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As I said, it's been a season of anti-Semitism. Oops! I mean, it's been a season of anti-Semitism and of anti-Muslim bigotry. At least that is what most American college and university presidents seem to think I should mean. The biggest news on campus this year may be the refusal of most American university presidents to sign a statement in October that called for an end to intimidation on campus and a return to tolerance. Although hundreds of university presidents did sign the statement, over a thousand did not. Why? Because the statement condemned all intolerance but specified only anti-Semitism as an example. Condemning anti-Semitism used to be as controversial as praising motherhood. Not any more. Come to think of it, now that motherhood has been condemned as a sexist plot, it makes sense that anti-anti-Semitism is a hot topic. After all, anyone who condemns anti-Semitism without also condemning anti-Muslim sentiments in the same breath must be aiming a volley at the Palestinian people. Never mind two thousand years of pitchforks and pogroms: Anyone worried about anti-Semitic violence in the Western world must really have a biased agenda in the Middle East. The Middle East conflict is not the cause of anti-Semitism, just the excuse. But most of America's university presidents seem not to understand this important point. Considering the influence of American universities in the world of elite opinion, we might wonder what lies ahead. Will it be long before we start seeing news items like these? — Berlin, 2003: Friedrich Wittelsbach, director of the German Historical Association, announced today that his group would not sign a petition denouncing human-rights abuses because it cited only one example: the Holocaust. Wittelsbach said that, considering world events today and particularly the Middle East, he could not endorse such a "one-sided" petition. He said that his group had been influenced in their thinking by the reluctance of American university presidents to endorse a plea for tolerance that cited only anti-Semitism. — Paris, 2004: French President Jacques Chirac said today that he would not issue a statement denouncing an alleged anti-Semitic riot in a Paris suburb. He said that it would be one-sided to issue such a denunciation without also denouncing what he called the far greater threat of anti-Muslim riots. He denied that he was influenced in his decision by the reluctance of American university presidents to endorse a plea for tolerance that cited only anti-Semitism. He said that he was inspired instead by the writings of Jacques Derrida, a French postmodernist philosopher. — Stockholm, 2005: Swedish ball-bearings heiress and minister of culture Ima Frod today denounced the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., for violating human rights. Frod pointed a finger at the Kennedy Center's recent decision to honor American film director Mel Brooks, which she characterized as "one-sided." Frod said that in the absence of a similar honor to a prominent Arab-American artist, the Kennedy Center's choice of a prominent Jewish-American as honoree could only be taken as a denial of human dignity. Sweden's export of ball bearings to Germany during World War II gave crucial help to the Nazi war machine and prolonged the length of the war. — Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006: The directors of admissions of the Ivy League universities issued a "total and unqualified" denial today of the "vicious rumor" that they were considering a plan to cut back on the "one-sided" admission of Jewish students to their schools. The plan allegedly said that, in the interests of even-handedness and balance, the total number of Jews admitted to each Ivy League school should not exceed the total number of Muslims. Sheldon Wittington, chairperson of the Ivy League Admissions Directors Association, denied that any such plan "is currently under consideration." He also expressed his support for the Middle East Peace Process, now in a delicate stage of negotiations. In the first half of the 20th century, admission to most Ivy League colleges was largely closed to Jews. — Barry S. Strauss is a professor of history and classics at Cornell University. |
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t's
been a season of anti-Semitism on campus. To cite just a few highlights:
After temporarily canceling its invitation, Harvard reinvited Oxford poet
Tom Paulin to deliver a lecture. Paulin is the humanitarian who said that
Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers on the West Bank should be shot dead. Meanwhile,
a Georgetown University professor has reportedly said that the "international
Zionist movement" is pushing the U.S. into war with Iraq because
Jews want to take over the Arab world. And a professor at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst says that since no Israelis died on September
11, 2001, Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, must have known about
the attacks in advance and forewarned Israelis — but not Americans.
Never mind that Israeli citizens in fact were killed on the planes
and in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
