Who needs ‘re-educating’ in universities?
Imagine you are a Jew sitting next to a colleague at work. You worked with them for a while and they seem quite nice, although you don’t know much about them outside of the work setting. Then they turn round out of the blue and tell you, with a smile, ‘I really think all the Jews in Israel deserve to die or be expelled, and I’m doing everything I can to help bring that about.’ Then they add, ‘oh by the way, I hear you have family in Israel, I hope they all die or get expelled too’. Then they get up to make a cup of coffee, and ask if you want to come with them to a work seminar on countering racism that lunchtime. Now, in any workplace any of us could conceive of, that would clearly be obscene, and without doubt gross misconduct and grounds for dismissal. But of course, if you work or study in a university, you don’t have to exercise your imagination too much, as that is pretty close to what is happening every day.
Fellow work colleagues or students, whether with or without masks and keffiyehs, are making such statements all the time. Whether it is voicing support for Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houtis, or calling for the globalization of the intifada, i.e. the murder of Jews both in Israel and elsewhere, as my own union at UCL did, this has become commonplace. So commonplace, that it’s become normalized. But of course, this is not normal behaviour. Just consider for a second if someone in your workplace called for the destruction of any other people. Let’s say someone called for the death or expulsion of all Catholics in Argentina, and you happen to be a Catholic Argentinian. Or any other group at all. Would universities regard this as acceptable behaviour? Would they say, as those university presidents so infamously did, in front of Congress, when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews was acceptable, that it would depend on the context? No, of course they would not as it would be a monstrous awful thing to say.
Yet somehow, if you start making a fuss about being treated like this, and suggest that this is unacceptable behaviour in your place of work or study, it’s quite likely you who will be the one who gets in to trouble. You will be told that this is freedom of speech and that if it makes you uncomfortable then that’s too bad. You’ll be told that this is about Israel and Zionism not Jews. The message being that it’s OK to be a Jew, but not a Zionist one, or an Israeli, or even a Jew who has family in Israel. An iron curtain is brought down, for you, between Israel and the diaspora. Whether you like it or not. And of course that’s the point. What you think about it is irrelevant. Not for you, as a Jew, the privilege of being allowed to decide on what your identity is, or to talk about or even celebrate it. No, as a Jew you’ve had quite enough privilege already, and there’s been quite enough of your uppity moaning on about antisemitism and the Holocaust and all that. Better you keep quiet. Better you just be thankful you’re here at all, what with all the, well you know, all the trouble you Jews cause. Better you just toe the line, and realise the errors of the ways of your errant people. Can’t you see that you are the ones harassing and intimidating and killing babies, and murdering. Just like your kind always have. Better just keep quiet.
And if you don’t? Well, then we have procedures and laws that apply. Equality, Inclusion and Diversity are our watchwords after all. Call out a fellow colleague or student for supporting terrorist organizations and the murder of Jews? Point out in public the double standards of university leaders and administrators? Well, we have rules about that sort of thing. We expect people to be, well collegiate. Yes, even if they are calling for the murder of your people. After all, you Jews do like to be pushy don’t you. As Nixon might have said, you can’t trust the bastards to play the game, can you? We’ll just arrange a little training for you. Remind you of your place.
Do I take it too far? Are my allusions to the history of antisemitic thought too forced? Perhaps. I leave the reader to judge for themselves. But whatever conclusion you come to…is there not still something rather off about the way in which freedom of speech is being abused in academia? The first amendment and other free speech protections in other countries are not meant to float about, disconnected from wider liberal democratic values. As Karl Popper famously pointed out, the point of free expression is to get bad ideas out in to the open, so they can be attacked by good men. America stands for democracy, for tolerance, for freedom. Free speech served to enable America to stand with the forces of good against the forces of evil, so crucially twice in the 20th century, and however imperfectly, to stand against the evils of communism. If so many staff and students in US and UK universities actually cheer on, in such an ahistorical and uncritical manner the forces of evil emanating from Iran, if they create a community of learning which is so lacking in diverse views and critical thinking, that it results in an environment where calling for the death of Jews is just par for the course, then something has gone deeply wrong. Most academics are too afraid to truly confront the mob, to stand up for what is right. They, and I include myself in this, lack the courage to really speak up and say this is wrong, and should not be.
As has been widely reported, Shai Davidai, a professor at Columbia who has been outspoken critic of the hostile environment for Jews, has been banned from campus and asked to undertake training in how to work in a collegial way. This follows of course in a long US tradition of Jews and others being silenced for standing up against extremism on campus. I’m a long way from Columbia here in England. But one thing I’m pretty clear on is that it’s likely not Shai Davidai who needs re-educating. It’s the rest of us in academia who need to take a lesson from the bravery of those like Shai who have the true courage to stand up and say this far, and no further. The courage to attack the vile ideas of those who support the killing of Israelis and Jews and to point out that no, this is not normal. This is not right.