Calling Criticism of Israel “Anti Semitic” Is Challenged as a Way to Silence Free Speech

There is a campaign on campuses across the country to silence criticism of Israel as “anti-Semitic,” particularly the advocacy of boycott, sanctions and disinvestment (BDS).

At the University of California, a single right-wing Jewish group, Amoha Initiative, called on the university to condemn all forms of opposition to Zionism. One of the group’s founders, Rossman Benjamin, said: “BDS is in virtually all its aspects anti-Semitic.” At the City University of New York (CUNY), the Zionist Organization of America made the same argument.

In fact, argues Eric Alterman, professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and a strong opponent of BDS, the movement calling for BDS “… is filled with young Jews. The pro-boycott group Jewish Voice for Peace is perhaps the fastest growing Jewish organization on campus nationwide. And many liberal Zionists share the movement’s complaints about the brutality and self-defeating nature of Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation, even if they believe BDS language and tactics to be counterproductive to the goal of a peaceful two state solution.”

In an article, “Free Speech, Even If It’s Obnoxious,” in The New York Times (March 29, 2016), Alterman states: “I’ve never heard a single anti-Semitic syllable on any CUNY campus in the dozen years I’ve been on the faculty. My classes on Jewish history and culture discuss extremely delicate questions of Jewish identity without anyone, Jew or gentile, evincing the slightest discernible discomfort … The notion that politicians can demand that a university prohibit certain types of political speech it finds distasteful by threatening its funding not only makes martyrs of those whom it seeks to silence, it also bespeaks a lack of confidence both in its own beliefs and in the value of reason itself.”

In March, the University of California Board of Regents adopted a set of principles that condemned anti-Semitism. But it rejected the demand that all opposition to Zionism be condemned. Pro-Palestinian groups complained that this was designed to stifle opposition to Israel’s policies. Dima Khalidi, the director of Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, said that pro-Israeli groups had “succeeded in convincing the regents that Palestine advocacy is inherently anti-Semitic and should be condemned. It’s very clear that they have as a goal a restriction on political speech criticizing Israel and its policies.”

Naomi Dann, media coordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace, says that, “As a recent graduate of Vassar College … I work daily with the growing number of Jewish students who see the BDS movement as the most effective way to shift the conversation from a debate over whether or not Israel’s nearly 50-year military occupation is a moral problem to one that centers on Palestinian rights to freedom and equality. … For many anti-Zionists, opposing the ideology that led to a state that privileges Jewish lives at the expense of Palestinians is an anti-racist position based on the value of equality for all people.” (The New York Times, April 1, 2016).

Jewish Voice for Peace endorses the call by Palestinians for BDS until Israel abides by international law. It states: “We reject the idea that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic and defend activists who employ the full range of BDS tactics when they are demonized and wrongly accused of anti-Semitism. We believe BDS is a meaningful alternative to passivity engendered by two decades of failed peace talks and is the most effective grassroots means for applying nonviolent pressure to change Israel’s policies.”

There is some sympathy in Israel for a boycott of products from the occupied territories. Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery and his group, Gush Shalom, have published a list of products made in areas beyond the Green Line. Israeli politician, Zehava Gal-Oh, head of the Meretz opposition party, said that while she opposes international boycott efforts against Israel as a whole, she refrains from consuming settler products since there “must be a price for the occupation.”

Whatever one thinks of the BDS movement, it enjoys widespread Jewish support, making charges of “anti-Semitism” seem a tactic to silence open debate. •