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THE ANTISEMITISM SCARE: GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED  
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Alan Wald
November 13, 2024
Against the Current
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_ As Zionist Israel becomes an international symbol of oppression,
immorality, and illiberalism, Jews throughout the world are wrongly
put in danger because the Israeli state insists that it speaks for all
of us. _

October 28 Symposium at U-M in defense of Professor Maura
Finkelstein. From left, Alan Wald, Rebekah Modrak and Maura
Finkelstein. Photo: Charles H.F. Davis III, Against the Current

 

_INTRODUCTION: As we enter a new political landscape following the
election of Donald Trump, resistance to Israel’s genocidal assault
on Gaza and its bellicose military actions in the region takes on a
greater urgency than ever before–even as political repression on US
campuses intensifies._

_The following essay is based on a talk by _ATC_ editor Alan Wald at
a 29 October 2024 symposium at the University of Michigan (U-M) in
defense of Professor Maura Finkelstein of Muhlenberg College, the
first tenured faculty fired for anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian
speech. (See the full report on the case by Natasha Leonard in the 26
September 2024 issue of _The Intercept.)
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_The U-M symposium, called “Academic Freedom in a Time of
Genocide,” was sponsored by the Colonialism, Race and Sexualities
Initiative of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and it
included Prof. Finkelstein as well as Rebekah Modrak, Professor at the
Stamps School of Art and Chair of the Faculty Senate at U-M._

I. A Well-Documented History

BLESSED WITH THE keen eye of Minerva’s Owl, much of today’s
academia is cognizant that the Red Scare of the 1950s did incalculable
harm to US educational institutions. This history is well-documented
in many books such as Ellen Schrecker’s classic _No Ivory Tower:
McCarthyism and the Universities_ (1986).

At least since the rise of the Culture Wars of the 1990s, faculty
across the political spectrum have been charging “McCarthyism” as
the go-to pejorative epithet to contest policies and practices they
find threatening to their free speech (briefly, the expression of
opinions in public without punishment) and academic freedom
(originally, the pursuit of knowledge without external
interference).(1)
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Allusions to the disgraced Republican senator (Joseph R. McCarthy,
1908-57) are frequently employed by radicals to brand efforts to
suppress their activism; at other times they are used by conservatives
to raise a hue and a cry about “Political Correctness” and
“Wokeness.” In both cases McCarthyism invokes memories of the bad
old days of the post-World War II anti-Communist witch-hunt with its
broad-based smears and slanders, hardly a forgotten era.

It is also no secret that the Red Scare’s out-of-control campaign of
intellectual intimidation — instigated by the needs of US foreign
policy — was facilitated by a rapid capitulation to the demands of
external political pressure. As soon as the initial forays of
government investigators occurred, most administrators and faculty,
even if briefly disconcerted, acted shamefully. Their behavior quickly
evolved through silence and complicity to formulating liberal
rationales for the political purge, famously exemplified by Sidney
Hook’s _Heresy, Yes — Conspiracy, No_ (1953).

Yet such groveling didn’t work; today we honor figures like Sarah
Lawrence College President Harold Taylor, who fought back and defended
his faculty, while many of the one-time Left-wing victims have
received institutional apologies. So how is it possible that we are
already well into a bumfuzzling resurrection of this malign behavior
seventy years later?

II. Faculty of Conscience

The context of 2024 is of course quite different. Faculty in the
1950s, unlike today, were not under fire for militant activism,
statements in or out of the classroom, or civil disobedience. The
focus was entirely on past political beliefs, i.e., association with
the Communist Party (CP-USA). And the demand of the inquisitors was
for professors — few of whom still had organizational connections
— to repudiate this past by exposing others through the method of
“naming names.”

What amounted to political show trials were orchestrated through
public hearings of Congressional investigating committees in different
states. Professors who didn’t co-operate, by invoking either the
First or Fifth Amendments, were mostly punished by their universities
through dismissal. Although there was incessant propaganda claiming
that such faculty were disloyal, there was never any evidence of
professors’ engagement in conspiratorial activities, sabotage, or
civil unrest.(2)
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At present, faculty of conscience are actively trying to end what much
of the world considers to be a genocide of Palestinians by one state
(Israel) and enabled by another (ours), which counts among the most
monstrous acts of our time.(3)
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also means trying to stop Israel from barreling down an ethical abyss
ruinous to its own population.

