I can't believe it's coincidence and accident that this Administration is assaulting medical research simultaneously on multiple fronts: here, with these attacks on universities, that seem to primarily target NIH research at America's most prestigious schools; the DOGE attacks, which are preferentially deleting medical workers, multiple entire offices at the FDA and the CDC; and that decision to elevate an HIV/AIDS denier to the office of HHS secretary.
I don't know what the intention is behind this systematic assault on medicine. It's incomprehensible.
They view it as an assault on Universities, not "science". The thinking goes (you see this kind of rhetoric right here on HN) that The Radical Left has infested education in the United States and polluted the thinking of a generation of future leaders. "Woke Mind Virus", etc...
So to stamp that out, you need to get the kids to stop with the bad thinking. But you can't actually do that as the government because of the whole "shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" thing.
So instead you hit their school instead. Make it so Columbia (in this case) knows that their funding depends on the grace of the government, and that if they want it back they need to start expelling or otherwise controlling the spreaders of the woke virus.
The downvote button is used by (too) many as the online equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears while loudly saying la la la la la, I can't hear you when confronted with facts they want to but can not rebuke.
It's crab mentality. The goal is to ransack the country and make life as bad for the rest of us as it has been for the die hard Trump voters. Our suffering is the point.
The intention? A country that is broken and looking to the fascists in charge to keep them safe from the same mess they created.
people keep trying to attribute a rationality beyond a selfish power/money grab... they are racist bullies looking to be the boot stomping on humanity's face forever while also looting the place six ways from Sunday along the way (just like Putin and his circle in Russia)
I don’t understand how that’s relevant. Do you mean to say that ascribing motives to actions is always impossible?
Because as I understand it, that phrase means that it’s fallacious to say that the purpose of some system is X if it in fact does not do X. Not that we can never ask why we are doing Z.
Intention can be nebulous and difficult to nail down, and can also be lied about. Purpose, as an answer to “Why is this happening?” is easier to reconcile by just looking at outcomes. In the particular instance that this thread is about, the purpose of dismantling a system that saves lives is semantically obvious.
For an analogy, if somebody is driving a car and slams on the brakes, the intention and the purpose of slamming on the brakes is obvious: to stop the car.
> the intention and the purpose of slamming on the brakes is obvious: to stop the car.
Not always, often it's to slow down or to control or initiate a drift.
Hard braking can be done to warn a tail gater to back off, it's also done to sharply reduce speed when headed for a kangaroo or other road hazard .. even though the car can't be stopped in time the aim is to shed speed while staying straight before a probable impact and to increase the time for the animal to move.
If someone is racing on tarmac or rallying on dirt they might practice BLAT - Brake Late, Accelerate Turning.
When driving heavy or articulated vehicles drivers will brake and downshift on down grades to shed speed and not lose control to mass and gravity.
Perhaps purpose is harder for outsiders to deduce.
I see nobody talking on _why_ the egg crisis happened. Some incompetent folks at DOGE killed off the workers responsible for vaccinations against the bird flu. Guess what happened once they were fired: birds got the bird flu.
That's the point of right wing governments. Spin it around and point fingers at the fault of others who weren't even involved. As long as you can paint a picture of an enemy, you'll stay in power.
Is that so?
Looking at the table it seems this goes back to before Trump inauguration: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/data-map-comm...
My understanding is that upon a detection the entire flock is killed. A contributing factor why the US is disproportionately affected is the large flock size.
> My understanding is that upon a detection the entire flock is killed
I heard something like the avian flu spreads so fast that once one bird in a flock is detected to have the disease, it will eventually spread to the whole flock within 3 days.
I did a little digging because I haven’t followed the news on this. Through a chain of links from the article is https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docum... which is a report from the Committee on Education lead by Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) detailing anti-Semitic activity on university campuses.
It seemed to me a lot of the key findings were framed in a political way. I was hoping to see more specific damages that might justify these huge cancellations of grant funding. For example one key finding was “Northwestern put radical anti-Israel faculty in charge of negotiations with the encampment.” I admittedly don’t have time to read the full report but how is the labelling of faculty involved in the negotiation a clear case of discrimination for the violation of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act? Shouldn’t the key findings be more about the harms that were experienced by Jewish students?
It’s a shame this report is being used to justify suspension of research funding.
Any time I hear this administration accuse someone of anti-Semitism, I have to wonder whether it's actual anti-Semitism or simply support for the existence of Palestinians.
I'll probably get downvoted for this. When I started dating a woman from Israel, her stories didn't jive with the stories we hear here. So I started digging into it and understood why she said it was such a mess and there was no way anybody outside of Israel could understand what was going on.
I'm not saying this as a form of both-sides-ism, but an acknowledgment that it's a shitshow and may never be untangled least of by US/EU.
It is a complete shitshow, and one can like Israelis and believe that they are mostly good people, while also believing that what is happening to the Palestinians is super, super wrong.
It baffles me because everyone wins when we fund research. And by and large, the biggest benefactors of public research are private companies that can develop and commercialize the research.
Not only will this cause brain drain, but in the long run it will surely make American industry less competitive across the board.
In a 2021 speech entitled ‘The Universities are the enemy,’ Vice President JD Vance laid out a plan for America’s universities saying in part “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”
This is impossible to discuss accurately without politics and religion - the GOP relies heavily on fundamentalist Christian votes, there is a roughly 200 year old interpretation of Revelations in the Old Testament that posits that the state of Israel must exist so Satan can destroy it in the battle of Armageddon before Jesus comes back a second time to save Christians. This is why the GOP is so gung ho for Israel at any cost.
I'm bit 'no true Scotsman' with this but I think it would be more precise to talk specifically about American Evangelicals instead of just Christians. Because this is not normal Christian thing and, comparing to Catholics, American Evangelicals are niche.
