#institute for the critical study of zionism

[eretzyisrael]

By TAMMI ROSSMAN-BENJAMIN

In March 1941, Nazi theorist and ideologue Alfred Rosenberg launched the Institute for Research on the Jewish Question. Its inaugural conference, “Research in the Struggle against World Jewry,” featured talks by many scholars, including the Institute’s director, historian Wilhelm Grau, who concluded that the only viable solution to the Jewish question was for the Jews to disappear.

Rosenberg’s Institute was one of several established to support the Third Reich’s efforts to provide an empirical basis for their anti-Jewish policies. To that end, the scholars affiliated with these institutes endeavored to put in place a new interdisciplinary field of study that would draw on various academic disciplines to promulgate antisemitic scholarship about the Jews.

According to Alan Steinweis’ book, “Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany,” this new brand of scholarship, which he dubs “Nazi Jewish Studies,” demonstrates its practitioners’ “cynical manipulation of scientific knowledge, historical events, religious texts, and statistical data” in the service of “justifying the disenfranchisement, expropriation, and removal of Jews from German society.”

Fast forward to August 2023. 

Two academic leaders of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) – San Francisco State University Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and University of Massachusetts Boston Professor Heike Schotten - co-authored an article explaining why they recently established the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ).

Describing ICSZ as “explicitly anti-Zionist” and “strictly committed to abiding by the BDS picket line,” Abdulhadi and Schotten link their new Institute to “the long history of struggle” against efforts “to conflate Zionist politics and ideology with Jews or Jewishness.”  

In October, the Institute will be holding an inaugural conference entitled “Battling the ‘IHRA definition’: Theory & Activism” to provide academics and activists with tools for delegitimizing the most widely accepted definition of antisemitism, which rightly identifies anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, but is being portrayed by conference organizers as “a tool of and a shield for repressive state power.”

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, the most authoritative and internationally-accepted definition of antisemitism today, rightly understands that the vast majority of Jews worldwide are inextricably linked to the Jewish state and identifies physical and verbal threats to Israel’s existence as forms of antisemitism. As such, the Institute’s inaugural conference, whose purpose is to battle the IHRA definition by denying the connection between Zionism and Judaism, constitutes a broadside attack on Jewish identity and the Jewish state that is antisemitic in both intent and effect.

Among the conference’s co-sponsors are Hong’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department and its Center for Racial Justice at UCSC, as well as the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council.

Shockingly, despite the fact that the conference is being held at a University of California campus with official departmental sponsorship and possible university funding, all speakers and attendees are required to “confirm their agreement” with the anti-Zionist “points of unity” that guide the Institute’s work. These include identifying Zionism as “a settler colonial racial project” linked to “group supremacy,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “racism,” and agreeing to “join in resistance” against Zionist repression.

For Christine Hong and fellow UC Ethnic Studies Council members, the anti-Zionist focus of the Institute and its inaugural conference is not just personal, it’s professional – part and parcel of how they understand their discipline, teach it to their students, and believe it should be taught to high school students throughout the state.

[gael-garcia]

PALESTINE FILM INDEX

Palestine Film Index is a growing list of films from and about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation, made by Palestinians and those in solidarity with them. The index starts with films from the revolutionary period (68 - 82) made by the militant filmmakers of the Palestine Film Unit and their allies, and extends through a multitude of voices to the present day. It is by no means a complete or exhaustive representation of the vast universe that is Palestinian cinema, but is only a small fragmentary list that we hope nontheless can be used as an instrument of study & solidarity. As tools of knowledge against zionist propaganda and towards Palestinian liberation.

The century long war against Palestinians by the zionist project is one waged not only militarily but also culturally. The act of filmmaking, preservation, and distribution becomes an act against this attempted cultural erasure of ethnic cleansing. The power inherent in this form as a weapon against the genocidal project of zionism is evidenced in the ways it has been historically & currently targeted by the occupation forces: from the looting & stealing of the Palestine Cinema Institute archives during the siege of Beirut in 1982, through the long history of targeted assassinations of Palestinian filmmakers, journalists, artists, & writers (from PFU founder Hani Jawharieh, to Ghassan Kanafani, Shireen Abu Akleh, Refaat Alareer, and the over 100 journalists killed in the currently ongoing war on Gaza).

It is in this spirit of the use of film and culture as a way of focusing & transmitting information & knowledge that we hope this list can be used as one in an assortment of educational tools against hasbara (a coordinated and intricate system of zionist propaganda, media manipulation, & social engineering, etc) and all forms of propaganda that is weaponized against the Palestinian people. Zionist media & its collaborators remain one of the most effective fronts of the war, used to manufacture consent through deeply ingrained psychological manipulation of the general public agency. Critical and autonomous thought must be used as a tool of dismantling these frameworks. In this realm, film can play a vital roll in your toolkit/arsenal. Film must be understood as one front of the greater resistance. We hope in some small way we can help to distribute these manifestations of Palestinian life and the struggle towards liberation.

This list began as small aggregation to share among friends and comrades in 2021 and has since expanded to the current and growing form (it is added to almost every day). We have links for through which each film can be viewed along with descriptions, details such as run time, year, language, etc. We also have a supplemental list of related materials (texts, audio, supplemental video) that is small but growing. We have added information on contacts for distributors and filmmakers of each film in order to help people or groups who are interested in using this list to organize public screenings of these films. The makers of this list do not control the rights to these films and we strongly urge those interested in screening the works to get in touch with the filmmaker or distributors before doing so. This list was made with best intentions in mind, and in most cases with permission of filmmaker or through a publically available link, but if any film has mistakenly been added without the permission of a filmmaker involved and you would like us to remove it, or conversely if you are a filmmaker not included who would like your film to be added, or for any other thoughts, suggestions, additions, subtractions, complaints or concerns, please contact us at palestinefilmindex@gmail.com. No one involved in this list is doing it as a part of any organization, foundation or non-profit and we are not being paid to do this, it is merely a labor of love and solidarity. From the river to the sea, Palestine

[cridhe]

every time i recommend a book on palestine or israel by an israeli author i get mad all over again about how much the field is literally dominated by them. like israeli institutions literally have the monopoly on studies of palestine that even critiques of israeli nationalism and zionism come from the israeli side. because of the occupation, their institutions deny resources to palestinian scholars and institutions by using them themselves, thus maintaining the monopoly and controlling the narrative. this means that palestinian scholars are often forced to submit to the racist zionist policies of israeli universities if they want their research funded. the fact that they allow critical perspectives means that they are so secure in their power they don't view them as a threat, cos they know that the scholars need them for their resources, which means they get to set the terms and hold these resources over ppls heads, and they have the power to cut ppl off immediately if they step out of line. see what happened to nadera shalhoub kevorkian at the hebrew university last year. this is why the academic boycott is so important.

