Here’s a letter to the editor I sent the local paper yesterday:
First, criticizing Israel is not necessarily anti-semitism. I’m of Jewish ancestry, my mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany. But I think Israel has a government of extremist zealots, its treatment of Palestinians has long been atrocious, and Hamas’s October 7 atrocities don’t justify the crimes against humanity Israel now perpetrates in Gaza.
But protests against them too often do veer into anti-semitism, tarring all Jews with Israeli government crimes. (An echo of the ancient “blood libel” propelling Jew hatred.) The frequent chant, “From the River to the Sea,” is virtually an explicit call for wiping out the whole Israeli nation — i.e., genocide.
Yet — to avoid deeming this unacceptable — several major University presidents, testifying before Congress, tied themselves in Talmudic knots. The great irony here is that such universities have no trouble condemning, banning, suppressing, punishing, and “cancelling” speech far less objectionable — indeed, often expressions really within the American mainstream that nevertheless transgress “politically correct” or “woke” dogmas. Yet anti-semitism somehow isn’t politically incorrect??
Another huge irony here is that those University leaders had to be called out by . . . wait for it . . . Representative Elise Stefanik, notorious for herself defending the indefensible, including Trump’s attempt to overthrow our democracy.
Why do I increasingly feel the world is going nuts?