A serious red line has been crossed: America’s democratic freedoms, expansive on paper, will simply not tolerate serious dissent on the U.S.–Israel relationship. As criticisms of Israel have become more mainstream, the attempt to shut them down entirely has become more extreme.
In pursuit of this blank-check relationship with an Israeli government that is becoming ever-more intransigent with each passing year, pro-Israel forces in the U.S. are attacking our own democratic freedoms in order to suppress public outcry about apartheid and potential genocide 6,000 miles away. And, if the recent campus crackdowns are any indication, these forces are winning their battle.
With tens of thousands of Palestinians left dead and the Israeli assault on Gaza ongoing, the U.S. protests targeting university ties with Israel over the last month — voluble and outspoken — have been overwhelmingly nonviolent.
Yet these nonviolent protests have met with the full brutal force of the U.S. security state. Dispersing the protest encampments, police have viciously beaten protesters, fired rubber bullets, and enveloped students in dense clouds of tear gas.
He’s not talking about peaceful protest there. He’s clearly addressing attacks on Jewish people. In case you’re not aware, antisemitism is prejudice against Jews, prejudice against Israel is nationalism. I know Netanyahu likes to conflate the two, but Biden knows the difference.
But those haven’t been happening…
And cops are getting violent with all of them. Even the protestors who are also Jewish and carrying signs saying so.
This isn’t a religious thing. It’s a genocide thing.
Well, cops have beaten the shit out of a lot of Jewish students, so there definitely have been attacks on Jewish people. Don’t think that’s what Biden was referencing though.
That’s outrageously incorrect. We’re not talking about attacking pro-Israel protesters, or attacks by pro-Palestinian protesters. We’re talking about people ignorantly attacking Jewish students simply because they’re Jewish. They’re being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish.
Antisemitism in the US is up 400% since October. College students across the nation have been targeted.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/business/antisemitism-college-harvard-upenn/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/73-jewish-college-students-experienced-seen-antisemitism-start-school-rcna127014
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-students-say-pro-israel-violence-at-ucla-protest-camp-undercuts-advocacy/
That’s exactly the ignorance that is causing the problem. Jewish is both an ethnicity as well as a religion. That’s why antisemitism is uniquely different, it’s both religious persecution and racism. You should be more informed or you may unintentionally promote hate.
Jews are not committing genocide. Israel is.
The ADL has defined anti-Zionism to be antisemitic, so of course they will say antisemitism has rocketed. I don’t doubt that there has been some increase in antisemitism, which is awful, to be clear. But when there are such widespread, deliberate efforts to muddy the waters by conflating anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism, the accusation loses its power. And that conflation happens in the articles you posted.
https://www.adl.org/antisemitism
https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/what-antisemitism-anti-zionism-anti-israel-bias
Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism, but antisemitism is not anti-Zionism.
Also, the other links are clear accounts of Jewish students, not pro-Israel protesters, being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish. Comments like yours are the problem. Read before you type.
Anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism
According to the ADL it is. I don’t agree, but that’s how they define it.
People want their side to be all good and the opposition to be all bad.
I mean, the opposition is all bad in this case, but one’s own side is rarely all good. People more often engage in hagiography than analysis.
It’s just important to know that the side that is at fault is Israel and not Jews. If people understood that, then antisemitic hate crimes wouldn’t be up 400%. The real ignorance is people hearing Biden and Congress condemning antisemitism and conflating it with judgement of anti-Israel protest. They are not the same. Biden knows that, as do the thirty-something Jewish members of Congress. I blame Netanyahu for manipulating that term in defense of Israel, but that doesn’t excuse the ignorance of Americans.
If Biden wasn’t trying to imply that the protesters were doing the antisemitism, why did he bring it up every time he talked about the protesters? You don’t muddy concepts like that at that level by accident.
How do you not see that one leads to the other without understanding the difference between Israel and Jews?
I can’t follow the ones and the others you’re intending or make sense of the point you’re trying to make.
Biden reliably brought up antisemitism whenever talking about protests. This wasn’t Biden overestimating whether the public understood that anti-Zionism is different from anti-semitism. He did it on purpose because he wanted to smear them, because the protests are effectively against his actions (even though their short-term target was their schools) and he wanted the general public to think they’re illegitimate and a valid target for administration and police crackdowns. If he wanted to draw a clean distinction between criticism of Israel and hate against Jews, he would have.
“If there wasn’t any racism, there wouldn’t be racism”? I’m not sure what the point is here.
You’re really not seeing the conflict between “There has been a spike in antisemitic activity, yes” and “Biden objecting to antisemitism in the protests while acknowledging their right to voice their grievances with Israel is ignorance”?
I hear it as condemnation of hate crimes that are propelled by the false narrative that protesting Israel is the same as protesting Jews. He’s also saying there’s a difference between protest and attacks.
The spike coincided with the response to October’s attack. It’s a direct correlation that clearly needs to be clarified to some.
Have you seen any videos of people attacking Jewish people?
If it’s that prevalent then there must be hundreds of such videos.
The articles I shared above have first hand accounts as well as statistics. Most of the attacks are verbal, some physical, harassing emails, and doxxing. Are you suggesting it’s not happening without video?
Im suggesting it’s not happening at a level which would be more than 1% of protesters.
Verbal isn’t worth shit. People have something to gain by lying.
How come we can find videos of people peacefully protesting but all this violence seems to be done off camera?
Are you suggesting that the protesters actually hate Jews and they don’t care about Palestinians?
Not at all. I’m stating, as well as the articles I’ve provided, that there are people that confuse Israel with Jews, and then attack Jews out of ignorance. That’s what Biden is speaking against.
You’re taking the criticism personally, but it’s not directed at all protestors. It’s directed at the ones that can’t discern the difference between protests and attacks, or Israel and Jews. It’s that simple.
And would you like to put a percentage on the protesters with ill intent?
To me it seems like an insignificant amount, and perhaps we should be focusing on the people with a good message and not focus on the few assholes.
As someone who has attended many protests, I can say wholeheartedly that zero is the only acceptable percent.
I too attend protests, every Saturday in Manchester. Nobody here is being antisemitic.
Sure we should strive for zero, but should we let 1 out of 1000 people define our protest?
That seems to allow the MLM to portray us all as antisemite bigots and not people who want Israel to stop murdering people and using our tax money to do so.
It’s strange how during pro Islam marches that they don’t want to do anything about the bigots being racist. Suddenly that’s free speech.
Nah