[fairuzfan]

Really great org about how zionism and its study within academic spaces should be a critical examination of power structures. Highly encourage you to click through this website to understand how embedded zionism is within our culture and public media even separate from israel.

[odinsblog]

Dear President Shafik,

We write as Jewish faculty of Columbia and Barnard in anticipation of your appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, where you are expected to answer questions about antisemitism on campus. Based on the committee’s previous hearings, we are gravely concerned about the false narratives that frame these proceedings to entrap witnesses. We urge you, as the University president, to defend our shared commitment to universities as sites of learning, critical thinking, and knowledge production against this new McCarthyism.

Rather than being concerned with the safety and well-being of Jewish students on campuses, the committee is leveraging antisemitism in a wider effort to caricature and demonize universities as hotbeds of “woke indoctrination.” Its opportunistic use of antisemitism in a moment of crisis is expanding and strengthening longstanding efforts to undermine educational institutions. After launching attacks on public universities from Florida to South Dakota, this campaign has opened a new front against private institutions.

The prospect of Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of congress with a history of espousing white nationalist politics, calling university presidents to account for alleged antisemitism on their campuses reveals these proceedings as disingenuous political theater.

In the face of these coordinated attacks on higher education, universities must insist on their freedom to research and teach inconvenient truths. This includes historical injustices and the contemporary structures that perpetuate them, regardless of whether these facts are politically inexpedient for certain interest groups.

To be sure, antisemitism is a grave concern that should be scrutinized alongside racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of hate. These hateful ideologies exist everywhere and we would be ignorant to believe that they don’t exist at Columbia. When antisemitism rears its head, it should be swiftly denounced, and its perpetrators held to account. However, it is absurd to claim that antisemitism—“discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews,” according to the Jerusalem Declaration’s definition—is rampant on Columbia’s campus. To argue that taking a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza is antisemitic is to pervert the meaning of the term.

Labeling pro-Palestinian expression as anti-Jewish hate speech requires a dangerous and false conflation of Zionism with Jewishness, of political ideology with identity. This conflation betrays a woefully inaccurate understanding—and disingenuous misrepresentation—of Jewish history, identity, and politics. It erases more than a century of debates among Jews themselves about the nature of a Jewish homeland in the biblical Land of Israel, including Israel’s status as a Jewish nation-state. It dismisses the experiences of the post-Zionist, non-Zionist, and anti-Zionist Jews who work, study, and live on our campus.

The political passions that arise from conflict in the Middle East may deeply unsettle students, faculty, and staff with opposing views. But feeling uncomfortable is not the same thing as being threatened or discriminated against. Free expression, which is fundamental to both academic inquiry and democracy, necessarily entails exposure to views that may be deeply disconcerting. We can support students who feel real and valid discomfort toward protests advocating for Palestinian liberation while also stating clearly and firmly that this discomfort is not an issue of safety.

As faculty, we dedicate ourselves and our classrooms to keeping every student safe from real harm, harassment, and discrimination. We commit to helping them learn to experience discomfort and even confrontation as part of the process of skill and knowledge acquisition—and to help them realize that ideas we oppose can be contested without being suppressed.

By exacting discipline, inviting police presence, and broadly surveilling its students for minor offenses, the University is betraying its educational mission. It has pursued drastic measures against students, including disciplinary proceedings and probation, for infractions like allegedly attending an unauthorized protest, or moving barricades to drape a flag on a statue. Real harassment and physical intimidation and violence on campus must be confronted seriously and its perpetrators held accountable. At the same time, the University should refrain whenever possible from using discipline and surveillance as means of addressing less serious harms, and should never use punitive measures to address conflicts over ideas and the feelings of discomfort that result. Where the University once embraced and defended students’ political expression, it now suppresses and disciplines it.

The University’s recent policies represent a dramatic change from historical practice, and the consequences are ruinous to our community and its principles. In the past, Columbia has periodically confronted attacks against pro-Palestinian speech, ranging from the vile slanders against Professor Edward Said to the reckless accusations from the David Project. But where for decades the University stood firm against smear campaigns targeting its professors, it has now voluntarily accepted the job of censoring its faculty in and outside the classroom.

Columbia’s commitment to free inquiry and robust disagreement is what makes it a world-class institution. Limiting academic freedom when it comes to questions of Israel and Palestine paves the way for limitations on other contested topics, from climate science to the history of slavery. What’s more, students must have the freedom to dissent, to make mistakes, to offend without intent, and to learn to repair harm done if necessary. Free expression is not only crucial to student development and education outside the classroom; the tradition of student protest has also played a vital role in American democracy. Columbia should be proud of having participated in nationwide student organizing that helped secure civil rights and reproductive rights and helped bring an end to the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.

We express our support for the University and for higher education against the attacks likely to be leveled against them at the upcoming congressional hearing. We object to the weaponization of antisemitism. And we advocate for a campus where all students, Jewish, Palestinian, and all others, can learn and thrive in a climate of open, honest inquiry and rigorous debate.

Many members of our University community share our perspective, but they have not yet been heard. Columbia students, staff, alumni, and faculty can sign here to show your support for this letter’s message.

—Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism

The 23 authors of this letter are Jewish faculty members of Barnard College and Columbia University. This letter derives from a much longer one by these same 23 faculty sent to President Shafik on April 5.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The IDF confirmed that yesterday's barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and its vicinity was fired out of a zone that it defined as "humanitairan" (meaning an area it encouraged civilians to evacuate to).

