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An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
Graduation season is upon us, with its regalia, music, orations, crowds and controversies. This year, I’ll be attending two university ceremonies: my daughter’s graduation from Binghamton University, and the commencement at Case Western Reserve University, where I teach. As both a parent and a faculty member, I look forward to being part of the powerful ritual moment when graduates are ushered out into the world.
But I’ll also be listening with an analytical ear, attentive to what these speeches reveal about the institutions delivering them — especially in a season when the same fault lines keep opening over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and over who gets to speak and about what.
Amid financial, political and technological pressure, the question of what universities owe their students, and society, has rarely felt more unsettled or more contested. As speakers or planned speakers at the University of Michigan, Rutgers and Georgetown have drawn fire over their stances on the Middle East, it’s clear that while campus protests over Israel may have died down, the tensions provoked by the Israel-Gaza war are still defining the American campus environment.
A close reading of the biggest controversy to date, sparked by historian Derek Peterson’s address at the University of Michigan’s spring graduation ceremony, can help illustrate the dangers of that fact.
Peterson’s platform has few equals in American academic life. A MacArthur “genius” grant recipient and a Fellow of the British Academy, Peterson, among the most decorated scholars of his generation, addressed a crowd gathered in the largest stadium in the United States. He did so as a representative of the faculty, invited to the lectern to speak for those who actually taught these students.
This was a rare chance for a professor, an opportunity to publicly offer an answer to the question every student has implicitly asked for four years: what is all this education for?
In a brief oration, under six minutes long, Peterson structured his answer around a single elegant literary device, Michigan’s fight song.
He reframed a song usually understood to herald student athletes — “Hail to the victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes” — by asserting the real victors are not athletes, but the activists who have fought for justice throughout the university’s history.
Sing for Sarah Burger, a suffragette who fought for women’s admission to the school, Peterson urged. Sing for Moritz Levi, the university’s first Jewish professor, who opened Michigan’s doors to generations of Jewish students fleeing antisemitism at East Coast universities. Sing for the Black Action Movement students who demanded a curriculum reflecting Black experience and identity.
Each of these invocations gestured toward a group that was once shut out of the university, and honored the activists who responded to that exclusion with repair. The crowd answered Peterson’s appeals with applause and cheers that grew louder with each invocation, as he skillfully built toward his climax.
At the high point, Peterson delivered the line that would reverberate far beyond Michigan Stadium: “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists,” he called out; for those “who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.”
The roar that followed was the loudest and longest of the entire speech. “The greatness of this university,” he summarized, “rests on the courage and the conviction of student activists who have pushed this university down the path towards justice.”
Within hours, the university president Domenico Grasso issued a public apology, saying Peterson’s words were “hurtful and insensitive.” In response, more than a thousand faculty members signed an open letter demanding Grasso retract the apology. Peterson’s defenders insisted the controversy was manufactured from a single out-of-context clip, and Peterson himself posted the YouTube link urging those offended to watch the whole thing.
Peterson’s defenders are not wrong to insist that context is everything. But they misinterpret what the context shows. Watching the full performance, and the crescendo that greeted the pro-Palestinian invocation, it’s clear that Peterson’s statement on pro-Palestinian activism was the destination the whole speech built toward.
The first three appeals each share a common logic: expand the circle and welcome the excluded. The fourth breaks that logic. Peterson did not exhort his audience to sing for students who built relationships across lines of difference, or who forwarded a vision of peace. Instead, he urged them to sing for students who drew attention to Israeli “injustice and inhumanity,” and who offered not a plan to make room for all, but instead an accusation.
That contradiction is worth naming plainly. Peterson’s other entreaties celebrated universal inclusion — all genders, all races, all religions. Then he singled out and damned the one Jewish state in the world, immediately after celebrating Michigan’s historic welcome of Jews. The speech that began by opening doors ends by pointing a finger, and that act of condemnation was offered as the moral crown of enlightened progress.
The depressing predictability of this genre of moral performance is that it builds, with apparent generosity, through history and conscience and song, only to arrive at a hackneyed, self-congratulatory denunciation of Israel as the apex of a liberal education. With so much at stake right now on our university campuses, is this really all we can offer our students as the culmination of their years of learning?
