Episode 9: David and Goliath

Mark Oppenheimer 

Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from the Henry Luce Foundation and the David Bruce Smith Foundation.

Mark Oppenheimer 

We began developing this podcast, Antisemitism, U.S.A., long before the outbreak of the Israel Hamas war, before Hamas killed 1200 people in Israel and took several hundred hostage, before Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip led to the deaths of more than 30,000 mostly civilian Palestinians. And before protests and campaigns began on college campuses across the United States. So on the one hand, this podcast is a bit behind the times. On the other hand, it could hardly be more timely. After the October 7 attack, a survey conducted by the Harris poll found that a slight majority of Americans aged 18 to 24, considered the Hamas killing of 1200 Israelis justified because of the grievances of Palestinians. In the US, we've watched as protests against the war, or in support of Israel, have broken out on campuses across the nation. Members of Congress have accused university presidents of not doing enough to combat anti semitism. And some presidents, like the one at the University of Pennsylvania, had to resign under public pressure. How did it come to this? How could any significant number of young adults celebrate the deaths of civilians as an act of resistance? How did anti Zionist and anti Israel ideologies become part of the intellectual landscape on American college and university campuses? Particularly among politically progressive students? And how are we to disentangle anti Zionism from antisemitism, which some people say is impossible. These events are still unfolding, and they will take time to fully comprehend. But we can look to the past to begin to make some sense of our present.

Mark Oppenheimer 

I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and this is Antisemitism, U.S.A., a podcast about the history of antisemitism in the United States, Episode Nine, David and Goliath. This is a podcast about history. So let's begin with some history, not just the history of conflict between the modern state of Israel and its neighbors, but the history of antisemitism and anti Zionist movements on college campuses. When I was an undergraduate at Yale in the mid 1990s, there was really no concern about antisemitism at school. And this was pretty true on every other college campus that I knew about. But then you fast forward to the early 2020s and you have on many campuses, Israel Apartheid Week. You have student resolutions in favor of BDS, the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. You have anti Israeli and antisemitic tweets from professors. You had pro Israel Jews feeling unwelcome in student government or in progressive student organizations. And this was all before the attacks of October 2023. So how did the American academy and the students come to understand Israel as an occupying colonial power? Many of them would point to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. But that's not the way most Americans felt when that small nation was created.

Mark Oppenheimer 

After the Holocaust, much of the world believed that Jews deserved and needed a homeland. On November 29 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which would give Jews that homeland by dividing Great Britain's former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states. Each people would get its own country, while the UN would administer part of Jerusalem. For Jews, this would be the realization of the Zionist dream, a homeland in the ancestral and biblical home of Judaism. There have always been a small continuous presence of Jews in the area since ancient times. And their numbers had grown beginning in the 19th century, when the Zionist movement encouraged Jews to return to the land. But by now the land had a large Arab majority. And the Arabs did not want a Jewish state in their midst. Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN's arrangement and after months of fighting, between Jewish and Arabic paramilitary groups, Israel declared its independence on May 14 1948. At that point, armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt invaded to help the Palestinian Arabs. Israel defeated those armies. But during and after the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes. Many were forced out, while others left voluntarily, planning to someday return. For Palestinians, this defeat and displacement became known as the Nakba, or catastrophe. But this was all happening just several years after the Holocaust. And most Westerners were rooting for Israel, which they saw as a tiny fledgling nation threatened by the Muslim nations around it. That understanding pretty much held as consensus until the Six Day War in 1967. What happened was this. On June 5 1967, after months of heightened tensions with Egypt, Israel launched a preemptive attack. And that attack caught Egyptian forces by surprise. Egypt then closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and mobilized its military along its border with Israel. Syria and Jordan join the war, but Israel won decisively. And it was all over on June 10. Rachel Fish is the co founder of Boundless Israel, a think tank dedicated to Israel education and combating Jew hatred. Here she explains the ramifications of the Six Day War.