We're seeing more and more Palestinians who speak up against Hamas. In the past (even during this war), Al-Jazeera "journalists" cut off Gazans who were criticizng Hamas. Now we have a small shift, where this journalist is still trying to persuade this woman not to criticize Hamas, but he doesn't cut her off as she insists on expressing her anger, that all of the aid to Gazans is being stolen by Hamas terrorists:

After a battle with terrorists inside a UN school in the neighborhood of Shujayiah in Gaza, IDF soldiers documented finding weapons hidden inside a teddy bear (first vid in this article).

As you might remember, I work at Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum, research and education center, which also studies Jewish history in general, a subject that obviously includes the history of antisemitism. However, the scope of the history we covered always stopped roughly at when the last Jewish Holocaust survivor left the last DP (displaced persons) camp, which is 1956. The assumption was always that we will research historical antisemitism, and people will be able to take that knowledge, learn from it, and apply it to current ("new") antisemitism, without us tackling it directly. Following the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the global rise in amtisemitic attacks in reaction to it, and the academic rot we have witnessed in dealing with antisemitism on the campuses of some of the most important universities in the world, this is going to change. YV will expand the work of our research institute into new antisemitism (anti-Zionism, really).

Yesterday, three Hezbollah terrorists were killed in a strike in Syria. You absolutely should be asking yourself why Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that claims to be the "defender of Lebanon," had a unit operating in Syria. Just a reminder: there have been rockets fired at Israel from Syria.

Another thing that happened yesterday, is that we got confirmation Hamas is also using female terrorists. So when you hear, "This is the number of children killed! This is the number of women killed!" (beyond a healthy suspicision we should all have of the uncorroborated figures provided by a terrorist organization), remember that Hamas uses teenagers and women as terrorists, not just as human shields. And it will NEVER report them as such. It barely recognizes that any terrorists were killed in this war, even though independent estimates indicate that "above 5,000 terrorists" is the most conservative estimate on this matter.

Unlike Hamas, which doesn't admit when women fight and die for it, Israel is proud of its female fighters. Here's a vid about a group of soldiers who made history on Oct 7, being the first female tankists in the world to fight in an armored battle.

This is 25 years old Sahar Baruch.

On Oct 7, he was kidnapped to Gaza. Hamas has published a vid that first showed sahar captured, and then showed his lifeless and bloodied body, indicating that he was murdered in captivity. May his memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[bfpnola]

image description by @swosheep

ID 1: all images are screenshots of an Instagram post by j3wess, and are on a light green background with an even lighter green grid pattern. The first image is a title written in dark green text. It reads: "Evangelicals are the primary supporters of Israel in the US, not Jews". There is two Stars of David beside the words 'not Jews'. A wavy green line underlines everything.

ID 2: the second image is titled "why?". The title is separated from the body by a wavy white line. The body text reads: "the protestant fundamentalist theory of dispensationalism views history as a series of seven events. so far, six have already occurred." An ordered list, in white text, reads: "1 the era of innocence: before adam's fall. 2 the era of conscience: from adam to noah. 3 the era of government: from noah to abraham. 4 the era of patriarchy: from abraham to moses. 5 the era of mosaic law: from moses to jesus. 6 the era of grace: from jesus to today." The green body text continues: "and the seventh and final dispensation will be millennium, an earthly paradise. and millennium requires gods chosen people, the jews, to all be living together in israel. it is there, supposedly, that they will rebuild the temple. then, as described in the book of revelation, armageddon will take place and in the process 2/3 of jews will die and the other 1/3 will accept jesus as the messiah. jesus will then return to earth and will institute a millennium, beginning a thousand year reign over earth as king."

ID 3: the third image is titled "the statistics". a white wavy line separates the title from the body text. The body text reads: "results from a 2017 research study on evangelical supporters of israel indicate that of the 67% of evangelicals with a 'positive perception of israel':" Below, there is a bar graph. The first bar is captioned: "the bible says g-d gave the land of israel to the jewish people". The bar is at 63 percent. THe second bar is captioned: "israel is the historic jewish homeland". The bar is at 60 percent. The third bar is captioned: "israel is important for fulfilling biblical prophecy". The bar is at 52 percent. The fourth bar is captioned: "the creation of israel shows that we are getting closer to the return of jesus christ". The bar is at 80 percent.

ID 4: The fourth image is titled "what's scary about this?" A white wavy line separates the title from the body text. The body text reads: "a majority of christian support for zionism and israel is because it will supposedly trigger the return of christ. in order for this to happen requires for a) all diasporic jews to return to the land, therefore displacing palestinians and b) jews to be either proselytized and abandon their own religion for christ or die." Below this text, a second title reads: "what's even scarier?". Body text reads: "despite israel claiming to represent and protect all jews, it prioritizes the support of evangelicals."

ID 5: the fifth image is untitled. It has a screenshot from an article which reads: "Former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer suggested Sunday that Israel should prioritize the 'passionate and unequivocal' support of evangelical Christians over that of American Jews, who he said are 'disproportionately among our critics.' 'People have to understand that the backbone of Israel's support in the United States is the evangelical Christians. It's true because of numbers and also because of their passionate and unequivocal support for Israel,' Dermer said in an onstage interview at a conference organized by Makor Rishon, a news outlet affiliated with the national religious community". Green text below it says: "this represents not just the goals of dermer but of israel. he just ended a seven year term in january as the ambassador of israel in washington. he was known as the ears and brain of netanyahu. his words are representing much more than just his thoughts." There is a white arrow pointing from the green text up to the article screenshot.

