I know most of the people responsible or who are covering for it don't care, but let me explain how American Jews are feeling right now:
The overwhelming majority of Jews only live in a few countries in the world. Our families were driven out of much of Europe by pogroms and The Holocaust, and then we were ethnically cleansed from most of the Middle East.. something that rarely gets discussed.
As a result of that history, there is only a feeling of safety in societies that protect pluralism and in the world's only Jewish country. The existence of Jews in Israel is central to the Jewish religion, no matter how much some people would like to pretend otherwise.
The point is that for most Jews, Zionism is part of their identity. It's not about support for the Israeli government or any particular policy, but simply the right for the existence of the Jewish state.
Now we get to America and these protests. American Jews are Americans. We support the right of a Jewish state to exist, but that doesn't mean we want to be Israelis. Just like a French American can support the existence of France, or an Iranian American can support the existence of Iran (and can care about what happens there..). Yet I want people to understand how concerning it is to see what we are seeing now, especially given the history of the Jewish people. More upsetting is that much of this is just being ignored or downplayed by those in a position to speak up.
We are seeing videos of Jewish kids being restricted from entering school libraries. Jewish kids are being assaulted. Jewish kids face mobs attacking and harassing them simply for maintaining a belief that is central to their identity. And they are told that it's not an issue because all they have to do is denounce that part of their identity and then they can be counted as good Jews and accepted.
Then we are also seeing these mobs now openly chant for violence against "zionists," demand that "zionists" be banned from public spaces, chant for "Zionists" not to be allowed on the streets. Chant for violence against an overwhelming majority of Jews. And often also the ethnic cleansing of our relatives in Israel.
When most Jews hear that, it means us and our families. No amount of spin will change that. The goal is to try to make us feel unwelcome in these spaces and it is explicit.
You have no idea the feelings that video of a group of idiots at UCLA not letting a Jewish kid go to the library because he was a "zionist" brought out for Jewish Americans...
And before people start to argue about what things like "there is only one solution, intifada revolution" and "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab", we know what they mean. More importantly, we've made it clear how we perceive these things and that has made the mobs want to chant them even louder because they view it as effective intimidation. Not one of these chants has ever helped a Palestinian. Not one of them has ever changed a single Israeli policy. They are specifically aimed at intimidating people in America.
But it has gotten worse...
Businesses owned by Jews in Los Angeles are getting threatening calls telling them they either need to openly oppose Israel or they risk harassment/attacks. Jewish Synagogues facing bomb threats. Jewish-owned property is being vandalized. Jewish organizations are being explicitly targeted. Jews who support Israel are being actively targeted. And the demand is that we just accept it.
And again, the sickest part of it is not only the relative silence, but those who are supposed to inform the public on what is happening are pretending like it isn't happening because it would undermine a "mostly peaceful" narrative they prefer.
They are actively covering for the mobs doing these very things. And by the time this escalates, it will be too late. We can see where this is headed. And not just for Jews, because while we may be at the top of the target list, the people behind this also hate so many other aspects of American society and are open about saying so. They think they are revolutionaries and the society that Americans sacrificed so much to help build is their ultimate target.
The education system is failing as an institution to teach these wannabe Red Guards why this behavior is wrong. The media is failing as an institution to tell people the truth about what is happening. The government, mostly in deep blue areas, is failing as an institution to live up to its part of the social contract in protecting people from these criminal mobs. That's a lot of failures that are driving us into dangerous territory. American Jews aren't going to accept this path and being bullied out of public spaces without fighting back. I hope non-Jewish Americans wake up to it and also stand up against it because the more these mobs get away with, the further they will go. It may start with Jews (or "zionists"), but it won't end there.
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Let me make it easy for those interested in the truth or who have been denying that these mobs are motivated by anti-Semitism or support for terrorism. Here is a short thread with just some of the direct evidence. I will just focus on the protests at and around Columbia:
As @jonathanchait pointed out, the main 2 groups behind the protests, SJP and WOL, have both openly expressed support for terrorism. Both groups have defended the 10/7 attack where Hamas massacred numerous innocent people:
The main student organizer of the Columbia protests is on video saying he believes “Zionists do not deserve to live” and was on video directing other students to expel 3 Jewish students who simply walked into the area:
Is Israel Committing “Genocide” or indiscriminately killing Palestinians in Gaza?
I’m tired of people going through this discussion without any accompanying facts or logic so I’m going to put some thoughts into one thread and people can decide for themselves.
To properly have this discussion, we first need to go through and understand Gaza casualty figures. Where they come from and what they show.
The current Gaza casualty figures are all provided by the Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry. In previous conflicts with Israel, the Gaza Health Ministry has used a system of collecting data from hospitals, ambulance services, and morgues (we can refer to this as the central collection system) to come up with casualty figures. Their numbers do not usually distinguish civilian vs. militant casualties, but they do typically provide a demographic breakdown. Those who defend using their numbers will point to the fact that the Gaza Health Ministry casualty numbers in previous conflicts, collected via the CCS mentioned above, have often been consistent with estimates from other sources.
However, there have been large errors in the demographic breakdowns and in claims on the portion of combatants killed when provided. Usually, some NGOs are also doing their own counts to confirm, which is not happening in this conflict.
In the current war, the Gaza Health Ministry started collecting casualties the same way via the CCS when the war began. They showed ~9K deaths before Israel launched their ground invasion at the end of October. Then, as the data below shows, the casualty rate dropped significantly in the CCS data after the initial period of fighting in November. What is also clear from the CCS data, as shown below, is the proportion of male casualties (the category most, but not all, Hamas militants would fit into) increased significantly over time.
These are Jordanians who were born in Jordan and have lived there their whole lives. Only by the insane UNRWA definition, which applies to no other group of people anywhere in the world, are Jordanian citizens that have only ever lived in Jordan considered refugees.
This is like referring to Jews in Israel, whose grandparents fled Arab countries such as Jordan, as refugees. Only no one does that because it’s obviously absurd. But UNRWA is intentionally setup outside the normal rules for everyone else to perpetuate conflict.
Not one person can reasonably explain why the grandchild of a Palestinian Arab who moved from The current West Bank to Syria in 1952 is a refugee but the grandchild of a Jewish Syrian who was forced to flee to Israel in 1950 is not one. Or why they were not considered refugees when Jordan controlled The West Bank from 1947-1967, but are now.
It's incredible that almost the entire media adopted and regularly used a nickname for this law ("Don't Say Gay") that was used by critics to intentionally mislead regarding the content of the law while the settlement just restates that the law should be followed as written.
I pointed out repeatedly at the time that media outlets were misleading their readers by suggesting the law bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity instead of classroom instruction related to those subjects....
If you want to understand how Hamas propaganda is created on here and spreads, let me show a perfect example.
21 year old Mia Schem was taken hostage by Hamas on 10/7. She had her arm blown off. She was released as part of the ceasefire exchange.
While she was still in Hamas captivity, they had her film a hostage video in October.
Then, right before her release, they had her film another video under gunpoint where she said she was treated “very good” and people in Gaza were “very kind” to her.
The main anti-Israel propaganda accounts on here then promoted that video for millions of views suggesting Hamas was treating the hostages very well.