this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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152
Columbia University suspends three deans for 'antisemitism' in private text messages (www.middleeasteye.net)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
49 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The three deans include Cristen Kromm, the former dean of undergraduate student life; Matthew Patashnick, the former associate dean for student and family support; and Susan Chang-Kim, the former vice dean and chief administrative officer.

The suspension of the deans is the latest example of how Ivy League schools have moved to squash any speech critical of Israel or simply challenging the view that students who express pro-Palestinian sentiment are inciting antisemitism.

Columbia has been the spotlight of the student protest movement in solidarity with Gaza over the past several months.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

They’ve done a great job of making the word antisemitism become so utterly baseless that I no longer react negatively to hearing it.

As this article reaffirms, it’s now used to refer to anything supportive of Palestinian peoples or critical of Israel.

If I was Jewish I’d be furious with Israel and these lobbyists.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month ago (1 children)

At this point I hear “antisemetic” and just have to assume that the speaker is pro-genocide and assume little about the person they are talking about.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Which is what the people in favor if this genocide want and exactly what you shouldn't be assuming it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I’m not sure I follow. Can you elaborate?

I get that zionists probably want anyone who supports Palestine to be considered an antisemite.
But I don’t follow how those who accuse others of antisemitism would benefit from a belief that they (the accuser) are pro-genocide.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The people in favor of the genocide are the Zionists. They want people to associate Israel and antisemitism. They want people to think about only their cause.

And so when things like what happened last week happen, people care a lot less or try to dismiss it: https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/us/cincinnati-jewish-cemeteries-vandalism/index.html

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I’m even more confused.

I’ve read a lot of your comments and I generally agree with them/believe you have well-reasoned positions, so there’s probably more a foundational misunderstanding than a disagreement of opinion.

I’m understanding what you’re saying to mean that you believe zionists want Israel to be associated with antisemitism, but I don’t get how that association benefits them. I suppose I could see it as reinforcing a victim complex, that then can be used to justify their actions.

As a person who staunchly supports Palestine and believes Israel is not just currently committing a genocide, but has been since the inception of the state - I was horrified about that vandalism.
How would apathy benefit zionists?

I also feel like the my assumption about the first statement doesn’t align with your statement of the second. The first is an increased sensitivity/awareness of antisemitism to justify genocidal actions for the sake of “safety” (or whatever), but the second is an apathy to antisemitism, which undermines the first.

I’m just… not getting it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It benefits them because Israel is supposedly "the Jewish state" and because of that, any criticism of Israel is bigotry against Jews. And most people don't want to be accused of bigotry, especially against a people who suffered a genocide relatively recently.

I'm really surprised this is not something you're aware of, because it's been going on for quite some time. Here's an article about it from 2019, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Ah, thank you. That was the missing piece.

This might sound either self-adulating or naive (probably both), but I just don’t think like that. I view religions and nations as distinct - even nations that embrace a single religion. It’s just - Administrative systems for governance and the decisions that arise from those aren’t the same as religious belief systems.

My innate reaction to those who choose not to recognize a difference between hostility toward Judaism and hostility toward Zionism or Israel’s policies Is to think they’re an unserious person. (That’s a polite way of saying I think those people are complete morons.)
Note: Even though you’re discussing blurring those lines, I know you’re doing it for illustrative purposes. My sentiments above do not apply to you.

It’s probably a good thing I’m not in politics or a publicly visible position, because I don’t have to tie my livelihood to the perceptions of folks whose judgment I find questionable. It would suck making those sorts of moral concessions.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

I am.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Can confirm, am furious

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Most Jews I have encountered are happily cheering for mass murder.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Seems like you're hanging out with the wrong crowd. Almost all of the jewish people in my circles are actively protesting it.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago (1 children)

anti-Semitic in 2024:

  • Doesn't support a genocide.
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No, it means the same thing it's always meant.

