College campuses throughout the United States are bastions of racism and anti-Semitism, and for many years that fact has largely been ignored by the mainstream media.
In the ‘80’s anti-Semitism was largely dominated by the likes of African-American anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jeffries. Today it’s a different bird, but whether it is BDS, claims of “pink-washing”, or students for Palestine, It’s all the same old anti-Semitism.
Over the last few weeks, there have been worldwide headlines with claims of rampant racism and anti-Semitism at liberal arts Oberlin College. A student claimed to have seen someone wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform on campus. This followed months of racist and anti-Semitic messages on campus, which culminated in the college president, Marvin Krislov, apologizing to students who felt “threatened.”
Reportedly, there are government investigations and students are shocked and scared according to many media reports. Krislov said “From what we have seen, we believe these actions are the work of a very small number of cowardly people.”
If this indeed is “scary” and cowardly, how about when this racism is even more well-organized and wide-spread than at Oberlin? If this merits cancellation of classes and investigations, why not the same treatment when it’s just anti-Semitism?
In recent weeks, at Cornell, Anti-Israel posters were distributed saying that “exclusively Jewish” soldiers were engaged in “war-crime[s],” not “combat,” and served in “massacres,” not “missions.” Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus organization claimed responsibility and is now proudly organizing an Israel Apartheid Week to raise awareness of what it called the “racist, colonial nature of the Israeli occupation.”
- At Harvard, Jewish students in the Harvard dormitories woke up to find flyers under the doors from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee informing them that they had been evicted from their dorm rooms. “We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in the next three days,” the hoax flyer read.
- The University of Texas, Austin, hosted a “BDS Conference” calling for Israel to be boycotted.
- New York City taxpayers subsidized the recent BDS conference at Brooklyn College where Jewish students were expelled from the speech in a possible violation of their civil rights
Last month. at University of California-Santa Barbara, a Muslim Student Association (MSA)/Muslim Brotherhood affiliate hosted a conference with over 1000 students attending. Muslim Brotherhood is devoted to the elimination of Western civilization. There are MSA chapters which have supported Hamas before..
- At Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, a student was called a “racist Zionist pig” for questioning donations by Rutgers University to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit organization with close ties to Islamic charity the Holy Land Foundation, which funds Hamas.
- 35 campuses just last week hosted Israel Apartheid Week where there were anti-Israel speakers, mock “apartheid walls” and checkpoint displays on campus, and Anti-Israel films.
The possibility of someone wearing an outfit resembling a KKK uniform sparks outrage and wide-spread cancellation of classes, but the anti-Semitism at campuses nationwide isn’t hidden, disguised or infrequent. If the KKK is dangerous, then so too are all of the people calling for harm to come to the Jewish state.
There should be no double standard.
Ronn Torossian is an entrepreneur, philanthropist and author. Friend Ronn on Facebook here