Rachel Fish 

Israel actually quickly succeeds in gaining a lot of territory that it never had access to previously. This territory of the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria is one of those pieces of territory. That territory, Judea and Samaria, is really the territory that is the land most discussed in the tradition of Judaism and in the Torah. It's where many of the events take place, in terms of religious experiences, religious moments. It is Joshua who enters the Land of Israel, the land of Israel is Eretz Israel. There is also the Gaza Strip, which was under Egyptian control. There's also the Golan Heights which was under Syrian control. There is also the Sinai Peninsula under Egyptian control, and also East Jerusalem, which had been under, again, trans Jordanian control. So that means from 1948 to 1967. Jews who were living in Israel proper, did not have the ability to visit the Old City in Jerusalem until after the events of 1967.

Mark Oppenheimer 

For American Evangelical Christians whom we've heard about on prior episodes, this outcome of the war was a sign of the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. But the occupation gradually changed the way that many other Americans understood Israel. Many intellectuals in Europe and the United States began to see the world through a post colonialist lens, meaning they see the world as a struggle between indigenous populations and the colonial powers that had conquered and displaced them

Rachel Fish 

After the events of 1967, and for sure, by the period of the early 1980s. Israel is no longer perceived as the David fighting against Goliath. And a shift is taking place in which Israel is now perceived as the Goliath. And that shift of Israel being perceived as the Goliath ultimately has implications for how Americans think of, perceive of Israel, particularly those Americans who are coming from positions of left of center politics, who frame much of their worldviews through a post colonialist lens. And through a world lens that if you are strong, you need to be weak and if you are weak, you need to be strengthened. And Israel in this case needs to be weakened in their perception.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Then, in 1977, the Israeli government began building settlements in the occupied West Bank, the area that it had seized from Jordan, but never officially annexed to Israel. Those settlements of course, were seen by many as further evidence that Israel was an illegal occupying power. In 1978, Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Accords, a historic peace treaty between former enemies and that laid the groundwork for future relations between Israel and other Arab nations. A few years later, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, but it kept control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Negotiations continued off and on, as Pro peace communities in Israel and the Arab world sought to reach a final status for these lands that were not part of Israel, but didn't have full autonomy either. Then, in 2000, the Israeli Palestinian peace process collapsed. That September, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in the Al Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem. It's a holy site for both Jews and Muslims. Sharon's visit led to protests and riots against the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. These protests became known as the Second Intifada, and they lasted for several years. During the Second Intifada, Israeli military operations led to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, and Palestinian rockets and suicide bombers killed and terrorized Israeli civilians. By this point, these territories had been occupied for many decades.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The following year, the United Nations hosted the 2001 World Conference against racism. Here's Professor Cary Nelson, author of the book, Israel Denial: Anti Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Faculty Campaign Against the Jewish State.

Cary Nelson

That year, United Nations Conference on racism was held in Durban, South Africa. Number of nations including the US walked out of the event, because it became an anti Zionist rally and an anti Zionist organizing session. Instead of an objective analysis of racism worldwide, there's a lot of racism worldwide. That conference would have had a lot of work to do. But it just set all of it aside to focus on Israel. And so many of the delegates said, Well, I don't need this, we don't need this. This isn't what we signed up for and walked out. But the delegates who remained adopted an infamous resolution, which was in the form of an equation, Zionism is racism, that was their resolution. And then they urged worldwide action to isolate and sanction Israel.

Mark Oppenheimer 

At the same time, the national representatives were meeting so were several nongovernmental organizations or NGOs. The NGO forum issued a declaration that referred to quote "Israel's brand of apartheid and other racist crimes against humanity." It also referred to Israeli war crimes, and it referred to its refusal to permit Palestinian refugees to return to quote "their homes of origin." The governmental conference in Durban didn't go that far, but it did refer to quote, "the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation."

Mark Oppenheimer 

But beyond these declarations, there was an abundance of antisemitism surrounding the conference. For instance, a group of protesters marched to the Durban Jewish Club to denounce the Jewish state. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was on sale at an exhibition tent set up for distribution of anti racist literature. There were anti Jewish T shirts, pamphlets, posters, and shortly before the Durban conference, the Iranian government had issued a statement denying the Holocaust. And let's remember, this was a conference in South Africa, where 20 years earlier, in the 1980s, the US had joined around two dozen other nations to impose economic sanctions against the apartheid regime. The sanctions and other forms of international pressure contributed to South African apartheid's downfall. So by associating Israel with apartheid and racism, Palestinians and their allies hope to apply similar international pressure. It was in this context that BDS the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement really began. Here's Cary Nelson again,

Cary Nelson

I think it's first important to say that the BDS movement was underway before it had a name. That is the BDS movement was getting work done, before it was called BDS. It was really inaugurated by a series of events in 2001.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The BDS movement is an international effort to apply diplomatic and economic pressure against the State of Israel. And the movement has a number of specific demands.

