The Modern Language Association, a 140-year-old organization of scholars adopted an “emergency motion”
Whatever anyone thinks about Israel or Zionism, however, it should still be possible to protest the Israel-Hamas war without lurching into antisemitism.
Unfortunately, the temptation to raise anti-Jewish tropes appears to have been irresistible, judging from the slogans at campus demonstrations in support of the Palestinians. There is no contradiction between defending academic freedom and criticizing offensive speech.
Consider the frequently heard chant
There are three entities
As Hassan Nasrallah, recently warned Israel’s Jews
For Israelis and their supporters, of any faith or background, the call to eliminate the Jewish state is ominous, threatening and inherently antisemitic.
Defenders of the slogan, however, claim to see it differently.
According to a report by Al Jazeera
Rep. Rashida Tlaib facing censure for her use an aspirational call for freedom adoption of the slogan
Even assuming good faith when Tlaib, and others, assert that “from the river to the sea” means something benign and democratic, why would they insist on repeating a phrase that is also associated with terrorism and perceived as murderous by so many who hear it?
It cannot be that a speaker’s intent — rather than the impact on listeners — should determine the acceptability of a phrase or symbol. On that theory, it is perfectly fine for right-wing demonstrators to wave the Confederate battle flag, which they often claim is an expression of southern heritage
Indeed, it would thus be wrong to remove Confederate memorials from so many locations Arlington National Cemetery protests by those who believe intended only to commemorate so-called “Lost Cause”
It is now routine for campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs to police microaggressions, place common words off-limits, ban anything that might make a student feel “unsafe” and announce that impact can outweigh intent. It should not be surprising, therefore, that university administrators have been calling for greater civility
At Columbia University, for example, the deans of all 17 faculties issued a joint statement
Even that mild appeal for voluntary restraint was too much for some.
Professor Rashid Khalidi, posted an open letter
The statement, Khalidi said, amounts to “a new norm that prohibits using or learning about these terms and their histories,” while unilaterally deciding “that Palestine should remain unfree from the river to the sea.”
Oblivious to the irony, Khalidi imputed oppressively sinister consequences to the deans’ conciliatory statement, while dismissing the reactions of Israeli and Jewish students to the far more threatening chant. Those making anti-Zionist statements must not suffer even polite criticism of their language choices, but Jewish students confronted by constant verbal assaults
There are yet more intimidating anti-Jewish slogans, such as “by any means necessary globalize the intifada have been increasingly happening Europe Canada United States
A recent survey showed that nearly half of campus anti-Israel protesters leaders movement, of course exactly where the planned Palestinian state
Anti-Zionism is not the same thing as antisemitism, although there may be considerable overlap. A professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, for example called Zionism “a structural impediment to health equity”
Even when hateful speech is protected by the First Amendment and covered by academic freedom, it may still be called out
If protesters truly reject Hamas’s eliminationist objective, and instead are seeking only, as Tlaib put it, “freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence,” they could make a simple change in their slogan that would make it less menacing and more humane:
“From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.”
It would still rhyme while allowing for Israel’s survival. But of course, that is not what they are after.
Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
