Recently adopted resolutions condemning anti-Semitism by student unions at two University of California campuses have come under criticism for going too far, with opponents arguing they stifle debate under the guise of battling bigotry.
Both Palestinian advocates and Jewish dissenters have raised
criticism over the concern that the resolutions blur the line
between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, arguing that the
language in the documents is based on a decade-old EU document
revoked two years ago.
“This resolution is much broader than the one recognized by
the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of
Education,” Phan Nguyen, journalist for Mondoweiss, told RT.
The OCR has investigated numerous allegations of harassment, but
found “time and time again, what is considered harassment
turned out to be actual criticism of Israel people felt offended
by.”
The student association at University of California Los Angeles
(UCLA) adopted a resolution condemning anti-Semitism last
week, following the passage of a similarly-worded resolution at UC Berkeley at
the end of February.
Both documents reference several inflammatory incidents in the
past two months, including a Jewish fraternity house at UC Davis
being defaced with Nazi graffiti and a candidate for a student
judiciary body at UCLA having her loyalties questioned on account
of being Jewish. Both invoke the State Department’s definition of
anti-Semitism, with the UCLA document specifically listing what
constitutes “appropriate and acceptable criticism of
Israel.”
“They don’t want to debate Israel,” Nguyen told RT, but
rather “want to prevent any discussion of this from happening
under this blanket of anti-Semitism.”
According to NPR columnist Wendy Kaminer, however, the “Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement is “blurring the
lines between irrational mistrust or hatred of Jews and reasoned
protests of Israeli policies.” UC Davis adopted a resolution
joining the BDS the night before the Jewish frat house was
vandalized.
The flap at UCLA over a student council election reveals more
than anti-Semitism: http://t.co/ZkqVaFI8Gp via
@cogwbur
— WBUR (@WBUR) March 13,
2015
When taken in the context of the view, increasingly present on
many US campuses, that unequal distribution of power should be
countered by an unequal distribution of rights, the anti-Semitic
belief that Jews hold excessive power “removes Jews from the
charmed circle of historically disadvantaged students who deserve
deference on campus and the full panoply of rights,” argued
Kaminer.
The UCLA resolutions calls on the student association to be
“conscious of the intentional and unintentional effects of
their words and actions,” while the Berkeley document
“encourages the student body to be conscious of unintended
effects that their words and actions may have on others.”
Unintended consequences of speech were also highlighted last week
at UC Berkeley, when a Muslim student used a hashtag referencing
“intifada” – the Arab word for “uprising” – to announce her
candidacy for the student senate. Jewish groups protested and
claimed the term brought up painful images of terrorism.
Clarifying her intentions in the Berkeley student newspaper, The
Daily Californian, Sumayyah Din defended her use of #Dintifada as
a pun on her name, which to her represented “faith-filled
resistance” and “compassionate and resilient means of
survival.”
“My reference to it is in no way was or will be a call of
hatred toward Jewish people,” Din wrote, adding she was
“pleased” when the anti-Semitism resolution was passed,
as she did not support “any hate speech on this campus.”