The evangelical angle certainly applies to a subset of the republicans, but not all of them.
The difficult and uncomfortable truth is that ardent supporters of Israel wield immense power and influence, and they are able to significantly damage the careers of politicians that do not align with their interests.
The fact that many repugnant racists, antisemites, and holocaust deniers make a comically exaggerated conspiracy theory out of this core truth makes it impossible to discuss it rationally.
No, but attacking students, physically preventing them from attending classes and screaming death threats based on their religion has tremendous implications. First stop all the funding (not only NIH, but prevent Qatar from funding universities) and then kick out those who are on student visas (or better send to jails in El-Salvador) and send to jail the citizens.
Insane comment. Send somebody to foreign slave prison because they said mean things? Meanwhile you don’t mention Columbia professors who set up secret chat groups to dox and threaten pro-Palestine students .
Defining criticism of Israel as "antisemitism" is very convenient for Netanyahu. Netanyahu is under heavy criticism within Israel. Like Trump, if he can't remain Supreme Leader, he goes on trial.[1] Netanyahu needs a war to stay in power.
Netanyahu met with Trump today, wanting support from the US against Iran. It didn't go well for Netanyahu.[2]
Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism, and nobody is arguing that.
Holding Israel to a double standard or denying Jews the right to self-determination is however broadly considered antisemitism[0][1]. "Today, it is used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus."[2]
> Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism, and nobody is arguing that.
Literally everybody on the far right yells antisemitism if you say that Israel is committing genocide. How you can say this isn't so, I'm not sure, but I applaud your ability to cover your eyes and ears, this news cycle is exhausting.
It is a fact that they are committing genocide. Whether or not there are antisemites in the world that agree with that fact does not change that it is a fact. It is what it is. Own it.
Colonialism is brutal and ugly, and we're seeing it broadcast in HD at all hours of all days. Saying that other countries (the USA, UK, Germany, etc, the list goes on) got to do colonialism and ethnic cleansing does not make it acceptable.
Now, you can just come out and say "I believe we should exterminate the Palestinians because we want their land" but nobody seems to have the balls to say that, even though it is absolutely the intent. So instead there's this nation state level misinformation campaign to try to undermine, intimidate, and suppress any dissent from university students to the ICC, which is frankly, exhausting.
Declaring something a "fact" without presenting evidence doesn't make it true. If we're talking about genocide, a clear, deliberate mass extermination campaign is usually what's meant, something akin to what the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust.
You claim that Israel has an intent to wipe out Palestinians and steal their land. But if that was truly their aim, why hasn't it happened already? Israel has the military capacity to wipe out Gaza or any other area, but they haven't. The absence of full-scale destruction calls into question the assertion of genocidal intent.
In contrast, Palestinian factions like Hamas have repeatedly expressed their goal of annihilating Israel and its Jewish population. They acted on this intent with the October 7th attacks, promising more violence to come. They’ve openly stated their goal of driving Jews "into the sea", that’s genocidal intent, not from Israel, but from groups like Hamas.
So, if we're talking about genocide, where’s the evidence of Israel carrying out systematic, widespread destruction of Palestinians? On the other hand, if we look at Palestinian actions, the genocide you accuse Israel of seems to mirror the actions and rhetoric of those who seek Israel’s complete destruction.
Accusations like these are heavy and need more than just rhetoric. Without solid evidence, they become a diversion, not a reasoned argument.
Airstrikes on hospitals is convincing to me. Next you will tell me that these reports can't be trusted.
Quit the mental gymnastics and just say you're cool with slaughter of people that were unlucky enough to be born into Gaza and the West Bank. Just say it. Cut the bullshit.
When did they stop being the envy of the world? Was it when every member of faculty was basically forced to sign diversity pledges?[1] Was it when students and faculty were given time off to mourn the outcome of a democratic election?[2] Or maybe it was when protesters for a conflict half a world away were allowed to intimidate students from attending classes?[3]
No, I guess it was when government funding was cut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As an outsider, none of what you said matters one bit to us. All seems fairly reasonable by "world" standards. When your universities stopped being the envy of the world was when attending them meant hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a teenager.
The cuts are even more pathetic and just cement our image.
Is there a serious steelman argument for why it makes sense to reflexively call protests against Israel anti-Semitic? The Jews are a globally distributed (and somewhat loosely defined) cultural group, whereas Israel is a specific concrete geopolitical entity. They are just completely categorically different things. Even if you have insane pro-terrorist views and want to wipe Israel off the map (which, to be clear, I don’t support), it’s not necessarily the case that your reason for holding those beliefs is antipathy to the Jewish culture, religion or ethnicity. Indeed that might be why you hold those beliefs, but as far as I can tell it’s not logically required.
And no one is complaining about people who restrict themselves to that.
The issue is those people who want to completely dismantle the state of Israel and evict (or kill) all the Jewish inhabitants. They call themselves "anti-Zionists", but they are simply racists because they are fine with the Arab citizens of Israel.
> The issue is those people who want to completely dismantle the state of Israel and evict (or kill) all the Jewish inhabitants.
This is equally as wrong as those Israelis who want to wipe Gaza off the map and occupy the entire West Bank. Sadly for the Palestinians, a bunch of people who believe this are part of the Israeli government.
A state which commits genocide forfeits its right to exist. A secular pluralistic state can exist in the place where the ethnonationalist Israel currently exists. But its formation and continued security must not be contingent on the genocide of a people.
Great, so we're in agreement: Gaza has forfeited its right to statehood after committing the October 7th massacre, literally aimed at destroying Israel. Quoting the Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad: "Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated."