Cary Nelson

In 2005, the international BDS website established three demands, one, ending Israel's occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and mounting and dismantling the wall.

Mark Oppenheimer 

But what are Arab lands?

Cary Nelson 

That's a hotly debated subject. For many in Arab countries, the existence of a Jewish state anywhere in quote, Arab lands, is an unsupportable affront, it cannot be tolerated. From that perspective, Israel was a colonialist project from the late 19th century when Jewish settlement increased. Again, a colonialist entity from the moment the nation was founded in 1948. Many people, of course, regard the existence of a Jewish state between the boundaries established first in 1948, and then expanded in 1967, as a fait accompli, it ain't going nowhere. And so they consider only the territories occupied in the 1967 War, namely, the West Bank, to be effectively Arab or Palestinian lands. But a lot of the BDS movement regards Palestinian land as everything. And that's the message conveyed by the most popular BDS slogan, Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. And that's pretty clearly the river to the sea refers to the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And if that's everything that quote, will be free, it will be free because Israel is no longer there.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The second demand of BDS is full equality for Arab citizens of Israel. And the third demand is the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their places of origin.

Cary Nelson

And that includes Palestinians who are now citizens of the US, or citizens of France, or citizens of Britain and their children. In terms of actual refugees. Well, we're talking about, we're talking about 1948. That's over 70 years ago. If you were an adult in 1948, you probably aren't around anymore. There are very few actual refugees left. There are a few people over 100 years old, even small children say 10 years old in 1948. Many of them are no longer with us. Mostly these quote refugees are next generations. I don't know how many US citizens who are of Palestinian origin, would want to return to Israel. But Israel is never going to agree that as many millions as one can return, you would lose the possibility that Israel could be a Jewish state.

Mark Oppenheimer 

On its website, the BDS movement calls for boycotts of Israeli institutions and businesses, divestment from such companies, and sanctions on everything from Israeli trade, to its participation in world soccer tournaments. Many say that the BDS movement is inherently antisemitic. Is it?

Cary Nelson

If the BDS movement seeks the elimination of the Jewish state, that's an antisemitic motive. That's an antisemitic goal. If that's your core goal, and it is the BDS core goal, then it's an anti semitic movement. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, definition includes several bullet points that specifically address the issue of Israel. And they say denying the Jewish people their right to self determination by claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavor, is antisemitic.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has a working definition of antisemitism that is pretty simple. In a nutshell, antisemitism is, quote, "hatred toward Jews." The IHRA definition also lists examples of antisemitism. Some of these examples are uncontroversial, such as killing or harming Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. Other examples shouldn't be very controversial, like denying the Holocaust or accusing Jews of exaggerating it. But then there are some examples of antisemitism that pertain to the State of Israel. Here's one, quote, "denying the Jewish people their right to self determination, for example, by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor." Now, here, this definition of antisemitism could seem to be about just anti Zionism. There are definitely people whose views on the state of Israel are not motivated by Jew hatred. And plenty of people oppose all forms of nationalism, not just Zionism. So is everyone who supports the BDS movement antisemitic? Of course not. There are many supporters of BDS who do not hate Jews and who don't think that they are calling for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. There are also a good number of anti Zionist Jews who support BDS.

But what if we shift the question a bit? What if we ask, what has the BDS movement produced, not in Israel or the occupied territories, but in the US. First, it must be said that whether you support or despise it, in terms of practical effect, the BDS movement has failed in most sectors of the United States. It's true that some musicians refuse to play in Israel, and a few companies have aligned themselves with the movement. But as of April 2024, no universities had divested themselves of investments in Israel, or supported boycotts of Israeli institutions. Most companies that did business with Israel still do business with Israel.

Mark Oppenheimer 

In 2016, the US government adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, you can find it on the State Department website. So why all the turmoil about BDS? Well, it's because the BDS movement has gained a foothold in one influential sector of American culture, colleges and universities.