As Zionist Israel becomes an international symbol of oppression,
immorality, and illiberalism, Jews throughout the world are wrongly
put in danger because the Israeli state insists that it speaks for all
of us.(4)
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Although individual activists have their own views on causes,
solutions, and strategies, the predominant political campaign is for a
coordinated global solidarity movement for peace and justice in the
region. This should start with an immediate, permanent ceasefire and
an embargo on weapons for Israel, and also include economic
divestments, boycotts, and increased and more accurate education about
the issues.

Yet universities and colleges are implementing a 2.0 version of
political repression based on supposed discriminatory, harassing and
threatening behavior, and mostly extramural expressions of opinion.
Students and staff are also in the crosshairs, which I hope will be
the subject of future articles.

For faculty, my focus here, the result has been blacklisting, arrests,
and job loss. _The New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education,
Guardian,_ and the Left press have been reporting on numerous cases
of such repression, pointing to faculty at Columbia University, MIT,
Princeton University, UC Irvine, and Northwestern University.

The most shocking is probably that of Dr. Maura Finkelstein at
Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She was Chair of the
Anthropology Department and was fired from her tenured position mainly
due to her reposting an anti-Zionist poem on social media.(5)
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What I’m calling a 2.0 political repression, against pro-Palestinian
speech and activism, is perhaps distinct from 1.0 McCarthyism by the
way it aspires to con the university community as well as the public.
Administrators use the rubric of protecting free speech and the right
to protest, and especially the “safety” of Jewish students.

This last is engineered under Civil Rights Act Title VI by treating
outspoken anti-Zionist opinions — especially certain slogans,
phrases, and ideas — as antisemitic discrimination against a
supposed “protected class” due to race, color, or national
origin.(6)
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The repression is accomplished as well by implementing university
policies that were not used during protests of previous decades; many
of these involved much greater disruptions of university activities
than we have seen to date, and property destruction far beyond the
spray-painting that has occurred in several places.

These new rules are then selectively deployed to intimidate and
silence when politicians and donors put on the pressure. What is more,
undemocratic means of gaining approval for the new rules are achieved
through by-passing the norms of traditional faculty “shared
governance;” that is, they are imposed top-down, without
consultation with faculty and students.(7)
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III. Redefining Antisemitism

Then there is a second distinctive element of 2.0: The widespread
promotion of a calculated redefinition of the meaning of
“antisemitism.” This is what enables the declarations that
violations of Title VI have occurred when criticism of the political
ideology of Zionism is sharply expressed. Supposedly, the targets of
such criticisms were not ideology or state policy but a “protected
class” of “national origins.”

This phrase roughly refers to one’s country of birth or ancestry as
well as physical, cultural, or linguistic characteristics. If a
university fails to act against violations of Title VI (i.e., claims
of harassment and hostile environment against a protected class), it
can be punished by losing millions of dollars of federal funding.(8)
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Thus, when politicians want to take aim at a campus where there has
been radical activity, there is a financial incentive for university
administrations to find new mechanisms for punishing people to avoid
losing funds under Title VI.

Some of the alleged Title VI violations receiving attention are based
on complaints about the personal social media of faculty, customarily
seen as extramural speech with First Amendment rights.

Individuals and organizations are monitoring accounts of suspected
faculty, often searching for political ammunition, and then they
(sometimes outsiders and sometimes students) report to university
administrators that the content makes them feel emotionally
uncomfortable and anxious. The charge becomes that the professor’s
speech or writing negatively impacts a student’s access to
education.

For sure, emotional upset at views we don’t like is not surprising.
The pain felt when there are challenges to myths that are hardwired
through socialization into one’s culture and imagination can’t be
dismissed. But this works both ways. Those of us who see
pro-Zionists’ images and reports from the unhinged Betar, _College
Fix, Washington Free Beacon,_ and Right-wing individuals on our own
social media feed can likewise feel distress and apprehension.

At the University of Michigan, faculty and student anti-genocide
activists can point to Regents who publicly refer to us as “an
antisemitic mob” and participants in “a coordinated,
foreign-funded student protest that is engaging in violent
activity.”(9)
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powerful spokespersons are not just dumbing-down the debate into crude
insults but defaming us in a slanderous way that could provoke
retaliation.

Whether the emotions we feel in response to this level of discourse
are tantamount to our being the victims of threats and harassment that
demand an institutional punishment is another matter.

