Antisemitism Is Un-American

In the aftermath of the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Jews, open antisemitism in the United States has never been so painfully obvious. College campuses are sites of antisemitic protest, often parading in the form of solidarity with Palestinians. Arab and Muslim groups could cite certain excesses in the policy of the Israeli government, but that’s not what’s happening right now. What’s happening now is open hatred for Jews. College students, particularly at elite colleges and universities, are not only rejecting the mere right of Jews to continue to live in their historic homeland in the Near East. They’re threatening the place of Jews in the United States.

Much of this sentiment on college campuses is articulated as a rejection of a supposed Western imperialism that dispossessed Arabs en masse during the aftermath of the Second World War and replaced them with Jews. A kind of winking idea that Jews are nothing more than American stooges, or, even worse, that Americans are stooges of some global Jewish conspiracy, has made its way into the mainstream of American colleges. Leave aside, for now, the ahistorical nature of these claims, and also their gutter-level vulgarity. Such antisemitism is also out of keeping with American history.

About the Author

Miles Smith IV

Miles Smith IV is a professor in the history department at Hillsdale College.

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In the aftermath of the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Jews, open antisemitism in the United States has never been so painfully obvious. College campuses are sites of antisemitic protest, often parading in the form of solidarity with Palestinians. Arab and Muslim groups could cite certain excesses in the policy of the Israeli government, but that’s not what’s happening right now. What’s happening now is open hatred for Jews. College students, particularly at elite colleges and universities, are not only rejecting the mere right of Jews to continue to live in their historic homeland in the Near East. They’re threatening the place of Jews in the United States.

Much of this sentiment on college campuses is articulated as a rejection of a supposed Western imperialism that dispossessed Arabs en masse during the aftermath of the Second World War and replaced them with Jews. A kind of winking idea that Jews are nothing more than American stooges, or, even worse, that Americans are stooges of some global Jewish conspiracy, has made its way into the mainstream of American colleges. Leave aside, for now, the ahistorical nature of these claims, and also their gutter-level vulgarity. Such antisemitism is also out of keeping with American history.