Mark Oppenheimer 

In December 2013, two professional academic associations, the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, voted to boycott Israeli universities. In November 2015. The National Women's Studies Association called for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of economic, military, and cultural entities and projects supported by the state of Israel. In 2022, the Middle East Studies Association followed suit. In 2023, the American Anthropological Association passed a resolution to boycott Israeli institutions.

Mark Oppenheimer 

That meant Israeli universities couldn't interview candidates at the organization's annual meeting, or advertise in its publications. Some academics scoff at the idea that these votes have any real effect on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Again, here's Cary Nelson.

Cary Nelson

I don't think a lot of Israelis lay in their beds at night, worrying about whether the Modern Language Association will vote for a boycott. They don't always notice that it's happening. But those votes can have a lot of impact on campuses. It can impact the academy, and the academy graduate students, those students go into the professions. They become teachers, politicians, ministers, everything. And so if you can seed the professions with passionate anti Zionists, you've accomplished something. So how do those academic Association votes help to do that? First of all, they give tremendous warrant to a particular discipline when a discipline votes for a boycott, for the faculty members in that discipline to teach anti Zionist courses. My discipline says Israel is a monster. I'm supposed to say it's a nice place. I mean, it justifies anti Zionist teaching.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Oftentimes, a relatively small number of scholars have pushed these votes through their professional organizations. Some big academic groups, like the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association, have rejected BDS resolutions. But the ideas of BDS trickled down to local academic institutions. Here's Rachel Fish.

Rachel Fish 

There have been times, particularly on American college campuses, in which specific departments, specific university leaders, specific university centers or programs have suggested that they will not invite Israeli or Zionist political figures, Israeli or Zionist academics. There have been some examples in which there are some universities who have declared that they will not share research and engage in research projects with other Israeli academics and Israeli institutions of higher ed and research centers.

Mark Oppenheimer 

For instance, some departments have ended study abroad programs in Israel, and they've ended other partnerships with Israeli universities. Critics then ask why these departments are singling out Israel for criticism. Perhaps it's just sympathy for the Palestinians. But how many of these departments are boycotting China because of its treatment of the Uyghurs? How many are boycotting Azerbaijan? You'd think the National Women's Studies Association would at least want to boycott Saudi Arabia as well because of its treatment of women. Why is it just Israel? In reply, supporters of BDS will often point to the fact that America has given so much military aid to Israel, more than to any other country since World War Two. And they say that that makes Americans complicit in ways that we're not complicit with the atrocities of other countries.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Another place where the BDS movement has achieved victories is in student government resolutions. Starting in 2002, dozens of student governments have passed resolutions in support of BDS. Now, these student governments often have no real power, they certainly don't control University endowments. But they may be representative of student sentiment at some schools. When these resolutions have been passed, most university administrators have politely parried BDS resolutions. Some academic leaders have swatted them down. In 2002, then Harvard President Lawrence Summers denounced the BDS movement in a memorial chapel address. He said, quote, "some here at Harvard and some at universities across the country have called for the university to single out Israel, among all nations, as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the university's endowment to be invested. I hasten to say the university has categorically rejected this suggestion."

Mark Oppenheimer 

Summers was Harvard's first Jewish President. He recalled that the America of his childhood had had little tolerance for antisemitism. Sure, there were still bigots, but they didn't make noise in the educational and governmental spaces where he had studied and worked. But Summers noticed that something had changed by 2002. He went on to say, quote, "but where antisemitism and views that are profoundly anti Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right wing populists, profoundly anti Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are antisemitic in their effect, if not in their intent."

Mark Oppenheimer 

And so, in a relatively short period of time, anti Israel activism found a home in many academic spaces, in professional associations, in student government councils, in progressive student organizations. Over 20 years, the intellectual currents of  decolonialism, merging with the BDS movement, have shaped the way that progressive and activist students understand Israel. And as the response to the Hamas attacks suggests, it has shaped the way other young Americans understand Israel too. They see Israel as a colonial power occupying Palestinian lands, and oppressing the Palestinians who live on them. Many see Israel as the white actor, oppressing people of color, but a majority of Israelis are not what we typically think of as white. Millions come from African and Arab lands and are darker skinned. But that hasn't stopped this oversimplification from sinking in. And there are other reasons that this line of anti Israel reasoning appeals to some students. They point to the rise of far right policies in Israel. The fact that the Republican Party in the US has embraced Israel so tightly. In 2022, after many years of debate, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper endorsed the BDS movement. In so doing, the Crimson editorial disavowed antisemitism.

