It is no secret that on many campuses in the Western world, and especially in the United States, the Israel-haters and antisemites, both among the students and faculty, have been having a field day, noisily denouncing Israel as a settler-colonial apartheid genocidal state and chanting that “from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free.” That is a call for Israel’s destruction, the expulsion or murder of its Jewish inhabitants, and the tiny Jewish state’s replacement by a twenty-third Arab state. These unhinged antisemites don’t stop there. They often pass over in silence the scarcely believable atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, sometimes referring only to the “incursion” that day, and instead direct their fury at Israel, for daring to carry the fight to the fanatical killers of Hamas, in order to make sure that Hamas never again has the ability to strike at the people of Israel.
In Israel, the President of Ben Gurion University, Daniel Chamovitz, joined by the presidents of several other Israeli universities, wrote a letter to university presidents and deans around the world, asking why there was such skewed sympathy on campuses for the Hamas murderers, and so little for the murdered Jews of Israel . More on his letter can be found here: “Israeli University President to Global Colleagues: Why Can’t Jews Be Given Same Protection on Campus as Pronouns?,” by Debbie Weiss, Algemeiner, November 3, 2023:
In blistering remarks, the president of an Israeli university criticized international peers for “giving more protection to pronouns” than to Jews, amid the lack of condemnation in institutions of higher education for the brutal Hamas assault on Israel’s southern communities on Oct. 7.
Professor Daniel Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, joined the heads of eight other leading Israeli institutions in signing a letter calling on their global counterparts to unequivocally condemn Hamas, which they described as a “nihilistic” terror group that “shares no values with any Western academic institution.”
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Chamovitz contrasted the treatment by universities of Jews in Israel, as well as Jewish students on campuses in the US and Europe, with that afforded to transgender students.
“For some reason Jews are not considered to have the same rights as any other minority,” Chamovitz said, acknowledging that gender pronouns should be respected in academia and elsewhere.
“But if a professor can be disciplined for not using the correct pronoun, don’t you think he should be disciplined for saying Jews should be thrown out of Israel and killed?”
The letter — signed by Chamovitz and the presidents of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and several others — noted “a false equivalence between the actions of a murderous terrorist organization and a sovereign state’s right to defend its citizens.”
“Any attempt to justify or equivocate Hamas’ brutal and grotesque actions is intellectually and morally indefensible,” it went on.
College campuses have become “breeding grounds for anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments,” which are largely fueled by a “naïve and biased” understanding of the conflict, the presidents said.
“Naïve and biased” is much too kind a description. For many of these people, the Jewish connection with Israel starts in 1948; before that, they appear to believe, there was a Palestinian Arab state, much of which the Jews conquered, and expelled the Arab inhabitants, which is why the Arab states then came in to protect their fellow Arabs. And the apartheid state of Israel has ever since been oppressing the Palestinians who remained, turning Gaza into an “open-air prison” and the West Bank into a “colonial-settler” outpost. The word “settler,” of course, is meant to be condemnation enough. This is the bizarre story these haters have constructed, with malice aforethought. And all of this made-up history adds up, in their addled and bigoted brains, to a kind of “genocide.”
Chamovitz told The Algemeiner that he was “shocked and outraged” by the response of senior university officials, and in particular presidents, to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre and the resultant, ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group….
Those presidents who initially refrained from condemning Hamas without also setting its attack on the same level as Israel’s response, include Claudine Gay at Harvard, Elizabeth Magill of UPenn, and Minouche Shafik, of Columbia. More on the moral equivalences drawn by university presidents and other administrators can be found here: “Why was it so hard for elite universities to condemn Hamas terrorism?, by Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael B. Poliakoff, Real Clear Wire, October 21, 2023:
At Harvard University, President Claudine Gay has issued three muddled statements, under pressure, on the horrific events. Her first statement was a tepid confession of “heartbreak” that implied an equivalence between the Hamas attacks and Israel neutralizing the terrorists. This embarrassment was signed by all the university’s senior deans….
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik offered a masterfully slippery statement: “I was devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend and the ensuing violence that is affecting so many people.” While all lives matter, the mention of “ensuing violence” is a reference to Israeli targeting of terrorists—putting it on a par with raping and pillaging by Hamas. She implied moral equivalence….
The dean of Columbia Law School did not outclass her colleague. Gillian Lester wrote to her students and faculty, “The violence that erupted in Israel and Gaza this past weekend is nothing short of tragic,” again implying a moral equivalence between the enemies of the Jewish people and their victims….
