This video took courage and principled thinking, and will help others speak out, so thank you. I'd note that the cancellation of grants and contracts for Columbia and the effort to deport student activist Mahmoud Khalil has not been widely criticized by otherwise liberal politicians and newspaper opinion writers, or even the rather craven Columbia administration and board of trustees. This is the immunizing effect that the cover of vague and overbroad charges of antisemitism and supporting Hamas has.
And what about the complicity of Columbia University? They have set up an office - titled the Office of Institutional Equity - to encourage students to defame other students and narrow free speech... Talk about Orwellian! All in the interest, one has to assume, of playing up to the federal administration to get their federal money back...
relating to or denoting a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family.
2.
relating to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic.
"anti-semitic" literally means anti-Palestinian as well as anti-Jew, as the Arabic and Hebrew belong to the same family of languages ( together with many other people ). Palestinians are Semites : to imply that somebody
supporting Palestine is anti-semitic is simply improper use of language
- unfortunately with huge and ugly consequences. If you loose the ability
to name issues properly, how can you expect to resolve them ?
This is such an important insight and worth repeating widely. The term "anti-semitism" has been weaponised as hasbara(propaganda)by Zionists. Our Miami Beach mayor regularly wields the term as an aspect of his intimidationist agenda. We need to call out Zionists as anti-Semites.
Šárka, "anti-semitism" is a term of art that was coined in the late 19th century to refer specifically to hatred of Jews as a racial group. It was coined by Wilhelm Marr, a German who promoted this hatred, not someone who objected to it.
Well, that's precisely the point : why do you persist using such an ill-defined ideological terminology ? Semite is a term designing a much larger entity, and has nothing to do with the religion on top of it : defining "anti-semitism" as uniquely targeting Jews is contributing to the problem ( if I am a Palestinian, how am I supposed to process the fact that my identity is constantly hijacked to serve the narrow-minded ideology of one of my cousins in the region ? )
"why do you persist using such an ill-defined ideological terminology ?"
Coming from the era that it did, the underlying idea behind coining the term "anti-Semitism" was to emphasize that Jews were a non-European Volk. And as such, they did not deserve the same rights & privileges as Europeans (a.k.a. "white people"). I suspect that movements that defend *against* hatred of Jews choose to keep using the term out of disrespect for non-Jewish Semites, because it suggests that Jews are the only Semites that anyone should even care about. For example, as Peter Beinart has written and spoken about, in the dominant discourse in American society today, anti-Palestinian bigotry is seen as either a good thing or not a thing at all. It does get a bit weird when people speak seriously about "Arab anti-semitism."
Thank you for so clearly articulating the administration's true agenda in this issue. Would it be possible to provide the citations for the 2 studies you quoted from? It would be helpful to add citations to future transcripts as well.
Progressives understand that falling into the trap that is the fallacy of equating Jews with Zionists would only mirror the incoherence of the right's arguments in support of Zionism and its territorial claims, despite widely seeing Jewish institutions as complicit in its perpetration--alongside Zionist-Christian institutions as we are again this week reminded by the latter's call for Trump's support of a tantalising demographically destabilising annexation of the West Bank.
"a president who, let’s not forget, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign ran almost certainly the most antisemitic ad ever run by a major party political candidate in modern American history, right, when he ran an ad showing pictures of Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros—three high-profile Jews— and basically said they were responsible for wrecking the global economy and as immiserating ordinary Americans"
You did not include a link to that ad in your "Sources Cited in this Week’s Video." Here is that 2016 ad, so that readers can judge it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkf2Xe5RfTc
The ad does show pictures of Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros, but it also shows pictures of many other high-profile people. The fact that critics of the ad who labeled it antisemitic named only those three individuals suggests to me that these are likely the only Jews among the many people shown in the ad.
Was this "almost certainly the most antisemitic ad ever run by a major party political candidate in modern American history"? Well, I can't think of any other candidate's ad that got more criticism for being antisemitic than this one did, but if this is *the* most antisemitic one, then that shows how little antisemitism there is in such ads in modern American history. Contrast with what it takes for a major-party political candidate's ad to be the most anti- any other group.
This video took courage and principled thinking, and will help others speak out, so thank you. I'd note that the cancellation of grants and contracts for Columbia and the effort to deport student activist Mahmoud Khalil has not been widely criticized by otherwise liberal politicians and newspaper opinion writers, or even the rather craven Columbia administration and board of trustees. This is the immunizing effect that the cover of vague and overbroad charges of antisemitism and supporting Hamas has.
Thanks for distilling this swirl of nonsense into a clean and cogent argument.
Excellent, thank you.
And what about the complicity of Columbia University? They have set up an office - titled the Office of Institutional Equity - to encourage students to defame other students and narrow free speech... Talk about Orwellian! All in the interest, one has to assume, of playing up to the federal administration to get their federal money back...
