The Presidents of Harvard, MIT, Penn, Columbia should be forced to resign

Chanting Death to Jews is wrong, even by Pro-Israeli counter protestors.

 

*Democratic Socialists of America aka your beloved leftists.
But just because they're Leftists or Muslims doesn't mean they're lying.

Also while we are on the topic of anti-jewish hate, where were the police for this one?



Not sure who is more frightening: a trust fund ivy leaguer or an actual neo-nazi. But the trust funders are not armed so they're easier to arrest, right?

 

Because absolutely no one would try to undermine the Pro-Palestine movements by painting it as actually being anti-Jewish, right?

It's not like there are industries out there who will gladly tar college students and professors who are openly critical of Israel or attempt to shape US foreign policy, or even college policy, to be more critical toward Israel to achieve a two state solution. It's just all backhanded anti-Semtisism in the end, right?

 

Useful article in the New Yorker about what is and what is not anti-semitism.

The Problem with Defining Antisemitism
Kenneth Stern helped write a definition now endorsed by more than forty countries. Why does he believe it’s causing harm?
By Eyal Press

March 13, 2024

https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/the-problem-with-defining-antisemitism

"In “The Conflict Over the Conflict,” Stern disputes the notion that universities are awash in anti-Jewish hatred. “The campuses aren’t burning,” he writes, pointing out that there are far more pro-Israel programs each year than anti-Israel ones. During a Q. & A. session at the West End Temple, he elaborated on a point he’d made during his talk: some of the anti-Zionist protesters on campuses, far from feeling antipathy toward Jews, actually were Jews. Many of those he’d spoken to, he said, were the children or grandchildren of former officials in mainstream Jewish organizations. They’d been raised to care deeply about Judaism and Israel. Then they went to college and “heard about this thing called the occupation.” “And what do they feel?” Stern asked. “Betrayed. They feel they’ve been lied to. ‘Why was I not told about this?’ ”

The story underscored why Stern didn’t want the I.H.R.A. definition to be used to brand individuals as bigots. “Who am I to say that their view of what being Jewish means is something that I can define as antisemitic?” he said, of the students. Stern told me that his own views about Israel have evolved in recent years, as he watched settlements expand and discriminatory measures such as the 2018 nation-state law—which affirms that only Jews can exercise “self-determination” in Israel and describes the promotion of settlements as a “national value”—pass. His view of the usefulness of defining antisemitism appears to have shifted, as well. A month earlier, he told me, he’d spoken to a journalist who wanted guidance: “ ‘Is this antisemitic, is that antisemitic?’ ” Stern replied that this was the wrong question. “The question is, Why is this so binary that we want to label it this way or that way?”"

 

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-kenneth-stern-conflict-over-conflict

Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and former director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, spoke at Penn recently about freedom of expression, his issues with how a prominent definition of antisemitism is being used to censor, and what he left him feeling “disturbed” since being struck by the brutality of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Stern said he was disturbed that debates over early statements from university presidents focused on the statements as a symbol rather than on how institutions could use their educational resources to help students. And at Penn, he was disturbed that some donors protested allowing the Palestine Writes Literature Festival.

“Reject anything that seems like groupthink or simplistic formulas. If you feel comfort from reducing complicated issues to binaries, alarm bells should be going off. Experiment. Be willing to be wrong,” Stern encouraged the audience toward the close of his remarks. “Care about academic freedom and free speech; it’s the lifeblood of what you’re doing at the university. You might feel good when ideas you abhor are shut down, but once that Pandora’s box is open, your ideas are at risk too, so push back.”

 

I also want to make a distinction that Pro-Palestine movements elsewhere, especially in the Middle East, are driven by actual anti-semitism. The keyboard warrior in Lebanon hammer posting about how evil Israelis are would not flinch to go on anti-semitic tirades.

 

Colleges have always been hotbeds for this type of activism and it is why autocratic regimens are so quick to clamp down on them.

The students for Palestine today are trying to use the South Africa playback for Israel.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...otests-what-happened-in-the-past/73431111007/

Nationwide: South Africa anti-Apartheid protests in 1985
Another form of popular college campus protest occurred in the 1980's. Students across the country wanted their colleges to cut ties with groups that supported from the South African apartheid.

"Under apartheid, race restricted every aspect of life for South Africans who were Black, Indian and colored — a multiracial classification created by the government," The New York Times reported. "There were strict limits on where they could live, attend school, work and travel.



Columbia University was at the center of the movement. Students led by the Coalition for a Free South Africa at Columbia University "blockaded Hamilton Hall, the university’s administrative building, leading to the first successful divestiture campaign at the university," reads a summary of the events from the Zinc Education Project.

There was less pushback for protesters during this time, due to a “certain embarrassment among elites in the United States that there was complicity with South Africa’s white government,” said Daniel Farber, a history professor at the University of Kansas who has studied American activism, reports Vox Media.

Columbia University was one of the first colleges to divest from doing business with South Africa and 155 universities followed suit. U.S. Congress also passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, which aimed to prevent new trade and investment between the nation and South Africa.

 

Looks like they deleted it.

I honestly had never even heard of them until now, so clearly I wasn't paying attention during college.

From the Wiki:
Students for Justice in Palestine is a student organization that works in solidarity with the Palestinian people and supports their right to self-determination. It is committed to ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Separation Wall. It recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality. It calls for respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.