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Of Course: Campus Statement Packed With Unhinged Anti-Israel Propaganda Was Signed By...

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 17, 2023 10:01 AM

Anti-Semitism is running rampant on American college campuses, including, if not especially, the 'elite' ones. You've surely read about some of the disgraceful episodes that have played out at places like Harvard, Columbia, MIT, Yale, and many others.  At my alma mater, Northwestern, a battle has been raging since the October 7th terrorist massacre of hundreds of civilians in Israel.  The school's leadership has responded with silence, weakness, and equivocation, even as various student and faculty statements openly justified and "contextualized" the attacks. The "pro-Palestine" alliance has also endlessly repeated eliminationist slogans, including "from the river to the sea," which is an unmistakable call for the destruction of the state of Israel.  Some of these students attended a pro-Hamas rally in Evanston, at which the terrorist organization's flag was flown:  

I've been informed by multiple students that the young, masked woman posing for a photo with the Hamas flag is a current undergraduate whom they recognize.  After weeks of dithering, the university's president, Michael Schill, released a statement announcing a task force on anti-Semitism this week, in which he denounced the "brutal terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas,” Schill urged the Northwestern community to "emphatically reject" rhetoric widely seen as "promoting murder and genocide," including "from the river to the sea."  The Students for Justice in Palestine immediately responded by posting that very slogan on Instagram in big red letters, specifically tagging Schill, in case their intent was at all ambiguous.  Beyond that, student groups and faculty have now signed letters to the Daily Northwestern, explicitly defending that slogan.  Here are lowlights from the missive signed by more than 150 faculty members:

"Your letter rightfully condemns antisemitism, but presents an unbalanced approach to the issues we collectively face...Your letter also inflicts the exact harm it claims to prevent through its glaring imbalance. It deprioritizes and diminishes many students’ experiences, ideas and concerns regarding what leading scholars and human rights organizations are describing as genocidal violence in Gaza. The letter makes unjustified assumptions about which students, staff and faculty are the targets of hate. And, it implies that criticism of the government of Israel is antisemitic...the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” as our colleagues at Harvard write, “has a long and complicated history. Its interpretation deserves, and is receiving, sustained and ongoing inquiry and debate.” Your words risk further emboldening people within and outside the Northwestern community to police and threaten students, staff and faculty. Your evocation of surveillance and law enforcement puts our students, staff and faculty of color at particular risk. [We demand you] create an advisory group on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism."

I regard Schill's latest letter as doing and saying the bare minimum, and terribly belatedly, at that.  These people, however, are "dismayed" over its supposedly "unbalanced" focus on rampant anti-Semitism, which has spiked on campuses like NU's, and all across the world.  They want a focus on Islamophobia, of course.  This is the opposite of 'meeting the moment,' as the grating and ubiquitous cliche goes.  It is dangerous and wrong to characterize what Israel is doing to defeat Hamas as a "genocide," and it's both irresponsible and inflammatory for faculty members to do so.  The words "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" very explicitly describe the erasure of the state of Israel, which sits between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.  The Anti-Defamation League recognizes it as an anti-Semitic slogan.  Coupled with the justifying of actual genocidal violence by Hamas, and frequent calls for "Intifada," it's crystal clear that it is an eliminationist phrase.  I'd bet that many of the people who shout it, including at Northwestern, fully endorse the annihilation of Israel.  Gaslighting doesn't change that, and it doesn't fool the targets of increasingly loud-and-proud anti-Jewish bigotry.  It's also both typical and wild to see adults refer to Schill's letter as 'inflicting harm,' and pretending that the pro-Hamas contingent are the real victims of 'threats.'  

And of course they throw in a line about how even mentioning investigating violations or crimes, and the prospect of law endorsement' puts people of color "at particular risk."  This is a crazy claim, especially in light to the real harms they're minimizing, and it's also rooted in racist assumptions.  They accuse Schill of "repressing" speech, then they attempt to bully him with a gratuitous use of the race card.  These are ugly tactics, whitewashing and enabling something that's quite ghastly.  It's shameful.  The letter signed by dozens of student groups is worse.  Deranged, demented stuff:

In the past month, the world has watched the indiscriminate slaughter of over 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Between suffocating under the rubble of bombed civilian homes, starving to death due to the bombing of bakeries and fatal burns from white phosphorus bombs — all of which violate international law — one in 200 people in Gaza have been killed by these causes and more...The U.S. has made pro-Palestinian protesters the scapegoat rather than condemn — much less acknowledge — the war crimes committed by the Israeli government and military. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning activists as being antisemitic for criticizing the Israeli government...This mass hysteria and collective psychosis has reached our campus. In an email sent to the Northwestern community on Nov. 13, University President Michael Schill calls “on all members of our community to use our collective voices to emphatically reject statements or banners that significant parts of our community interpret as promoting murder and genocide. This includes flying flags associated with Hamas and banners with the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea.’” 