Additional alleged violations by pro-Palestinian faculty are
attributed to political appraisals that might be used in a classroom.
One supposed antisemitic critique is the assessment of the
Palestine/Israel historical conflict through the framework of a
variant of colonialism known as “settler-colonialism.”(10)
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This is reinterpreted by supporters of the Israeli state as a call for
annihilation of the Jewish population. Of course, Columbia Professor
Rashid Khalidi, the most popular explicator of the settler-colonial
framework, plainly does not advocate any kind of expulsionism or
eliminationism of Jews. As he clearly states in his most famous book:

_“There are now two peoples in Palestine, irrespective of how they
came into being, and the conflict between them cannot be resolved as
long as the national existence of each is denied by the other. Their
mutual acceptance can only be based on complete equality of rights,
including national rights, notwithstanding the crucial historical
differences between the two.”(11)
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Another critique, decried as antisemitic, rejects present-day Israel
as a lawful form of self-determination — not because it is a Jewish
state but because any ethnostate on contested land is
unacceptable. _Jewish Currents_ editor Peter Beinart, among others,
has written compellingly about the fact that self-determination is not
necessarily achieved through its own state form, and that
self-determination cannot mean a violation of others’ rights:

_“National self-determination can only constitute a universal right
if it means something less than independent statehood. Think about the
term itself. For individuals, ‘self-determination’ means autonomy,
one’s right to determine one’s own affairs. But there are limits
to that right because individuals have to respect others’ autonomy
too. It’s the same with nations, which are large groups of people
that feel some collective solidarity and want to run their own
affairs.”(12)
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IV. Confronting Fake History

The situation we face is that protests and scholarship fundamentally
challenging the Zionist position, especially those demonstrating that
current events are not an aberration but a fulfillment of Zionism, are
being outlawed as “antisemitic.”

 Instead, we are frequently offered the view that the violence in the
Middle East is a result of the centuries-old “longest hatred” of
Jews, as well as a continuation of Holocaust antisemitism. Such an
interpretation, that the conflict is at root an ethnic or religious
war, keeps the intellectual discourse about states and
self-determination in its troglodyte phase.

On the one hand, the object is to normalize the false description of
antisemitism found in the International Holocaust Remembrance
definition of antisemitism, which is still not legally binding.(13)
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the other hand, it correspondingly amounts to deploying a fake history
to justify a predetermined conclusion that apartheid and genocide are
understandable solutions.

There is a need to name colonial subjugation, and understand its
implications, in order to unframe Palestine from the distorting myths
of Zionism, which are made possible by a widespread ignorance of
Jewish history that ultimately inhibits one’s capacity to understand
the world in which we live. This is the only way to reframe the
problem as one of equal coexistence through the abolition of Jewish
colonial privilege.

Reducing the matter to Jew-hatred only fuels a permission structure to
exaggerate one’s discomfort into accusations of a menacing and
hostile campus environment. Unsettling chants (“From the River to
the Sea”), symbols (Palestinian flags, keffiyehs), and language
(“intifada,” which means “shaking off”) are thereby
transformed into genocidal threats.

None of these, and similar ones, meet the standard of actionable
“hate speech.” Only an anti-Zionist statement combined with an
imminent physical threat qualifies as punishable. Even scary red
triangles (used by Hamas’s military wing to indicate Israeli targets
in propaganda videos) don’t make the grade.(14)
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For the most part, common sense should tell us that the chants,
clothing, and the majority of slogans cited are no more menacing and
harassing than pro-Israel partisans waving flags of the state of
Israel (the country slaughtering civilians each day), or campus Hillel
chapters sponsoring Israeli Defense Force speakers Arky Staiman and
Yadin Gellman.

Right-wing websites like Canary Mission that accuse hundreds of
university community members of being antisemites and pro-terrorists,
or the stream of messages by some Zionists calling anti-genocide
protestors “terror and rape supporters,” are as simplistic and as
offensive as labeling all Zionists fascists and racists.(15)
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If any activists from any point of view sincerely want to get a
hearing from people who are not yet convinced of their opinions, they
need to avoid gratuitously pushing buttons or using ambiguous slogans
that can easily be twisted to mean something not intended. The
anti-genocide movement is operating in a climate where powerful actors
are trying to depict us as a part of a “global Hamas Support Network
[HNS],” turn the public against us, and frighten potential
sympathizers into cutting their ties with us.(16)
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Veterans of the 1960s antiwar movement who fought for the immediate
withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam know that militancy is most
powerful when clear and comprehensible.

