I have noted before the disturbing trend of anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) supporters blaming Israel and/or Zionism for the recent outbursts of anti-Semitism around the world.
I first noted the issue in connection with a tweet from Professor Steven Salaita, where he tweeted that “By eagerly conflating Jewishness and Israel, Zionists are partly responsible when people say antisemitic shit in response to Israeli terror.” [Salaita’s tweets became a big issue, although that tweet has not receive a lot of attention.]
In that post, I noted that Salaita was far from alone. There has been a trend to use the “Zionism causes anti-Semitism” verbiage as a way of deflecting the grossly anti-Semitic BDS-led protests seen around the world under the guise of protesting the Gaza conflict.
Fast forward to last week at Cornell, when Students for Justice in Palestine held what was to be a mobilization rally on campus related to Gaza.
Casey Breznick is Editor-in-Chief of the conservative Cornell Review undergraduate journal. Casey also writes for Legal Insurrection (posts here) and College Insurrection (posts here), sustaining our long history of providing conservative Cornell undergraduates with a platform.
Casey and fellow Cornell Review member Andres Sellitto covered the rally. You can read their full report at The Cornell Insider blog.
There was a paltry turnout, only about 40 people many of whom were not even students, according to Casey. (The Cornell Sun put the number at 30.) Lots of socialist literature was handed out.
But one sentence in Casey’s report caught my eye:
Another off the wall remark included something along the lines of “Israel’s occupation of Palestine is the number one cause of anti-Semitism in the world.”
Casey told me that the remark was shouted from a bullhorn, and was pretty close to how he wrote it out in his post.
I think you will be hearing more along these lines as campuses heat up this fall.
But wait, will campuses heat up as expected? Given the low turnout at the Cornell rally, maybe not.
Anyway, here’s the video from the Cornell Review (language warning)
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