As protests by students and faculty in support of Palestinian rights spread rapidly across the US, a cacophony of claims that these protests are replete with antisemitism has been used to attempt to suppress rising disgust with the genocidal actions of the Israeli state.
These claims have been made despite overwhelming evidence that encampments have been largely peaceful, that the messaging at the protests has condemned antisemitic statements by “isolated individuals or intentional provocateurs”, that the protesters have included Jewish students and faculty and that there have been documented provocations inflicted on the encampments from outsiders.
Students and faculty have also been brutally assaulted by police and, in the case of the UCLA encampment, by pro-Israeli protesters. As pointed out by observers, the few instances of Islamophobia and antisemitism among protesters, counter-protesters and bystanders have been the exception and “the overwhelming majority of students protesting have been modelling the peaceful coexistence of religious expression”…..more