Still, disputes over which language actually constitutes a physical
threat don’t clarify the question most crucial to accusations made
under Title VI: Are the protestors, faculty and others, who are
rightfully angry about genocide, but sometimes saying heated and not
always accurate things, in any way attacking people of a “protected
class”? Or are they vigorously opposing a specific state form and
ideology — ones supported by people of various nationalities and
ethnicities? Here some definitions and a representative example of how
the Title VI accusation is being used might help.

V. Widespread Venerations of Hamas Violence?

Customarily, antisemitism has been described as Jew-hatred, a racist
conspiracy theory since the 1894 Dreyfus case. It is commonly
distinguished from anti-Judaism, the denial of the Mosaic covenant and
replacement by another theology.

In my view, the current 2.0 redefinition of Jew-hatred is primarily
aimed at damaging the reputation of people trying to act responsibly;
these are hyperbolically and opportunistically smeared as Jew-haters
(even if Jewish). Here it is worth noting what Peter Beinart posted on
X a few months ago: “When I speak on campus, I ask what % of the
pro-Palestine protesters are Jewish. Usually, Jews are
overrepresented. Sometimes they’re the largest identity group. Maybe
folks calling for cracking down on protesters in the name of Jewish
safety should consider their safety too.”(17)
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Furthermore, using the antisemitism smear as a lie and a tactic is
particularly alarming with the rise of actual antisemitism worldwide.
Continually playing the “antisemitism card” to extort fear and
silence means that the term loses its power to illuminate, making the
charge less credible in relation to the real dangers from the
Right.(18)
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This is not to suggest that, in contrast to the rest of U.S. society,
there is no antisemitism to be found on the Left, or that Jew-hatred
has been non-existent among Palestinians and Arabs.(19)
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a cause does not mean idealizing the side one espouses, or robotically
believing that every action taken in the name of that cause will
effectively further it.

While it is up to Palestinians to determine their own future, much of
the movement does not hold that the ideology and strategy of Hamas, or
the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance,” are one and the same as
Palestinian resistance. What we do know is that Israel has harshly
stamped out efforts at nonviolent resistance (the First Intifada, the
Great March of Return) and oppressed people will resist through the
means available to them.

It is only by halting the Zionist onslaught that conditions can be
created for there to be a fuller range of choices and options for
meaningful alternatives by the population.(20)
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our shared struggle with Palestinians for a better world, we should
rebut those who use disagreements with Hamas as a convenient excuse to
disengage.

Instead, socialist internationalists must redouble efforts to organize
and mobilize around effective demands on the U.S. government that will
expand, not shrink, the needed mass opposition.

A widely publicized example of the invocation of Title VI appeared
on _The New York Times_ Opinion page, in late October: “College
Officials Must Condemn On-Campus Praise for Hamas Attacks.”(21)
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I choose this article because the author, Erwin Chemerinsky, is no
eye-popping wing-nut fanatic; to focus on cherry-picked cringe and
fringe opinion from places like Campus Reform wastes time. Chemerinsky
is a respected legal scholar, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law,
and possibly a nice guy. This gives him authority and credibility to
most _Times_ readers. But what does he say?

First, Chemerinsky starts by equating some “anti-Israeli language”
with “glorification of the Hamas massacre.” Referring to a UC
Berkeley rally of 1000 people this October 7, he insists that “many
of the protest signs were explicit in their endorsement of the
violence on that day.” He then cites one sign (yes, an offensive
one, reading “Israel deserves 10,000 October 7ths”) and then one
other sign (“Long live Al-Aqsa Flood”). He then mentions one
banner, “Glory to the resistance,” which has a red triangle.

After that, however, Chemerinsky immediately moves away from his
Berkeley demonstration of 1000 over to Columbia University, to cite
one essay posted by an organization, and next to Brown University to
cite one Instagram post. He climaxes by quoting the Anti-Defamation
League, notorious for identifying statements critical of Israeli
actions with antisemitism.

The ADL asserts that all over the country there were, similarly,
“protestors’ signs, clothing, flags, chants and speaker comments
[that] explicitly venerated Hamas’s deadly attacks.” Not
surprisingly, no evidence is cited.

