Student support for Hamas has caused an opinion to be upset
On Israel, Progressive Jews Feel Abandoned by Their Left-Wing Allies: A Jewish Mom’s Letter Concerning the Hamas Attacks
In Atlanta, a Jewish mother involved in local politics wrote an open letter lamenting that her child’s progressive private school had not addressed the attacks in Israel with the same kind of empathy it showed after local killings of Asian Americans. “Our people are butchered, and no one speaks to it?” She wrote. I’m not sure if I’m seething or sad.
Rabbi Sharon Brous, a well-known activist who regularly criticizes the Israeli government, spoke from the pulpit about her horror and feelings of loneliness. The clear message from many in the world is that the Israeli victims were deserving of this terrible fate.
But in the Hamas attacks, many saw an existential threat, evoking memories of the Holocaust and generations of antisemitism, and provoking anxiety about whether they could face attacks in the United States. They discovered that many of their ideological allies had failed to perceive the same threats and that they saw them as oppressors deserving of blame.
There were a lot of inflammatory comments made on social media, many of them by progressive groups that responded immediately to the massacre of Israeli civilians and moved immediately to justify it.
And many protests have included chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that leaves no place for the state of Israel to exist in its own land.
Israel is a hate group: Dehumanizing Jews in the U.S., exposing Israel’s civil rights and sexistemology
“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. When you dehumanize the group, that’s how that happens. This indoctrination that many of us have been warned about hit us like a ton of bricks.”
The most rattling episodes have happened on college campuses where statements from small organizations have been amplified across the globe. But during a worldwide conflict, those statements have taken on totemic status, heightening fears that they are a precursor to a more treacherous and lasting shift in the standing of Jews in America.
Eric Spiegelman, a lawyer and podcast producer in Los Angeles who has serves on municipal boards, was enraged by the protest in New York City promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America after the attack. He wrote hundreds of letters to the Los Angeles city officials in order to condemn the group and call them a hate group. The D.S.A. apologized for not making their values explicit after backing away from the protest.
“It’s like, I belong to this political organization that believes in three things: affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, and the wholesale murder of Jews,” said Mr. Spiegelman, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he condemned local leaders who are affiliated with the group. “Two out of three ain’t bad!”
Eva Borgwardt said in an interview that anyone dehumanizing Israelis has no representation in the U.S. government while federal officials have dehumanized Palestinians for decades.
The savage murders of Israeli babies and senior citizens in their homes and the rape of young Israeli women do not seem to perturb Hamas’s many followers at Harvard and Columbia, but don’t they realize that Hamas brutally persecutes the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Gaza, subjugates women, and tortures and summarily executes dissidents?
Free speech is wrong: How many Israelis are treated treated as terrorists? The case of the Stanford apologist Bill Ackman
Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire who urged that the names of students be circulated to avoid hiring them, and others should be ashamed of themselves for allowing a recent Stanford undergraduate to determine the fates of students partly through “tips sent to an email address.”
When false accusations are directed towards individuals from marginalized histories, they are even more misguided.
The U.S. must end the suppression of dissent regarding Israel’s actions. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to force changes in policies of forced removal of Palestinians must be honored as a legitimate tactic instead of being labeled antisemitic.
We have to listen to legitimate opinions that the US shouldn’t support Israel’s policies and that the Palestinians should be represented in diplomatic channels.
The students who complain about being doxxed misunderstand the concept of free speech. Free speech means that you are free to speak as you please, regardless of the government’s restrictions. It does not mean that your speech is free of consequences.
If you open your mouth and say something stupid, people will naturally think you’re stupid. If you say mean things, they likely will think you mean. People are going to understand that you are an apologist for terrorists.