ID 6: the sixth image is titled "sources". There is a wavy white line separating the title from the body text. The body text consists of four sources, which are as follows: "times of israel: dermer suggests israel should prioritize support of evangelicals over us jews. lifeway research: evangelical attitudes toward israel research study. city journal: why don't jews like the christians who like them? america magazine: understanding the evangelical obsession with israel."

working links include:

[fiercynn]

We, the undersigned faculty as well as alumni, undergraduate and graduate students in Jewish Studies and Jewish students who Jewish Studies represent, are writing to demand that Jewish Studies Centers, Institutes, Associations, and Departments publicly call for: (1) an immediate ceasefire, (2) Israel to restore water and electricity to Gaza immediately, (3) Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza immediately, and (4) the end of all U.S. funding to Israel immediately. The only moral position at this time is to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli government with full material support from the U.S. and many European countries. Collective punishment is never humane or just. Many families and survivors of the October 7th massacres and kidnappings1 are calling for a ceasefire, knowing that further bloodshed will not bring back their loved ones, will not bring peace and justice for all, but will only continue to worsen the inhumane, unsustainable status quo.  With the U.S. government, universities and media publications in the U.S censoring the most urgent calls against perpetuation of crimes against humanity,2 many claiming that such censorship shows support for the safety of Jews worldwide, Jewish Studies’ institutions must demonstrate that de-escalation is the only ethical path forward. Many of us have spent our academic careers fearful of the consequences we may face for criticizing the Israeli state and Zionism. The bloodshed over the last 21 days – all entirely preventable – is a direct consequence of our silence. We must change. We must do better. Never again must mean never again for anyone. 

if you are a jewish studies scholar or student, SIGN ONTO THE LETTER HERE.

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — Shlomo Avineri, a leading Israeli political philosopher, left-leaning former director-general of the country’s foreign ministry and clear-eyed critic of both sides to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, died on Friday. He was 90.

Avineri was a longtime professor of political science at Hebrew University, where he produced important scholarship on Zionist thinkers Theodor Herzl and Moses Hess as well as the works of Karl Marx and G.W.F. Hegel. He applied his historical perspective as a frequent commentator in the Israeli and foreign media, and as a regular columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz.

In 1975, the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin appointed him as director-general of the foreign ministry, then headed by Yigal Allon. The right-wing Likud party, then in opposition, bitterly opposed the appointment of Avineri, who in 1971 edited a book that explored the possibility of negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization when such talks were still illegal. When Likud took office in 1977 with the election of Menachem Begin, Avineri submitted his resignation.

At the time, many in Israel thought Avineri would lead a dovish challenge to the humbled Labor party. “During his one year tenure at the Foreign Ministry he became a familiar face on Israeli television, to such a degree that aides to Allon complained that Avineri was upstaging his boss,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in 1977.

Nevertheless, he returned to teaching at Hebrew University. He headed the political science department and devoted himself to researching the intellectual origins of Zionism.

Even while producing more than a dozen books on 19th-century political thought, Avineri remained deeply engaged with current events in Israel. In a 2011 article for Haaretz, he urged Israelis to understand the Palestinian perspective, but also criticized the Palestinian leadership for denying essential facts about the founding of Israel.

The 1948 war should “not be taught as a battle between narratives. In the final analysis, there is a historical truth,” he wrote. “And without ignoring the suffering of the other, that is how such sensitive issues must be taught.”

Avineri was born Jerzy Wiener in Bielsko, Poland, in 1933. His family arrived in then-Palestine in 1939 and settled in Herzliya. He studied political science and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received his doctorate.

As a visiting scholar he held appointments at Yale, Cornell, the Cardozo School of Law in New York and Northwestern University, among others.  He was also a visiting scholar at the Wilson Center, the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, he advised Eastern European nations about democratization, and in 1989 he served as an observer to the elections in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Avineri was awarded the Rubin Prize in 1969 for his research, the Naftali Prize in 1971 and the Present Tense Award from the  American Jewish Committee in 1982. In 1996 he received the Israel Prize, the country’s highest honor, for political science.

Avineri is survived by his daughter Maayan. His wife Devora (Nadler) Avineri died in 2022.

[xxxjarchiexxx]

We, the undersigned faculty as well as alumni, undergraduate and graduate students in Jewish Studies and Jewish students who Jewish Studies represent, are writing to demand that Jewish Studies Centers, Institutes, Associations, and Departments publicly call for: (1) an immediate ceasefire, (2) Israel to restore water and electricity to Gaza immediately, (3) Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza immediately, and (4) the end of all U.S. funding to Israel immediately. The only moral position at this time is to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli government with full material support from the U.S. and many European countries. Collective punishment is never humane or just. Many families and survivors of the October 7th massacres and kidnappings1 are calling for a ceasefire, knowing that further bloodshed will not bring back their loved ones, will not bring peace and justice for all, but will only continue to worsen the inhumane, unsustainable status quo.  With the U.S. government, universities and media publications in the U.S censoring the most urgent calls against perpetuation of crimes against humanity,2 many claiming that such censorship shows support for the safety of Jews worldwide, Jewish Studies’ institutions must demonstrate that de-escalation is the only ethical path forward. Many of us have spent our academic careers fearful of the consequences we may face for criticizing the Israeli state and Zionism. The bloodshed over the last 21 days – all entirely preventable – is a direct consequence of our silence. We must change. We must do better. Never again must mean never again for anyone. 

Link to sign for current Jewish students or Jewish Studies academics

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

A proposed amendment to the bill requiring teaching ethnic studies in California’s public schools passed the first hearing on October 8, 2021. The amendment contained “guardrails” to prevent teachers from incorporating antisemitic and anti-Israel content. Many UC ethnic studies professors bemoaned the guardrails proposed in the bill.

Specifically, ethnic studies professors objected to the provision in the bill which said that ethnic studies must “[n]ot reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or groups of persons on the basis of any category protected by Section 220” of the California Educational Code. Section 220 prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality, race or ethnicity and religion (among other biases).

Shockingly, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council branded this provision as “censoring teachers,” since they view it as hampering their ability to teach an anti-Israel, pro-“Palestine” curriculum. These professors view anti-Zionism as central to the discipline, while, at the same time, deny there is any trace of antisemitism in this worldview. 

The amendment died in the Senate Appropriations Committee in mid-August 2024 with the explanation that further work on the bill was needed. 

In addition to the existing high school requirement, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council (UCESFC), whose leadership overlaps with the antisemitic Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, petitioned to make one semester of ethnic studies a prerequisite for acceptance into the UC system.

