Progressives feel abandoned by their allies in Israel
Students Against Hamas’ Attack on Israel Revisited: The Case of Brown University and the Center of Black Lives Matter (NYU)
Concerns about reprisal are only one of many differences in modern protests. The more meaningful shift can be seen in the tenor of campus activism, where historically, a passionate if monolithic view has formed around a grievance, or set of grievances, directed at a consensus enemy. In the late 1960s, it was a unified student body protesting Richard Nixon and the Pentagon; in the ’80s, the apartheid government of South Africa; in the decades ahead, the fossil fuel industry.
In nearly every case, the university itself has been a co-defendant because of its morally compromised research or financial investments.
Even though letters were sent to the community from the N.Y.U. president, Linda Mills, and later from the dean of the law school, some students disagreed with the condemnation of Hamas’ attack on Israel. I handed over a flyer with a picture of an Israeli girl who had been kidnapped by Hamas to two students who were at the rally. One of them, a junior at Stern, N.Y.U.’s business school, identified himself as an Orthodox Jew whose great-grandparents had been imprisoned at Auschwitz and whose parents were in Israel at the beginning of the attacks and found themselves in a bomb shelter.
A young person arriving at elite colleges with the expectation that they will be seen, heard and cared for, and their own politics will align with those of the institutions they have chosen to attend. They have been given little reason to think otherwise.
The letter from N.Y.U.’s president, in fact, made reference to some of these services, pointing out that the university’s division of student affairs had reached out “to all students from the affected areas with offers of support and help,” and that students had available to them “24/7” help “through the Wellness Exchange,” a counseling service. But in this especially challenging moment, that seemed not to be enough.
At places like N.Y.U. and Columbia, students, administrators, and faculty shared a common opposition to the police abuses at the center of Black Lives Matter. When the former New York City Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, was invited to speak at Brown University, students objected. Protesters interrupted his talk so that the event was shut down.
The Attack by Hamas on the Israel: How Progressive Jews Feel Abandoned by Their Left-Wing Allies, after the Los Angeles Shooting
Progressive Jews who have spent years supporting racial equity, gay and transgender rights, abortion rights and other causes on the American left — including opposing Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank — are suddenly feeling abandoned by those who they long thought of as allies. The Democratic Party was built on a liberal coalition that has been broken by the wartime shift.
In Los Angeles, Rabbi Sharon Brous, a well known progressive activist who regularly criticizes the Israeli government, described her horror and feelings of loneliness from the pulpit. The message that many in the world believe is that those who claim to care the most about justice and human dignity were right when they said that the Israeli victims deserved this terrible fate.
Black Lives Matter Los Angeles posted its first response on Facebook, after the attack, stating that the resistance must not be condemned but seen as a desperate act of self-defense. The group criticized Zionism and said there can be no justice, peace or reproductive freedom underneath colonial occupation. Many socialist organizations in the country did not condemn the killings by Hamas.
One of the most inflammatory comments on social media came from progressive groups that immediately took to justifying the attack upon Israeli civilians after the massacre.
chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” have left no place for the state of Israel to exist in its own land.
A Demonstration of the Hate Group: The Los Angeles Democrat Socialists of America and the Dehumanization of Israel
“I am in such a state of despair — in my generation, we have been warned how quickly people would turn on us and we just thought no way,” said Nick Melvoin, 38, a member of the Los Angeles Unified School Board who is now running for Congress and keeps a framed picture of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his office. This is what happens when you dehumanize the group. It’s indoctrination hit us like a ton of bricks.
The most rattling episodes have been on college campuses or on social media, where small organizations have been heard across the globe. Those statements have become totemic during a worldwide conflict, which has raised fears that they may lead to a more dangerous and lasting shift in the standing of Jews in America.
The protest in New York City promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America after the attack enraged a lawyer in Los Angeles who works on municipal boards. He sent hundreds of letters to Los Angeles city officials to condemn the group and call them a hate group. The D.S.A. apologized for failing to make values explicit during the protest.
Mr. Spiegelman was a member of the group that believed in affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, and the wholesale murder of Jews. There are two out of three positives.
Eva Borgwardt, director of IfNotNow, said in an interview that any person who dehumanizes Israelis has zero representation in the United States government.
