The author mentions how a lot of these task forces for Antisemitism and Islamophobia do not mentioned anything about the actual reality of the situation: Israel, Palestine, and Genocide. I feel like this aligns with the way I heard a lot of professors address the days and months after October 7th–extremely vague, but maybe they were just trying to keep their jobs. “Rather than confront these undeniable truths—thereby understanding and nuancing Jewish attachment to Zionism, acknowledging its devastating impact on Palestinians since 1948, and critiquing the role of the US government in supporting it at all costs—US university DEI initiatives obfuscate them
altogether” (10). For a long time, “liberal” people and institutions, like colleges, will tout social issues like anti-racism, pro-LGBT, pro-choice, but when it came to Israel, no criticism was allowed. I think a lot of people believed the US propaganda that Israel=Jews, therefore Zionism=Judaism. Couple this with post 9/11 anti-Muslim/Arab sentiment, very little education about the Middle East and some education about the Holocaust, and those people are primed to uphold a violent settler-colonial state. “Miller has
also shown that Zionism invented the idea of Islamic terrorism—that there is a specific form of terrorism innate to Muslims” (12). I’d like to hear more about this quote. It’s interesting how the author makes the distinction between anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism and how they affect each other. Zionism is a political ideology that relies on the ethno-supremacy of one group of people over the other (the Palestinians). It also relies on telling Jewish people that Israel is “the only safe place in the world for them”, which is extremely dangerous. Anti-Zionist Jews, of which there are many, have been now deemed “self-hating Jews” and in many cases cut off from their community. I like the authors presentation of the word “hate” and how misleading it is. War isn’t just “hate”, nor is genocide or systemic racism.
I think the issue is even more than “asymmetric” as the author describes the abundant resources for Zionists vs. Palestinian Rights orgs. There shouldn’t BE support for Zionists period. Unfortunately, in the U.S., organizations like Hillel can often time act less as safe spaces for Jewish communities to share their faith, and more like political Zionist propaganda machines. Whereas there is so much hostility towards anti-Zionists–from the institutions, authority, government, etc. Over the past two years, and even before October 7th, I have had to face the reality that my country and many people I knew were supporters of genocide, of the mass bombings of children. Online, I have seen babies with their heads smashed in, people in hospitals burning alive, I have seen the complete dehumanization of a people, and had to observe as MY people supported it–made justifications out of it. None of this is comparable to the pain the Palestinian people have endured. I pray these people and myself are forgiven for their cruelty, ignorance, and indifference in the face of such suffering. Free Palestine.
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