The proposal was met with pushback from groups outside of the UC community, especially Jewish groups. 

A petition organized by the AMCHA Initiative stated:

“We firmly believe this proposal: 1) is the direct result of a small group of activist-educators determined to circumvent state law and manipulate the UC governance process to push a widely rejected and antisemitic curriculum for their own political and financial gain; 2) has absolutely no educational merit or justification and may even harm students academically; and 3) will unleash hatred and bigotry, especially antisemitism, into California’s public, charter and private schools.”

The ethnic studies professors were enraged by the opposition, responding:

“We also understand that the UC caved to spurious charges, in some cases advanced by people and organizations with a known history of racism, that our proposed criteria are “anti-Semetic” and disparaging to Jewish Americans. This is a LIE. Nowhere in our course criteria do we mention Israel, Jewish people or Judaism, much less any specific religion.”

A vote finally took place in May 2024. Ultimately, the motion did not pass, and “further discussion was tabled.” Some perceived the intense anti-Zionist rhetoric around the Hamas-Israel War as the reason the motion failed. 

UC’s Ethnic Studies Faculty Council

Refused to accept the Hamas attack as terrorism and accused Israel of “genocide”

Promoted the pro-Hamas encampments, exclaiming, “The University is Ours!”

Advocated for the firing of all UC chancellors for involving the police in removing the illegal encampments

Expressed “unequivocal solidarity with the students who have courageously seized the reins of moral leadership by launching Palestine solidarity encampments”

Anti-Israel Agenda in Ethnic Studies Departments

The UC Berkeley department website defines ethnic studies as “the critical and interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color within and beyond the United States.”

Ethnic studies departments usually focus on four groups: African Americans, Chicano/Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Americans. Arab American studies fall under the umbrella of Asian American studies.

Ethnic studies builds upon concepts of intersectionality and Critical Race Theory. “Palestine” comes up frequently in ethnic studies teaching, but exclusively from an anti-Israel point of view.

[eretzyisrael]

How They Did It

Between 1967 and 2021, the enemies of the Jewish state and the Jewish people created in effect an army of anti-Israel operatives in key positions in Western societies, including Israel herself. These operatives are often opinion leaders who influence the behavior of their countries.

Here is how they did it.

The Arab nations failed to defeat Israel in major military conflicts in 1948, 1967, and 1973. At that point, they turned to cognitive warfare, the manipulation of information, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, in order to weaken their enemy and deny it support from third parties. Thus there were two primary targets: the population of the State of Israel, and the Western nations that might become sources of financial, logistical, diplomatic, or other forms of help for the Jewish state.

The objective of cognitive warfare is to divide, disrupt, and isolate the enemy so that it be finished off more easily by military means. Terrorism is an important part of cognitive warfare, because frightened people are prone to Stockholm syndrome. But this discussion will be limited to the non-kinetic aspects of cognitive warfare.

The cognitive war began around 1967, initiated by the Soviet KGB as a propaganda campaign. The terrorists of the PLO – whose actual ideology was close to that of Nazi Germany – were presented as a national liberation movement, which found approval in the leftist student and antiwar movements that were part of the larger Soviet cognitive assault on the West.

By 1973, the challenges facing the cognitive warriors of the Arab world and their advisors were great. The Jews of Israel had lost the overconfidence of the post-1967 era. The USA had (finally) resupplied Israel with the weapons needed to reverse the advance of her enemies and – although she was prevented from achieving a crushing victory – she had clearly established her military superiority. But the militarily weak Arabs strengthened their cognitive warfare capabilities to include more than mere propaganda. They launched operations to fundamentally change important features of the social landscape of the West.

Cognitive attacks were aimed at the following Western targets:

International institutions; the UN and its agencies (easy targets because of the built-in Soviet/Third World majority).

Major early victories included several anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions during the Carter Administration (the US abstained), and of course the “Zionism is racism” resolution in 1975. Although the resolution was ultimately revoked, the “UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” it created and the annual observance of “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” remain. The UN Human Rights Council has a unique permanent agenda item to discuss Israel’s “human rights abuses” at every session. UN reports on health, the status of women, the environment, and other subjects often wrongly single out Israel as a violator.

International NGOs have been persuaded, by infiltration and financial grants from Arab and left-wing sources, to join the campaign. “Human rights” groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have been particularly useful in accusing the IDF of war crimes. Recently HRW produced a tendentious report calling Israel an apartheid state.

Institutions of higher education (easily bought with oil money).

Starting almost immediately after 1973, Arab states began to make major donations to leading universities, establishing departments of Middle East Studies (where “Middle East” does not include Israel), endowing chairs and fellowships, and so on. This has continued to the present day. Other quasi-academic institutions, such as influential think tanks like the Qatar-supported Brookings Institution, have also benefited.

This is an extremely far-sighted and effective strategy, because influence trickles down to other faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Ultimately these students graduate and take their places in education, business, government, and even law enforcement and the military.

Even in Israel, leftist academics produce a constant flow of pseudo-academic material that can be used as support for NGO and think tank documents that call for anti-Israel policies. Israeli NGOs, supported by the international Left and Arab/Iranian/Turkish sources, provide information for use in lawfare against Israel and the IDF, as well as propaganda.

Student and labor movements, liberal churches (easy targets because of left-wing connections).

Since 2004, resolutions supporting the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement against Israel have been debated and often passed by student governments, labor unions, and liberal churches. While there has so far been little effect on Israel’s economy, the debates provide a forum for disseminating false accusations against Israel.

Student organizations have been established on campuses that promote anti-Israel ideas and intimidate anyone who supports Israel. The recent widespread acceptance of postmodern “woke” ideas including intersectionality, critical race theory, and third-worldism has made it possible to connect Palestinism to diverse causes, even some that are clearly inconsistent with it, such as LGBT rights.

These organizations are supported and nurtured by faculty, departments, and administrators that were put in place by Arab (and more recently) Iranian oil revenues, as well as traditionally left-leaning academics.

Corporate interests (easy targets because of their dependence on Arab oil).

