A statement has recently been circulating online, purporting to bear the signatures of over 1,000 individuals—most of whom are professors of Jewish studies—under the title “The Elephant in the Room.” Although it begins with a complaint about “Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary,” it deviates quickly from the agenda of the Israeli protest movement to assert that the real problem (hence the title) is the “illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” which it thrice describes with the term “apartheid.” Jarrod Tanny zeroes in on some of the document’s “falsehoods and dangerous claims.”
“Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.” I should not have to explain to Jewish-studies scholars why blaming much of Israel’s oppressive policies on Jewish money and power from abroad is anti-Semitic. . . . Whether there are American Jewish billionaires giving money to the Israeli right is irrelevant. As a counterexample, consider George Soros. Whenever Fox News sounds the alarm over “George Soros Globalists” funding destructive projects, the Jewish left screams “anti-Semitism.”
“American Jewish billionaire funders” does nothing but trigger anti-Semites, giving them the much-wanted confirmation from “blue-chip” Jewish-studies scholars that their project to liquidate Israel and the global Zionist threat is a righteous endeavor.
This document will not “fix” Israel. It can’t, much as BDS resolutions on college campuses can’t. But fixing Israel is not [its authors’] immediate objective. Their objective is to promote anxiety and discomfort among diaspora Jews. They want Zionist Jews to know their message is being received by anti-Zionist activists, politicians, and the larger academic community: Israel is not kosher, there are good Jews and bad Jews, and we, the bad Jews, are tainted by the stain of Jewish supremacy; we are no better than the ever-expanding circle of “fascists” and “racists” who are bringing America to its knees. The Jews, rather than any imagined connection between the “occupation” and Israeli judicial overhauls, are “the elephant in the room.” We are the target.
Read more on Jewish Journal: https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/361531/jewish-studies-scholars-recent-statement-targets-the-wrong-elephant/