Tuesday, September 13, 2022
From Ian:
Anti-Zionists advocate a global apartheid
University of Vermont Faces Federal Investigation for Fostering ‘Severe Anti-Semitic Harassment’ on Campus
Anti-Zionists advocate a global apartheid
As I have recently written, the claim that Israel is an apartheid state has, in fact, little to do with the actual charge of apartheid. It is, first, little more than a cheap attempt to demonize the Jewish state. But more ominously, it is also a call for Israel to be dismantled, just as South Africa’s apartheid regime was, quite rightly, dismantled.Emily Schrader: BDS opposition to Project Nimbus will harm Arab-Israelis, too - opinion
To destroy the Jewish state would, of course, be an injustice to the Jews quite as horrific as the injustice apartheid did to black South Africans. But it is worth pondering the nature of this injustice and following the dark logic of the apartheid libel to its inevitable end.
Its logic culminates in something hinted at many decades ago by Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. The struggle for the Jewish state, Ben-Gurion said, is not a question of the Jews and the Arabs; it is a question of the Jews and the world.
This simple but remarkably profound statement points out that injustice need not take place only in a community or a nation. Injustice can be global. It can rise higher than mere questions of territory and individual rights. It can be expressed in the nature of the international system itself.
In the case of the Jews, this global injustice was obvious: By leaving the Jews without a nation of their own, and thus denying the Jewish people its right to self-determination and self-defense, the world constructed a discriminatory regime that kept the Jews separate and unequal—second-class citizens of the world. It was, in effect, a global apartheid.
Implied in Ben-Gurion’s insight is not only that this global apartheid must end, but that it can only be ended by the creation and perpetuation of a Jewish state. Thus, in Ben-Gurion’s view, Zionism is not simply a territorial or nationalist movement. It is a global movement that seeks to correct a global injustice. It is a struggle to do nothing more—but also nothing less—than to make the Jews equal citizens of the world.
This has profound implications—and not only for the Jews—because it implies not simply a moral imperative but an assertion of certain responsibilities. The world, Ben-Gurion was saying, must remember that it is overwhelmingly not Jewish. As such, it has responsibilities towards one of its smallest and most beleaguered minorities, just as an overwhelmingly white nation has towards its black minority or a Muslim nation towards its non-Muslim minority.
The world’s responsibility is or ought to be fairly clear: It is to ensure that the Jewish people is not a second-class people, and that it enjoys the same rights and privileges as any other people via a state of its own.
Once again, the ugly BDS movement has reared its head over the landmark $1.2 billion (NIS 408 b.) Project Nimbus contract between Israel and tech giants Amazon and Google. Under the guise of civic action by employees, fringe anti-Israel groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Linda Sarsour’s MPower group have led a campaign to demonize the two companies over their contribution to Israeli “apartheid.” In the process, they are politicizing an apolitical project that will benefit all of Israel’s citizens, including two million Arabs.
Project Nimbus, according to Google, focuses exclusively on upgrading cloud computing services at the government level for ministries, such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education, in an effort that will create over 3,000 jobs for Israeli Arabs and Jews alike. The project has nothing to do with military or weapons technology. But that’s never stopped anti-Israel activists from, once again, hijacking the narrative to make every single issue somehow about Palestinians.
This past week, protests against Project Nimbus took place in four locations, intended to give the impression there is a tremendous pushback from within the companies involved. The reality, however, is quite different.
The protesters claimed that Project Nimbus could be misused to oppress and surveil Palestinians, despite the fact that Google and Amazon confirmed that’s not related to the project in any capacity. Google’s representative even stated, “Today’s protest group is misrepresenting the contract. Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
University of Vermont Faces Federal Investigation for Fostering ‘Severe Anti-Semitic Harassment’ on Campus
The Department of Education has opened a formal investigation into the University of Vermont over allegations several Jewish students have been "subjected to severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination."
A group of Jewish students who are remaining anonymous due to concerns for their safety say they have been targeted in a range of school settings merely for openly identifying themselves as Jewish. This includes Jewish students being kicked out of a support group for sexual assault victims, "online harassment against Jewish students by a Teaching Assistant," and attacks on the university's Hillel building, which supports Jewish life on campus.
The Education Department, which only investigates matters with substantial amounts of evidence, will review these incidents to determine if the University of Vermont "allowed a hostile environment to proliferate on its campus" in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race and religion.
"Jewish students have expressed fear about identifying publicly as Jewish, report hiding their Jewish identity and have considered transferring out of UVM due to the hostile environment toward Jews," according to the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal advocacy group that filed the complaint with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.
The University of Vermont investigation is one of several being handled by the Education Department as anti-Semitic incidents proliferate on America’s campuses, driven by an ever-growing cohort of anti-Israel student activists who target Jews. The University of Southern California is also being investigated over allegations it fomented "a hostile environment of anti-Semitism" on its campus that forced a Jewish student government official to resign from her position.
At Vermont, a number of Jewish students approached the Brandeis Center after they faced a series of anti-Semitic incidents. The complaint filed with the Education Department alleges that "an environment of harassment and intimidation has existed at UVM for years, but it intensified in 2021 when a UVM [teaching assistant] repeatedly instigated hate against Jewish students who express support for Zionism, even threatening to lower their grades." Separately, "two student groups deliberately excluded Jewish students who expressed support for Zionism from membership, and the [UVM] Hillel building was pelted for nearly 40 minutes and vandalized."
The complaint alleges that school administrators were aware of these incidents, but have "taken no steps to rectify the situation."
From NYU, USC, UWisconsin Madison to now U of Denver, administrations claim to condemn antisemitism yet do NOTHING about it.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) September 12, 2022
Why do Jew haters like Hashemi keep getting a pass? Schools would NEVER allow such hatred towards other marginalized communities.
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