In last week’s newsletter we talked about the phony antisemitism controversy at Berkeley’s School of Law. Here’s the gist of it:
The campus group Law Students for Justice in Palestine wrote a bylaw in support of the BDS movement. Part of that bylaw commits organizations to not inviting speakers that express Zionist views or hosting events “in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” Nine student organizations have embraced the bylaw. Pro-Israel groups, websites, lawmakers, and even Barbra Streisand have framed this as school setting up “Jewish free zones,” which is obviously a lie.
On October 3 there was congressional field hearing on countering violent extremism, terrorism, and antisemitic threats. The committee’s vice chair is Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and he cited the situation while asking Rutgers Hillel Interim Executive Director Rabbi Esther Reed a question.
“Surveys indicate that the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community identifies as pro-Israel,” Torres claimed. “So if a student association adopts a policy that has the real world effect of excluding most of the Jewish community. Is it fair to see that as a policy where how anti-Zionism in policy could morph into antisemitism in practice?”
Reed dutifully confirmed Torres’ theory.
There’s obviously a number of surveys regarding Jewish opinions towards Zionism, but if you’re pro-Israel there’s some you have to consistently ignore. Like the Jewish Electorate Institute 2021 poll on the subject. The group found that 25% of Jewish voters believe Israel is an apartheid state, 34% think Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is akin to racism in the United States, and 22% think Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.
When you’re talking about young Jewish people (like college students), the numbers are even more staggering. According to that same poll 38% of Jews under 40 think Israel’s an apartheid state, 43% think Israel’s racism is akin to the United States’, and 33% think the country is carrying out a genocide against Palestinian people. 20% of Jewish voters under 40 said that Israel does not have a right to exist.
Torres is once again using Jews as an excuse to smear Palestine campus activists. That won’t stop no matter what the polling says.
Trump Book
There’s an amazing little detail in New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.
Late GOP mega donor Sheldon Adelson was able to pressure Trump into moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by donating $20 million to a super PAC working to elect him. “As a candidate, Trump promised that he would open an embassy in Jerusalem ‘fairly quickly,’ and after his victory, Adelson pushed him to act on it,” writes Haberman. “Over meetings during the transition and first year of the administration, Adelson assured Trump that the nightmare scenarios that he would be warned about in briefings as a possibility following such a move were overblown.”
The first person I saw pick up on this was Eli Clifton at Responsible Statecraft. The Biden administration has taken no steps to reverse the controversial Trump move.
At the site Phil Weiss writes about how the media dropped the ball on Adelson’s influence throughout its Trump coverage. “The Adelson purchase of U.S. foreign policy was well known throughout the Trump presidency, but our leading media never made that much of it,” says Weiss. “Sheldon and Miriam Adelson poured $133 million into Republican and Trump campaigns in 2016, but the media always downplayed the Adelsons’ intent. For instance, NPR had put the focus on Sheldon Adelson’s casino holdings, as if gambling regulations were his chief concern..The Times actually misrepresented the embassy move in 2018, saying that Trump was delivering for Christian evangelicals.”
He also reminds us of an ironic 2015 Trump tweet, back when it seemed like Adelson might back Rubio during the GOP primary: “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”
Odds & Ends
?? While speaking at World Zionist Organization conference in August Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt recited his about mantra anti-Zionism being antisemitism, but also warned that more and more Jews were beginning to criticize the ideology:
But the reality is that just because you are Jewish doesn’t exempt you from trafficking in anti-Zionism. Just like you can be someone who is a person of color, that doesn’t exempt them from trafficking in racism. We have got to deal with this openly…The reality is that yeah, It is still a minority. But that’s how all threats start, small and on the edges and on the margin, and it’s up to us with honesty and with conviction to confront it, to challenge it and to wrestle with it…Look, the future is bright, but we have to steel ourselves because this will be a fight…. We weren’t given this covenant that life would be easy. Life is not easy, it’s hard.
He also said that Palestinians could benefit from embracing Zionism.
?️ Ridiculous frame/article/headline from Newsweek after Bella Hadid criticized Kanye West’s recent antisemitic comments: Pro-Palestine Bella Hadid Slams Ye’s Antisemitism: Not ‘What We Stand For’
?️ Wellesley College’s student paper is facing attacks from pro-Israel groups because it ran an editorial that called for the liberation of Palestine and cited The Mapping Project’s work. Wellesley Students for Justice in Palestine have put out a statement breaking down the situation up to this point.
? J Street had a tweet about an IDF soldier being killed at a checkpoint earlier this month: “We are heartbroken by the deadly terror attack against a checkpoint in East Jerusalem last night, in which 18-year-old IDF soldier Sgt. Noa Lazar was tragically killed, and two members of the Israeli border police along with a security guard were wounded.”
Noura Erakat replies: “Someone please explain how an attack against active duty soldiers is a ‘terror’ Is this just an illustration of the evacuation of meaning from terrorism as a crime? Should we just understand terrorism as referring to identity of assailants and victims but not il/legitimacy of violence?”
? 7amleh and 15 partner organizations have launched “Meta, #LetPalestineSpeak” campaign to demand that the tech company refrain from anti-Palestinian censorship:
Double standards in content moderation policies are silencing the Palestinian narrative and violating Palestinian digital rights. This creates a chilling effect among Palestinians. Furthermore, over moderation erases the documentations of human rights violations, thus, interfering with investigations of war crimes against Palestinians, dissuading political participation as a result of the systematic muzzling of Palestinians online. According to our research, two thirds of Palestinian youth are afraid to voice their political opinions online. This negatively influences public opinion about the Palestinian freedom struggle by spreading stereotypes of Palestinains, while simultaneously preventing Palestinians from raising awareness for their cause. Meta must stop silencing Palestinian voices and narratives. Content moderation policies need to be equal, objective, transparent, and clear for all.
?? State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked about the deteriorating situation in the West Bank this week.
“We are regularly and tangibly engaging with our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts. Ambassador Nides, senior individuals from this building, Hady Amr, others – they are in regular contact with Palestinians and Israelis,” he told reporters. “We’ve made the point again and again that Israelis and Palestinians deserve to have equal measures of security, of stability, of justice, of dignity and democracy. That is what animates our approach, and we’ve been deeply concerned that the recent period has seen a sharp and alarming increase in Palestinian, Israeli deaths and injuries, including numerous children who have been implicated in this violence.”
Of course the implication is that this all happening in some bubble. There’s no mention about the region being illegally occupied or Israel’s violence being facilitated by the United States government.
?? Hebh Jamal at the site: Meet Nerdeen Kiswani, the most targeted Palestinian activist in America.
Stay safe out there,
Michael