Immediately after the 1973 war, the Arab oil boycott caused a spike in prices and supply shortages. Oil companies in the US, who have great influence in politics, began to take public political stances, calling for what they referred to as a “more even-handed” policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict (in other words, calling for the government to stop supporting Israel). They funded propaganda outlets that followed the Arab line.

More recently, large corporations – particularly the very influential and powerful tech companies – have begun to adopt “woke” policies, out of a combination of fear of popular boycotts and the absorption of woke ideas from the academic world that provides their personnel. Infiltration of anti-Israel activists and attitudes into the tech companies that increasingly determine popular culture is especially worrisome.

Social media.

Recently someone noted that pro-Palestinian personality Bella Hadid has 21 million Instagram followers, significantly more than the total number of Jews in the world. Social media provides a huge amount of leverage for cognitive warfare, since it reaches literally billions of people throughout the world. Clever manipulation of social platforms can have a massive effect at very low cost. As usual, Russia is leading the world in developing this cognitive warfare technique, using bots and human-operated social media farms. But Iran and other enemies of Israel aren’t far behind.

Minorities (whose grievances could be blamed on Jews and Israel).

As early as the 1930s, Soviet propagandists realized that racial discrimination in the US could be used to sell communism to disaffected minorities. It has also been possible to sell them Jew-hatred, and the closely related hatred for the Jewish state. The racial mass psychosis that has gripped the US lately presents a wonderful opportunity to attach anti-Israel messages to “anti-racist” activities via the principle of intersectionality. Combined with the historically high level of antisemitism in the black community, it’s been possible for Israel’s enemies to spread preposterous lies, such as that “Israel trains American police to be racist” effectively.

Antisemitic politicians.

Politicians like Jeremy Corbyn, Ilhan Omar, and others are effective propagandists. It’s difficult to defend against them, because opposition can be discounted as politics, and because they have large bases of support (e.g., among Muslim populations) of which the politicians in their own parties are afraid.

For whatever reason, Israel’s successive governments have either been unable to fully internalize the danger posed by cognitive warfare, or have failed to come up with an effective strategy for fighting it. But with each military conflict that Israel is involved in, the cognitive attacks become more and more intense. They have already affected the IDF’s ability to fight.

The solution is to employ a proactive, not reactive strategy; to attack rather than defend. But what would such a strategy look like?

That’s the subject of my next post.

Abu Yehuda

[girlactionfigure]

Four Days in May

This story has everything: the moral bankruptcy and cowardice of Western academia, the obsessive need of Palestinians and their supporters to make everything about them, and the emptiness of their insistence that they are not antisemitic, only “critical of Israel.”

On 26 May 2021, the Chancellor and Provost of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, released a statement* by email condemning recent antisemitic violence, called “Speaking Out Against Acts of Antisemitism.”

Recent incidents of hate directed toward Jewish members of our community again remind us of what history has to teach us. Tragically, in the last century alone, acts of prejudice and hatred left unaddressed have served as the foundation for many atrocities against targeted groups around the world …

If you have been adversely impacted by anti-Semitic or any other discriminatory incidents in our community, please do not hesitate to reach out to our counseling and other support services on campus. Our behavioral health team stands ready to support you through these challenging times …

We have also been witnesses to the increasing violence between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Middle East leading to the deaths of children and adults and mass displacement of citizens in the Gaza region and the loss of lives in Israel.”

On 27 May, the infuriated Rutgers Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) replied in a long post on their Instagram account (here significantly shortened):

… The Chancellor and Provost’s statement exclusively addressing antisemitism comes during a time when Israel’s occupation of Palestine [sic] is finally receiving widespread criticism, and despite mentioning the “deaths of children and adults and mass displacement of citizens in the Gaza region,” conveniently ignores the extent to which Palestinians have been brutalized by Israel’s occupation and bombing of Gaza.

… the fact that [the statement] comes at such a critical time involving global protests and critiques against Israel’s occupation of Palestine [sic] is a decision that cannot be separated from widespread attempts to conflate antizionism [sic] with antisemitism and derail Palestinian voices and activism. …

Chancellor Molloy and Provost Conway proceed to refer to “increasing violence between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Middle East.” By choosing to center the crossfire between Israeli Occupation Forces [sic] and Hamas, rather than Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine [sic], the Chancellor and Provost minimize the impact of settler-colonialism on Palestinians and attempt to portray the violence as an equal conflict, which we know it not to be in the slightest. …

Most importantly, the Chancellor and Provost notably neglected to use the words “Palestine” or “Palestinian” in their statement, instead opting to use phrases such as “the Middle East” and “the Gaza region.” This refusal to acknowledge and affirm the existence of Palestine [sic], and thus the Palestinian faculty and students at Rutgers University, reveals the administration’s inability to stand in genuine solidarity with the Palestinian members of its University, a community that is grieving the death of over 200 Palestinians including many women and children. It isolates them and shows that Rutgers does not stand with or support them in their struggle for freedom and liberation, and contributes to the racist efforts of zionists [sic] to erase Palestinian identity and existence. …

We therefore demand an apology from Chancellor Molloy and Provost Conway for dismissing the voices and visibility of Palestinians and allies, as well as demand an acknowledgement and explanation of why they did so. We demand that the Rutgers administration call out and expose any and all ties to Israeli apartheid and commit to action that reflects a global call to uplift the humanity of Palestinians, to recognize their violent displacement by the state of Israel, and acknowledge the gross mass murders occurrings [sic] at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, adjacent to the American police violence condemned by the University.

On 28 May, the Chancellor and Provost sent a second email,* titled “Apology.”

Rutgers University–New Brunswick is a community that is enriched by our vibrant diversity.

However, our diversity must be supported by equity, inclusion, antiracism, and the condemnation of all forms of bigotry and hatred, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

As we grow in our personal and institutional understanding, we will take the lesson learned here to heart, and pledge our commitment to doing better. We will work to regain your trust, and make sure that our communications going forward are much more sensitive and balanced.

