Based on the fight for civil rights, the Vietnam War sparked a massive mobilization at U.S. universities. Since then, few events have mobilized students as much as the Gaza War, which shares some key features with the earlier conflict: the image of a powerful army subjugating a helpless population; generational differences (young Americans are more pro-Palestinian than their elders); the conflict as a catalyst for broader trends; and finally the belief in the rejection of war as a justified cause in both cases.
But there are also many differences between the two. Race is the first important difference. In the 1960s, universities were predominantly white, while today's universities have many more students of other races who understand the Palestinian struggle as a form of final resistance to colonialism. Protesters against the Gaza war echo condemnation of police brutality against African Americans that rocked the United States in 2014 and 2020. But even in the racial protests of the last decade, the demonstrations did not reach the level of polarization and violence of the current ones, in which accusations of anti-Semitism have become another casus belli alongside the war itself.
Today's anti-war protest differs from that of the 1960s, promoted by the Beat Generation and the hippie movement, because the former pits equals against equals: Jewish students who say they feel unsafe in the face of their own fellow students and their calls for Intifada. The tension has moved from the bottom up, reaching university management and igniting a political firestorm a year before the elections. In fact, the situation reached an even higher level when a federal investigation examined whether a dozen schools, including some of the most prestigious in the country, violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law that prohibits discrimination based on race. Skin color or origin by allowing anti-Semitic demonstrations.
As the campus demographics have changed, the political pressure and demands placed on university management, including from many donors, have also changed. The latter have put the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in an untenable situation. Case in point: Liz Magill resigned after a donor threatened to withdraw $100 million in funding. Harvard University's Claudine Gay is still in the hot seat, not only for failing to explicitly condemn hate speech on her campus during a congressional hearing, but also for plagiarism allegations that have forced her to review several articles. Like Gay's, Sally Kornbluth's image appears on banners and posters with derogatory slogans. The controversy over alleged anti-Semitism is the Republicans' new battering ram against their opponents.
Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, summarizes the background to the debate. “Since the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, there has been a general polarization of political opinion. This polarization has also found its way into universities. At the same time, there is a growing tendency to silence or even ban the opinions, speeches and writings of those who contradict one's own views. This has happened both on the right and on the left. Among conservatives, this trend has manifested itself primarily in bans on speech and writings that are critical of American history and racism; Among liberals, it is directed against those who use terms and terminology that are considered offensive or inappropriate. The former was evident at several schools in Republican states; The latter has become common in many liberal universities.”
A protest organized by students against the Gaza war in New York on November 9.JUSTIN LANE (EFE)
The anti-Gaza war protest movement is largely decentralized but has ties to national platforms such as the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the country's largest. “We have seen students lead our communities across the country. Despite attempts to silence them, students continue to organize and advocate for an immediate ceasefire and a free Palestine. We proudly support their work,” explains a spokesman. The internet offers inspiration and sometimes advice for protesters. In 2014, when Mike Brown, an unarmed black man, was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and thousands of people protested in the streets for days, Palestinian Americans took to social media to offer suggestions about how to protect themselves from tear gas. Nine years later, at the University of California, Santa Barbara and elsewhere, black and Latino students are at the vanguard of the pro-Palestinian movement.
Last week, Joey Ayub, who is of Palestinian-Lebanese descent and produces a podcast about the conflict, wrote that young Americans are more likely to view the Palestinian cause as an issue tied to the fight for racial justice. Ayub says there is a “visual parallel,” an image that is easy to assimilate: that of a soldier or police officer dominating a space inhabited by an oppressed population, be it in a West Bank city or in one majority black neighborhood in the West Bank United States. He also argues that 2014 was a pivotal year for younger Americans' understanding of the conflict: That summer, as protests erupted in Ferguson over the death of a black teenager, an offensive against Gaza called Operation Protective Edge drew about 2,250 People lost their lives: Palestinians and 73 Israelis. Ayub recalls that advice on social media about how to use tear gas was “symbolically a very powerful thing.”
The end of the semester and the Christmas holidays seem to have brought peace back to the campus, but only apparently. At New York's Columbia University, it's not hard to find Palestinian flags, even at a fraternity headquarters. In mid-December, the riots at Harvard University came from outsiders. Despite being the epicenter of mobilization in the first days of the war, Colombia has so far managed to escape the noise thanks to initiatives that combine ban and dialogue: among them a new forum for specific debates on the conflict amid the ban of two Protagonists -Palestinian groups for violating the rules authorizing demonstrations (none of them responded to this newspaper). Many are wondering how long it will take for Columbia, one of the universities under investigation by the federal government, to be swept up in the anger that is sweeping other campuses.
