To be clear: it’s not the tolerant, multiculturalist Blue Staters who are painting swastikas and beating up Jewish kids. It’s the intolerant, anti-Semitic Blue Staters whom the tolerant, multiculturalist Blue Staters are wont to make excuses for:
It’s probably just over-exuberant anti-Zionism - nothing to worry about. At least that’s what not a few of the blogs and blog posts on Obama campaign websites would probably insist. Although it’s weird - if “anti-Zionist” isn’t a codeword for “anti-Semitic”, why are there almost a dozen pages on barackobama.com harping about the “Jewish Lobby”?
Switching coasts: remember that time in 2004 when USC’s Muslim Student Association spread a lighthearted Holocaust joke through their listserv? Or that other time in 2005 when USC’s Muslim Student Association spread a series of not-so-lighthearted Holocaust jokes through their listserv? My understanding is that the University very, very sternly instituted a series of sensitivity workshops. Shockingly these very, very serious measures seem not to have taken:
Pressure brought to bear on the university forced the Provost’s hand - which was duly noted and commended. But that wasn’t before the issue had to be repeatedly emphasized by Reut Cohen and the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Turns out, century-old passages urging the murder of Jews inspire something a little less placid than calm and measured anti-Zionism.
Incidentally - you know who tells students that Arab anti-Semitism is just an over-exuberant reaction to Zionism? USC professor Laurie Brand. Hey - you don’t think that this kind of “scholarship” has anything to do with campus environments in which Arab anti-Semitism is excused as an over-exuberant reaction to Zionism, do you?
