Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism - but they're part of a rightwing plan

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/11/us-university-protests-antisemitism-free-speech

No paywall link
https://archive.li/lj0SQ

Since 7 October, commentators have been ringing the alarm that a growing protest movement in solidarity with Palestine signals not just the end of a “golden age” for American Jews – as Franklin Foer recently put it in the Atlantic – but for American liberal democracy itself.

As Foer wrote, the “surge of antisemitism is a symptom of the decay of democratic habits, a leading indicator of rising authoritarianism”. Writing before the start of the encampments, he noted that Columbia was “a graphic example of the collapse of the liberalism that had insulated American Jews: it is a microcosm of a society that has lost its capacity to express disagreements without resorting to animus”. Meanwhile, on CNN, the anchor Dana Bash invoked 1930s Europe – “and I do not say that lightly … the fear among American Jews is palpable right now”.

There is no doubt that many Jewish students – especially those raised to believe that their Jewish identity is indivisible from the political ideology of Zionism – feel uncomfortable, or that many of them feel ostracized by their peers. But their discomfort has justified a powerful attack on academic freedom and first amendment rights that long predates the student encampments – part of a longstanding rightwing project to curb speech and reshape the public sphere.

Foer and Bash are right that American democracy is imperiled. But as the draconian crackdown on non-violent student protests makes clear, accusations of antisemitism are not themselves evidence of liberal decline, but rather the tip of the spear in a frightening illiberal project serving the agenda of an emboldened, autocratic right wing.

*snip*

[keithbvadu2]

1. Right wingers hate both the Jews and the Muslims. They can use either one against Biden.

[brooklynite]

2. Democratic Mayor in NYC, Democratic Mayor in Philadelphia, Democratic Mayor in DC, Democratic Mayor in Los Angeles.....

Let me know where the "right wing" kicks in.

[RockRaven]

3. Very few who play the part of a useful idiot ever admit that is what happened.

I don't expect any different in this case.

[Sympthsical]

4. Risible

"There is no doubt that many Jewish students – especially those raised to believe that their Jewish identity is indivisible from the political ideology of Zionism – feel uncomfortable"

LOL. You know. Those brainwashed Jews.

Jesus Effing Christ. What is this doing on DU?

You know, here's a radical thought - if we ourselves had gotten our own house in order and grappled with antisemitism on our own side the minute it reared its ugly, genocidal head, the right-wing wouldn't have this kind of opening to go after academia in a more generalized fashion.

But so many people refused to see it. They actively turned their heads away from it. They still won't admit to seeing it. They'll still defend it, run interference for it, and absurdly claim we're not seeing exactly what we're seeing - what's on video for fuck's sake.

Now there's this, "You have to go back to pretending you don't see antisemitism, because the right-wing . . ."

This is limp and pathetic and desperate.

And also, no. Shan't.

[Mosby]

5. The author is an anti-zionist marxist.

Everyone is to the right of her, including Biden.

As the White House repeatedly accuses the students of antisemitism, in a tacit endorsement of the police swarming university campuses, it’s worth taking the students’ word for why they’re there in the first place: Biden’s disastrous foreign policy, in which every opportunity for Israeli accountability has been spurned, has turned Gaza into a mass grave – off the charts compared with any other contemporary conflict by every metric – and brought the entire Middle East to the brink of all-out regional war.

[Sympthsical]

8. It feels like watching terrible helicopter parents

You know the kind. They have a child who is completely out of pocket, and they make no effort to get their unruly kid under any kind of control. Then, after the kid causes nonstop chaos all over the school, the teacher and principal finally take action.

Who's the bad guy? The principal and teacher, of course! Their precious angel should be celebrated at every turn. But that vile administration is being deeply unfair and just has it out for a Johnny who recently just finished up smearing shit across the blackboard. Then they show up at the school board meeting insisting people should be fired and replaced. Their parenting, the tolerance and indulgence for their child's awful behavior, is not even a whisper of an element in their self-awareness or thinking.

That's the kind of delusion this stuff reads like. And then, after they've allowed all the damage to be done - and precipitated much of it - they'll come around later with, "Gee, the school isn't as good as it used to be . . ."

And then you're kind of sad that these people managed to reproduce, and that their awful kid is going to be unleashed upon the world to bother everyone else with his dysfunction. He'll be everyone else's problem.

That precious angel.

[Cha]

9. "Accusations Of Anti-Semitism" WIth Damn Good CAUSE.

We don't need some Vote Depressing Anti Semitic Idiot telling us what is Anti Semitism and who's Blaring it out of their ugly Bigoted mouths.

This GD article is full of Jewish Hate.

What's the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?

Anti-Semitism is "hostility and prejudice directed against Jewish people" (OED).

Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel, and thus support for the modern state of Israel. Anti-Zionism opposes that.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36160928

[Earthrise]

6. Yes! Indiana State Police had snipers on the student union

overlooking Dunn Meadow in case protesters got out of hand.

https://democraticunderground.com/100218941870

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. K&R.