In the wake of the proliferation of pro-Palestine student encampments on American college campuses, accusations of antisemitism are back at the center of U.S. and global political discourse. Undoubtedly, as Peter Beinart and others have indicated, expressions of antisemitism have appeared in some of these protests, but their prevalence has been heavily inflated. Indeed, influential Jewish and non-Jewish actors in the media and politics have deliberately sought to create a public moral panic by conflating harsh criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism.
This conflation is the outcome of a decades-long campaign waged by Israel and its supporters around the world to stymie opposition to the state’s violent policies of occupation, apartheid, and domination over the Palestinians — which over the past seven months have taken on immense, plausibly genocidal proportions. ….more