I won't support the idea that Hamas has a right to govern Gaza, no. But I think that ideally a single secular pluralistic state would encompass current Israel and the Palestinian territories, and I hope the people who live there would one day assent to such a peaceful coexistence.
Well, partial good news, then: we have a secular, pluralistic state that covers at least most of that territory, namely the State of Israel, and the Jews, Christians Muslims and Druze living there assent to peaceful coexistence.
And entirely different matter is the fate of the people who are not citizens of the state of Israel. Where do you hope for them to live (and why)? Surely not in the pluralistic state we just talked about, since peaceful coexistence is far from a mainstream viewpoint among that population, to put it mildly.
A relevant Ask Project video from recent memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grq1Ro9vlyU - note that none of the Palestinians consent to living peacefully with the Jews in one state.
There is rationality if you think like an autocrat - the goal is to crush dissent and any avenues of dissent so that people "self-censor" in fear.
Combine with upcoming extra-judicial detentions of citizens (we are already detaining legal immigrants in El Salvador), it's required to create a culture of fear and submission.
That it happens to be against a specific group of people is irrelevant - this is the tip of the spear.
There are approximately 16 million Jews worldwide, with over 7 million in Israel and 6 million in the United States. Outside of these two countries Jewish populations are relatively small and often lack significant cultural or political presence. Talking about Israel is talking about over half of the worlds Jews. Israel is the only country explicitly with a Jewish ethos in a way similar to how European nations reflect Christian traditions or Middle Eastern countries reflect Islamic ones. Its population includes large numbers of Jews who were expelled from both European and Middle Eastern countries.
While criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic much of the antisemitic rhetoric of the past has shifted toward targeting the state of Israel instead of Jews as individuals (once the Jews were expelled/driven from those nations and no longer a convenient target). Israel is often held to higher political and moral standards than other nations under the guise of justified by its classification as a Western democracy. For many this uneven scrutiny mirrors historical patterns of discrimination, now aimed at the Jewish state instead of (often no longer existing/relevant) local Jewish populations. In some circles, classic antisemitic tropes have simply been reframed: accusations once directed at “the Jews” have been redirected toward “Israel” or “the Israeli lobby,” invoking ideas of secret influence or global manipulation that echo longstanding racist narratives.
Source: I'm not jewish but in any racist feeling conversation I invoke that I am in order to challenge fascists and more often than not invoking that surfaces that the conversation does in fact have anti-jewish sentiment. What I find especially uncomfortable is how little historical context or nuance is expected when discussing Israel, compared to nearly any other nation or group. Conversations that would normally require sensitivity, acknowledgment of trauma, and awareness of systemic patterns suddenly become blunt and ahistorical when they involve Israel. The level of deference people extend to other populations in terms of lived experience, historical persecution, and collective memory often disappears entirely in this context.
> Israel is often held to higher political and moral standards than other nations under the guise of justified by its classification as a Western democracy.
If you really think it’s just a “guise” then I can understand your point of view. But it’s very hard for me to agree with that assessment. Israel is treated entirely differently than say Islamic countries in the West. We would never accept the blatant disrespect for international law that they display if they were an Islamic nation, and just keep sending them weapons.
So I’d say the source of the tension is that Israel isn’t really a Western democracy, but it enjoys the privileges of being one.
Yes, I do think many people see “Western democracy” as often being a rhetorical guise when it’s used around Israel. The same critics of Israel were making these arguments long before October 7th, so for many observers, the current surge in moral outrage (justified or not) feels like theater, moral framing being used to amplify preexisting criticism. Similar to how some accuse Israel of using antisemitism as rhetorical cover. Also it's kind of a jerk/manipulative move to start with 'if you truly believe'. If you don't think I'm acting in good faith just straight call me out next time.
Saying you don’t think it’s a guise doesn’t really engage with the perception that it is. To me that feels like sidestepping the core concern rather than trying to understand it. And saying you don't view Israel as a Western democracy doesn't really shift the conversation, because the anti-Israel rhetoric I’m referring to is often based on the claim that “we expect more from Western democracies.” Dismissing that framing removes you from the very context that kind of speech operates within — and makes meaningful engagement with you around with it much harder/irrelevant.
Israel is a Western democracy just like the U.S. was during Jim Crow, or Ukraine is now (or is aspiring to be) despite suspending elections during war. Flawed Western democracies are still Western democracies. The issue is not the label, it's how it’s used, and whether we're willing to apply a contextual lens so that we can have understanding when we evaluate them.
What sets Israel apart is its situation. That's the whole point I'm making, there is much more than a bullet point checklist that anti-Israel people want to reduce the discussion to. It’s a democracy under constant existential threat, surrounded by actors who call for its destruction. Its people carry generations of trauma. From the Holocaust, from exile, from violence, some so much historical anti-jewish hate, propaganda, not even relating to the conflict. That context matters and shapes how speech is interpreted on the Israel supporting side. And it shapes the urgency with which threats rhetorical or real (or nonexistent but perceived) are received. When we critique Israel as a democracy we need to also extend the lens of historical memory, lived experience, and threat assessment that we apply to others. Otherwise that can get interpreted (rightly or not) as not about democracy but about double standards. Otherwise we are just saying 'bad is bad' which while totally true and valid, isn't productive.
Understanding doesn’t mean agreement. But without context, it’s easy to lose sight of why Israel supporters see the world the way they do. As a country shaped by exile, historical isolation, and the memory of being targeted for elimination by their neighbors when they lived in previous nations, now facing neighbors and groups that continue to call for its destruction. Criticism that ignores this doesn’t create accountability it shuts down meaningful dialogue. It was hard to make America see how horrible it's Jim Crow era was, and American's weren't implementing it in part out of current and historical existential threat (unless you believe 'white replacement' racist bullshit). Without allowing for the lense your opposition are viewing the world from the other side isn't going to hear you because to them the lense is very import to understanding their position, it in fact shapes their position.
