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On Academic Indoctrination in American Universities
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – On a site named “Slow Factory,” which serves as a resource for college pro-Palestine activists, its FAQ page poses the question: “Is ‘Free Palestine’ Antisemitic?” The answer, of course, is no. Why is that supposed to be a correct response? As they explain,
“First, antisemitism is a distinctly European cultural trait that has no historical equivalent in the Levant. … The movement does not single out or attack Judaism as a religion or people. … It hopes to create a truly democratic state in which self-determination and human rights are available for everyone.”
Before treating the claptrap quoted, we need to note that Slow Factory defines itself as “an environmental and social justice nonprofit organization” that works “at the intersections of climate and culture” to “redesign socially & environmentally harmful systems.” This is accomplished through “narrative change and regenerative design.” In short, mind control is supported by progressive funding. Influence Watch makes it clear that they are extremely anti-Zionist.
To return to the above-quoted excerpt, it is patently apparent that Slow Factory is presenting a false narrative. There is antisemitism in the Levant. While some of it could be traced to the influence of Christian missionaries, much of it is rooted in the Quran and accompanying Islamic literature. There are attacks on Jews by Muslims chanting itbah al-Yahud (“slaughter the Jews”) from Baghdad’s Farhud in 1941 to the massacre by Hamas in the Western Negev in 2023. Moreover, 31 years following the signing of the Oslo Accords, no democracy has developed in the Palestinian Authority; instead, it is a continuation and deepening of an authoritarian societal rule.
The “movement” indeed singles out Jews. It prevents them from crossing encampment lines. It attacks Jewish objects—whether people, institutions, places of business or customers at cafes. It seeks out the doors of Jewish students in dormitories. It lays siege to synagogues, hospitals named “Jewish” and Jewish schools. As for their vision of a democratic state, it is a movement that heralds the most undemocratic societies, whether in Gaza or Ramallah, Hebron or Shechem.
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As explained by Austrian-born essayist Jean Améry, already in 1969, the left on campuses has been captured by pro-Palestine rhetoric and framework referencing that aligned itself with, first extreme left-wing and then, in its eventual progressive mutation, melding with Islamist antisemitism. Améry (born Hanns Chaim Mayer) realized that Israel would be demonized since nothing could ultimately satisfy the eliminationist demands of anti-Zionists. Anti-Zionism was fashioned to be the new “honorable antisemitism.”
For those opposed to Zionism, Israel is a symbol of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism—the core evils leftists exist to oppose. This is the underlying layer of today’s debasement of anything pro-Israel, its pillars sunk into a feeling of intense and even depraved degradation of Jews and all things Jewish, especially an independent and successful Jewish state.
What has evolved is epitomized at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, where a director of counseling services can present antisemitic views at an international conference, describing Zionism as a “disease” that requires psychotherapy. FBI-style “Wanted” posters targeted Jewish faculty and staff members at the University of Rochester. The sheriff’s office in Walla Walla, Wash., was required to respond to a pro-Palestine student protest outside a Whitman Board of Trustees dinner at a winery forcing the college to relocate its dinner venue.
At De Paul University, supporting Israel landed one Jewish student in the hospital while a second student was lightly injured. At Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, the campus flagpole had a Hamas flag hoisted.
The deeper invasive connection between academia and anti-Zionism, however, is not in protests but in the educational content, or rather the indoctrination, that a student undergoes. For example, the University of California, Berkeley has announced that it is offering a course this coming spring semester describing Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force fighting settler colonialism.” More invidious, the course description reads as if a primer for a revolutionary underground:
“With the U.S.-backed and -funded genocide being carried out against Indigenous Palestinians by the Israeli Occupying Force, many have found it difficult to envision a reality beyond the one we are living in today.”
A second example is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seminar taught by linguistics professor Michel DeGraff. The course deals with “language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation and for peace and community-building.”
His position is that Jews have no connection to Israel and that Israeli textbooks “weaponize trauma of the Holocaust.” Israeli youth, he further asserts, grow up “with this trauma that made them fear that their existence is in threat.” That may be a fair observation, but he adds that the threat comes from “anyone who doesn’t believe in the superior position of the Jewish people in Israel.”
If you perceive some racism and black supremacist theory in this explanation, you are probably correct.
This is but one sphere of influence crushing on a student. In too many cases, his/her lecturers and advisors are those who sign pro-Palestine petitions, marshal the demonstrations and sit-ins, and provide support for campus groups when they are disciplined—or more correctly, when administrations attempt to do so.
The Capital Research Center has published a study titled “Marching Towards Violence” that investigated militant left-wing antisemitism on the campuses of U.S. colleges and universities. It has identified more than 150 campus groups that explicitly support terrorism or, at the least, emphasize violent anti-Israel rhetoric.
David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, sums up the situation:
“Anti-Israel forces focused on U.S. college campuses have transformed the American university into a vector for their activist agenda … playing the long game—what activists call “the long march through institutions”—in inculcating a stark ideological worldview that portrays anyone with power or success … as oppressors.”
Is there an antidote? One is the Deborah Project, which defends the civil rights of Jews facing discrimination in educational settings. Its aim is “to use legal skills and tools to uncover, publicize and dismantle antisemitic abuses in educational systems.” Other groups and individuals work on many levels of engagement; still, if the monied Jewish establishment institutions do not get behind this, then the anarchy, irrationality and hate will at some point come to overwhelm Diaspora Jewry.
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Jewish Radio Host in Australia Fired for Covering ‘Free Palestine’ Sticker, Refusing to Defend Oct. 7 Hamas Attack
A view of Sydney, Australia. Photo: Reuters/David Gray.
A Jewish volunteer radio host was fired from a community radio station in Sydney, Australia, after covering up a “Free Palestine” sticker on station equipment and refusing to describe the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel as “resistance.”
Nicole, whose last name was not publicly shared for her safety, hosted a Latino music program in Spanish on Radio Skid Row, according to Sky News Australia, which was the first to reported on her firing. On Friday, the former radio host, who has Mexican and Israeli roots, talked about being fired in a video posted on social media.
“I just came out of a meeting with Radio Skid Row,” she said. “They basically just told me that if I cannot support the Oct. 7 attacks as ‘resistance’ and as something positive — basically saying also that it’s not true that anybody just killed or burned or anything — that if I cannot support the hostages being kept, then I don’t align with their values and I cannot be there. If I cannot support the fact that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist and that Jews don’t have a right to be in Israel, I can no longer be at their station.”
Radio Skid Row receives federal government funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation and support from the City of Sydney Council. It broadcasts a weekly show called “Pulse of Palestine,” which examines “life under occupation and the global Palestinian resistance,” according to a description posted on the radio station’s website. The show is hosted by Palestinian activist Ahmed Alabadla and was previously titled “Red Inverted Triangle: Resistance, Intifada, Tahreer,” which is now the name of a podcast also hosted by Alabadla. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the red inverted triangle is a symbol used by Hamas and supporters of the terrorist organization to glorify its use of violence.
Radio Skid Row has deleted its Instagram account as of Tuesday but Sky News Australia noted that it has shared numerous anti-Israel posts on the social media application, including one that glorified notorious Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is an internationally designated terrorist organization, Khaled hijacked a Tel Aviv-bound plane in 1969 and attempted another hijacking in 1970 of an El Al flight.
Nicole told the Australian news outlet that Radio Skid Row manager Manu Montero called her in for a meeting after she covered up on station equipment a sticker that featured a Palestinian flag and the words “Free Palestine.”
During the meeting, Nicole apologized for covering the “Free Palestine” sticker before talking to management first. She discussed her opposition to the “Free Palestine” movement and its connection to vandalism and other forms of violence in Australia, and how it has made “Jewish people feel uneasy and safe in Sydney.” She also talked about being a Jewish person who had family murdered in the Holocaust. She told Sky News Australia that another person who Montero invited to the meeting, a woman, laughed at Nicole when she talked about the Jewish experience and her heritage.
Montero responded by talking about the radio station’s opposition to Israel, accusing the country of colonization and saying Israel does not have a right to exist, Nicole recalled. Her husband, who attended the meeting to support her, asked Montero if Nicole could continue hosting her Skid News show if she stayed away from discussing politics. Montero replied no, that she had to actively support the Free Palestine movement, speak about it and attend pro-Palestinian rallies. Montero also denied that Oct. 7 happened entirely, Nicole told Sky News Australia.
Radio Skid Row and Montero have not publicly commented on Nicole’s firing.
The post Jewish Radio Host in Australia Fired for Covering ‘Free Palestine’ Sticker, Refusing to Defend Oct. 7 Hamas Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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ADL Applauds NY Governor Hochul for Signing New Social Media Transparency Law Against Online Hate Speech
A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed gratitude to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for signing into law on Tuesday legislation that will help combat hate speech on major social media platforms and ensure a safer social media experience for all users.
Legislation S895B/A6789B, also known as the “Stop Hiding Hate Act,” requires social media companies to inform all users of its terms of service. It also requires social media companies to submit reports about their terms of service and content moderation policies to the New York State Attorney General for inspection, and provides solutions for violations. The new law forces major social media companies to be more transparent about their current policies on topics such as hate speech, disinformation, extremism, and racism, and will hold the companies accountable for hate content on their platforms.
New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D, WFP-Manhattan) penned the “Stop Hiding Act” in partnership with Assembly Member Grace Lee (D-Manhattan) and the ADL. Together they have been advocating for its passage for years, according to the anti-hate organization.
“Today represents the culmination of the hard work of Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Lee and tireless advocacy from community organizations and constituents across New York who support this measure for greater internet transparency and safety,” Scott Richman, the regional director of ADL New York/New Jersey, said in a released statement. “We know there is still work to be done to protect vulnerable communities from hate and extremism online, but we commend Governor Hochul for taking this important step in creating a safer internet for all New Yorkers.”
Hoylman-Sigal said in a released statement that the new law “will help boost accountability and transparency for social media companies who currently face far too little regulation, and create a safer social media environment for all.”
“With white supremacy, antisemitism, islamophobia, anti-LGBTQ hatred and anti-AAPI violence all on the rise, social media companies must ensure that their platforms don’t advance disinformation and hate-fueled violence,” he added. “The current social media landscape makes it too easy for bad actors to promote false claims, hate and dangerous conspiracies, too often leading to violence like January 6 and the rise in antisemitism and islamophobia we have seen in the aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel.”
Lee noted that New York is only the second state in the US, after California, to sign into law a social media transparency bill that holds such companies accountable for their moderation policies and hate speech on their platform.
“Social media companies have created an environment where hate and disinformation spread like wildfire,” Lee explained. “Algorithms that prioritize the most attention-grabbing posts often amplify hateful language, giving it a massive platform. These companies have a responsibility to protect users from this hate, but have failed to do so. The ‘Stop Hiding Hate Act’ ensures greater accountability and transparency on social media, requiring companies to clearly outline the steps they are taking to eliminate hate on their platforms. It will provide critical protections for all users online and hold these platforms accountable to the public.”
The “Stop Hiding Act” was part of a legislative bill package that Governor Kathy Hochul signed on Tuesday. “With this legislative package, we are taking bold action to hold companies accountable, strengthen protections, and give consumers the transparency and security they need and deserve,” the governor said in a released statement.
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Biden Admin Slams U.S. Agency’s Claim of ‘Famine’ In Northern Gaza
Former US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be the next US ambassador to Israel on Capitol Hill, Washington, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
The Biden administration issued a statement disputing a new report alleging the emergence of a famine in northern Gaza, accusing the group which issued the report of using false data in service of advancing an inflammatory narrative regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
On Monday, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in northern Gaza without sufficient access to food.
U.S. Israel Ambassador Jack Lew issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
FEWS Net initially released a bombshell report on Monday alleging that “Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians. The agency claimed that an “analysis of trends in food consumption and acute malnutrition” in northern Gaza suggest that the enclave now meets the threshold of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5), indicating a famine or catastrophe.
However, in the report, the agency conceded that it did not have the hard data to substantiate their allegations, stating that it relied “on extrapolation, inference, empirical evidence, logic, and expert judgment.”
FEWS Net continued, claiming that Israel’s current policies on food imports into Gaza have rendered the enclave vulnerable to mass starvation casualties. The organization
“In the absence of a change to Israeli policy on the entry of food and nutrition supplies to this area, FEWS NET expects non-trauma mortality levels will pass the Famine (IPC Phase 5) threshold between January and March 2025, with at least 2-15 people dying per day.”
Moreover, the report adds that the risk of famine in the rest of Gaza “remains very credible” due to Israeli restrictions on food imports, armed gangs hijacking humanitarian aid trucks, and Israeli airstrikes on military targets in the area.
Hamas, the terrorist group that sparked the ongoing war by slaughtering roughly 1200 people in southern Israel, often attempts to ransack and hoard aid trucks that enter the Gaza strip. Earlier this month, the United Nations (UN) acknowledged that armed Hamas militants have looted convoys near the Kerem Shalom crossing. The UN suspended aid deliveries into Gaza and called on Israel to provide better security in the beleaguered enclave.
In the year following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, Israel has been repeatedly accused of purposely inflicting famine in Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
Furthermore, this is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, The United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by the agency that a famine had taken ahold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
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