GUEST COLUMN
Why Now an Epidemic of Anti-Semitism?
Defense Forces began their military response in Gaza. What followed was a sustained epidemic of anti-Israeli demonstra- tions, sometimes violent, that led to arrests, the obstruction of bridges and highways, and the defacing and destruction of public property. More disturbing was the outbreak of overt and unapologetic anti-Semitism that targeted Jewish synagogues, stores, and especially students. Faculty sometimes berated Jewish students with off-topic, ad hominem harangues. On occasion, Jews were chased into libraries or surrounded and accosted by pro-Hamas protes- tors. Campus mass chanting “From the River to the Sea” made clear that tens of thousands were calling for the abject destruction of Israel and all the Jewish people within it. The depth of the campus hatred of Jews was well illustrated in unex- pected fashion during a December 5 congressional hearing on grow- ing university anti-Semitism. Three
Ivy-League university presidents — Harvard University’s Claudine Gay, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sally Kornbluth — were repeatedly asked by representatives whether their universities would disci- pline students for their unapologetic anti-Semitic speech, especially their now common calls for the genocide of the Jewish people. All three pled “context” and retreated to the cover of First Amendment “free speech” rights. The result was congressional and national outrage, given these three leaders — and most college presidents — have systemati- cally suspended, punished, expelled, and fired faculty and students for supposed “hate speech” directed against Latinos, blacks, gays, and the transgendered. Substitute “Jew” for any other targeted groups, and the three pres- idents would have — and have in the past — severely disciplined any such offensive speech. The net result of their astounding testimonies was
Victor Davis Hanson
T he October 7 peacetime mass slaughter of over 1,100 Israeli civilians by 3,000 Hamas gunmen in southern Israel shocked the world. Even more macabre was the news of the terrorists’ barbarous murdering, torture, mutilation, decap- itation, and mass rape of the unarmed elderly, women, children, and infants in a time of peace. Just as deplorable was the reac- tion of American youth, and espe- cially students and faculty on elite college campuses. Thousands of them cheered reports of the mass slaughter — even during the nearly three-week hiatus before the Israeli
8 • AMAC Magazine
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