Harvard Crimson 

We unambiguously oppose and condemn antisemitism in every and all forms, including those times when it shows up on the fringes of otherwise worthwhile movements. Jewish people, like every people, including Palestinians, deserve nothing but life, peace and security.

Mark Oppenheimer 

But Harvard's student newspaper argued,

Harvard Crimson 

It is our categorical imperative to side with and empower the vulnerable and oppressed. We can't nuance away Palestinians' violent reality, nor can we let our desire for a perfect imaginary tool undermine a living, breathing movement of such great promise.

Mark Oppenheimer 

So has anti Israel and anti Zionist activism spurred any growth in antisemitism on American college campuses? We'll take up that question after the break.

Mark Oppenheimer 

In 2021, the Anti Defamation League and Hillel International conducted a survey of Jewish students at American colleges and universities.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Here are some of the findings. About 1/3 of Jewish students reported a personal experience of antisemitism, or having witnessed something antisemitic on campus. That could be a slur in person or online. It could be a swastika on a poster, it could be vandalism. Fortunately, very few students reported being physically attacked or threatened.

Mark Oppenheimer 

15% of Jewish students have felt a need to hide their Jewish identity on campus. They might choose not to wear something that identified them as Jewish. They might avoid mentioning the fact that they were Jewish. There were some contradictory results. The survey found that most Jewish students reported that they felt welcome and safe. But out of the students who said they'd experienced antisemitism on campus, only half reported feeling welcome and safe. What's a bit tricky to know or document is the extent to which anti Israel activism contributes to this antisemitism. And looking at national statistics or stories in the media doesn't really help us make sense of the problem.

Mark Oppenheimer 

There are about 4000 colleges and universities in the United States and none of them is representative. But we're going to spend a little time thinking about George Washington University. Because it has two characteristics that may give us insight into recent history. First, GW has a large Jewish population, some estimate about 25% of its total student population. Second, GW is in the nation's capitol.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Michael Feuer, Dean of GW's Graduate School of Education and Human Development, explains how the university's location shapes the student body.

Michael Feuer 

What we like to tell people who are considering GW is that just think you could be living and working just four blocks from the White House. And it does actually mean that there is a certain special quality to the institution that attracts people who actually are interested in public service, public policy, government, and the like.

Mark Oppenheimer 

So GW is full of politically engaged students, young women and men aiming for careers in government, politics, and international affairs. But that doesn't mean the campus or its students are immune from antisemitic incidents. Alana Mondschein's experiences help us understand how some Jewish students have encountered antisemitism at GW, and how that's changed since October 2023.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Mondschein is a junior at GW majoring in Middle Eastern Studies. And she's the Co president of the Jewish Student Association. She wasn't naive about antisemitism on campus. As a high school student in Connecticut, she experienced antisemitism and she worked with the ADL to combat it.

Alana Mondschein 

Students saluting Hitler in the lunchroom, drawing swastikas on desks, drawing swastikas on walls in the bathroom. A kid ran down the hallway and yelled I hate the Jews. Holocaust jokes. You know, your classic like What's worse than the Holocaust, 6 million Jews, those type of things.

Mark Oppenheimer 

When she arrived on campus in the fall of 2022. It didn't take long for Mondschein to experience a different sort of antisemitism.

Alana Mondschein 

GW for Israel was hosting a speaker, I don't remember who the speaker was, on the roof.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Mondschein isn't a member of GW for Israel. But at the time, she was a freshman representative of the Jewish Student Association.

