Some of America’s students are embracing an ancient evil.
Many students who think they’re protesting against Israeli policy are actually engaging in anti-Semitism, spewing hatred in a way that will change them as people and alter their lives.
Moral Rot
Many of America’s college campuses are enduring a wave of anti-Semitism. Campus anti-Semitism is not new; this most recent round was spurred by the outbreak of war after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. But this new eruption of hatred in educational institutions is especially alarming. The students engaging in it are not only poisoning their campuses; they are embracing a moral stain that they will find, in later life, they can never expunge.
I have taught many college students, in multiple institutions and in a variety of settings, over the almost 40 years of my academic career. I know from experience how much they want to be involved in the Big Issues of the Day, a natural extension of living in an environment percolating with ideas and opinions and where they are immersed in learning new things. But I will admit that I never thought much of campus demonstrations, despite having seen many as both a student and a professor; I am by nature distrustful of the emotion that sweeps over mass events, and though I think public actions are essential to democracy, I believe they should be rare, targeted, and powerful. (I worry that campus protests, in particular, invert the relationship between the students and the university, encouraging students to be inexperienced teachers instead of learners. But that’s a subject for another day.)
After so many years on campuses, I am not shocked by protests against Israel. I have seen many; most of the students protesting now are too young to remember the lionizing of Yasser Arafat and demonstrations supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization in an earlier era, for example. The protests in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, however, seem different to me. Many of them are sharply defined by a juvenile viciousness, a paradoxical mixture of childish exuberance and evident—and growing—menace.
The Boston Globe in an editorial last week compiled a list of anti-Semitic incidents at Northeastern University, Cooper Union, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Tulane, and other campuses across the United States have been subjected to venomous attacks. At the University of Maryland, for example, someone chalked “Holocaust 2.0” on the pavement during a rally organized by the pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine. When confronted by local reporters, one of the organizing members of the University of Maryland’s SJP, who of course wished to remain anonymous, said the “Holocaust 2.0” writing “was likely taken out of context.” “‘It’s referring to what is happening in Gaza,’ he said, adding that it’s not the most accurate parallel and that SJP members came over to cross it out after the picture had been taken,” the local-news report notes.
Not the most accurate parallel. That student has a bright future in public relations.
To understand the kind of rhetoric overtaking some American campuses, this was how the National SJP almost immediately described the October 7 attack.
Many students who think they’re protesting against Israeli policy are actually engaging in anti-Semitism, spewing hatred in a way that will change them as people and alter their lives.
Moral Rot
Many of America’s college campuses are enduring a wave of anti-Semitism. Campus anti-Semitism is not new; this most recent round was spurred by the outbreak of war after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. But this new eruption of hatred in educational institutions is especially alarming. The students engaging in it are not only poisoning their campuses; they are embracing a moral stain that they will find, in later life, they can never expunge.
I have taught many college students, in multiple institutions and in a variety of settings, over the almost 40 years of my academic career. I know from experience how much they want to be involved in the Big Issues of the Day, a natural extension of living in an environment percolating with ideas and opinions and where they are immersed in learning new things. But I will admit that I never thought much of campus demonstrations, despite having seen many as both a student and a professor; I am by nature distrustful of the emotion that sweeps over mass events, and though I think public actions are essential to democracy, I believe they should be rare, targeted, and powerful. (I worry that campus protests, in particular, invert the relationship between the students and the university, encouraging students to be inexperienced teachers instead of learners. But that’s a subject for another day.)
After so many years on campuses, I am not shocked by protests against Israel. I have seen many; most of the students protesting now are too young to remember the lionizing of Yasser Arafat and demonstrations supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization in an earlier era, for example. The protests in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, however, seem different to me. Many of them are sharply defined by a juvenile viciousness, a paradoxical mixture of childish exuberance and evident—and growing—menace.
The Boston Globe in an editorial last week compiled a list of anti-Semitic incidents at Northeastern University, Cooper Union, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Tulane, and other campuses across the United States have been subjected to venomous attacks. At the University of Maryland, for example, someone chalked “Holocaust 2.0” on the pavement during a rally organized by the pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine. When confronted by local reporters, one of the organizing members of the University of Maryland’s SJP, who of course wished to remain anonymous, said the “Holocaust 2.0” writing “was likely taken out of context.” “‘It’s referring to what is happening in Gaza,’ he said, adding that it’s not the most accurate parallel and that SJP members came over to cross it out after the picture had been taken,” the local-news report notes.
Not the most accurate parallel. That student has a bright future in public relations.
To understand the kind of rhetoric overtaking some American campuses, this was how the National SJP almost immediately described the October 7 attack.
Other universities have had their concerns about SJP, and understandably so. In the past few weeks, Brandeis has kicked the group off campus and Columbia has suspended it along with another group, Jewish Voice for Peace, but SJP has chapters all across North America.Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near. Catching the enemy completely by surprise, the Palestinian resistance has captured over a dozen settlements surrounding Gaza along with many occupation soldiers and military vehicles. This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.
The Juvenile Viciousness of Campus Anti-Semitism
Some of America’s students are embracing an ancient evil.
www.theatlantic.com