Jim Joseph Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0which describes itself as \u201cdevoted exclusively to supporting Jewish education of youth and young adults in the United States.\u201d\u00a0Published just this month and titled \u201cA Year of Campus Conflict and Growth: An Over-Time Study of the Impact of the Israel-Hamas War on U.S. College Students,\u201d the report examines focus groups and survey data collected from a broad swath of Jewish and non-Jewish students between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

One survey question directly asked Jewish students whether and where they had been \u201cpersonally\u00a0targeted by antisemitic comments, slurs, or threats\u201d since last October 7th. (It appears that no definition of antisemitism was provided.) The percents of affirmative responses were as follows: 15% on social media, 16% within the campus social environment, and 10% in classrooms.\u00a0Undoubtedly, some of these adverse experiences were tied to calls for the freeing of Palestine (e.g., \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d), which have a\u00a0range<\/a>\u00a0of divergent\u00a0meanings<\/a>, some much more threatening than others.<\/p>\n

Regardless, while these self-reported figures are not negligible, they certainly don\u2019t reach levels one might have imagined from stories of universities being inundated with antisemites. Indeed, two summaries from the report\u2019s focus groups are instructive here:<\/p>\n

Even though some students point to physical violence or antisemitic actions, Jewish students noted that their campus environment was tamer than media portrayals of campus unrest. Some students had to reassure their family members that they were not feeling physically threatened on campus and that they were safe, in contradiction to alarming media portrayals.<\/p>\n

Students overwhelmingly reported that the campus protests they saw this year were peaceful. Most Jewish students, but not all, said they did not feel physically unsafe. In general, Jewish students articulated a view that even though most protesters probably did not harbor antisemitic attitudes, there are some who clearly did.<\/p>\n

Another widely promoted\u00a0<\/strong>claim is that Jewish students are being psychologically\u00a0traumatized<\/a>\u00a0in large numbers by their experiences on campus. But here too the recent Jim Joseph Foundation survey suggests otherwise.\u00a0It found that 13% of Jewish students described their own mental health or emotional well-being as \u201cpoor\u201d this past spring\u00a0(10% of non-Jewish students did the same). Not only is this figure much lower than various anecdotal accounts suggest, it\u2019s not any higher than the findings from other\u00a0past surveys<\/a>\u00a0of college students conducted\u00a0prior to\u00a0<\/em>last October 7th. In 2022, 22% of students described their mental health as poor, and 16% did so in 2023.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the mental health struggles of individual college students are no small or inconsequential matter. Familiar stresses include academic performance pressures, interpersonal relationship struggles, and challenges in balancing school with other obligations. And it is surely true that experiences with antisemitism can add to this toll. But sensationalizing campuses as sites of Jewish trauma is unwarranted. Those who nonetheless encourage this inaccurate and overblown\u00a0perspective<\/a>\u00a0are as likely to be pursuing a narrow\u00a0political agenda<\/a>\u00a0aimed at suppressing academic freedom and critical discourse as they are to be concerned about Jewish students\u2019 emotional well-being.<\/p>\n

At the same time, far less attention and support have been devoted to the welfare of other university constituents. These include Palestinian and Muslim students who may have lost family members in Gaza and have been subjected to\u00a0attacks<\/a>,\u00a0threats<\/a>, and\u00a0religious discrimination<\/a>\u00a0on campus; students who\u2019ve\u00a0faced<\/a>\u00a0suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and lost job opportunities over their participation in protests and encampments;\u00a0Jewish students<\/a>\u00a0who\u2019ve participated in anti-genocide actions (and may themselves be traumatized by what Israel is doing); and\u00a0faculty<\/a>\u00a0who\u2019ve been\u00a0suspended<\/a>\u00a0or fired over their support for these students.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, as a distraction if nothing else, false charges of antisemitism may become even louder in the weeks immediately ahead. These fraudulent accusations are seemingly the only arrows left in the quivers of those struggling to counter the growing international condemnation of Israel for its abominable actions in Gaza. As the mournful first anniversary of October 7th approaches, this is assuredly a time for care and compassion\u00a0across divides \u2014 for\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0who’ve suffered from the past year’s violence. But it is not a time for silence. For everyone’s benefit, the weaponization of antisemitism must be challenged whenever and wherever it arises. We owe it to the many voices that can no longer be heard.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Roy Eidelson is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network<\/em><\/a> and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of <\/em>Eidelson Consulting<\/em><\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of <\/em>Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/em><\/a>, former executive director of the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, and a member of the <\/em>Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/em><\/a>. Roy is the author of <\/em>Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What\u2019s Happening, What\u2019s Right, and What\u2019s Possible<\/a> and can be reached at <\/em>reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23 Sep 2024 – For anyone \u2014 including a Jew like myself \u2014 who hasn\u2019t stubbornly closed their eyes and covered their ears over the past eleven months, one thing should be obvious: it\u2019s simply absurd to label outrage, protest, and despair over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as \u201cantisemitism.\u201d Period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":243442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1668,87,865,88,2552,427,2497,880,70,1025],"class_list":["post-275315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-antisemitism","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-jews","tag-palestine","tag-palestinians","tag-state-terrorism","tag-usa","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275316,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275315\/revisions\/275316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}