Alana Mondschein 

And so I went to Hillel two hours early so I could work on an essay. And I had my air pods and I was listening to music and all of a sudden I heard sirens. So I took my air pods out and I heard people chanting like what's going on? And so I looked out the window of the second floor and I saw all these people waving Palestinian flags and chanting "GW Hillel you have blood on your hands". "Intifada". I was very confused. I didn't know what was going on. I was very new on campus. I luckily had Sarah's contact information. She's our assistant director. I sent her a photo and I said, Hey, there's some protesters outside the Hillel building. And I kind of assumed that that had happened before. And she texted me back and she's like stay in the Hillel building like we're trying to figure it out. I later learned that that had never happened before. So they were yelling Intifada, a lot of very interesting things. And so I went to the window to see if they were still there, if I could leave the building, and they saw me. And they started yelling at me "war criminal, war criminal". And so it just assumed because I was in the Hillel building, because I was a Jewish student, that I supported the state of Israel's policies, I supported Netanyahu, that I was a war criminal. And so yeah, that was my experience, my orientation to antisemitism on campus. First time experiencing that type of antisemitism that was so focused on Israel.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Keep in mind, this was fall 2022, a year before the Hamas attacks on Israel, and this wasn't the only incident at GW. Here's a quick rundown of other incidents on campus before October 7 2023. In 2018, the GW Student Senate passed a resolution calling on the university to divest itself from companies that, quote, "provide goods and services to Israeli military forces used to bomb hospitals in Gaza, bulldoze Palestinians' homes, construct illegal apartheid walls, and further suppress and violate Palestinian human rights." The university rejected that demand. In 2021, a Torah scroll was ripped apart and covered with detergent in a GW fraternity house. Now, the incident occurred during a wider act of vandalism, and it isn't clear if the vandals targeted the Torah. During the fall of 2022, students complained about Lara Sheehi, a professor of psychology at GW. She taught a required class for first year grad students in professional psychology. And students were upset by some of her rhetoric in class as well as a cascade of tweets, in which she expressed profane rage against Zionism and the State of Israel. A 2016 report by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University identified GW as a hotspot of campus antisemitism. Some student experiences, like Mondschein's encounter with protesters who called her a war criminal, seem to bear out the Cohen Center's findings. But other evidence suggests a more complicated picture, at least before October 7 2023. Adena Kirstein is the executive director of GW Hillel, and she's been on campus for 14 years. The first time we spoke to her was October 3.

Adena Kirstein 

I think that the news likes to harp on college campuses, but it's a global problem we're having. Are there incidents that are problematic? Absolutely. Do I think GW as a whole has an antisemitism problem? Definitely not. If you talk to an average student this year, and you said, Oh, do you talk about antisemitism a lot with your friends? Are you concerned? I can almost guarantee you, none of them would say yes, it's just not a part of their day to day.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Then four days later, on October 7, Hamas terrorists killed 1200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took about 200 hostages. On October 10, some GW students gathered at the universities Kogan Plaza. They came not to mourn those who lost their lives in the attack, but to honor the perpetrators.

Mark Oppenheimer 

According to the campus's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, it was "a vigil in honor of our martyrs." The organizers told students to cover their faces with masks or keffiyehs to protect themselves from retribution. In keeping with messages from Students for Justice in Palestine national steering committee, GW's chapter declared its quote, "full support of the liberation of our homeland, and our people's right to resist the violent 75 year long colonization of our homeland by any means necessary." The chapter also said "this past weekend we witnessed them breaking free, tearing down the prison walls, and making it known to the world we will be caged no longer." The GW chapter's statement connected the Hamas attacks and other forms of Palestinian resistance to arguments about decolonization. The group declared quote, "decolonization is not a metaphor, and it is not an abstract academic theory to be discussed and debated in classrooms and papers." Instead, the statement continued, "decolonization is the right of any oppressed people to pursue liberation from their oppressors, including through armed resistance." GW has more than 25,000 students and only about 100 came to the rally. So while only a small percentage of the student body publicly celebrated the Hamas attack, that group did make itself noticed. They chanted "Zionism has got to go," "Intifada Intifada," and "From the river to the sea. Palestine will soon be free."