Schill’s choice to platform fringe beliefs on the use of this statement and deny genocide in an attempt to mischaracterize the mission of activists on campus is intentionally irresponsible and incredibly dangerous. Indeed, we know there is a genocide happening, and it is happening to Palestinians by the Israeli apartheid government...The creation of [the anti-Semitism] committee is at the expense of Arabs and Muslims and callously ignores the systematic rise in Islamophobia and doxxing on campuses across the U.S. Schill does not name “Islamophobia” or “racism” even once in his email. His repeated reluctance to outright condemn recorded instances of Islamophobia while explicitly condemning antisemitism is an indictment; he has chosen a side...Palestine has always served as a litmus test of our collective imagination of what freedom could look like. When we say from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, we imagine a world free of Islamophobia, antisemitism, anti-Blackness, militarism, occupation and apartheid. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

They open by citing Hamas-supplied propaganda, later contradicting themselves by referring to the death toll in Gaza as 'uncountable.' There has been no "indiscriminate slaughter" by Israel, which has gone out of its way to warn civilians to leave areas where Hamas terrorists will be targeted.  (As an aside, I wonder how many of these students would even be willing to call Hamas a terrorist organization). Israel is fighting these terrorists -- who go unmentioned and uncondemned in this letter, along with their barbaric acts of October 7th -- in civilian areas and facilities because Hamas deliberately embeds their terrorism in these places.  That is Hamas' fault; to blame the Jewish state is to run interference for Hamas, at best.  It is extreme gaslighting to pretend that "criticism of the Israeli government" is what's driving the pro-Hamas hate rallies we've all witnessed.  The 'problem' is the very existence of Israel.  Legions of people have denied, excused, and celebrated the butchery of civilians because they were Jews.  They took to the streets to "protest" within hours of the massacre, before Israel had responded in any way, many demanding that Israel not respond at all.  Some of these NU campus groups posted apologias for the slaughter, without condemning Hamas at all, yet they dare to try to claim the moral high ground, wrapping themselves in victimhood?  Absolutely not.

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Also, it is not a "fringe" position to understand what "from the river to the sea" stands for, based on the plain meaning of words, and the embrace of this slogan by Hamas and other genocidal anti-Semites.  These students repeat it, brazenly and provocatively, while half-pretending that it means something else.  Jewish groups clearly see it as anti-Semitic, but these college students have the gall to wave away Jews' understanding of the intense, ancient hatred against their people.  Notably, the letter doesn't even bother to offer a fake denial.  It immediately pivots to falsely accusing Israel of "genocide," and excoriating Schill's tepid request that people stop using words broadly seen as murder-endorsement as "dangerous."  Shrieking eliminationist words in the midst of soaring anti-Semitic sentiment and attacks? Not dangerous.  Asking people to refrain from doing so?  Dangerous.  Utterly backwards.  The outrageous assertion that "genocide" is being inflicted by an "apartheid" government is similarly utterly backwards, as Hamas is the proudly pro-genocide actor in the war.  And the only Jews in Gaza are civilian hostages.  These fools have nothing to say about any of that.  The moral inversions, blindness and ignorance displayed by these signatories is breathtaking.

For good measure, they manage to find a way to assail the creation of a committee to combat anti-Semitism, while again playing the victims -- an added insult to Jewish victims of hate and intimidation.  They whine about a lack of "Islamophobia" being name-checked, even though a previous Northwestern statement ahead of a Hamas rally disgracefully led with concerns about Islamophobia, over anti-Semitism.  They list off a roster of Bad Things they "imagine" will be solved by their eliminationist chanting -- including, insultingly, anti-Semitism, then they repeat the eliminationist rhetoric one more time.  For emphasis.  A thoroughly repellant document that reflects very poorly on everyone associated with it.  Especially, perhaps, these people:  

Intersectionality is poisons the mind and soul.  Relatedly, I'll leave you with this sickening madness:  

When people can be manipulated by "anti-colonial" oppressed vs. oppressor, anti-Western grievance ideology -- such that they find themselves effectively or literally siding with Hamas after the horrors of October 7th -- they can also be won over by Osama Bin Laden's depraved 'justifications' for the mass murder of thousands of American civilians.

UPDATE - Monumentally stupid: