This week, Tablet published a series of letters written by Jewish students on campuses across the country. They describe what it has been like to not go along with the flood of “anti-Zionism” which has overwhelmed these universities for several months. For refusing to join in they have been threatened, bullied and socially stigmatized. This is from a freshman at UC San Diego:
I was born in Israel and have been living in the United States since I was 3. On Oct. 7, as I frantically read the news, a friend on campus told me the attack was my fault and that I am directly “responsible for bombing kids.” Another classmate told me that I can’t possibly be peaceful because “Zionists are genocidal.” Yet another tried to insist that they don’t hate all Jewish people, just the Jewish people of Israel.
From a senior at NYU:
On my campus, however, nuance was the first casualty in a war of slogans and intimidation, and I have come to live in a tiny bubble, not unlike the days of COVID.
I am thankful for non-Jewish friends who understand my fears. They are my eyes and ears. One warned me to avoid the library after seeing a group angrily cheering for an “intifada.”
From a Columbia student whose photo was posted by an Instagram account associated with Students for Justice in Palestine.
The next day, on my way to psychology class, a student stopped me. “Oh, you’re that girl,” she said. Confused, I looked back at her, and she casually added, “You know, that one that supports genocide.” With that, she continued walking. Just a few minutes later, in class, a friend asked if I had checked Sidechat, Columbia’s anonymous social-media platform. A pang of fear hit me as I opened the app and saw posts about me. “That freak show girl from the news and Barfnard,” read one. “ZioTerrorist,” read another.
From a GWU student who is Israeli and found he was not allowed in the “liberated zone.”
Today, my friends and I find ourselves physically excluded from a so-called “liberated zone” on campus: an encampment exclusively for those who disavow the idea of a Jewish homeland. Self-proclaimed social justice warriors have cornered and spit on us, followed us around with cameras, and threatened to kick us off campus. When they say, “We want no Zionists here,” they really mean it.
And from a Princeton student who pushed by an “anti-Zionist” protester while covering the protest for the campus conservative paper.
I reported the incident to the university, but the investigation was dismissed, and the decision was “not subject to appeal,” according to Princeton’s vice provost for institutional equity and diversity. Not only did Princeton fail to discipline the protester who pushed me, but it also allowed him to take out a no-contact order (NCO) against me. Under this order, I was advised that “[t]he safest course of action in terms of a possible violation of the NCO would be to refrain from writing or to be interviewed” for articles about the assault. Speaking out about what happened to me could be construed as “an indirect or direct attempt to communicate,” I was told.
She eventually contacted the ADL and FIRE who sent a letter to the school’s president. Only then was the NCO against her removed. She concludes that on Princeton’s campus “free speech protections are doled out only to those with views that the university favors.”
There’s more including an amusing letter from a student at the University of Chicago which opens: “My peers at the University of Chicago are some of the nation’s best and brightest young minds. They’re also s***ting in tents.”
The gist of all of these letters is that Israeli and pro-Israel students have been bullied, harassed and threatened by classmates (and in some cases by teachers) for refusing to go with the flow of Israel hatred. The fact that none of them have any connection to Israeli policy or that many of them oppose the current government doesn’t matter. You must agree 100% with the campus radicals who are chanting “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” or you become a target for abuse.