Among its enemies, Israel must count America’s liberal Jews.
IS THE JEWISH STATE DIVIDING AMERICAN JEWRY? (Continued)
By Jonathan Rosenblum
Jewish World Review
May 10, 2011
NOWHERE HAS the failure of the mainstream organizations been more obvious than on university campuses. They have failed to protect Jewish students or to provide them with the information and resources necessary to defend themselves against relentless anti-Israel propaganda. The Zionist Organization of America is the only long-time mainstream organization actively involved in the defense of Jewish students.
When it comes to speakers and information, the bulk of the heavy lifting is being done by smaller groups: CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting), the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Hasbara Fellowships.
Jessica Felber, a Berkeley student, sued the University of California for "ignoring mounting evidence of anti-Jewish animus" and "physical intimidation and violence by Students for Justice in Palestine," after the leader of the latter group slammed her from behind with a loaded shopping cart as she held aloft a sign proclaiming "Israel wants peace."
And Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, finally prevailed upon the Justice Department to open an investigation of her own university under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, for permitting an environment in which "professors, academic departments, and residential colleges promote and encourage anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish views and behaviors."
Felber and Rossman-Benjamin's efforts to fight back were supported by the ZOA and little-known groups such the Institute for Jewish Community Research and The Fellowship for Campus Safety and Integrity. Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee's Kenneth Stern publicly criticized the use of Title VI on behalf of Jewish students.
Even the most Jewishly identified students become apologetic, if not absolutely cowed, when the subject of Israel arises. The David Horowitz Freedom Center took out an ad in the Brown University paper entitled "The Palestinian Wall of Lies."
A group of students affiliated with Brown's Hillel wrote to the paper to criticize the "Islamophobic and racist" nature of the ad, and opined that such "spiteful and bigoted words" should not be permitted in the Brown community. The letter did not quote one word from the advertisement, much less refute its wholly unremarkable statements. Interestingly, none of the same students had written to protest Israel Apartheid Week or criticize the Muslim Students Association for sponsoring it. Similar responses to the Horowitz ad were sent by Jewish students at University of Pennsylvania and Yale.
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IN 1990, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, explained on Jordanian TV that a powerful Arab lobby could conquer the campuses and media. Their key allies, he said, would be Jewish progressives.
The latter have fulfilled their assigned role.
Thirty professors of Jewish studies recently signed a petition urging Orange County prosecutors to drop charges against Arab students who tried to prevent Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking at UC Irvine. Criminal prosecution would be antithetical to an "academic and intellectual environment," they wrote, though presumably forcibly preventing pro- Israel speakers from being heard is not.
Many left-wing Jews no longer wish to be bothered by arguments or facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel has made their lives uncomfortable, and as far as they are concerned, it should just give the Palestinians whatever they want already. The late Tony Judt, a kibbutz volunteer as a teenager, epitomized the trend.
In his famous New York Review of Books piece, Judt labeled Israel (but none of the 57 or so Muslim countries) an "atavism," based on a religious-ethnic identity, that should disappear. At the end of his long diatribe, he let drop his real gripe: Israel had made faculty sherry hours unpleasant for him.
New Yorker editor David Remnick follows in Judt's footsteps: "Even people like me, who understand that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed a historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can't take it any more," he writes. "Sorry, it can't go on this way," he lectures us, instructing us to accept whatever President Barack Obama suggests. If that is how Jewish adults react to criticism, how can we expect college students to do any better? That American Jews can no longer rally around Israel is a tragedy. But it would be a far greater tragedy if those Jews who identify with the Jewish state and are comfortable defending it continued to let ineffectual communal organizations speak for them.
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