The University of Chicago student group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) recently released a ragingly antisemitic Instagram post, where they called for the boycotting of several “Sh*tty Zionist Classes” taught at the college. Throughout the post, SJP mischaracterizes the Israel-Palestinian conflict while simultaneously promoting blatant and dangerous racism.
SJP Students Are either Brazen Propagandists or Just Dumb
In response to the UChicago class “Multiculturalism in Israel,” SJP claims that “[i]t is disingenuous to speak of ‘divisions among Israeli citizens’ when Israeli Citizenship is itself a racist and exclusionary construct in the service of apartheid.” This categorization of Israeli citizenship as “racist” ignores the huge amount of racial and ethnic diversity within Israel, including Israel’s 20% Arab population.
Additionally, all people within Israel, regardless of their ethnic background, receive full rights and protections under Israeli law. Arabs serve in the government, vote, and participate in normal Israeli life. Calling Israel an “apartheid state” is both factually false and morally repugnant. Millions of South Africans actually suffered and lived through apartheid, and to compare the issues demonstrates that the “Students for Justice in Palestine” are either shameless propagandists or simply ignorant.
SJP moves from political falsehoods to explicit antisemitism in their claim that “Jewish national identity is a recent invention of the settler-colonial Zionist project…” Apparently, SJP does not think Jews are indigenous to Israel, even though they lived in the region for nearly 4,000 years. Regardless of any political beliefs about Israel, denying Jewish indigenous status within Israel is antisemitic. Jews have been historically oppressed, exiled, and murdered for being outsiders, and Israel serves as a place where they can live without worry of persecution.
This is all the more important as a global increase in antisemitic attacks continues. In the modern-day, there are no malice-free arguments about why the entirety of the land should be Palestinian. It should be noted, that Jewish indigeneity within Israel is not a denial of Palestinian indigeneity. Both groups have long and well-established ties to the region, but by only acknowledging the Palestinian claim to the region, SJP erases the Jewish claim and propagates antisemitism.
A Slap in the Face of Holocaust Remembrance
In case you were still wondering whether “Students for Justice in Palestine” were or weren’t acting in malicious antisemitism, consider the fact that they released their Instagram post on the night of January 26th, the evening before Holocaust Remembrance Day. This resulted in SJP’s followers and supporters sharing the post all-around social media on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
SJP’s flagrant antisemitism is by no means surprising. The student group has ties to Hamas, and they have been repeatedly and thoroughly exposed by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). A US-designated terrorist organization, Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. SJP shows no regard for the immense destruction caused by Hamas, and claimed: “one side [Israel] is armed with tanks…the other side [Palestinans, controlled by Hamas] consists of civilians armed with rocks.” Anyone aware of Hamas’s infamous rocket attacks during May 2021 would dispute SJP’s claim that Palestinians only have rocks to defend themselves.
SJP Hates Intellectual Diversity
The great irony in “canceling” allegedly pro-Israel classes is that there are many classes taught at UChicago in support of SJP’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two such classes that fit SJP’s narrative are “Settler Colonialism: From the US to Palestine” and “Black Power and Jews, Black Power and Palestine.” But SJP is not angry that their views aren’t represented by the Course Catalog, they are mad that an opposing viewpoint is allowed to exist within the course catalog at all.
The University of Chicago prides itself on its support of free speech and the open marketplace of ideas. What does it say about the current state of the University that a student club is explicitly rejecting intellectual diversity? One of the key parts of a UChicago Liberal Arts education is the exposure to new ideas. The administration may still claim that this is UChicago’s attitude, but the students involved in SJP paint a different picture of the campus culture at UChicago.
American soldiers liberated tortured Jews from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp nearly 80 years ago. One would think we have learned a thing or two about the horrifying results of antisemitism from the disturbing images taken of the emaciated Jewish prisoners. Yet, in 2022, we have an alarmingly high number of upper crust, “tolerant” college students (who are the same age as those American WW2 soldiers) promoting brazenly antisemitic propaganda and happily tying themselves to a literal terrorist organization. This needs to end.
*The views expressed in this article solely represent the views of the author, not the views of the Chicago Thinker.
I don’t want to pretend that antisemitism doesn’t exist on campus, but SJP doesn’t represent the views of the majority of UChicago students, just like CNC and other activist organizations don’t. Just to provide a rough sense of scale, SJP has 930 followers on Instagram, while CNC has 5580 followers on Twitter. The number of people who showed up that CNC rally the other day
—the number of people who agree with them strongly enough to take action—was like 40 people. And if SJP has less than a fifth of the number of followers as CNC, you start to see how few people on campus are actually affiliated with SJP: not enough to cause any meaningful change anytime soon, and certainly not the majority. Frankly, the political views of most UChicago students regarding Israel are more likely to range from apathy to tepid support for one side or another because we’re all too busy drowning in psets or papers to learn enough about the nuances of the issue to actually form an opinion.
Why do you suppose these same groups who pretend to be against racism, never broach the single most racist, genocidal country in the world? That would be China as run by the Chinese Communist Party, which exterminates Uighurs, Tibetans, and treats Africans as little more than modern slaves. But of course, the reason they don’t, is because they are hypocrites. And hypocrisy is the chief indicator that all their claimed motives of anti-racism are fake, and only exist to cover their true intents.
How would you know that students “never broach” the subject? There were plenty of posters, speakers, articles, and events in support of the protests in Hong Kong back when those were happening, and there continue to be student events and educational programs about the issues in China. Hell, there are three classes in the human rights department that deal with China’s human rights issues. Do you even go here?
Seems this story is over valuing the anti-Semitism on campus and conflates the actions of some as larger than it is. Can this writer please give us some data to support the claim or is this just simply hyperbol? It reads more like fearmongering and not journalism without data. Have Jewish students faced more negative rhetoric than other groups and if so by how much?
On another note, it must be noted that the Chicago Thinker astounds itself to be of Libertarian ideals. However, the Chicago Thinker is more often than not in opposition to libertarian ideals regarding their omission of alignment with two issues of most importance in the political discourse in America. How can the Chicago Thinker claim to be of libertarian ideals when it opposes the libertarian position on so many issues?
When will the Chicago Thinker move beyond one marginalized groups persecutions on campus and take up the rhetorical cause of other groups who face far more danger than Jewish students?
Anti-Semitism is real. Jewish students and the Jewish population handle it differently. There is no @woe is me”. There is a buckle down attitude. Study hard. Know the law. Work hard.
Jews have been confronting hatred for millennia.
It is ultimately their ethic and their response that has contributed to their survival.