So out of 1000 people protesting at Berkeley, he cites two problematic
signs, and also one banner. What did the 998 participants express by
their signs, buttons, and chants? (Could it be that they called for
ceasefire, divestment, and so on — not a glorification of the Hamas
attack?) Who placed that banner, who agreed with it? Were there any
other banners with different slogans?

Notwithstanding, Chemerinsky concludes that the Berkeley action was a
threat serious enough to violate Title VI (meaning Jew-hatred),
compares it to a KKK rally, and demands administrative action. But
none of these signs and posts refer to Jews. Some refer only to armed
resistance against an occupying power — which is recognized as
legitimate by international law. (To be clear: International law
additionally regards the targeting of civilians as a war crime —
where Israel, in its slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, is by
far the more grotesquely savage perpetrator.)

One must cast a gimlet eye on this Op Ed, for it is not just an
ill-informed hot take based on a safari via Google among a wide range
of campus protests. Chemerinsky is trafficking in a panic and outrage
that turns him into part of the propaganda machine that provides
justification for others — off campus — to pressure university
administrators to do the actual dirty work of banning and punishing.

VI. Who Are the “Zionists”?

I’m not disputing that Chemerinsky’s five examples might be crude,
ambiguous, unhelpful to winning people over — expressions of rage
and frustration.

The problem begins with rendering these confrontational anti-Zionist
statements as antisemitic, and then his excessive inflation of their
presence. It is then multiplied with his invoking of Title VI with
reference to Jews — which is disingenuous and factually false.

Chemerinsky’s demagogic melding simply ignores that the largest body
of Zionists in the United States, espousing the Israeli political
position that Jews have the God-given right to all the Holy Land,
are _Christian Zionists._ They number at least 30 million, compared
to about 4.5 million Jewish adults of whom only half consider Israel
crucial to their identity.

They are very well-organized — Christians United for Israel, led by
John Hagee, has 11 million members. Politically, Christian Zionists
are completely aligned with the Israeli state, give many millions of
dollars to Israel, and are the largest component of the Israel Lobby.
Pastor Hagee is personally close to Netanyahu and gave the benediction
when the capital of Israel was moved to Jerusalem in 2018.

Their theology, however, is anti-Judaic. Christian Zionists want Jews
to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel) because the Jerusalem ingathering
of Jews is the prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ following
the Rapture (believers’ journey to heaven) and seven-year
Tribulation.

Jews in Israel must at that time convert to Christianity or suffer the
fiery horror of the apocalypse, burning in hell forever. Moreover,
Hagee believes God sent Hitler to create Israel, Muslims have a
“mandate to kill” Jews and Christians, and the coming anti-Christ,
embodiment of all evil, will be a half-Jewish homosexual.(22)
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What is critical here is that Hagee’s less-numerical allies are also
people who have chosen an ideology. The portion of the Jewish
population supporting Zionism, which is far from homogeneous, is
subscribing to a nationalist movement infused with religion, somewhat
like Hindutva (the right-wing ethno-nationalist political ideology of
Hindu nationalism in India), and various others.

The Zionist movement is relatively recent (about 120 years) compared
with the Jewish religion (at least 2500-3000 years) and emerged as a
secular form of Jewish nationalism in the late 19th century. It was
generally rejected by Jews until the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Even
then, their primary desire was not Aliya but to escape antisemitism by
immigrating to the United States, where entry was mostly prohibited as
it was across Western Europe and Great Britain.(23)
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Thousands of refugees from Europe who then poured into Palestine would
have been murdered if this one remaining escape route were not
available. It is additionally true, however, that the founders of
Zionism, going back to the Agricultural Aliyah (1881-1903), had
evolved from seeking a Jewish homeland to collaborators in Western
colonialism when they became sponsored and protected by Great Britain
(the 1917 Balfour Declaration).

By the time of the 1948 Nakba and establishment of a Jewish ethnostate
in Palestine, the transformation of all wings of political Zionism —
Left and Right — into settler colonialism was clear.(24)
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To be sure, there is no doubt that many of the founders of the Israeli
state were a remnant of a European population that itself underwent a
precarious history of the Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia, blood
libel accusations, pogroms, and outright genocide; furthermore, a
near-majority of those Jews in Israel today are non-white refugees
from Middle Eastern and African countries.

Nevertheless, this suffering of the past only helps _explain_ but
does not _justify_ the behavior of the Israeli state. Its rulers
have long been acting like the white overlords of the U.S. South or
South Africa — and are now much resembling the historical
persecutors of Jews.