It is absolutely stunning that university officials found it necessary to apologize for condemning antisemitism! But of course the apology was inadequate to calm the fury of SJP, who had demanded far more, and on the same day they produced an even longer Instagram diatribe, from which I will quote just one piece:

… Chancellor Molloy and Provost Conway had no urgent or context-based prerogative to address antisemitism. Condemnation of the unjust murders conducted by a Zionist institution does not equate to condemnation or attack upon Judaism or Jews; to explicitly cite the Jewish community in need of support in context to global criticisms of the Zionist occupation of Palestine [sic] is to conflate antizionism [sic] with antisemitism and derail Palestinian voices and activism.

In other words, SJP holds that the antisemitism university officials have condemned is actually just anti-Zionism, which SJP sees as totally justified! SJP admits that anti-Zionism is essential to Palestinian identity, and therefore to condemn it is to “erase” Palestinian identity. I agree with them: the only uniquely “Palestinian” part of Palestinian culture is its opposition to Jewish sovereignty. But it is becoming more and more clear that the anti-Zionism of Palestinians and their supporters is viciously antisemitic.

At this point, well-deserved criticism for their craven apology rained down on the poor Chancellor and Provost. And so, on 29 May, Rutgers found it necessary to release a third statement, this one by the President of the University, to un-apologize, and to make it clear that like the US Congress, they oppose every imaginable form of bigotry (and therefore criticize no one).

Rutgers deplores hatred and bigotry in all forms. We have not, nor would we ever, apologize for standing against anti-Semitism.

Neither hatred nor bigotry has a place at Rutgers, nor should they have a place anywhere in the world. At Rutgers we believe that anti-Semitism, anti-Hinduism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism, intolerance and xenophobia are unacceptable wherever and whenever they occur.

An Orwellian note: with each iteration of its position, Rutgers replaced the previous one on their website. All the links in the media that pointed to the original statement, the apology, and the un-apology now redirect to the same place, the un-apology. The others have been dropped into the memory hole.

Some 140 members of the Rutgers faculty joined SJP in opposing Israel’s right to self-defense. You can read their letter here. These are the folks that would teach your children if they go to Rutgers.

I can’t imagine that I would want my children to study in a North American or European university today. Far better for them to learn a trade; they will come out with smaller debts and without antisemitic baggage.

_________________________________

* I would have liked to provide “official” links to the complete, original emails, but as I wrote, they no longer can be found. The quotes provided are taken from several news accounts that included the content of the emails.

Abu Yehuda

[jacobsvoice]

Brandeis: Learning on the Left

No other American city of proximate size and population is surrounded by universities and colleges like Boston. From center city to the suburbs Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, MIT, Harvard, Tufts and Wellesley are highly rated. But there is only one secular (and flaming liberal) Jewish university among them: Brandeis, located in suburban Waltham.

Founded in 1948 and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, it blossomed over the years to become a university overflowing with institutes and centers, among them Modern Jewish Studies, Investigative Journalism, Social Research and Women’s Studies. Its renowned alumni, with their left-wings flapping, include Thomas Friedman, Angela Davis and Abbie Hoffman.

Among its lesser-known professors is Stephen J. Whitfield, whose academic career of forty-four years was spent in the relatively marginal American Studies Department. He is the reverent author of On the Left: Political Profiles of Brandeis University (2020). With more than four hundred and fifty pages of text (many of which are extraneous to Brandeis), and one hundred pages of footnotes, it is not exactly light reading. It is difficult to imagine that anyone without a Brandeis connection would care to read it.

Names of important people with little or nothing to do with Brandeis – Harry Truman, Joe Biden, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, Fidel Castro and Leon Trotsky among them–pass by so fleetingly that at times it feels like Grand Central Station during rush hour. Several pages are even devoted to Russian Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, whose only connection to Brandeis was the donation of his voluminous papers and letters to the library by his daughter.

Whitfield reverently dotes on alumni achievers whose Brandeis blood caroused through their veins. Among them, in excruciating detail: Michael Walzer, whose scholarly writing consumes fifteen pages; and Michael Sandel, praised in twelve pages for his You Tube lectures. Other chapters are devoted to foreign-born radicals on the faculty: Herbert Marcuse, whose career “dramatically” reveals “the radicalism of the 1960s” (twenty-one pages); and Bolshevik revolutionary Jean Louis Maxine van Heijenoort (six pages). Among left-leaning Americans who were ”connected” to Brandeis, Whitfield devotes twelve pages to Philip Rahv, co-founder and editor of Partisan Review; and ten pages to Dissent editor Irving Howe.

Whitfield is mesmerized by the impact of the turbulent 1960s on his beloved institution. Having taught in the History Department between 1965-70 I was all too familiar with the left-driven chaos by rampaging students who occupied buildings and ignited fires among their preferred strategies. The “radical spirit” that Brandeis exuded even prompted Newsweek to report “the atmosphere of barely controlled chaos [that] continued to build steadily at Brandeis.”

Whitfield’s wandering chapter on race relations at Brandeis begins elsewhere at another time. It includes Gunner Myrdal, the Swedish author of An American Dilemma, published before Brandeis existed; and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, which had nothing to do with Brandeis. Nor did “spring theory,” the conceptual invention of Princeton professor and Nobel Prize winner Edward Witten. Whitfield seems eager to demonstrate the range of his research, including people and places far outside the Brandeis orbit.

Even when he focuses on Brandeis, Whitfield can be over the top with lengthy and doting narratives of his chosen people. Abbie Hoffman, the 1969 graduate and “radical Jokester,” consumes thirty pages having virtually nothing to do with Whitfield’s beloved university. But he deems it important to mention that Hoffman “gave the impression of liking hamburgers.” And he preposterously identifies Hoffman with “the ancient Hebrews, whose Bible describes them as stiff-necked.” It may not be inappropriate to ask: who, other than Whitfield, cares?

Whitfield’s propensity for hero-worship climaxes with ten pages devoted to Brandeis graduate Thomas Friedman, ironically deserving of recognition as the unrelenting and flaming liberal New York Times critic of Israel. But Whitfield’s overflowing recital of the wonders of Friedman reads as though he was worshiping at a Brandeis shrine–which, to be sure, he is.

