Anti-Semitism, Mideast conflict, free speech collide in Rutgers case
As protests against Israel and the U.S. government’s alliance with it have roiled college campuses across the country — with demonstrations in recent years shutting down speeches by pro-Israel speakers from the University of Minnesota to San Francisco State University — a few questions have repeatedly come up.
How much is Jewish identity tied to the modern nation of Israel? Is there a point at which criticism of Israel turns into hatred of Jewish people? If so, when is that line crossed? What is the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism?
Not surprisingly, pro-Palestinian activists and pro-Israeli ones often give contrasting answers to the questions.
In addition to conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians that have prevented peace in the Middle East, and a possible two-state solution, recent events have included the Trump administration’s move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Palestinians considered a major slight, and this week’s announcement by the State Department that it has ordered Palestinian leadership to close its office in Washington.
The Trump administration has now weighed in on the college issue, with the Department of Education’s civil rights office reopening a 2011 complaint against a New Jersey university about alleged bias against Jewish students.
In a recent letter to the Zionist Organization of America, a conservative group that has for years fought what it believes is widespread bias against Israel at colleges, the office said it would relaunch an investigation about Rutgers that closed four years ago under the Obama administration.
In the letter, the department said it would examine reports of discrimination on campus against Jewish people as an ethnic group and for the first time defined what it counts as antiSemitism.
The letter listed Holocaust denial — a widely agreed upon sign of anti-Jewish beliefs — alongside common proPalestinian activist refrains, such as saying that “the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.” Calling Israel racist was listed under “denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination.” Another example of anti-Semitism, according to the letter, included “applying double standards by requiring of (Israel) a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
The definition, taken from the State Department and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, has alarmed student activists and proPalestinian groups that fear the Trump administration will launch more investigations on colleges for their students and professors’ proPalestinian activities that criticize Israeli policies. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the department can investigate colleges and universities that receive federal money for discrimination against race, color or national origin and revoke funding.
“This is an attack on the First Amendment,” said Samer Alhato, a Palestinian American student at St. Xavier University in Chicago and member of Students for Justice in Palestine, a organization behind protests criticizing Israel that has chapters on dozens of college campuses.
The group has supported the BDS movement — which pushes for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against companies deemed to have a role in Israeli human rights violations.
“It’s an attack on organizers and socially aware students. We’ve had many presidents who dogmatically and materially support Israel with rhetoric or policies,” Alhato said. “The Trump administration has taken it to another level.”
In an interview, the director and chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League took issue with the argument that the administration was curtailing free speech.
“There is nothing wrong with being critical of any country,” said Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, which is not part of the case. “But when there are campaigns that demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state, they often end up in actions that demonize and delegitimize Jewish people.”
Morton Klein, the president of the New York-based Zionist Organization of America, called the Department of Education’s move a “landmark decision that may bring some justice to the Jewish students who have been harassed and discriminated against at many universities.” His group filed the Rutgers complaint and has also filed others against Brooklyn College and the University of California, Irvine.
The Rutgers complaint stems from a free 2011 pro-Palestinian event where Jewish students were allegedly charged admission as a way to keep them out — an allegation disputed by the event’s organizers.