If aimed only at this political ideology, anti-Zionist speech is
simply not antisemitic. Undeniably, it can be angrily expressed, and
can also be combined with antisemitism. This is obvious if one blends
Holocaust denialism, conspiracy theories about “Jewish Power,” and
statements like “death to infidel Jews” with an anti-Zionist
political claim.

Nevertheless, slogans, tweets, political analyses, and statements of
groups focused on the Israeli state and the Zionist ideology are not
expressions of Jew-hated or harassment of a protected class — even
if they may _feel_ threatening.

VII. The Responsibility of University Intellectuals

Maura Finkelstein

Those of us affiliated with universities have an unequivocal
intellectual and ethical obligation to make it clear that anti-Zionist
contentions about settler-colonialism are not antisemitism. The same
goes for challenging the right of self-determination in ethno-state
form when it encroaches on an indigenous population. Anti-Zionism and
antisemitism are historically and definitionally discrete.

Zionism is a political mission of state-making that advantages Jews.
In contrast, anti-Zionism stands in resistance to a supremacist state
— but emphatically not to Jews or Judaism. We must expose the
fallacies behind the conflationary argument that Zionism is a core
belief of Jews that cannot be contested without opposing individuals
qua Jews, so that expressions of opposition become the equivalent of a
harassing or even hate speech.

Every time one merges antisemitism and anti-Zionism, one goes through
a political looking-glass to produce false information, and that’s
when dangerous hallucinations begin to bloom into a perpetual din of
fictional perceptions. Jewish faculty, above all, must object to
administrators recycling Donald Trump’s campaign promise to
“defend women” as an excuse to repress students and campus
diversity efforts; they’re saying, in effect: “Whether the Jews
like it or not, I am going to protect them!”

We are also faced with the constant recirculation of a relatively
small number of ultra-provocative, and a few possibly antisemitic,
protest messages. Refuting the relentless “exposure” of these in
the press would require a non-stop-treadmill of fact-checkers.

Besides, rebutting spurious complaints about “widespread Left
anti-Semitism” doesn’t address any real problems, because the
purveyors of this false information are only interested in protecting
the Israeli state from accountability. They are out to exploit what is
so far a minor although real problem, rather than helpfully resolve
it.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t follow that we should ignore our obligation
to clarify _really existing_ antisemitism in this country and around
the world, so as to work toward its elimination. Here a special
responsibility falls on those of us in the Marxist tradition, for our
19th century understanding was profoundly misguided as to the strength
and tenacity of modern Jew-hatred — which was mistakenly judged to
be an anachronistic survival doomed to wane.(25)
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So it goes in regard to academic freedom in a time of genocide. Yes,
we can see that many of our colleagues, especially those with the
least job security, are understandably tempted to keep their heads
down so as not to be in anyone’s sights. Still, it is time for more
secure activist academics to go on the offensive in the way we know
best and in which we are trained.

Collective action is probably the most effective, through local and
national Palestine Justice organizations that collaborate with
students and staff, as well as the American Association of University
Professors.

At this point, I do not know if we can win cases like that of Maura
Finkelstein. A commitment to solidarity in a time of genocide means
that one cannot count on a safe passage through life.

Faculty protestors like Maura, with a steadfastness of moral vision,
are up against unprincipled bullying, character assassination, and
perceived guilt by association. And these are being perpetrated by
pliant and petty university and college administrators, obediently
carrying out their orders, who are the latest personifications of the
banality of evil.

But in listening to my inner Jean-Paul Sartre, we only know our
authentic values and degree of intellectual honesty when we tell the
truth even if that truth might hurt us.

