With the legitimacy of the Palestinian anti-Israel movement sweeping across universities in the West and a tentative ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas now reached, the underlying question still remains: Are they fighting for Palestinian human and civil rights or against those same Jewish rights in Israel?
For the past two years, the activist hordes have demanded Israel agree to stop fighting in Gaza for the sake of the innocent people trapped in a warzone. While many have made clear their apathy toward the Israelis captive in Gaza or any other Israelis and Zionists , what has stayed constant is their apparent empathy-fueled anger for “justice in Palestine.” But now that the current chapter in the longstanding conflict has seemingly concluded, why has there been no observable change to their behavior? Why have they stayed silent over reports, including in the New York Post, that Hamas has redirected their homicidal tactics toward their own people now that their Jewish neighbors have by and large left Gaza? What exactly does intimidating Jews in America do to further their cause?
I experienced this kind of bullying firsthand as a member of my Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. From April 24 to 26, I engaged in the MU chapter’s philanthropy event focused on cancer research. In response, my school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine decided to verbally harass us and marched through the streets chanting colorful epithets about Israel and Zionists.
It’s not hard to read between the lines here. If Students for Justice in Palestine targets their anti-Israel campaigns on ordinary Jewish events, their message is just the pretext not the purpose.
If it wasn’t already clear, Oct. 7, 2023, put the final nail in the coffin on the illusion that there’s a difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It was anti-Zionism that drove thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to commit atrocities on their neighbors and drove activists in the West to support them. Unfortunately, not only has this fact gotten lost in public discourse but anti-Zionists have become emboldened by the lack of consequences. This is reflected by the FBI’s statistics on antisemitic hate crimes, which show a considerable rise in the past four years. At this point, it’s common knowledge that this social contagion has infested campuses all over North America. Last year at Montreal’s Concordia University, a man covering his face told Jewish students he was going to “eliminate their mother from existence,” and “hopes the Jewish students die.”
During a 2024 UCLA encampment, a peaceful Jewish student holding a sign reading, “Israel is Not Apartheid. Come Talk,” was assaulted by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator. At the same encampment, “pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment with plywood and metal barricades in Royce Quad, a major thoroughfare. In a lawsuit, the judge said they had “‘established checkpoints and required passers-by to wear a specific wristband to cross them,’ blocking ‘people who supported the existence of the state of Israel’ from entering the encampment and other areas of the campus.” A judge concluded after the fact that, “Jewish students were excluded from portions of the U.C.L.A. campus because they refused to denounce their faith.”
Much of this behavior was rationalized as a response to Israel’s military actions. And yet, with a ceasefire agreement now reached, there is a glaring silence from the ceasefire-now crowd across the world. Hamas is executing Palestinian civilians in cold blood across Gaza, and they are all still shouting about Israel. Early this month on the two-year commemoration of Hamas’s massacre, crowds of activists with keffiyehs cheered as a speaker proclaimed that “we did not act enough! We will show up, stronger than we did the first October 7th!” How many times are they going to share their truly violent antisemitism before a majority of Americans start speaking up?
Advocating for human rights in a sensible, non-hateful manner is an incredibly noble cause. Using human rights as a front to promote Jew hatred, isn’t. This is not to say that all pro-Palestinian demonstrations are infested with Jew hatred, but there is a glaring trend documented across digital media showing how common it has become. If this movement as a whole and groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine really want to hold onto the legitimacy they currently enjoy, then there needs to be a reckoning between the genuine human rights activists and the jihadists hell bent on harming Jews. Anything less betrays the Palestinians who suffer, Jews who become scapegoats and the principles of a decent protest.
This article was originally published in the Columbia Missourian.