Why are people letting the pro-Israel groups control this narrative?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Comments like the one above make fun of how Netanyahu and the Israeli right use the term "antisemitism", and how they want us all to use it in an absurd way that supports their political objectives and inoculates them against criticism. The comment attacks the Israeli right's undermining of the notion of antisemitism, not the notion itself. To preserve our ability to call out actual antisemitism we must reject this politically motivated attempt to spread the concept so wide and thin that it loses all force.

I think that's the point of comments like the one you're replying to: they're ridiculing the Israeli right's narrative, not following it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They've made it very clear in subsequent replies that if they read the word 'antisemitism,' they assume it means 'anti-Israel criticism' and that it's the news' duty to tell them when it doesn't mean that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

As much as I don't like it, language is highly adaptable and contextualized. The experienced truth of what the word means, has historically been very flexible, complaints dating back to the '80s about the ADL using the anti-Semitism term to simply mean not following the Israeli government party line demonstrates this.

Word inflation, is just part of the human experience. So the lived experience today, is if you hear antisemitism, it is almost certainly somebody saying hey hey hey maybe we shouldn't genocide some people today

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Okay, then what would you say we call an act like what happened in Cincinnati last week? https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/us/cincinnati-jewish-cemeteries-vandalism/index.html

Petty vandalism that had nothing to do with hating Jews? A protest against the Ohioan Jews who died in the 1800s for their support of the genocide in Gaza?

Or maybe we can all agree that the pro-Israel groups don't get to own the language and antisemitism has meant what it's always meant.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A hate crime.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Beating up a gay person is also a hate crime. We have a special word for that. Should we get rid of it?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

No need to - "gay bashing" is unambiguous and hasn't been used for decades to describe criticism of gay gangs that go around clubbing trans people to death.

Acknowledging that Zionists have robbed the word "antisemitic" of its meaning is the first step in reclaiming the word. The second step is to use other words to describe actual antisemitism so that people understand it still exists. The third is to refuse to allow Zionists to continue conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

You asked how to describe it, and I engaged with you in good faith to provide an answer. You responded with a second rhetorical device, and I engaged for the benefit of other readers. I won't bother a third time.

[Edit: I removed the last paragraph after initially posting, being unsure I was responding to the same user in both cases. When I re-added it after confirming, I used slightly different language. Their quote of "rhetorical trick" below matches the original wording, and is a legitimate quote of my response]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I wasn't going for any sort of 'rhetorical trick.' The word I was talking about was homophobia.

There is nothing wrong with having words for different types of bigotry to clarify what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

With that way of thinking any hate group can just remove every useful word by simply misusing it and having hapless people carry water for them trotting out the ole "language is mutable" line.

You know. Like they're doing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

We can, as we are doing now, lamenting the The dilution of a previously very impactful word. By political groups who have an agenda

We can call acts of hate, acts of hate, we can call religious hate religious hate. But today, as expressed in the news cycle, anti-Semitism for the most part means antigenocide

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Or we can, as I said, not let Zionists control the narrative by taking over that word.

Why are you willing to allow them to do that?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm just stating the reality is when I hear anti-Semitism in a news article, I have to read it assuming that it does not mean hate based on religion. And 80% of the time right now in the new cycle it simply means people who don't support a genocide.

That is the reality as language is being used right now today.

In fact the trap is the opposite thing, arguing with people about what is and isn't anti-Semitic is the trap. It means people are not talking about the genocide. They're talking about philosophical debate of language, when quite frankly that doesn't matter, what matters is people are being killed right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The reality is, again, you are allowing them to control the narrative by making that assumption.

You do not have to make that assumption. You are letting them control your ideas of what bigotry means.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Shrug. I've had the same battle over AI vs algorithm.

I'm not the one writing news articles.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But you're the one who controls your own language and your own assumptions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yes, and as I have said multiple times now, I'm going to react to the reality of the discussion and talk about the genocide rather then let people bait me into a debate about religious hate which would distract from the real issue of the genocide.