Notes

* The clearest explanations of Academic Freedom and Free Speech are
available through the American Association of University Professors
website: [link removed].
For my own discussion of Academic Freedom in the McCarthy era,
see: [link removed]
back to text
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* This the conclusion of research in Lionel S. Lewis, _Cold War on
Campus: Study of the Politics of Organizational Control_ (1989).
back to text
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*
See: [link removed]
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* Gideon Levy encapsulated the situation well regarding Israeli Jews
in this comment in _Haaretz:_ “This is another cost of the war in
Gaza that should have been considered: The world will hate us for it.
Every Israeli abroad will be a target for hatred and violence from now
on. That’s what happens when you kill almost 20,000 children, carry
out ethnic cleansing and destroy the Gaza Strip. It’s a little quirk
of the world; it doesn’t like those who commit these sorts of
crimes.” The passage is from a longer Opinion
piece: [link removed]
back to text
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* See Anemona Hartocollis, “Professors in Trouble of Protests Over
Protests Wonder if Academic Freedom is
Dying”: [link removed];
Megan Zahneis, “This Tenured Professor Says She Was
Fired”: [link removed];
David Shorter, “Academic Freedom Under
Attack”: [link removed];
Michael Sainato, “US Professors Face Discipline and Investigation
Over Palestine
Support”: [link removed]
back to text
[[link removed]]
* To try to understand what I believe is the inaccurate claim that a
Zionist political identity constitutes a “protected class” under
Civil Rights Act Title VI (discrimination against race, color,
national origin), see Congressional Research Service, Legal Sidebar,
Updated 17 September
2024: [link removed]
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* See Andrew Manuel Crespo and Kirsten Weld, “The Harvard
Corporation Tries to Kill Faculty
Governance”: [link removed]
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* At present the University of Michigan receives one billion dollars
of federal funding per year.
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*
See: [link removed];
and _Guardian,_ 24 October
2024: [link removed]
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* Unlike metropole colonialism, where a parent state exercises
direct control over a colony or empire, settler-colonialism takes land
and resources from an indigenous people with the aim of displacing
them by settlers.
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* This quote from _The Hundred Years War on Palestine_ (2017) has
been widely circulated; see, for example, “How Israelis and
Palestinians Can Make a one-State Solution
Work”: [link removed].
This is not to suggest that violence can be ruled out in the
anti-colonial process, only that it must be minimized as much as
possible. As Palestinian scholar Tareq Baconi points out:
“Ultimately, decolonization, if it is to be effective, is not going
to be grounded in bloodletting and killing of civilians. It’s going
to be a process that’s focused on dismantling a structure of
oppression.”
See: [link removed].
While many facts are not known about the events of 7 October 2023, and
Israel has promoted lies about beheadings and systematic rape, the
reports of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem should be taken seriously.
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* [link removed]
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*
See: [link removed]
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*
See: [link removed]
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* For Canary Mission, see: [link removed]
[[link removed]] for “terror and rape supporters”
see: [link removed]
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* See, for example, Project Esther of the Heritage
Foundation: [link removed].
Some useful political advice about the need for strategic thinking can
be found in an essay by Palestinian activist and scholar Bashir
Abu-Manneh: [link removed]
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* See: [link removed]
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*
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* For example, see the brilliant discussion of Arab responses to
Naziism in Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The
Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010). This was reviewed in Against
the Current by David
Finkel: [link removed]
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* Here I am sympathetic to the views of Rashid Khalidi: “There is
a powerful trend or faction that advocates an unrestricted form of
violence…In my view, this trend does not have a strategic vision. It
has achieved tactical victories and some catastrophic strategic
defeats, and it has caused enormous suffering to Palestinians and also
to Israelis….Only a new vision of Palestinian liberation, rooted in
progressive ideals rather than in the ethno-religious project of
Hamas, he argues, can lead to genuine Palestinian freedom and
sovereignty.” For the full interview
see: [link removed]
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*
See: [link removed]
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* For more on Christian Zionism and Hagee
see: [link removed];
and [link removed]
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* See Harold
Myerson: [link removed]
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* There is also the question of whether there is convincing
scientific (genetic) or historical evidence to prove convincingly that
contemporary Jews throughout the world have a common ancestral origin;
that is, comprise a population entirely exiled from Palestine two
thousand years ago with a Biblical property right to own the Holy
Land. This is the subject of many books, which point out that there is
no shared thread of DNA to define Jewish ancestry, that Jewish
migration from Palestine was not complete and caused by many factors,
and that substantial conversions to Judaism had a major impact on
Jewish history. Some of these matters are discussed by David Finkel in
his review of Shlomo Sands’ _The invention of the Jewish
People_: [link removed]
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* See Enzo Traverso’s remarkable _The Jewish Question: History of
a Marxist Debate_ (2019) for the fullest discussion. See Peter
Drucker’s review of the First
Edition: [link removed]
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_Alan Wald is an editor of _Against the Current,_ a member of the
Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, and a founder of
the University of Michigan Faculty and Staff for Justice in
Palestine._

to appear in the January-February 2025 issue, ATC 234

* Academic Freedom
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* anti-Semitism
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* McCarthyism
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* Political repression
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* social justice
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