Students and Faculty Critical of Israel Face Extensive Intimidation
“Israel-Boycott Debate Spurs Fight Over Definition of ‘Anti-Semitism’” (The Chronicle, May 18) highlights an important issue on U.S. campuses. We appreciate The Chronicle’s coverage of an initiative by Jewish Voice for Peace urging the State Department to change its definition of anti-Semitism to prevent it from “being misused to silence critics of Israel,” but there is an important part of the story that needs a closer look.
The Chronicle’s focus on the views of Israel advocacy groups entirely omits the extensive intimidation faced by students and professors critical of Israeli policy. The Chronicle also questions whether debate would be limited if universities — pressured by Israel advocacy groups — adopted the State Department definition. The answer is a clear yes: The definition wrongly brands political speech and activity critical of Israeli policies as ”anti-Semitic” to set it up for censorship.
Palestine Solidarity Legal Support, in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, released findings on the trend of the increased conflation of criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism in order to silence advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. In the first four months of 2015, we documented over 60 accusations of anti-Semitism based solely on speech critical of Israeli policy. During this time, our attorneys responded to 102 requests for legal assistance from students and faculty, 24 of which included individuals that were smeared as “terrorists” or “supporters of terrorism” based on this speech.
Our findings indicate that even without campus adoption of the State Department definition, false accusations of anti-Semitism have already led to the silencing, harassment, and intimidation of students and scholars that engage in speech critical of Israel, trampling their First Amendment rights and limiting the free exchange of ideas at universities across the country.
This is the victimization the media too frequently disregard.