You are going off on a tangent. Freezing grants to universities has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. The administration says it does, but then so did Putin when he invaded Ukraine: his claimed goal was to de-nazify Ukraine. Would it have made sense to discuss antisemitism in the context of Putin's invasion of Ukraine?
Read most hacker news discussions, the top responses often cover other aspects/questions raised. I am responding to someone's question raised, in Hacker News style, not going off on a tangent. You've been here long enough to know that and that you are making a bad faith argument, not actually engaging with what I said.
I don't think grants should be pulled nor do to I support Trump's policies. I don't think all criticism is anti-semitic, but I understand why/how they way some people approach it.
What abouting other situations isn't a response, especially when I am talking about why people have specific feelings about a specific situation. Again you are failing to engage and instead yourself are going off on a tangent.
> Is there a serious steelman argument for why it makes sense to reflexively call protests against Israel anti-Semitic?
Probably not. I grew up with extreme left-wing parents deeply involved with the Palestinian cause (but don’t sympathize with their views myself). I’ve heard them and their friends express a vicarial, seemingly irrational distaste for the US and Israel infinitely many times. I’ve also heard a lot of terror romanticism, not just for Palestinian terrorists but also the IRA, etc. But I’ve never heard anyone express any animosity towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group.
I think I can understand where the misunderstanding comes from though: These are very ideological people with deep seated feelings (hate mostly) connected to those ideological views. Most people don’t think or feel that way, and the closest thing they can relate to is racial hatred. So that’s the inference they make. In Swedish there’s a saying that roughly translates to “as you understand yourself you understand others”. I think that’s mostly what we’re seeing here.
> These are very ideological people with deep seated feelings (hate mostly) connected to those ideological views. Most people don’t think or feel that way, and the closest thing they can relate to is racial hatred.
Not sure how your personal experience in Sweden with your parents applies other than that the label doesn't apply to your parents.
My mom was very pro-Palestinian. She came to it from midwestern U.S. Irish/German Catholic doctrine. It very much had an anti-semitic component in that context. And it became apparent to her when I called out some of the attitudes/things people were saying as a kid. It's part of what caused me to adopt a default 'I'm going to challenge the popular narrative' position even though I'm not jewish, because even my mom unintentionally had accepted it and incorporated it into herself.
And I was pointing out it's not really useful to go by anecdotal evidence. Especially to anecdotal evidence from the other side of the world when it comes to political issues in another nation.
The midwestern catholic block I grew up in actually makes up more than my mother. Which again highlights your anecdotal evidence/experience/understanding being a Sweden centric view that doesn't comprehensively understands the U.S. centric topic at hand.
There is no serious argument or logical explanation to your question. What you said is obviously true.
But of course, Trump and his people don't care about truth, logic, hypocrisy, morality, justice, decency, or anything else. They support Israel and are thrilled to see Palestinians killed. They also hate "the left", people in universities, and anyone who disagrees with them.
So, they will use any rhetorical tactic no matter how brazen or outrageous to discredit the protestors and create the narrative they want. It is about fabricating their own reality.
In this specific case I imagine they also find some amusement in "using the the language and tactics of the left against them." I.e. pretend to be fighting against bigotry.
You know the Israeli government has also used the phrase "From the river to the sea", right?
"Intifada" just means "uprising"; the original Palestinian intifadas referred to nonviolent work stoppages, protests, etc. The attempt to imply it means something grosser is your ignorance and/or racism.
> Being anti-Zionist - but only to the Jews in Israel, and not the Arabs
This thought is incoherent. It's like saying Blacks protesting America are also protesting Black Americans.
"From the river to the sea" was an ISRAELI SLOGAN, by the Likud party since 1977, the party currently in power, that was then re-appropriated by Palestinians. Like many slurs have been throughout history.
It's a palestinian response that in essence says "no, you're not going to wipe us all out, we will be free."
Also it's very hypocritical, gaslighting, and manipulative to pearl-clutch about "from the river to sea" as Netanyahu (of Likud) and Trump openly plot to displace all Palestinians "from the river to the sea". It's one thing to say it, it's another to do it, as the Israelis are. It shouldn't be surprising though. Likud has openly been saying for the last 50 years this was their plan. Likud still does speeches with images of "Greater Israel" on the lectern. The pearl-clutching and gaslighting is just to paralyze and distract while they execute their land grab and invade the neighboring countries.
From a US State Dept study that I'm sure everyone is surprised is still up:
"recent studies have shown that a better predictor of antisemitism is not a right or left-wing perspective but a conspiratorial worldview and a penchant for authoritarian type of government"
I struggle to put my finger on who that reminds me of.
Calling someone anti-Semitic is exactly the same thing as calling someone Russophobic, Sinophobic, or saying they have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It's a rhetorical weapon to call people who are critical or people who have been harmed irrational. It switches the roles of abuser and victim by accusing the victim of irrational hatred towards their abuser.
The only reason that word isn't experienced the same as the other words that express an identical idea is because of the horrific history of violence against Jewish people carried out by Nazi Germany, legitimizing the word.
Times have changed and Israeli's find themselves in the position of power rather than on the receiving end of it, so they consume the legitimization of the word while abusing it in the same way all other authoritarian regimes abuse language. Worse, actual anti-semites are able to abuse the word to harm jewish people, their history, and damage the word/idea itself.
Sorry, you think there's no longer appropriate and legitimate situations in which to call someone antisemitic? What does Israel's relative position of power have to do with how Jews are treated in other countries?