Israeli Shai Davidai, a professor at Columbia Business School and one of the first to denounce the directorate's inaction, says that in practice, despite the above measures, nothing has changed. “Last month, the university suspended two pro-Hamas organizations from campus. On the 8th under the pressure of the congressional hearing [three days earlier]The university declared that calls for violence and genocide violated the institution's rules. On the 11th, the university announced that a planned protest was unauthorized and therefore would not take place, but on the same day the unauthorized protest actually took place,” he points out. “It was organized by the two organizations that were said to have been suspended and shouted slogans inciting violence, something the university supposedly opposes. In short, nothing is being done about it. As we saw in the shameful congressional hearing, universities today are run not by executives but by lawyers,” he laments.
Ignorance of the context
Davidai is referring to the appearance of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT before the House Education Committee on December 5, in which they were defeated by Republicans, particularly Elise Stefanik. The far-right Republican representative's fifteen minutes of fame damaged the reputations of the three women and tarnished the image of the three institutions, but her role was an exercise in political opportunism. “There is little doubt that representatives like Elise Stefanik — who has expressed sympathy for the anti-Semitic so-called Great Replacement Theory and coddled the most radical factions of the Republican Party — had no interest in combating anti-Semitism when she interviewed university presidents. Stefanik is not only pursuing her own political ambitions, but is also trying to expose universities as bastions of the radical left elite that censor all other opinions,” explains Bartov. He warns of the need to “guard against censorship on campus by both parties while protecting students and faculty from hate speech, hate speech and intimidation.”
Israeli-born Professor Bartov believes that the indifferent attitude of university presidents to show compassion to all victims and do justice to all (faculty, students, donors) “has only made matters worse.” He states: “ Instead of expressing their own views clearly and directly or declaring their inability to make public statements about political events in other parts of the world, they have opted for legalistic language that completely undermines their authority as leaders.” large institutions.” Furthermore, Bartov adds: “Even at elite universities such as Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as my own, Brown University, the vehemence of student protests against Israeli policies and equally vehement attacks on these protests are often lacking as anti-Semitic.” a real understanding of the complexity of the situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine.”
Just a few examples will illustrate this last point: Many of the young people chanting slogans like “From the river!” [Jordan] Palestine will be free to the sea” (a slogan that Jewish students see as a call for expulsion or genocide), do not know what exactly the phrase refers to. According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, some believe the Holocaust is a myth. According to a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, two-thirds of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as such. About 67% of those in that age group say female presidents surveyed in Congress have done more than necessary to combat anti-Semitism on campus, compared with 62% of all respondents, where the three women fell far short of expectations. According to the survey, one in five young Americans believe the Holocaust is a myth.
The “official” definition of anti-Semitism
In addition to the context of political polarization and culture wars, Professor Omer Bartov claims that there is another factor that explains the root of anti-Semitism (or what some people call anti-Semitism). “For years, successive governments of Benjamin Netanyahu and elements of the Jewish right elsewhere in Europe and the United States have argued that any criticism of Israeli policies, particularly those related to the occupation of Palestinian land, is anti-Semitic. This should protect Israel from exposure oppression of millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Many governments have adopted the “working definition of anti-Semitism” formulated by the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance], which describes certain anti-Israel statements as potentially anti-Semitic. This has resulted both in the silencing of criticism from those who fear being falsely accused of anti-Semitism and in confusion between current anti-Semitism, which has undoubtedly increased in recent years, and the growing public awareness of objectionable Israeli policies. which has also increased.”
Adherence to this standard definition can be seen, for example, in Germany, where the Berlin government has united around Israel without, however, expressing criticism of the military offensive against Gaza. Many others are torn between censorship and self-censorship, but does the issue threaten free speech in the United States? “Some pro-Palestinian students would say this is the case. There have been cases of students being arrested or universities trying to ban certain types of demonstrations. But in most cases [the bans] were based on disruption of university life and incitement. Overall, despite the intense rhetoric from both sides, I do not believe that Jewish students are unsafe on American campuses, as the Israeli media sometimes enthusiastically reports, nor do they [do I think] that there is a crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices or persecution of Arab and Muslim students, as other media outlets suggest, despite some horrific incidents, such as the shooting of three Palestinian students, including a Brown University student, a few weeks ago in Burlington, Vermont .
Referring to the climate of insecurity reported by some Jewish students on campus, Bartov said, “I think that's a misperception, but there have also been cases of real anti-Semitism that shouldn't be ignored.”
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