Again... Anti-Semitism in the news means 80% of the time people are not supporting the genocide.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No one is baiting you into anything. I'm trying to get you to acknowledge that there are two different issues here and you are letting the people that you rightfully oppose conflate them when you shouldn't.

Is it Islamophobia to condemn horrible things the Saudi royal family has done even if they continually insist it is? No. Because we don't let them control the narrative. So why is this different?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

im not sure of your thesis at this point. Is the current common media use of antisemitism a different definition then the dictionary? yes, i agree.

Am I going to debate every article about how anti-genocide normal people are not actually anti-semitic. No, not at all, I think that is actually part of the pro-genocide strategy, it moves the conversation into safer territory for them. Better to ignore that language trap and just talk about the genocide.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My point is that you said, and I quote-

So the lived experience today, is if you hear antisemitism, it is almost certainly somebody saying hey hey hey maybe we shouldn’t genocide some people today

Which means that you are just assuming that some sort of actual bigoted attack did not happen.

And the reason you are assuming that is because you are letting the Zionists win a propaganda war.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm letting probability tell me that the term now means what it is being used to mean, and if the news item is about religious hate, then they have to explicitly call that out.

If you want to fight news media and tell them they are not doing their job properly and are using words wrong, more power to you... But thats not how I'm going to spend my life .

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

and if the news item is about religious hate, then they have to explicitly call that out.

Would you say that about any other term regarding bigotry? Would you be willing to give up the word 'homophobia' if there were some sort of LGBT+ group that committed atrocities and claimed that homophobia is the same as disagreeing with them even if the news started doing it? I doubt it.

Israel wants you to think Israeli = Jew and Jew = Israeli and you are going along with it.

Why does this news article need to tell you what the banner said in the headline just because you have decided that the word 'antisemitic' means 'criticism of Zionists?'

https://www.wlwt.com/article/antisemitic-banner-columbia-parkway-cincinnati-police/60235930

How about this one?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/01/us/jewish-communities-antisemitism-israel-hamas-war/index.html

Does it need to list all the incidents in the headline? Because there's more than one and it includes someone painting FUCK JEWS in huge green letters on the side of a building. I assume you don't think that's someone innocently protesting Israel. Am I wrong to assume that?

Here's another example for you since you are claiming that the news has co-opted the word 'antisemitism.' Note these are all recent articles.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/los-angeles-area-plagued-antisemitic-attacks-tsunami-hate/story?id=105623842

Tell me which one of these three details from the article is the one that belongs in the headline and how you would write that headline:

According to the district attorney's office, Dion was allegedly linked to vandalism of Nazi symbols including swastikas, the Iron Cross, and "SS" occurring in late November at a synagogue, an evangelical Christian church, an IHOP, an apartment complex, a bridge, a newspaper stand, and more in Burbank and Glendale.

Los Angeles Police Department alone has recorded a 38% increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes from 2022 to 2023 in a year-to-date comparison. In the same time, LAPD has seen a nearly 57% increase in reported non-crime bias incidents.

On Dec. 9, a 75-year-old man and his wife were on their way to observe Shabbat at a synagogue during the Hanukkah holiday when they were attacked in Beverly Hills, according to the district attorney's office.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Glad to see your so passionate and have energy. I'm not changing my position on the word having lost its original meaning.

Keep up the good fight, but not with me.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In the article, Hain wrote "Debates about Zionism, one state or two states…are all welcome conversations on campus”, but he said statements of support for the “Palestinian Resistance” equated to the “normalization of Hamas…[and] a point-of-no-return moment at Columbia”.

So it's OK to hold an abstract debate on the merits and demerits of Zionism, but quite outrageous to suggest the Palestinian people might not just accept being genocided without any fuss. If the thought that they might object to their own slaughter occurs to you, then you must hate Jews. This reasoning is nuts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

No no no it's about whether Israel should exist or exist MORE.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

In 2024 antisemitism means believing that mass murder is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If Deans are being antisemitic, even privately, then the school should fire them. But reading the article, I didn't see anything antisemitic. Is there additional subtext I'm missing?

