This op-ed originally appeared in the November 20, 2023 edition of Academe Blog.
In recent weeks, college students across the country have raised their voices in support of the Palestinian people, whose collective punishment at the hands of the Israeli government and their enablers in the United States and across Western Europe is both shameful and horrific.
For conservative culture warriors, pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses are a gift that keeps giving. Not only do right-wing pundits relish the opportunity to take on elite universities—those hotbeds of “radical, American-hating extremism”—but recent protests provide cover for the forces of intolerance and indifference to double down on hyperbolic claims of “indoctrination and discrimination” in higher education. Consider this inflammatory headline from The Daily Signal: “Universities Have Become Staging Grounds For American Pogroms.”
A brief survey of right-wing media reports, replete with false equivalences between support for Palestinian civilians and defense of Hamas atrocities, reveals the lengths to which culture warriors will go to demonize dissent on college campuses under the guise of combatting antisemitism:
Elite University Students Project Pro-Hamas Messages On Campus Building – The Daily Caller, October 25, 2023.
Brandeis University Student Council Fails To Condemn Hamas Terrorism – Breitbart News, October 26, 2023.
Universities Celebrate The Mass Murder of Jews – Front Page, October 26, 2023.
Do Jewish Lives Matter On Campus? – Washington Examiner, November 4, 2023.
Stoking antisemitism is a tough habit to break, but for the right-wing media and the Christian nationalists they pander to, the time is right to tone down their own hateful rhetoric and silence critics who dare speak truth to power in the wake of Israeli war crimes.
Hamas Is Gaza, Gaza Is Hamas
For hardliners, there is no daylight between Hamas and the people of Gaza. Writing in American Thinker, under the headline “Hamas Is Gaza, Gaza Is Hamas,” Ethel C. Fenig cannot abide an ounce of sympathy for the two million inhabitants of that long-besieged territory fleeing for their lives under a month-long Israeli military assault: “Hamas is in free and independent Gaza because free and independent Gazans want it there.”
You don’t need a political science degree to recognize that the people of Gaza have never been free, much less independent. Unlike the so-called adults in the room, college students calling for an immediate ceasefire recognize bloodthirsty hypocrisy when they see it, even as they become painfully aware of the backlash not only from right-wing extremists but from campus administrators and political leaders who likewise invoke antisemitism to provide cover for Israel’s ethnic cleansing.
Meanwhile, right-wing pundits who’ve spent years stoking antisemitism indulge a bit of virtual signaling to score political points against archrivals. Case in point: PJ Media’s Catherine Salgado writes gleefully: “George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) provided almost $6 million in donations to Columbia University, the university at which student groups issued a statement bashing Israel and empathizing with Hamas terrorists.”
Then there’s this item from 100% Fed Up: “(WATCH) Hillary Clinton Confronted During Columbia University Event For Not Criticizing Joe Biden’s Warmongering Foreign Policies.” Sure, college students ought to keep their mouths shut when it comes to calling out Israeli war crimes, but right-wingers will make common cause with “Hamas sympathizers” if they can take a swipe at Mrs. Clinton and Joe Biden in one fell swoop.
Also-Rans Weigh In
With all the turmoil at home and abroad, you can be forgiven if you missed the GOP primary debate earlier this month. All the same, the Republicans’ circular firing squad offered a chilling glimpse into the authoritarian tendencies among the also-rans in the 2024 primary.
Seizing the moment, NBC News invited Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matthew Brooks to join debate moderators and ask candidates “what they would say to Jewish students who’ve felt threatened on campus in recent weeks, and to university presidents who have not forcibly condemned Hamas terrorism.”
Predictably, NBC couldn’t be bothered to bring in a Palestinian representative to quiz GOP hopefuls. Nevertheless, the candidates’ responses are worth noting for their warm embrace of campus censorship.
Taking a page from the Trump playbook, South Carolina senator Tim Scott went gangster: “Let me just say to every single university president in America, federal funding is a privilege, not a right, number one. Number two, to every student who’ve come to our country on a visa to a college campus, your visa is a privilege, not a right.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis was quick to add that he was the first to call for canceling visas for any student who demonstrated in support of Hamas. Meanwhile, “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels”—aka former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley—put a racial spin on the false equivalence trope: “If the KKK were doing this, every college president would be up in arms.”
It’s a sign of how upside-down things have become when motormouth and apparent front-runner for Trump’s 2024 running mate, Vivek Ramaswamy, sounds like a voice of reason. When he wasn’t dissing his opponents and the Republican establishment, the political novice condemned antisemitism but declined to endorse a clampdown on campus speech.
I don’t envy the decision college students face next November, but I support their right, and applaud their responsibility, to speak out against Israel’s settler colonial assault in Gaza and the West Bank—and for demanding the Biden administration end its complicity in the murderous land grab.
CONSTITUENT NOTES 