Unwilling, or unable, to stop rambling (even by page 443), Whitfield concludes with a paean of praise for the university of his dreams (largely because he had no academic experience elsewhere). For no discernible reason other than his evident need for self-preening, his riffs include President Jimmy Carter and Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas; the Hebrew word for “truth”; Hannah Arendt; and those who wonder “Will Jesus return to earth”–none of whom had anything to do with Brandeis.

Whitfield’s concluding words (at last) favor “an epistemological task – addressed to the young”–whatever that means. It is a shame that Whitfield’s Brandeis story is buried in irrelevant minutiae. The academic love of his life deserves better.

The Jewish Voice (July 23, 2021)

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of twelve books, including Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel 1896-2016, selected for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a Best Book for 2019

[theculturedmarxist]

At least 10 politically active students at King’s College London (KCL) were barred from accessing the university campus on March 19, as part of security arrangements for a visit by the queen and Duchess of Cambridge. The activists’ names were also passed along by the university administration to London’s Metropolitan Police.

This deliberate intimidation of left-wing students is a grievous attack on democratic rights and the freedom of association. There was never even an indication that the students had any intention of protesting against the queen’s visit, which they would have been entitled to do in any case. The university and the police have given themselves the power to exclude individuals from campus solely based on their political beliefs.

All the students in question are involved with KCL’s Action for Palestine and Justice4Cleaners protest groups. Action for Palestine is a registered society at the university and campaigns “to end our own institution’s complicity in the illegal occupation of Palestine, serve as a platform for students to learn about social justice, and to educate the wider community about the situation in Palestine.”

Justice4Cleaners has carried out a years-long campaign to end the university’s use of heavily exploited, outsourced labour for their cleaning staff.

The first the 10 knew of the ban was when their university ID cards failed to grant them entry to classes, the library, work shifts and exams. One barred student was told by a KCL staff member, “We were under instructions from the Metropolitan police to refuse access to Bush House due to the event that was taking place. That is all I can say to you.” Others were informed, “There are a number of protesters who have been visible at a number of protests over the last year, two years. You’re identifiable because you were on CCTV.”

This statement suggests the illegal use of video surveillance for political purposes.

Over 400 current and former students and professors have since signed an open letter protesting the university’s despicable actions. The letter explains, “This constitutes an alarming securitization of campus and an act of profiling of students based not on any evidence that they are guilty of wrongdoing, but rather a suspicion that they might potentially commit harmful acts at some point in the future. None of the students subject to this exclusion have any record of university misconduct. Such profiling of students is based on the political viewpoints and racial and national identities of students, and violates the commitment of KCL to providing a safe and inclusive academic community and campus for all…

“This spurious use of ‘security’ encourages a culture of fear, suspicion, mistrust, and functions as a blanket reason for all kinds of repressive measures.”

The signatories demand “an explanation of the process by which this decision was taken, an apology from the KCL administration to these students, and a commitment not to engage in such acts of unjustified profiling and exclusion again.”

KCL refuses to even acknowledge that specific students were targeted. A spokesman commented, “We had an event which demanded the highest level of security and we had to minimise movement through buildings for security reasons. At times some of our buildings were not accessible.”

The university administration laughably offered to carry out a “full and independent review” into how its own decisions were made.

These events must be placed in the context of an ongoing assault on progressive politics being carried out by the government, through the Office for Students (OfS) and Prevent scheme, and the right-wing media. They have sought to use accusations of left-wing “authoritarianism” and “extremism,” coupled with the attempt to brand anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism, to outlaw socialist thought and to suppress popular protest against the reactionary figures who are ever more frequently invited onto university campuses. The barring of the KCL students is only the latest stage in this campaign.

Last November, an essay by academic Norman Geras on the “ethics of revolution”, listed as recommended reading in a course on “Justice and Injustice” at Reading University, was flagged as dangerous by the government’s counter-terrorism Prevent scheme. Students were required to submit a form explaining why they were accessing the Geras article, warned not to access it on personal devices, told to read it in a secure setting and not leave it somewhere it might be seen “inadvertently or otherwise, by those who are not prepared to view it.”

This was on the basis, as their lecturer explained, that “The University understands its responsibility to require it to control access to security-sensitive material, which includes but is not limited to material which might be thought to encourage the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism; material which would be useful in the commission of acts of terrorism; and material which glorifies acts of terrorism.”

Now students themselves are being labeled as security threats, reported directly to the police and denied access to their own university.

It is especially significant that the barred individuals were active protestors against the Israeli state’s vicious treatment of the Palestinians. A massive campaign of slander is being carried out by the British ruling elite to criminalise political opposition to Zionism and to brand Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the political left as anti-Semites. This found sharp expression on the campuses late last year, when now suspended Labour MP Chris Williamson had a public meeting at Sheffield University cancelled by Sheffield Labour Students. The decision was prompted by the Metropolitan Police’s announcement of an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Williamson had been a vocal critic of this Blairite-led witch hunt.

The WSWS wrote, “The ban is profoundly anti-democratic and has serious consequences for freedom of speech.” Meetings “can now be ‘indefinitely postponed’ on university campuses—and beyond—until Scotland Yard gives the go ahead!”

That warning has been confirmed. Students who protest in defence of the Palestinians are now targets for censorship and police controls. The pretext in this case was a visit by the queen, but there is nothing to stop the same argument being employed in the case of any member of government, army general or right-wing ideologue.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) strongly support the fight against KCL’s anti-democratic actions.

The political policing of UK campuses is escalating rapidly. Universities are crucial centres of ruling class strategy and propaganda, and KCL itself is a prime example. The institution hosts a 2,000-student strong “War Studies” department, the front page of its Policy Institute’s website features a report titled “How Russian State Media Weaponises News” and 19 of its alumni currently sit in the House of Commons. With British imperialism facing an unprecedented crisis of rule, these functions of the universities become ever-more vital. At the same time, the ruling class feel seriously threatened by growing anti-capitalist sentiment among young people and its solution is a crackdown on left-wing ideas and action.

Not a single instance of political censorship on campus can be seriously fought without an understanding of these deeper causes. By coming to grips with these issues, students must recognise that their basic democratic rights can only be defended based on a socialist struggle against capitalism.