For that mater, I wouldn't necessarily use the word Sinophobic, but you don't think Asian-Americans being assaulted and harassed over the "Kung-flu" have a reasonable complaint or claim that their abuser was motivated by anti-Chinese sentiment?
Israel's direct enemies make it very explicit that they are antisemitic. Consider Hamas' charter, for example.
Those enemies have long used European allies that descend from a long line of antisemitism, from both left and right wings. They often use "Israel" as a cover for their anti-Jewish beliefs. Several United Nations agencies seem to exist for the sole purpose of condemning Israel, while ignoring much worse issues elsewhere -- and that's not because Israel is uniquely bad.
Israel's right wing government has taken advantage of this. So much anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitic that they can lump in all of the many, many valid criticisms. They believe, with some justification, that they will never receive fair treatment so they might as well do what they are accused of.
I don't wish to "both sides" this. I'm just explaining that Jews have experienced so much bad faith argument that even Jews who are disgusted by the Israeli government expect outside criticism to come from a similar malfeasance. Maybe you specifically want to have a good faith discussion, but statistically the odds aren't great. So the arguments get shut down by the most expedient means, not the most correct ones.
I buy the claim that Hamas is an antisemitic organization. Their 1988 charter is quite explicitly antisemitic and although their more recent charter attempts to walk that back, it’s not clear how much sway the members who wrote it actually have within the organization or whether it was just written for Western consumption.
I already said that antisemitism is one reason one might not support Israel, so of course I don’t dispute that some anti-Israel organizations are indeed antisemitic.
But we’re not talking about Hamas; we’re talking about Colombia students. Is there any evidence that they openly supported Hamas? If not, why is it relevant?
The Columbia protests were plainly and unabashedly pro-Hamas, e.g. the chant "يا حماس يا حبيب اضرب اضرب تل ابيب" (Oh Hamas, oh beloved, strike strike Tel Aviv), or the protestors exclaiming "We are Hamas", or any of the other explicit pro-Hamas statements that have been caught on camera.
But I'm not sure what other pro-Palestinian protests have occurred since 2023 other than pro-Hamas protests. Have there been any explicitly pro-Palestinian protests that have advocated against Hamas, or for any other political entity?
Ah, I was addressing the first sentence in particular, about the conflation of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism.
As for Columbia... no, there's zero reason to think they supported Hamas. There might well be antisemitism in the roots of this somewhere -- left-wing antisemitism is a real thing and didn't appear in response to Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
But there is zero reason to think that the people being harassed are antisemitic. That is a right-wing belief that all Muslims are terrorists.
Just to be clear about my perceptions: Israel does face serious terrorism from Muslim countries, and I think that this reaches American young people by being "washed" through anti-semitic (white) intellectuals. But attacking university students for their sincere and non-violent beliefs is horrific (even if I think that some of their beliefs are wrong).
As someone who's actually Jewish, has Israeli friends, and had kibbutzim relatives from back in the day, I agree that this is what the Israeli government and society tell themselves.
But, it's a self-serving myth that enables them to overlook the outsized role of their policies in fomenting anti-Israel sentiment. The Holocaust created a ton of worldwide goodwill towards Jews that Israel has completely squandered in the decades since WW2 with their treatment of the Palestinians.
By loudly proclaiming that anti-Israelism is the same as anti-semitism, Israel has made it hard for themselves to distinguish between the two, but easy to brush off legitimate criticism.
Well, it depends on why you're protesting against Israel.
If you're supporting the dismantlement of the only Jewish state, like Hamas is, then you are in a precarious situation: why do you argue uniquely against Jewish self-determination?
Do you routinely protest in support of tear down all nations without prejudice, or just focus your antinationalism on the one liberal, democratic Jewish state? If so, why do you feel that only the Jews lack the right to defend themselves as a nation? Is it because you prefer to see the Jews defenseless against harassment and attempts at their genocide?
The protests against Israel are by and large about their treatment of the Palestinians. I'm not close enough to know how many are really advocating for dismantling the state. I'm sure some people do believe Israel is "invalid" since it was created by imperial whim and displacement of the local Arabs. Of course if you take that stance then it's hard to justify the existence of many other nations, the US included. Israel just happens to be more recent and the world has different standards now.
But anyway, the answer to your question is majorly complicated by the fact that many of the most anti-Zionist people are... Orthodox Jews. They seem to have well articulated answers to your questions that can be found online.
If the protests about Israel were largely about their treatment of Palestinians, why did the world erupt in protest against Israel, largely in unison, mere hours after they were invaded by Hamas terrorists on October 7th?
On October 8th, 2023 in Times Square while the blood was still fresh on the ground from the massacres in Israel, protesters chanted "Long live the intifada" and "Smash the settler Zionist state". Visibly Jewish people were followed and had "Hamas should have killed more of you" shouted at them. All only hours after the invasion.
Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee (in)famously issued a memorandum right after the attack "hold[ing] the Israeli regime entirely responsible for allunfolding violence."
On October 9th at the Sydney Opera House, hundreds of protesters chanted "F** the Jews" (and allegedly "Gas the Jews").
In Grand Central on October 9th, protestors marched for the "resistance" (i.e. Hamas) and "right of return" (i.e. banishment of Jews from Israel).
All of this happened weeks before the ground invasion in Gaza began on October 27th. Two days later, dozens of travelers were injured as hundreds of protesters stormed a flight from Tel Aviv landing in Dagestan, Russia, as they sought to harrass "Jewish refugees" (i.e. Israelis). Of course, the global antisemitism only continued to climb, with 10,000 incidents recorded in the 11 months following 10/7.