Are they almost required to do that in hopes of saving funding? I know it's cynical but do universities have a choice?
Where are all OUR billionaires, btw?
"Using Jews as a pretext to attack universities" is spot on. And the cynical and dishonest Jonathan Greenblatt is just fine with it.
I doubt he would ever agree to it, but I would love to see you in Greenblatt debate.
How can one have a meaningful discussion when the word "anti-semitism" is used in a way disconnected with its real meaning :
======================================================
adjective: Semitic
1.
relating to or denoting a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family.
2.
relating to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic.
======================================================
"anti-semitic" literally means anti-Palestinian as well as anti-Jew, as the Arabic and Hebrew belong to the same family of languages ( together with many other people ). Palestinians are Semites : to imply that somebody
supporting Palestine is anti-semitic is simply improper use of language
- unfortunately with huge and ugly consequences. If you loose the ability
to name issues properly, how can you expect to resolve them ?
This is such an important insight and worth repeating widely. The term "anti-semitism" has been weaponised as hasbara(propaganda)by Zionists. Our Miami Beach mayor regularly wields the term as an aspect of his intimidationist agenda. We need to call out Zionists as anti-Semites.
Šárka, "anti-semitism" is a term of art that was coined in the late 19th century to refer specifically to hatred of Jews as a racial group. It was coined by Wilhelm Marr, a German who promoted this hatred, not someone who objected to it.
Well, that's precisely the point : why do you persist using such an ill-defined ideological terminology ? Semite is a term designing a much larger entity, and has nothing to do with the religion on top of it : defining "anti-semitism" as uniquely targeting Jews is contributing to the problem ( if I am a Palestinian, how am I supposed to process the fact that my identity is constantly hijacked to serve the narrow-minded ideology of one of my cousins in the region ? )
"why do you persist using such an ill-defined ideological terminology ?"
Coming from the era that it did, the underlying idea behind coining the term "anti-Semitism" was to emphasize that Jews were a non-European Volk. And as such, they did not deserve the same rights & privileges as Europeans (a.k.a. "white people"). I suspect that movements that defend *against* hatred of Jews choose to keep using the term out of disrespect for non-Jewish Semites, because it suggests that Jews are the only Semites that anyone should even care about. For example, as Peter Beinart has written and spoken about, in the dominant discourse in American society today, anti-Palestinian bigotry is seen as either a good thing or not a thing at all. It does get a bit weird when people speak seriously about "Arab anti-semitism."
Thank you for so clearly articulating the administration's true agenda in this issue. Would it be possible to provide the citations for the 2 studies you quoted from? It would be helpful to add citations to future transcripts as well.
Its easy enough to look them up. Here's one of them: https://cpost.uchicago.edu/publications/cpost_understanding_campus_fears_after_october_7_and_how_to_reduce_them/
The sources are above, see the section "Sources Cited in this Week’s Video"
Thank you, Nathaniel
KD
Progressives understand that falling into the trap that is the fallacy of equating Jews with Zionists would only mirror the incoherence of the right's arguments in support of Zionism and its territorial claims, despite widely seeing Jewish institutions as complicit in its perpetration--alongside Zionist-Christian institutions as we are again this week reminded by the latter's call for Trump's support of a tantalising demographically destabilising annexation of the West Bank.
J.D. Vance, The Universities are the Enemy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw
magnificent Peter. Scream it from the highest mountain
Are we able to share this substack with the public?
Thank you for this. It inspired me to write my first Substack post, my take on this as a lawyer and Jewish American. https://open.substack.com/pub/sanfordlewis736120/p/rights-at-risk?r=h3yw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
"a president who, let’s not forget, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign ran almost certainly the most antisemitic ad ever run by a major party political candidate in modern American history, right, when he ran an ad showing pictures of Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros—three high-profile Jews— and basically said they were responsible for wrecking the global economy and as immiserating ordinary Americans"
You did not include a link to that ad in your "Sources Cited in this Week’s Video." Here is that 2016 ad, so that readers can judge it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkf2Xe5RfTc
The ad does show pictures of Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros, but it also shows pictures of many other high-profile people. The fact that critics of the ad who labeled it antisemitic named only those three individuals suggests to me that these are likely the only Jews among the many people shown in the ad.
Was this "almost certainly the most antisemitic ad ever run by a major party political candidate in modern American history"? Well, I can't think of any other candidate's ad that got more criticism for being antisemitic than this one did, but if this is *the* most antisemitic one, then that shows how little antisemitism there is in such ads in modern American history. Contrast with what it takes for a major-party political candidate's ad to be the most anti- any other group.
Thank you.
Bravo!! Thank you for stating this important truth Oeter👏♥️
https://substack.com/@snyder/note/p-158562583?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=a60zt