By Thomas Elias
Back in June, the president of the University of California
promised on national radio that the UC Board of Regents would vote in its next
meeting, in July, on whether to adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition
of antisemitism.
It didn’t happen. There was no vote, no discussion,
not even an agenda item.
No regent, including Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom or Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, spoke a critical word on the quiet
disappearance of that item from the meeting.
But the question is slated to reappear when regents
gather again Sept. 16-17 in Irvine, not as a policy opposing antisemitism, but
as a general discussion of “tolerance” on campus.
UC administrators, of course, know all about
tolerating antisemitism. No suspects have yet been found in several episodes of
Nazi-like swastikas daubed onto university buildings and there have been no
penalties for student government members who publicly questioned whether Jewish
students can make fair and objective decisions or judgments on campus issues.
That’s consistent with the lack of action against
students who set up mock roadblocks on the Berkeley campus where Jewish-looking
students, and no others, were accosted by toughs carrying machine-gun
mockups.
This was some Muslim students’ idea of a legitimate
protest against Israel’s anti-terror tactics, which have cut deaths by car- and
suicide-bombings to a fraction of their former level.
Toothless bromides about tolerance were all those
events, and multiple others since 2010, elicited from administrators and
faculty apparently reluctant about doing anything to counter their system’s
rising reputation for enabling outright antisemitism in the guise of a
Palestinian-sponsored campaign to boycott Israel, divest from companies doing
business there and create international sanctions against the Jewish state.
No one suggests Israel’s policies should be immune
from criticism, protest or debate. They are debated ceaselessly in countless
Jewish forums.
But adopting the State Department’s definition would
let UC officials know when protest becomes bigotry.
The State Department criteria, recently reaffirmed,
are simple: If an action aims to delegitimize Israel, denying its very right to
exist because it is a Jewish state, that’s antisemitic. If a protest demonizes
Israel in ways not employed against any other country, that’s also antisemitism.
And if a protest employs a double standard judging Israel differently from
other countries, that’s antisemitic, too.
Here’s one clear-cut example: When Israeli terrorists
firebombed a Palestinian home and killed a child this summer, government
officials immediately condemned the act and began a manhunt for the
perpetrators. Palestinian officials and police have never tried to capture any
countryman who killed Jewish citizens of Israel. Similarly, campus protestors
who vilify Israel for the baby killing ignore the many more similar acts
against Israelis. That’s as clear as a double standard can get.
While Napolitano and the regents spent part of the
summer backing off a tough stance against antisemitism, both the state Senate
and Assembly passed a resolution calling on UC campuses to condemn it in all
forms, a recognition that this age-old prejudice has morphed into new forms on
campus, partly because of the presence of students from countries where antisemitism
is official policy.
A formal definition is needed, say groups that battle
antisemitism, because of confusion over the relationship between Jew-hatred and
animosity toward Israel.
Since the Assembly under Atkins’ leadership passed
its resolution unanimously, it seems logical she should lead her fellow regents
back to specifics, rather than going along with the milquetoast attempt to
simply discuss tolerance. The university already has myriad policies encouraging
tolerance and excoriating “hate speech.”
While those policies have not been enforced against antisemites,
they effectively prevent hate activities directed against African Americans,
Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and other groups.
“Action on anti-Israel behavior devolving into antisemitism
is still on the table,” said a hopeful Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, lecturer at UC
Santa Cruz and co-founder of the AMCHA Initiative, which fights on-campus antisemitism.
“We need a formal definition of what Jewish students are experiencing as antisemitism.”
Without that, she said, administrators struggle to
separate ordinary student protests from acts of hate. This may be one reason
many egregious antisemitic acts have elicited no punishment.
It’s high time the Board of Regents realizes that if
it lapses into generalities and refuses to adopt specific guidelines like those
of the State Department, it will be promoting an age-old hatred.
Thomas Elias is author of the current book “The
Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the
Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third
edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