Even this week, a pro-Hamas group organized a shutdown of Grand Central Terminal, while in the real Gaza, protests are sweeping the strip _against_ Hamas. If the mission is solidarity with Gazans, why not protest in favor of the issue that Gazans themselves are risking their lives to advocate for: the removal of Hamas?
> many of the most anti-Zionist people are... Orthodox Jew
There's like 6 of them, and they are called Neturei Karta. The other several million Orthodox Jews do not share their views.
On top of that they are only against having a specifically Jewish government (they refuse to vote), but they do NOT agree with not allowing Jews to live in Israel.
There are many possible criticisms of Israel that don't have anything to do with Jewish self-determination, though... or is the idea that because it's the only Jewish state they get a free pass on all their conduct? I'm not following the logic.
There are many legitimate possible criticisms of the state of Israel, and protesting around those criticisms is a frequent occurrence within Israel.
But how many protests have you seen outside of Israel that were debating a narrow Israel domestic policy issue, versus calling into question the legitimacy of the "Zionist entity"?
There is no free pass only a viewing through the very real lense that “the Jews” has been replaced with “Israel” or “the Israeli lobby,” by racist groups.
The article doesn't say. but if you google, you can find articles like this:
> Citing “serious and pervasive” problems uncovered through nearly 500 student testimonials, the faculty task force recommended revamped anti-bias training for students and staff and a revised system for reporting complaints about antisemitism.
> Jewish students felt pushed out of many clubs and organizations
Any idea why Columbia in particular? Dozens of universities had protests of varying kinds, and they fell over themselves trying to comply. Does something make Columbia stand out? Or was it an arbitrary pick to be an example?
But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews.
And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and New York punished, will see Jews being punished -- and they will be pleased by this. The same goes for universities as a whole. Universities are often understood by antisemites to be Jewish. The attempt to bring universities to heel will be met by antisemites with approval.
You underestimate antisemites if you think they won't be aware of whether the people the government is punishing at Columbia are the antisemites or the Jews. Rather, there are two kinds of antisemites and the racist kind is fine with cancelling the woke kind.
> Brown University and Princeton University have also had their NIH grants frozen, and the agency is reviewing its funding to Harvard University as part of a broader Trump administration review of some $9 billion in federal funding to the Massachusetts school.
From the story: "Last month, White House began to pressure Columbia over its handling of anti-Israel protests and other allegations of antisemitism at the university..." If anyone thinks this is about antisemitism please check out the links below.
At the behest of its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH will not only block new funding for the university, but also stop paying investigators working on all existing NIH projects. Although these researchers will not be ordered to stop work, they will need prior approval from NIH to draw from existing disbursements, according to an NIH source.
For example, the university appointed Joseph Massad to teach a class on Zionism. Check out his article about the "astounding", "awesome" massacre on Oct 7 by the "innovative Palestinian resistance" (Hamas) - https://electronicintifada.net/content/just-another-battle-o...
It's just an example of a much broader pattern though, see e.g. Shai Davidai's posts https://x.com/shaidavidai
Campus security and police at Columbia are not allowing pro-Israel assistant professor @ShaiDavidai on the part of campus being occupied by the far-left and Islamic extremists. To protect the autonomous zone, the university is keeping out its critics.
Columbia University hired a Muslim professor, Muhamed Abdul, who said: “Yes, I am with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad” on his social media account.
https://archive.is/GRKJc
I can't believe it's coincidence and accident that this Administration is assaulting medical research simultaneously on multiple fronts: here, with these attacks on universities, that seem to primarily target NIH research at America's most prestigious schools; the DOGE attacks, which are preferentially deleting medical workers, multiple entire offices at the FDA and the CDC; and that decision to elevate an HIV/AIDS denier to the office of HHS secretary.
I don't know what the intention is behind this systematic assault on medicine. It's incomprehensible.
They view it as an assault on Universities, not "science". The thinking goes (you see this kind of rhetoric right here on HN) that The Radical Left has infested education in the United States and polluted the thinking of a generation of future leaders. "Woke Mind Virus", etc...
So to stamp that out, you need to get the kids to stop with the bad thinking. But you can't actually do that as the government because of the whole "shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" thing.
So instead you hit their school instead. Make it so Columbia (in this case) knows that their funding depends on the grace of the government, and that if they want it back they need to start expelling or otherwise controlling the spreaders of the woke virus.
I am not sure why you are getting downvoted. This is the rationale given to me by the Trump supporters I know with postgraduate degrees
The downvote button is used by (too) many as the online equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears while loudly saying la la la la la, I can't hear you when confronted with facts they want to but can not rebuke.
They're being downvoted by Trump supporters who want Columbia to be pressured to limit liberal views on campus.
Keep'em sick, overworked, and broke. That'll keep protests to an absolute minimum.
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It's crab mentality. The goal is to ransack the country and make life as bad for the rest of us as it has been for the die hard Trump voters. Our suffering is the point.
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The intention? A country that is broken and looking to the fascists in charge to keep them safe from the same mess they created.
people keep trying to attribute a rationality beyond a selfish power/money grab... they are racist bullies looking to be the boot stomping on humanity's face forever while also looting the place six ways from Sunday along the way (just like Putin and his circle in Russia)
It's simply a narcissist's revenge
Incomprehensible? No, Trump is still bitter about losing his presidency due to Covid and is exacting revenge on science and the medical community.
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I don’t understand how that’s relevant. Do you mean to say that ascribing motives to actions is always impossible?
Because as I understand it, that phrase means that it’s fallacious to say that the purpose of some system is X if it in fact does not do X. Not that we can never ask why we are doing Z.
Intention can be nebulous and difficult to nail down, and can also be lied about. Purpose, as an answer to “Why is this happening?” is easier to reconcile by just looking at outcomes. In the particular instance that this thread is about, the purpose of dismantling a system that saves lives is semantically obvious.
