Cherryl Smith, Sacramento State University

Almost immediately after Israel began responding to the atrocities of October 7, American, European, British, and Canadian university campuses erupted in protests -- in support of HAMAS.

I’m not sure why this surprised me. After I retired from my university I published a book about the way Israel is maligned by media and by many academics. And yet, I was not expecting that on so many campuses the response to HAMAS terror and kidnapping would be to cheer for the terrorists. 

There was campus outrage at the very idea of any Israeli response and a well-orchestrated galvanizing of campus space for protest in support of the murder and kidnapping and torture conducted by Palestinians.  

The campus protests clearly demonstrated the bias and distortion about Israel that I’d analyzed in my book.  And they expanded academic anti-Israelism beyond  classroom discourse to the physical campus. Universities became the site of “encampments,” tents set up for protest against Israel. These proliferated at universities, especially at the more prestigious institutions. 

Students had learned their lessons well and yet what they had learned had left them with only the vaguest knowledge about Israel or HAMAS or terrorism. They simply knew which side to be on.

Of course, in no way could these protests and demonstrations possibly impact the war. But that didn’t matter. For, it soon became clear that the war itself was not the focus for the demonstrators. Instead, the protesters took out their anger and ideology on the Jews close at hand: Jewish students and Jewish faculty.  

Academic anti-Israelism moved seamlessly from academic discourse in the classroom to blatant demonization of Jews and supporters of Israel on campus.  

And anti-Israelism on campus has enormous impact on faculty who do support Israel.  Unique among all the countries of the world and all the “studies” programs on campus, Israel is singled out for criticism, so much so that to suggest this, as I have just done, is to go against the ideology of many campus disciplines. 

Just as Israel at the United Nations is the most criticized nation, academic commentary and anti-Israel scholarship appears in a vast variety of disciplines that have nothing to do with the subject matter of a given course. And, alone among the “studies” courses that focus on a particular country and value the country they study, Israel Studies professors who support Israel can find themselves far outnumbered by anti-Israel, Israel studies professors. 

In a wild mislabeling of Israeli demographics and history, Israelis are considered “white invaders” by anti-Israel academics. In reality, the “wandering Jews” come in every color and are a distinct ethnic group whose history is recorded in the foundational texts of Jews, Christians, and Muslims and who, entirely legally, managed to return to their homeland. In fact, Israel is the only country of the Middle East where Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bedouin and five other groups live as equal citizens with equal rights and opportunities. 

This reality is obscured by the ideology of radical anti-Israelism that has become popular, even expected, in academic settings.  

Is there as way to fight back? If you are connected to AEN and other supporters  of Israel, that is an important step and a way of fighting back. If you’re tenured you can stand up for what you know more easily than if you’re not. But I think that a focus on the Jewish and pro-Israel students, meeting with them, supporting Hillel, will help them and you. It’s a version of what is going on in Israel where groups of people go to farms to harvest fruit now that workers are gone. Of course, donating to the IDF or to Magen David Adom will be helpful. 

AEN is politically neutral outside of our shared commitment to Israel and to academic freedom. And so I will simply say that Israel’s very existence is on the line. The country needs to be able to respond to terror both defensively and offensively. The offence is often limited by American leadership. And so, for this one election, I’m a single issue voter. I argue that Jews must vote only in our own best interests. If Israel merely stops the war but does not decisively win, it will impact the lives of Jews around the world far more than any anti-Jewish clashes we’re experiencing on campus.

Cherryl Smith is Professor Emerita from Sacramento State University; she is author of Framing Israel, a personal tour of media and campus rhetoric.