Campus Antisemitism
“As a general principle, we value freedom of expression even in cases where we don’t agree with the political views expressed and this is such a case,” said State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino.
Pro-Israel groups are calling on the university to address the latest incidents, including a lecture comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and a second student denied a recommendation to study abroad in Israel.
The development comes amid two anti-Israel controversies at the university, including another professor denying a letter of recommendation to study in Israel and a photo used during a lecture comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan tells JNS, Lara Alqasem served as “president of a chapter of one of the most extreme and hate-filled anti-Israel BDS groups in the U.S. She is free to return to her home in the United States whenever she wishes.”
Canary Mission, a watchdog of anti-Israel groups, released a detailed report about the University of Michigan, whose student government passed a BDS resolution in November 2017 through secret ballot.
Columbia chapter of Zionist advocacy group Students Supporting Israel claims that the university has ignored six months’ worth of complaints about harassment targeting Israeli and pro-Israel students.
“Every year, SJP invites speakers with proven connections to terrorist organizations, such as Hamas. Some are even convicted terrorists themselves …” declared a Jewish student at UCLA. “These are SJP’s role models. Does this sound like a human-rights conference to you?”
A year after a BDS resolution was rejected in 2017 by one vote, another one in 2018 passed at George Washington University, along with the failure of its student association to censor a member with a history of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments.
A letter supported by nearly 60 education, civil-rights and religious groups says “impeding a student’s ability to participate in a university-approved educational program in order to carry out political activism is reprehensible.”
According to John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the American Culture department, this was the first time he rejected a student’s request for a letter of recommendation to study abroad anywhere, as he labeled Israel an “apartheid” nation.
“Jewish and Israeli students, student groups and faculty are regularly threatened, marginalized and harassed. In far too many instances, school administrators turn a blind eye to this hostile environment or contribute to it by failing to enforce school policies,” says Lawfare Project executive director Brooke Goldstein.
Although a BDS resolution was passed last year by the university’s student government, the administration itself does not allow its departments or any part of the school to boycott or divest from Israel, according to University of Michigan spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald.