Mark Oppenheimer 

Protests on campus grew when, in retaliation, Israel launched missile strikes on targets in Gaza and then invaded the territory. Thousands of Palestinians would die, many of them the elderly, women and children. On the evening of October 24 2023, Students for Justice in Palestine projected slogans in huge letters on the side of GW's Main Library. The slogan said "Free Palestine from the river to the sea." "GW is complicit in genocide in Gaza." "GW the blood of Palestine is on your hands," and "glory to our martyrs." In March 2024, after the war had been going on for several months, we spoke to Adena Kirstein again. She shared her reaction to this protest,

Adena Kirstein 

When you are calling for the end of a Jewish state, from the river to the sea, to me, that lens is very antisemitic. Now I understand and can empathize and try to understand why some don't see it that way. But it feels like a personal attack on Jewish identity. This terrorist attack happened on October 7, not because it's any country in any place in the world, it happened because it's the Jewish state. So what springs from that incident, that horrible day, oftentimes reads to me more as antisemitic and me as maybe I was once willing to say, well, you know, anti Zionism, antisemitism, they're different things. A lot more lands personally these days. And it's messy. It's a messy conversation to have because, you know, you could talk to five Jews and have five different opinions on where the line is between antisemitism and anti Zionism. And some, I'm sure would call me naive. I still want to believe a lot of what's happening on campus is about ignorance, and about a lack of willingness to really unpack and understand where Jews are coming from.

Mark Oppenheimer 

For Kirstein, the unwillingness to have messy hard conversations was evident when protesters came into the GW Hillel building, and tore down posters calling for the release of Israeli hostages.

Adena Kirstein 

We had posters that were ripped down on the inside of the building, I would say that story did not make the biggest headlines. But in my mind, it was the biggest, I don't want to say assault. I think that's too strong a word. But the biggest hurtful thing that happened, because we have tried to create the safe haven where it's the one place that our students I don't think have to feel they have to do mental gymnastics, to talk about this conflict. And in that space, someone came inside to take down these posters. When you come to bring an anti Israel message to a Jewish base, that's antisemitic. We're not checking everybody's Zionist card at the door. We don't know when a student walks in. And we don't ask them by the way, how do you feel about the Israel war right now? How do you feel about Bibi Netanyahu? That's not a conversation we're having. So when you come and say, We're against a foreign power doing what they're doing, and we're gonna protest you Jewish people on campus, it crosses a line. And I would hope, I would hope that sane minds would recognize that. And think about that, as they're navigating their desire to meet change in the world.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The anti Israel protests at GW after October 7, were highly visible. And for some, they called into question the idea of the university as a space for the safe, free exchange of ideas. Here's Dean Michael Feuer,

Michael Feuer 

We had one episode where a group had gathered with what I referred to later as a form of electronic graffiti and projected onto the wall of our library, which it struck some of us as not just ironic, but really troublesome that the place on campus devoted to the opening of the academic mind becomes the place for some very potent anti Israel, antisemitic rhetoric.

Mark Oppenheimer 

And even when people are willing to have those tough conversations, there often isn't a clear line between when anti Israel protests are antisemitic and when they aren't. That line has become even murkier as protests over the Israel Hamas war continue to unfold.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Here's Alana Mondschein again.

Alana Mondschein 

So I rely a lot on my experience with the ADL and my familiarity with their definitions. So I personally don't think just saying the word Intifada is inherently antisemitic, I think it can be used in ways that are antisemitic, I think that it's not inherently antisemitic. I also sometimes have debates with myself of if river to the sea is antisemitic. I think the way that SJP uses it is antisemitic, because they are calling for the dissolution of the State of Israel, taking away Israel as a Jewish state, and I think that is antisemitic, because the reason they don't want it to exist is because it is a Jewish state.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Some of that anti Zionist rhetoric is rooted in a long history of conspiracy theories about Jews.

Alana Mondschein 

A lot of the statements that SJP released on our campus was the Zionist donors are controlling the university, the Zionist donors, the Zionist money, the Zionist are controlling. Be a little creative, that's antisemitic. We've heard that before. That is the Jews control everything. Jews have all the money, Jews are super powerful. Definitely you're not hiding it. I think that if you're calling for an end to the occupation, if you're referring to the end of the occupation of the West Bank, getting rid of settlements, ending a lot of the control that Israel has surrounding where Gaza is, that I don't think is antisemitic, that is a legitimate criticism of the State of Israel. I think that you can criticize Israel without being anti semitic. I criticize Israel. However, when you're talking about just getting rid of the Jewish state, because it's a Jewish state that is antisemitic.

