Several incidents involving swastikas, harmful antisemitic libels, and images of the burning Israeli flag took place on Ohio State University (OSU)'s campus Kristallnacht.
One would have hoped that OSU administrators and students could come together to resist this unprecedented and abhorrent increase in antisemitism on campus.
Sadly, those hopes were crushed by the invitation of a speaker to campus who spews the very same libels.
On November 9, the OSU Palestinian Women’s Association hosted Rutgers University Professor Dr. Noura Erakat, who spoke to Ohio State students over Zoom to discuss her new book, “Justice for Some: Law and the Occupation of Palestine.”
Although she is hailed by her university and many anti-Zionist activists as an expert in international law, fallacies in her book can be found as early as the introduction
This falsehood negates the indisputable fact that in 1948, most Jews Arabs, on the other hand, vehemently rejected
Israel’s current borders are defined by land acquired by military victories against neighboring Arab countries who invaded Israel following the rejection of the partition in 1948, and then in 1967. Even the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s current president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that this rejection
Despite having received degrees
Erakat participated in a webinar in January “civil disobedience” “armed struggle Erakat boldly proclaimed
Erakat asserted at the January webinar that “Palestinians will not attack Jews because they are Jewish,” but merely “because they are their military occupiers and oppressors.” A week after the webinar, a Palestinian teenager went on a stabbing and car-ramming spree
By justifying attacks against Jews under the pretense that they are perceived as oppressors, Erakat incites violence against Jews, and equates the actions of individual Jews and those of Israel with being one and the same. These bigoted claims did not stop Erakat from being warmly welcomed to the OSU under the title of “activist” and “human rights professor.”
During the OSU talk, Erakat asserted that “Israeli targeted strikes against innocent Palestinians are nothing new,” and alluded to Chapter 5
What does Erakat use to illustrate this point? Israel’s missile strike in November 2000 against Palestinian Fatah Commander Hussein Abayat, who oversaw and carried out attacks
In an April webinar at the University of Illinois, Erakat claimed that “expert”
Yet still, Erakat urged attendees of the November 9 event to “continue the good fight,” adding that “you will be marked as antisemites just for supporting Palestine, even though Palestine past and present has admired Judaism as a religion.” This claim reduces Judaism to only a religion rather than an ethnicity and peoplehood, and it also whitewashes a longstanding history of Palestinian violence against Jews, such as the 1929 Hebron massacre, Haj Amin Al-Husseini
At a university where swastikas and antisemitic slurs have been found graffitied on school buildings, is Erakat an ideal speaker for OSU’s “safe and welcoming campus?”
Alex M. Grosman is a student at The Ohio State University, and a 2022-2023 CAMERA fellow.
