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Letter Flap Illustrates Increasingly Hostile Campus Climate for Israel
Supporters
by Ariel Behar
IPT News
November 5, 2018
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After he criticized Hamas in a 2014 Facebook post, Connecticut College
Professor Andrew Pessin was forced into a sabbatical due to threats and faculty
ostracism. On the same campus, however, rabidly anti-Israel speakers were invited, including
one who pushed the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Israel harvested
Palestinians' organs and engaged in medical experimentation.
One of Pessin's colleagues later said he couldn't recommend Connecticut College to Jewish
students because of "the harassment of Jews on campus in the name of
fighting for social justice."
It was part of a rising tide of anti-Semitic episodes on American
university campuses.
The University of Michigan drew unwanted attention last month when a professor reneged
on a previous commitment to write a letter of recommendation for a student
hoping to study abroad. What changed? The Jewish student wanted to study in
Israel and the professor, John Cheney-Lippold, supports an academic boycott
of the Jewish state as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement.
Meanwhile, pro-Israel speakers routinely are shouted down and Jewish
students report feeling intimidated. The following examples all took place
last month:
· University of Minnesota protesters shouted "f***ing Zionists,"
"no more death, no more lies, Israel out of Palestine," and
"you're a bunch of war criminals," outside a pro-Israel event
with IDF soldiers. The founder of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) filmed
the protesters as attendees filed in.
· When the University of Houston Hillel sponsored an event featuring
Israeli Druze and Christian reservists, fliers were defaced with messages like "Blood is on your
hands, Israel kills children, pregnant woman, medical volunteers," and
"Complicit in genocide of Palestinians."
· Pro-Israel leaflets at a University of Missouri bus stop were torn down and defaced with the slogan "from
the river to the sea Palestine will be free," a call for Israel's
elimination.
Anti-Semitic incidents on U.S. college campuses increased 59 percent
last year, an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) study found.
"There is a heightened sense of fear for students to label
themselves as 'pro-Israel,'" University of Michigan student, Talia
Katz, a senior studying public policy, told the Investigative Project on
Terrorism. Israel has become an increasingly polarizing issue and in
effect, she said, "the fear of being outwardly pro-Israel stems from a
fear of being accused of supporting Trump, racism, Islamophobia, and other
social views vehemently disavowed by the student body and faculty."
Cheney-Lippold's actions are "counter to our values and
expectations as an institution," a University of Michigan statement
said. The university "has consistently opposed" boycotting
Israel, a spokesman told the Chronicle of Higher Education. He won't
get a raise this year and the university froze his sabbatical eligibility.
"I think it's wildly inappropriate for a professor to let his
political views get in the way of his relationships and responsibilities to
students," Katz told the IPT.
Cheney-Lippold said he "firmly stand[s] by my decision, as I
stand against all injustice and inequality. I hope others stand with me in
protesting a government that has created a legal system that favors Jewish
citizens' right to self-determination over Palestinians.'"
Not long after, a Michigan graduate student instructor invoked BDS in
refusing a student's letter of recommendation request.
"My action attests to my ongoing engagement with the theory and
practice of social justice pedagogy as well as my concern for the
injustices suffered by Palestinians," Lucy Peterson wrote in an op-ed in the campus newspaper. "In my
classroom, I try to make as much space as possible for intellectual and
political disagreement and for the voices of marginalized students."
The university once again took heat when a speaker at a required lecture compared
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolph Hitler.
It is important to note that comparing Israel or Israeli policy to
Hitler and Nazi Germany meets the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Katz detailed the many anti-Semitic tropes that have been seen on
campus, such as a cartoon depicting Jews as pigs with bags of money.
"However, when other speakers come to campus who are perceived to be
racist, sexist, or offensive to other minority identities, the University
blasts out e-mails to the student body, offering emotional support,
providing mental health resources, and detailing their disagreements with
the controversial speakers," calling it a double standard.
To add insult to injury, Michigan's Center for Middle Eastern and North
African Studies (CMENAS) hosted a teach-in about what motivates artists and
musicians to join the BDS movement last Monday.
The BDS movement is seen as anti-Semitic because it sets a
double-standard and holds the only Jewish state accountable for perceived
injustices. Many of its supporters also advocate the end of Israel's existence. Furthermore,
the BDS movement has contributed to the plight of Palestinians, the very
cause it seeks to support.
Organizers carried on with the BDS teach-in even though it came two days
after an anti-Semitic gunman murdered 11 Jews at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life
synagogue. "Frankly, we considered canceling the event
altogether," said CMENAS director Samer Ali. "But violence is
contagious...BDS is the most important global issue for thousands of
students on the U-M campus."
So according to Ali, isolating the world's only Jewish state
economically, politically, and intellectually is more important to
thousands of Michigan students than any domestic issue, or than the deaths
of thousands of Syrians, jailed journalists around the globe, or climate
change.
He might be right, but what does that say about the motivations and
priorities of BDS advocates?
As a result of the increasing intensity of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel
incidents, "I sometimes would cover up my Israel sticker on my laptop
to avoid confrontation," Katz said. "Some students in my small
public policy program regularly wear kaffiyehs and protest the Israel-related
events I attend."
Universities are meant to include the exchange and flow of ideas in
order to help shape students' minds for the world in which they will enter.
And academic freedom used to include the principle that the university was
a place where all ideas could be debated, even the most offensive. A
professor's refusal to help a student study stands in direct opposition to
that. The University of Michigan needs to do better in including its Jewish
and pro-Israel students.
Related Topics: Campus
| Ariel Behar,
University
of Michigan, BDS,
John
Cheney-Lippold, anti-Israel
faculty, Lucy
Peterson, CMENAS,
Samer
Ali, Talia
Katz, Andrew
Pessin, anti-Semitism
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