Token Anti-Zionists’ Cowardly Denial of Anti-Semitism

June 26 2024

Appointed in November, Columbia University’s task force on anti-Semitism has found no small number of serious, institution-wide problems. In an all-too-typical attempt to undermine its work, a group of four self-described “Jews against Zionism” wrote an article for the school newspaper attacking the task force as “part of a political project to stoke fear on campus by alleging anti-Semitism against anyone opposing Zionism.” Elisha Baker, a fellow student, responds:

The four authors have made their choice clear: they reject their people’s right to a state and self-determination in their historic homeland. They have paid what the task force calls “the price of acceptance,” effectively assuring . . . the Columbia community at large that they, in fact, are not Zionists. Therefore, when they claim not to have felt ostracized on campus, I believe them. That is because they fit the pro-Palestinian movement’s mold of what kind of Jew belongs.

[The four] equate anti-Zionism with criticism of the Israeli government. They ask, “If even close to 42 percent of Jewish students on this campus hold critical views of the Israeli government’s actions, and are expressing them, would the task force call us all anti-Semitic?”’ The answer to this question is simple: no.

But of course, chanting “Death to Israel!” or calling for the country’s destruction isn’t criticism at all; nor is harassing pro-Israel students. Baker continues:

In their article, the four authors accuse the task force on anti-Semitism of excluding their voices from the conversation about campus anti-Semitism because of their anti-Zionism. They write that “it seems that the price of acceptance for the task force is that Jews be Zionists.” They are wrong. In reality, it seems that the price of acceptance for the task force is simply that one refrains from discriminating against Jews for their Zionism. On a campus that supposedly prides itself on diversity, equity, and inclusion, is this really too much to ask?

Read more at Columbia Spectator

More about: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Columbia University, Israel on campus

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy