A Jan. 29 White Home executive order on antisemitism is meant to fight one of many longest, most deadly and societally entrenched types of group-based hatred on the earth. It requires the mobilization of “all accessible and acceptable authorized instruments” to confront “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence in opposition to our residents, particularly in our colleges and on our campuses.”
It additionally calls on universities to watch, report on and examine “alien college students and workers,” presumably as antisemitic agitators, which might result in “actions to take away” them.
Sadly, the Trump administration’s punitive and slim deal with campus protesters misidentifies actual threats confronted by Jews in American society. And within the course of, the federal government will stigmatize a big group of individuals for exercising their proper to protest. This, in flip, will trigger severe injury to the functioning of the American college, turning it from an engine of information into an online of informants intent on stifling dissent.
This script has been tried earlier than, as we bear in mind from California historical past. The Purple Scare that swept the nation within the late Nineteen Forties prompted the UC Board of Regents to craft a loyalty oath in 1949 that required all college staff to forswear any allegiance to communism.
The consequences on the college have been profound: Famend college members who didn’t signal have been dismissed or resigned in protest. By one count 55 courses needed to be dropped from the curriculum and 47 students UC needed to rent “pointedly refused appointment.” Morale plummeted, and the precept of freedom of speech was shaken to the core.
Seventy-five years later, we face what could also be a good larger problem. The Trump administration’s “fact sheet” that accompanies the antisemitism govt order signifies that every one authorities businesses shall be deployed to root out these deemed “Hamas Sympathizers” — which may very well be interpreted so broadly as to incorporate anybody who participated in or supported the Palestinian freedom motion on school campuses final 12 months.
Sadly, there have been some members of the college neighborhood who expressed help for Hamas’ brutal assaults of October 2023. And there have been ample stories of Jewish college students and college throughout the nation who felt unsafe or threatened by some pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Neither coarse anti-Jewish imagery nor bodily harassment in opposition to Jews — or another college members, together with pro-Palestine protesters — is suitable on our campuses. On the identical time, we should always not assume that each self-reported account of feeling unsafe quantities to discrimination itself, antisemitic or in any other case.
Many who joined the protest motion — and who have been vilified for doing so — did so not due to antisemitic motivation however due to what they noticed unfolding in Gaza after Oct. 7: an unrelenting Israeli army marketing campaign that did not discriminate between combatant and civilian, killed hundreds of youngsters, displaced hundreds of thousands and destroyed billions of {dollars} of property. It’s pure and bonafide that individuals in the US would protest on the conduct of this marketing campaign, all of the extra so as a result of Israel is the recipient of massive military assistance and political support from the US.
Casting all those that protested as rank antisemites fails a fundamental take a look at of discernment. It’s potential to treat Israel’s actions as gross violations of worldwide legislation, even genocidal, with out expressing or feeling any animus towards Jews. And it’s potential to advertise the aim of Palestinian self-determination — and certainly to consider that the popular political type needs to be a single state “between the river and the ocean” with equality for all — with out harboring any hatred of Jews.
The coarse brush of the brand new govt order sweeps all who care concerning the destiny of Palestinians, together with many Jews, into the class of unreconstructed antisemites. It takes specific intention at worldwide college students who sympathize with the Palestinian trigger, threatening to deport them for “pro-jihadist” sentiments. Will the subsequent step be to sanction anybody who dares to make use of phrases akin to “Nakba,” “occupation” or “apartheid” in relation to Palestinian life in Gaza and the West Financial institution? It’s laborious to see how this is able to do a lot to fight antisemitism, although such a step would doubtless encourage Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab discrimination.
It’s disconcerting that some mainstream Jewish organizations embrace the plan to constrict the rights of those that converse up, overwhelmingly peacefully, for the rights of Palestinians, whereas ignoring different disturbing indicators of bias or distortion of historical past. The Anti-Defamation League, as soon as the nation’s main defender of the rights of Jews, enthusiastically praised the administration’s order however gave a free move to Elon Musk after his controversial hand salute and endorsement of the far-right Different for Germany occasion. Furthermore, the ADL’s management continually blurs the road between sharp criticism of Israeli coverage, which it calls anti-Zionism, and antisemitism.
If unpopular political protest turns into the criterion by which the administration screens universities, then we are going to start a fast descent down a slippery slope. The spirit of free and open debate, rooted in a long-standing American custom of protest on school campuses, shall be killed off. Holding a severe dialog about what needs to be the optimum political resolution for Jews and Palestinians in Israel-Palestine — one state, two states or one thing in between — shall be taboo. Violators of the brand new limits to free speech could also be sanctioned or, if enrolled on a pupil visa, expelled. And ominously, a brand new cadre of Trumpian loyalists shall be empowered to report on anybody who deviates from the brand new orthodoxy.
This sort of crackdown on what’s political somewhat than discriminatory speech will result in a really completely different form of college campus — one during which novel, divergent or controversial concepts are actively suppressed. In such a world, Jews shall be no safer. And Arab and Muslims supporters of Palestine will routinely be forged as enemies of the state. The reason for Palestinian freedom — and, by extension, Israeli safety — shall be deferred. And the harmful erosion of democratic values on this nation will proceed.
The stakes are very excessive. We are able to and should discover a higher approach to struggle antisemitism whereas fortifying the college as an engine of concepts and innovation.
David N. Myers teaches Jewish historical past at UCLA. Salam Al-Marayati is the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