A university education is supposed to widen the aperture through which students see the world, and to equip them with the intellectual tools to engage the world with curiosity, humility and rigor. It is supposed to send them out equipped to ask hard questions, and with the tools and habits of mind to wrestle with them.
When a faculty leader uses a significant platform to show students not how to think, but what to conclude and who to condemn, he suggests something alarming: that narrowing of minds, pointing of fingers and pronouncing of verdicts is what four years of university education has amounted to.
That is a profound loss. Not only for those Jewish graduates who felt alienated and excluded by the singling out of the Jewish state, but for every student in that stadium, who invested years of time, money and intellectual effort in the hope of emerging with something larger: the capacity to engage the world by thinking freely and curiously across difference, and by imagining what real repair might actually look like.
The post An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Portuguese artists pull out of Jerry Seinfeld-headlined festival
(JTA) — Several Portuguese artists have dropped out of a comedy festival in Lisbon headlined by Jerry Seinfeld, citing their support for Palestinians and implying opposition to Seinfeld’s support for Israel.
At least six acts over recent days have canceled their appearances at the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest, a new international comedy festival in the Portuguese capital. The event from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 has advertised that it will host Seinfeld’s first live appearance in Portugal.
Though none of the artists who withdrew mentioned Seinfeld by name, some hinted at a boycott against his pro-Israel views. The Jewish comedian has become one of Hollywood’s most prominent advocates for Israel since October 2023.
Actress and comedian Inês Aires Pereira announced on Instagram on Saturday that “one of the names” featured at the festival “persistently defends ideas and acts that I consider indefensible,” adding, “We cannot relativize or normalize a genocide.”
The comedy duo Cebola Mol posted a graphic of themselves with a watermelon, widely recognized as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. “We will celebrate justice, freedom and joy with you on another occasion,” they said on Instagram.
The festival announced on Friday that performances by the groups Tributo Pop and Conjunto Cuca Monga were also canceled, but did not provide reasons. Two other acts, comedian Pedro Tochas and visual artist Vhils, shared their cancellations on Instagram without further details.
Seinfeld has aligned himself with Israel during its current conflict in Gaza, following decades of largely avoiding commenting on political issues. He visited Israel in December 2023 to meet with the families of hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, he has attracted attention for a series of dismissive remarks toward pro-Palestinian advocates.
During an appearance last year at Duke University, Seinfeld compared pro-Palestinian activists with the Ku Klux Klan, saying, “The Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.”
Representatives of Seinfeld and producers of the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The post Portuguese artists pull out of Jerry Seinfeld-headlined festival appeared first on The Forward.
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UK, France, Canada to ban goods from Israeli settlements
(JTA) —
The United Kingdom, France and Canada will ban goods produced in the West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament on Tuesday, explaining that all such communities were deemed by his country to be illegal.
The declaration exacerbated the rising tensions riling the traditionally strong Israel-U.K. alliance. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned that these steps stoked antisemitism against British Jews in an on-camera statement to reporters in Jerusalem.
Sa’ar charged that the measures were a politicized hostile action deliberately taken ahead of Friday’s Jewish New Year holiday, with an eye toward influencing the country’s Oct. 27 elections.
Israel, he said, is responding by closing the British Consulate in Jerusalem that services Palestinians. It will also remove British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat and halt the British training of Palestinian Authority security forces. He added that Israel would bar the entry of 12 British politicians and other nationals involved in anti-Israel activity.
France and Canada have also announced a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He noted that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In the same address, Miliband affirmed Israel’s right to exist, reflected on his own Jewish roots and rejected the notion that there was a connection between the policy steps against West Bank settlement activity and the safety of British Jews.
What is motivating the U.K., Miliband said, is “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community” as well as Israel’s “clear intent to bury the Palestinian state.”
In response, he said, the U.K. “will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied [Palestinian] territory” as part of a “new comprehensive sanctions regime” that will be put in place within nine months.
This will include, he said, “action against specific companies and individuals who provide services, such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion.”
To those who “finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this, you will face the full force of U.K. sanctions,” Miliband warned.
Miliband clarified that the ban would not affect the export of religious items or life-saving Israeli medications. He explained that trade with the settlements was minimal and that the greater impact would be the sanctions on services.
As part of declaring the ban, Miliband said that the British government is also adopting the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion that all Israeli settlement activity over the pre-1967 border was illegal.
