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“Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by about 400% in slightly over two weeks since war broke out in the Middle East after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said [last] Wednesday… The ADL Center on Extremism said preliminary data showed 312 reported U.S. antisemitic incidents from Oct. 7 to Oct. 23, including harassment, vandalism and assault.” Reuters
“A 21-year-old Cornell University junior was charged Tuesday for making online threats to Jewish students at the Ivy League school… In a post in an online discussion board, prosecutors said, the student allegedly threatened to ‘shoot up’ a campus building. In another post, he said he he would ‘stab’ or ‘slit the throat’ of Jewish men, and rape or throw off a cliff Jewish women he encounters on campus.” NBC News
Both sides condemn antisemitism and call for steps to protect Jewish communities:
“A Columbia professor called the Hamas massacre ‘awesome’ and a ‘stunning victory.’… A Chicago art professor posted a note reading, ‘Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement…. May they all rot in hell.’ A UC Davis professor tweeted, ‘Zionist journalists… have houses w addresses, kids in school,’ adding ‘they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.’ There are, sadly, countless other examples…
“There has been enough silence and enough tolerance of antisemitism on college campuses. I call on my fellow university administrators to speak out and denounce the celebrations of Hamas and the blatant antisemitism that is being voiced. Students have the right to say very offensive and even hateful things, but school administrators — deans, presidents and chancellors — have free speech rights too. They must exercise them and take a stand.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times
“‘Settlers are not civilians,’ declared a Yale professor, an effort at dehumanizing the victims of Palestinian terrorism that included infants… At Tulane University in New Orleans, video captured a Jewish freshman who was marching with an Israeli flag being assaulted by several Hamas supporters. His nose was broken in the attack…
“The antisemitic activities are not confined to college campuses… Massive pro-Hamas marches have taken place in all major cities. Protesters temporarily shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Central Terminal. Swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti has been found in areas with vibrant Jewish communities… State and local law enforcement need to work closely with the federal authorities to identify, arrest, and prosecute those who are threatening or engaging in violence.”
The Editors, National Review
Other opinions below.
“The various -isms and -phobias were allegedly the exclusive province of the Right, including antisemitism. Events since October 7 have disproven that… All that’s missing from some of the pro-Gaza rallies are the torches and the high-and-tight haircuts. But the underlying sentiment is closely related. The neo-Nazis in Charlottesville chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’; the pro-Gaza protesters chant, ‘Free Palestine from the river to the sea.’…
“Red America is supposed to be backward and intolerant, and Blue America open-minded and welcoming. It’s not true. It wasn’t some rural area no one had heard of that had to warn Jews to stay away from a kosher dining hall, but Cornell University, a member of the Ivy League in good standing ensconced in deep-blue Ithaca, N.Y.”
Rich Lowry, National Review
“The 312 incidents the ADL recorded include a car carrying individuals with Palestinian flags allegedly swerving toward a Jewish family and several alleged assaults by pro-Palestinian protesters…
“These and too many other incidents to count put paid to the notion that one can distinguish anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism since Oct. 7. If protesters wanted to burn Israeli flags in a fit of wrong-headed pique about a two-state solution, that is one thing. Only anti-Jewish hate can explain how synagogues, children and airports are targets of this outrage. Yet many Western intellectuals—and a growing number of politicians—insist on maintaining this false distinction.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“The vast majority of American Jews have no use for the corrupt Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his regime — or its racism, authoritarian power grabs and reckless settlement policy designed to undermine a two-state solution…
“[But] The far left needs to be confronted about its morally empty attempts to draw an equivalence between the premeditated murders committed by Hamas terrorists and the military action of Israel as it tries to incapacitate the terrorists. There aren’t very fine people on both sides.”
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
“Judaism is a beautiful religion and culture, of which I am proudly a part, that has been around for thousands of years. Zionism is a 125-year-old political philosophy that has solidified into the idea that Jews need their own ethno-state… This conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism isn’t about protecting Jews. It is a way of isolating, shaming, and even ruining individuals who oppose the war agenda of the Israeli state… Its assertion also pours gasoline on the fires of anti-Semitism by creating a savagely unfair guilt by association…
“An entire generation of young Jews, to paraphrase Peter Beinert a decade ago, are feeling forced to choose between their progressive principles and support for Israel’s total war—and they are choosing their principles. Through organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, Jewish youth are looking at Israel’s human rights violations and saying clearly, ‘Not in our name.’”
Dave Zirin, The Nation