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Colombia University officially said they believe anti Zionism is antisemitism.

Columbia Task Force for Dealing With Campus Protests Declares That Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This is ironic because in the opinion piece by Rabbi Hain published in the Columbia student newspaper, he complains that

For years, Columbia’s Palestinian freedom movement has differentiated between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, affirming that one can be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But by using the October 7 attacks as a rallying point for the movement, attendees of the campus rally can no longer argue that their activism differentiates between the two. They are now saying the quiet part out loud: Dead Jews don’t matter.

So here he's trying to accuse pro-Palestine students for conflating Anti-Zionism and antisemitism, when in fact groups like the Anti-Defamation League and American Israel Public Affairs Committee have been doing this exact same thing for years! And now even the US Congress is in on the action.

This is precisely why conflating to two is wrong: it dilutes the term "antisemitism" so much that people start to roll their eyes when they see it being weaponized to silence criticism of Israel, which then makes it harder to protect Jewish people from actual anti-semitic attacks.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Israel's media manipulation often seems to be shockingly short-sighted. They'll lie about something that will get discovered within a week but do it anyway despite how it discredits their later efforts. Remember that calendar of terrorists doing shifts in the hospital guarding hostages? It was just the days of the week in Arabic. Like there's no way the IDF doesn't have someone who can read Arabic readily available. So why lie about that? It's almost immediately debunkable. They've grown overconfident due to the long term special relationship and lobbying efforts, but those sorts of thing can be destroyed if treated carelessly.

Discrediting charges of anti-Semitism for short term benefit is right in line.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What does it matter? Anyone with the power to do something against them, doesn't care about their lies and supports them unconditionally. All they need to do is control their internal media cycle so that the "wins", no matter how fake, are present enough that the Israeli citizens don't care about the correction a week later, because there's a new lie to get behind.

They're taking a page out of Russia's playbook and it's working.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago

I hate how when I see these sorts of headlines, I immediately think "oh, did they support Palestine?" whereas 5-10 years ago I'd assume they were a neo-nazi or someone in Trump's orbit like Stephen Miller. Articles like this only further reinforce that thinking:

The suspension came after conservative news outlet, The Washington Free Beacon, leaked photographs of the three deans’ text exchanges which included one dean using two vomit emojis in response to a reference to an article published in the Columbia student newspaper by Yonah Hain, the campus rabbi, about students’ response to 7 October.

In the article, Hain wrote "Debates about Zionism, one state or two states…are all welcome conversations on campus”, but he said statements of support for the “Palestinian Resistance” equated to the “normalization of Hamas…[and] a point-of-no-return moment at Columbia”.

Yeah, that shit deserves at least two vomit emojis. Its OK to debate whether or not Palestinians deserve to live on the land that Israelis are throwing them off of, but supporting resistance against colonial oppression is frowned upon.

The fact that this is the only paragraph of merit and its buried 3 paragraphs below that bullshit in the article should tell you all you need to know:

In a separate text, Patashnick texted that one speaker was “taking full advantage of this moment”, adding “Huge fundraising potential”. In another exchange, the deans appeared to suggest that the parent of a Jewish student had access to Columbia administration because of her wealth.

One person calling out right wing grifting, and another insinuation that the deans were making old 'jewish banker'-esque comments.That's the best the article has.

I'm continually amazed at the bullshit the right gets away with.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its crazy how even about 2 years ago if someone was accused of being antisemitic I'd think "damn, Nazi" and now whenever I hear it I just think that person is suckling Israel's balls.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Which is what Israel wants you to think. Don't let them have their way.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

See? Freedom of speech! You don't lose your freedom when you voice opinions critical of government policy, just your means of living freely.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago

Clearly the only measured response available is to glass the entire middle east from turkey to Yemen and leave nothing behind.