For an analogy, if somebody is driving a car and slams on the brakes, the intention and the purpose of slamming on the brakes is obvious: to stop the car.
> the intention and the purpose of slamming on the brakes is obvious: to stop the car.
Not always, often it's to slow down or to control or initiate a drift.
Hard braking can be done to warn a tail gater to back off, it's also done to sharply reduce speed when headed for a kangaroo or other road hazard .. even though the car can't be stopped in time the aim is to shed speed while staying straight before a probable impact and to increase the time for the animal to move.
If someone is racing on tarmac or rallying on dirt they might practice BLAT - Brake Late, Accelerate Turning.
When driving heavy or articulated vehicles drivers will brake and downshift on down grades to shed speed and not lose control to mass and gravity.
Perhaps purpose is harder for outsiders to deduce.
Okay, but if I ask why did you stop here, the answer I’m looking for isn’t “to stop the car.”
Our government is creating its own problems.
I see nobody talking on _why_ the egg crisis happened. Some incompetent folks at DOGE killed off the workers responsible for vaccinations against the bird flu. Guess what happened once they were fired: birds got the bird flu.
That's the point of right wing governments. Spin it around and point fingers at the fault of others who weren't even involved. As long as you can paint a picture of an enemy, you'll stay in power.
Can you expand on this? Looking this up, most sources I find indicate the bird flu outbreak began in 2022[1], with a new strain particularly affecting egg producing chickens in Sept 2024[2], and affects many countries, not just the US [1]https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html [2]https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/us-egg-prices-see-...
I was a bit sceptical at first, but grandparent's claims seem to be true, at least in regards to the firing/rehiring part.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjev24184vjo
[2] https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/19/agriculture-...
[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/usda-accidentally-fire...
[5] original source? https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/27/trump-fired-bird-fl...
Is that so? Looking at the table it seems this goes back to before Trump inauguration: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/data-map-comm... My understanding is that upon a detection the entire flock is killed. A contributing factor why the US is disproportionately affected is the large flock size.
> My understanding is that upon a detection the entire flock is killed
I heard something like the avian flu spreads so fast that once one bird in a flock is detected to have the disease, it will eventually spread to the whole flock within 3 days.
Worse, if my memory serves me right, even neighboring flocks are killed in attempt to preemptively prevent the spread.
the egg situation isn't because of bird flu, although that's a factor
it's a monopoly problem
I did a little digging because I haven’t followed the news on this. Through a chain of links from the article is https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docum... which is a report from the Committee on Education lead by Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) detailing anti-Semitic activity on university campuses.
It seemed to me a lot of the key findings were framed in a political way. I was hoping to see more specific damages that might justify these huge cancellations of grant funding. For example one key finding was “Northwestern put radical anti-Israel faculty in charge of negotiations with the encampment.” I admittedly don’t have time to read the full report but how is the labelling of faculty involved in the negotiation a clear case of discrimination for the violation of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act? Shouldn’t the key findings be more about the harms that were experienced by Jewish students?
It’s a shame this report is being used to justify suspension of research funding.
The weaponization of antisemitism is especially repugnant coming from an administration that hires people like this:
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/06/nx-s1-5319995/kingsley-wilson...
Any time I hear this administration accuse someone of anti-Semitism, I have to wonder whether it's actual anti-Semitism or simply support for the existence of Palestinians.
I'll probably get downvoted for this. When I started dating a woman from Israel, her stories didn't jive with the stories we hear here. So I started digging into it and understood why she said it was such a mess and there was no way anybody outside of Israel could understand what was going on.
I'm not saying this as a form of both-sides-ism, but an acknowledgment that it's a shitshow and may never be untangled least of by US/EU.
It is a complete shitshow, and one can like Israelis and believe that they are mostly good people, while also believing that what is happening to the Palestinians is super, super wrong.
The book My Enemy, My Self by Yoram Binur from just before the first intifada I thought was a pretty penetrating insight.
It baffles me because everyone wins when we fund research. And by and large, the biggest benefactors of public research are private companies that can develop and commercialize the research.
Not only will this cause brain drain, but in the long run it will surely make American industry less competitive across the board.
Quote:
In a 2021 speech entitled ‘The Universities are the enemy,’ Vice President JD Vance laid out a plan for America’s universities saying in part “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”
from, https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7493272
You do that after you got your Yale degree with all the education and connections that come with it.
As is so much else going on, this is a failed marshmallow test meant only to satisfy short term emotion.
It's quite insane that protesting against the actions of a foreign government has more consequences than protesting against the American government.
The current administration is throwing everything it (theoretically) stands for (1st Amendment, America-first, etc) for another country.
This is impossible to discuss accurately without politics and religion - the GOP relies heavily on fundamentalist Christian votes, there is a roughly 200 year old interpretation of Revelations in the Old Testament that posits that the state of Israel must exist so Satan can destroy it in the battle of Armageddon before Jesus comes back a second time to save Christians. This is why the GOP is so gung ho for Israel at any cost.
I'm bit 'no true Scotsman' with this but I think it would be more precise to talk specifically about American Evangelicals instead of just Christians. Because this is not normal Christian thing and, comparing to Catholics, American Evangelicals are niche.
The evangelical angle certainly applies to a subset of the republicans, but not all of them.
The difficult and uncomfortable truth is that ardent supporters of Israel wield immense power and influence, and they are able to significantly damage the careers of politicians that do not align with their interests.
The fact that many repugnant racists, antisemites, and holocaust deniers make a comically exaggerated conspiracy theory out of this core truth makes it impossible to discuss it rationally.
