For several years, anti-Israel activists have sought to hijack other causes in order to turn them against Israel.
A key component of these hijackings is so-called “intersectionality,” the concept that Israel is the unifying evil force in the world that ties together problems far distant from Israel, including alleged police brutality against and inequality among non-whites in the U.S. Israel thus serves the organizing purpose that Jews historically served in international conspiracy theories.
We have documented such intersectional hijackings many times, including with regard to Ferguson (Michael Brown) and Baltimore (Freddie Gray) riots, Eric Garner protests, the Standing Rock Sioux pipeline protest, domestic U.S. police shootings, Reclaim MLK marches, and the Black Lives Matter movement, among others.
A recent focus is the plan to hijack the “anti-fascist” movement to turn it against Israel. We recently reported how Anti-Israel pro-BDS profs organizing Antifa campus network:
The anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is notorious for campus violence and disruption directed at Israelis and pro-Israeli students and faculty.We have featured dozens of incidents of shout-downs and disruptions of events, including physical acts of intimidation. Many of these incidents are discussed in our post, With campus shout downs, first they came for the Jews and Israel.In an extremely dangerous development, anti-Israel pro-BDS faculty are organizing a nationwide campus Antifa network.
One vital participant in this intersectional war is the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace. JVP provides cover against charges of anti-Semitism even as JVP actively stokes anti-Semitism through campaigns such as the Deadly Exchange, which blames American Jewish organizations and Israel for police shootings of blacks in the U.S.
Another vital participant is Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP has branches at dozens of universities and colleges, and provides the foot soldiers to push anti-Israel student government resolutions and to disrupt Israeli and pro-Israel speakers and events. SJP and JVP frequently coordinate these activities on campuses.
So it is no surprise that all these factors came together yesterday at U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where an SJP-organized “Smash Fascism” rally was used as an excuse to trash Zionism and attack Israel as a White Supremacist fascist country.
Among the co-sponsors was UIUC’s JVP group, and a JVP student member was one of the speakers attacking Israel.
While the event poster made no mention of Israel or Zionism, in its Facebook posting, SJP made clear that Israel was the target, going so far as to day “There is no room for fascists, white supremacists, or Zionists at UIUC.”
The demand that Zionists leave campuses or be excluded from events is something that we are seeing more and more of as anti-Israel activists hijack other causes. Zionist Jewish members of the LGBT community were excluded from the Dyke March Chicago, and Linda Sarsour has demanded that there is no room for Zionist women in the Women’s March movement.
The pro-Israel campus student group Illini Public Affairs Committee issued a statement condemning SJP’s attempt to exclude Zionists from campus:
SJP reacted to the criticism, issuing a statement on its Facebook page in which it reaffirmed its intention to stop people it deemed fascist from speaking on campus, even if violence was necessary. The SJP statement, on behalf of all the event organizers, read in part:
We, the collective organizers of the “Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance to White Supremacy” rally, are disgusted with the preemptive backlash our event has received. This opposition highlights the unholy union of American fascists, white supremacists, and Zionists which seeks to weaken and destroy intersectional movements for mass liberation….But just as oppressed and marginalized voices are made oppressed and marginalized by unjust systems of governance and societal organization, so too do these forces seek to protect the rights and speech of literal Nazis, of white supremacists all along the political spectrum, and those who seek to implement and continue all manner of ethnic cleansing or indigenous genocide. This speech is not just expression but violence…..We have been attacked for “advocating violence”. Apparently the language of “smashing fascism” has connotations too severe for those who believe that being nice to Nazis may curry their favor. We do not believe there is any other option when it comes to dealing with fascists and white supremacists. Granting them any platform will only lead to further normalization of their violent ideologies. Granted, violent resistance is not always the best option. Nonviolence and peaceful civil disobedience have their places and have achieved great change throughout history. However, violent resistance–whether it is a black bloc or full-scale armed conflict–also has its place. The struggle for liberation must exist on multiple levels and scales–it cannot, and will not, be confined….Today’s rally is not a culmination of our activism, but a beginning. We will continue to resist injustices which surround us, whether it be at the hands of the US government or this University. We will fight and we will win, by any means necessary.In solidarity,The Co-Organizers and Sponsors of “Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance to White Supremacy”
The event took place as scheduled, but did not draw much of a crowd, as this photo shows.
What the crowd lacked in size, it made up for in extreme anti-Israel vitriol, with an Israeli flag with bloody hand prints on it prominently displayed alongside Socialist and Antifa flags:
The speakers ripped into Israel, with the lead speaker calling Israel the epitome of fascism and white supremacy, and leading the group in a chant of “No Zionists, no KKK, resisting fascists all the way.”
The pro-Israel group StandWithUs condemned the event and called upon the UIUC administration to do the same. It’s press release states, in part:
StandWithUs strongly condemns Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for equating Zionism with white supremacy and fascism, trying to create a hostile environment for students who believe in Israel’s right to exist, and advocating violence. We call on the university administration to publicly condemn them as well….StandWithUs calls on the UIUC administration to use its 1st amendment rights to issue a clear condemnation of SJP, and affirm that Zionist students have every right to a safe learning environment at the university.
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