Mark Oppenheimer 

The most important question isn't whether this or that slogan or action is antisemitic. It's whether anti Zionist movements have created space for antisemitism on campus. Intentionally or not, they surely have created that space. They've created an environment in which it's conceivable that a freshman student could be called a war criminal while writing an essay in a Hillel building.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Yair Rosenberg, a staff writer for The Atlantic explains,

Yair Rosenberg 

Brecause there's a certain group of people who have been around for thousands of years, right, who I would argue vastly outnumber people who particularly care about Israelis and Palestinians and their conflict, who are obsessed with Jews, and Israel has half the world's Jews, it's the mother lode of Jews. So if you are negatively obsessed with Jews, you are going to be drawn to Israel like a lightning rod. And if you hear people saying we're advocating a total suffocating boycott of half the world's Jews. Antisemites are going to come up to you and say, I want in. They're like, this sounds like a great party. I would like to join. And unless the people at the door of the party are carding at the door, and they say, you know, why do you want to join this party where we're engaged in criticism of Israel? Why do you want to join our movement? They're just gonna let those people in. Political movements do this all the time.

Mark Oppenheimer 

In other words, on a college campus, just like anywhere else, if you hold a protest critical of Israel, you're gonna get a mix of people coming. You're going to get people who criticize Israel in good faith. And you're going to get some people who hate Jews. When thinking about the history of antisemitism in the US, it's clear something has changed over the past 20 years. There is more overt antisemitism on campus now.

Mark Oppenheimer 

What's the reason? Well, multiple factors, their social media, the polarization of American society, and well, anti Zionism is a factor. It's a thread running through many, if not most, instances of campus antisemitism at GW and around the country. The BDS movement and related anti Israel anti Zionist movements have contributed to an increase in antisemitism. And anti Zionism has seeped into many politically progressive spaces, which attract a lot of politically engaged Jews. So, in a lot of ways, the anti Zionist movements of the early 21st century have made it difficult for Jewish students, many of whom are Zionists to navigate campus life.

Mark Oppenheimer 

What should universities do, so that students - Jewish and otherwise - feel safe and free to express themselves? Here again, is GW's Michael Feuer,

Michael Feuer

Those that say anti Zionism is not antisemitism, I think they're missing the point about how some anti Israelism does, in fact, either come from or promote antisemitism, and therefore in a place like a university, that would be something where a lot of open minded people would benefit from some real engagement on the topic.

Mark Oppenheimer 

American university administrators can't solve problems in the Middle East, nor can student activists. When a crisis arises, like the October 7 attacks on the war in Gaza, universities scramble to establish policies that regulate speech. They throw together panels of experts, they try to craft the right statements. They try to figure out which students to punish, they make mistakes. That's because universities aren't built for crisis management. But they are built for education. They should teach, they should offer programs and classes in which students explore a range of perspectives about Zionism and anti Zionism, about the history of Israel and its present day politics. Some universities do offer these classes, but others don't. And that's increasingly true, because enrollment is plunging in the humanities. Many people have joked that students chanting from the river to the sea often can't name which river or which sea. And that's not just a joke. Pro Israel students, by the way, are often just as ill informed as anti Israel students. There are so many fewer history majors than when I was in college. So many fewer students studying foreign languages or foreign cultures. partly as a result, the vast majority of American college and university students know very little about antisemitism, Zionism, the modern state of Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, any of it. They don't know how to have the conversation. And that's assuming that they even want to. And these are problems that universities might be able to address.

Mark Oppenheimer 

Thank you for listening to Antisemitism, U.S.A. it's a production of R2 Studios, part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Visit R2studios.org for a complete transcript of today's episode and for suggestions for further reading. I'm your host Mark Oppenheimer. Antisemitism, U.S.A. is written by John Turner and Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevis is our lead scholar, Jim Ambuske is our producer, Jeanette Patrick is our executive producer. We'd like to thank Zev Eleff for being our lead advisor and we'd like to thank our advisory board members, Laura Shaw Frank, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Jonathan Sarna. Our graduate assistants are Rachel Birch and Amber Pelham. Our thanks to Rachel Fish, Cary Nelson, Michael Feuer, Alana Mondschein, Adena Kirstein, and Yair Rosenberg for sharing their expertise with us in this episode. We're able to bring you this show through the generosity of the Henry Luce Foundation, the David Bruce Smith Foundation, and many individual donors like you. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us for the next episode.