But others in Parliament pushed back against Miliband’s declaration. MP Richard Tice of Britain’s right-wing Reform party said that the sanctions were a grave mistake that would “embolden the scourge of antisemitism against British Jews on British streets,” endanger ties with the United States and lead to “tit for tat” sanctions from Israel.
Miliband shot back that “no British Jew is responsible for the policies of the Israeli government and it behooves all of us to make sure that there can be no confusion about that,” saying that Tice’s statement “fell foul” of that goal.
The U.K. action is the latest escalation in tensions between Israel and the Labour-led British government headed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took power in July.
The prior government, led by former Labour Premier Keir Starmer, had already angered Israel by recognizing Palestinian statehood in 2025, suspending licenses for the export of arms to Israel and freezing talks toward a free-trade agreement.
France and Canada are also announcing a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He explained that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In concert with Miliband’s appearance at Parliament, Britain and 11 other countries issued a joint statement pledging “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law.”
Those other countries were Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The 12-country bloc said it was taking this step to maintain the viability of the two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, describing the situation in the West Bank as “rapidly deteriorating.”
In its statement, the bloc stressed that it was taking this step amid an “unprecedented level of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project.” That project is seen as cutting through land that would render a Palestinian state unviable.
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California Gov. Newsom, a presidential hopeful, slams Netanyahu and AIPAC in PBS interview
(JTA) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a 2028 presidential hopeful, ventured farther than ever in his criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a weekend interview that delved into the Democratic Party’s relationship with Israel.
“I think it’s overwhelmingly opposed to the current regime in Israel,” Newsom said of the party, in a PBS News Hour interview with Amna Nawaz.
Pressed by Nawaz on divisions among his colleagues on Israel, Newsom denied that the subject is “even controversial anymore,” stressing that “the condemnation of what Bibi Netnayahu’s doing is almost universal.” The governor slammed the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza and condemned the settler violence that has expanded in the West Bank.
“We want a democratic and secure Israel, and we want a secure and democratic Palestinian state as well right next door,” Newsom said, adding that Netanyahu has proved counterproductive to achieving a two-state solution.
Though he repeatedly maintained that Democrats are not divided on Israel, the governor acknowledged that “some of the language” by fellow Democrats “has been weaponized.” Certain “aspects of rhetoric” from individual candidates, he added, are on “the spectrum of concern,” Newsom said.
A number of candidates from the party’s far left place most if not all of the blame on Israel for a war in Gaza that has resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths. and downplay the role of Hamas in launching the war with the Oct. 7, 2023 raid inside Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were abducted. Newsom’s rhetoric is of a piece with party moderates who are critical of the Israeli government but who call for a secure Israel, reject Hamas and who resist pressure from the left to call Israel’s actions “genocide.”
Newsom nonetheless insisted that the party is unified on the issue. “But I think universally, everyone agrees, even if you don’t think it’s genocide, that it’s been a moral catastrophe,” he said of the war in Gaza. “The vast majority of us also agree about the atrocities on Oct. 7th and how horrific and unacceptable it was, and the terrorism that was perpetrated by Hamas.”
Newsom was among the many U.S. politicians to visit Israel in October 2023, meeting with survivors and families impacted by the attacks.
During a March book tour, Newsom sparked a backlash when he said that some people were referring to Israel “appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.” He quickly walked back these remarks, telling Politico that he had used the term “in the context of the direction that Bibi is going.”
“I revere the state of Israel,” he declared at the time.
The governor warned, however, that if Netanyahu proceeds in the direction of West Bank annexation, apartheid could become “a word you may hear others use.”
In addition to amplifying his condemnation of Netanyahu this weekend, Newsom also addressed the fact that fewer Democrats are accepting funds from political action committees affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
As for Newsom himself, Track AIPAC, an organization that compiles Federal Election Commission data to flag pro-Israel campaign contributions, did not log any such donations to the likely presidential candidate. But the group did flag him as “pro-Israel.”
“It’s a minority of Democrats that are accepting AIPAC,” the governor said, noting a “dramatic change” over the last couple years.
“The vast majority of Democrats I talk to, even Democrats in the past that have in the past have taken AIPAC money, are pledging not to now,” Newsom added. “That’s more of a mainstream position, interestingly, within the Democratic Party.”
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