The University of California-Berkeley, which spends $36 million annually on its Division of Equity & Inclusion, may be the most openly antisemitic campus in the country. Its law school is under federal investigation for discriminating against Jews. Student organizations there expressed their “unwavering support” for the Hamas pogrom. The president refused to condemn this statement. Instead, he expressed his heartbreak at “the violence and suffering in Israel and Gaza,” pointedly comparing Israel’s self-defense to the terrorist attacks themselves, gesturing, like too many others, to the “complex history” of the situation.
“In reality though, no complexity is so great as to obscure the distinction between the intentional slaughter of innocents and targeted strikes against terrorists. Some schools eventually issued careful statements—but their initial reaction—or lack of reaction—is most telling, especially when contrasted with quick and decisive past declarations of outrage….
It is statements like those just above , and the spectacle of the keffiyeh-wrapped students waving their Palestinian flags and shrieking their support for Hamas, and their hatred of Israel, that prompted President Chamovitz to write his letter.
Chamovitz described most of the pro-Palestinian voices on campuses as “beautifully naive” who are looking for the next cause celebre. “Most of them don’t even know where Israel is. They don’t know what Gaza is. They don’t understand that there’s never been a Palestinian state ever in the history of the world.”
They don’t know a great deal, but to call them “beautifully naïve” is much too kind. They are “hideously naïve” or more accurately, “hideously ignorant.” They don’t know that Jews have been living in the Land of Israel since 2000 B.C., at least 2600 years before a single Muslim Arab appeared. They don’t know that about the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine, and the territory assigned to it for the future Jewish National Home. They don’t know about Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, which commits the U.N. to fulfilling the terms and purpose of the still existing mandates left from the days of the League of Nations. They don’t know about UN Security Council Resolution 242, and about its insistence on Israel keeping any territory it needed to have “secure [i.e., defensible] and recognized boundaries.” They don’t know what the Hamas Charter says. They don’t know that the “Palestinian people” came into existence only in the late 1960s, their creation suggested by the KGB to Yassir Arafat, in order to refashion the Arab war on Israel as one being fought by a small people, the “Palestinians,” against the mighty Israeli state. They don’t know any of this, but if they did know, given their recently-revealed obsessive antisemitism, would it make a difference?
He [Chamovitz] ended on a more optimistic note, saying that the letter, and a similar one from two weeks earlier, was having a small but noticeable impact. “I hope we’re seeing a watershed moment, a moment in the history of higher education, where the pendulum will start to swing back to intellectual rigor, to true examination, and not to knee-jerk reactions.”
As the motto of Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, says: Forse che sí, forse che no.
Wrong says
Why suprised? The saudis, quatar, turkey and its religious ministry have been forking money over to the western universities for ages. Iran too.
I am quite sure that quite a lot of these universities fund come from islamic states. Why is there a need to have an Islamic Department in every university? And led by a follower of islam only to get followers of islam in the department?
Then there are these new age political agendas, many of which come from marxist-socialist view holding jewish socioligists. Frankfurter School students or followers perhaps? They never grasped or understood the reality that there can be an ideology beside them that actually practices double talk. And has been doing it better than them for centuries if not a millenia.
The thing is both major socialist ideologies, nazism and communism most likely adapted quite a lot of their thoughts from islam. I am fairly certain that if one would actually compare Mein Kampf, and the Quaran and Hadith a lot of similiaraties might be discovered. Same with the Communist manifesto. Both of these ideologies wanted to replace religion, would it not make sense that they study their enemies and that they would steal ideas worthy? Especially if you consider that most of the nazi and communist party leaders were not bright, but quite well-read.
The progressiv and far left, have this strange idea, that a culture that is stuck 14 centuries behind our time, is a natural ally of their cause is just laughable. It just shows that they are intending to use them as shock troopers, what they fail to realize is that they are also on the list of these shock troopers. But for now left alone because of their voice.
OLD GUY says
Sadly you are correct, these foreign countries have donated millions of dollars into our universities and colleges endowment funds over the pas 30 years. With those donations comes request for islamic student unions on campus, muslim/islamic studies and professors to lead those classes and spread islamic propaganda to our children. We are seeing the results of the propaganda on our campuses right now.
James Lincoln says
Yes, OLD GUY.
The money comes with many strings attached.
Lisel Sipes says
Campuses are filled with children. There is nothing easier to control than the thoughts of children. Been going on forever.
DazzleMe says
Lisel , see me on MeWe -DazzleMe -DeeAnn