No, but attacking students, physically preventing them from attending classes and screaming death threats based on their religion has tremendous implications. First stop all the funding (not only NIH, but prevent Qatar from funding universities) and then kick out those who are on student visas (or better send to jails in El-Salvador) and send to jail the citizens.
Insane comment. Send somebody to foreign slave prison because they said mean things? Meanwhile you don’t mention Columbia professors who set up secret chat groups to dox and threaten pro-Palestine students .
The 60 universities they will be targeting like this, including my own institution.
https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of...
Defining criticism of Israel as "antisemitism" is very convenient for Netanyahu. Netanyahu is under heavy criticism within Israel. Like Trump, if he can't remain Supreme Leader, he goes on trial.[1] Netanyahu needs a war to stay in power.
Netanyahu met with Trump today, wanting support from the US against Iran. It didn't go well for Netanyahu.[2]
This has little to do with Jewishness.
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-04-08/ty-article/.p...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/middleeast/analysis-netanyahu...
Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism, and nobody is arguing that.
Holding Israel to a double standard or denying Jews the right to self-determination is however broadly considered antisemitism[0][1]. "Today, it is used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus."[2]
[0] https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitio... [1] https://www.ajc.org/use-of-the-working-definition-in-the-us [2] https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/about-ihra-workin...
> Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism, and nobody is arguing that.
Literally everybody on the far right yells antisemitism if you say that Israel is committing genocide. How you can say this isn't so, I'm not sure, but I applaud your ability to cover your eyes and ears, this news cycle is exhausting.
Accusing Israel of genocide is very often antisemitic, though, since it typically involves holding Jews to a different standard than everyone else.
Why do you presume that it is obviously not a bigoted assertion?
Wild.
You and I must be operating with different sets of facts if this merits a one syllable response for you.
With all due humility and intellectual curiosity, why is it obviously never an antisemitic slur for you?
It is a fact that they are committing genocide. Whether or not there are antisemites in the world that agree with that fact does not change that it is a fact. It is what it is. Own it.
Colonialism is brutal and ugly, and we're seeing it broadcast in HD at all hours of all days. Saying that other countries (the USA, UK, Germany, etc, the list goes on) got to do colonialism and ethnic cleansing does not make it acceptable.
Now, you can just come out and say "I believe we should exterminate the Palestinians because we want their land" but nobody seems to have the balls to say that, even though it is absolutely the intent. So instead there's this nation state level misinformation campaign to try to undermine, intimidate, and suppress any dissent from university students to the ICC, which is frankly, exhausting.
Declaring something a "fact" without presenting evidence doesn't make it true. If we're talking about genocide, a clear, deliberate mass extermination campaign is usually what's meant, something akin to what the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust.
You claim that Israel has an intent to wipe out Palestinians and steal their land. But if that was truly their aim, why hasn't it happened already? Israel has the military capacity to wipe out Gaza or any other area, but they haven't. The absence of full-scale destruction calls into question the assertion of genocidal intent.
In contrast, Palestinian factions like Hamas have repeatedly expressed their goal of annihilating Israel and its Jewish population. They acted on this intent with the October 7th attacks, promising more violence to come. They’ve openly stated their goal of driving Jews "into the sea", that’s genocidal intent, not from Israel, but from groups like Hamas.
So, if we're talking about genocide, where’s the evidence of Israel carrying out systematic, widespread destruction of Palestinians? On the other hand, if we look at Palestinian actions, the genocide you accuse Israel of seems to mirror the actions and rhetoric of those who seek Israel’s complete destruction.
Accusations like these are heavy and need more than just rhetoric. Without solid evidence, they become a diversion, not a reasoned argument.
I'll provide evidence, and you'll say "fake news". I know how this goes.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter... https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/05/the-icjs-findings-on-plau... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00263206.2022.2... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11103200/ https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/holocaust-scholars-sa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
I could link-dump on you too, but that doesn't make for a very interesting discussion.
Why do you think it constitutes a genocide? What argument do you find convincing among those articles?
I thought you asked for evidence?
Airstrikes on hospitals is convincing to me. Next you will tell me that these reports can't be trusted.
Quit the mental gymnastics and just say you're cool with slaughter of people that were unlucky enough to be born into Gaza and the West Bank. Just say it. Cut the bullshit.
The US led airstrikes on hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO forces struck hospitals in Yugoslavia. Were those genocides too?
I'm not defending those actions. You appear to be defending them though.
But surely they count as genocide for you, because hitting a hospital with an airstrike is the test, right?
Wow.
Our universities are the envy of the world for their academic freedoms.
Were. Were the envy of the world.
When did they stop being the envy of the world? Was it when every member of faculty was basically forced to sign diversity pledges?[1] Was it when students and faculty were given time off to mourn the outcome of a democratic election?[2] Or maybe it was when protesters for a conflict half a world away were allowed to intimidate students from attending classes?[3]
No, I guess it was when government funding was cut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[1] https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-use-di...
[2] https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/11/07/its-just-h...
[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dozens-arrested-at-yale-columb...
Edit: See also this account of the last four years: https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-last-four-years-wer...
Academic freedom has been dead at US universities for a while. The murderer is not the guy who was elected in 2024.
As an outsider, none of what you said matters one bit to us. All seems fairly reasonable by "world" standards. When your universities stopped being the envy of the world was when attending them meant hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a teenager.
The cuts are even more pathetic and just cement our image.
Please. Re the fire.org, have you read through the 600 cases? [1] https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/scholars-under-fire#h...
Read them. You won't see any strong "woke" pattern...just the usual mix bag
> No, I guess it was when government funding was cut
Yup
(1) and (2) have some merit but (3) is total nonsense
Didn’t Columbia capitulate already? Lo, it didn’t matter, they got screwed anyway. I wish I could say this was surprising, but here we are.
If you give a bully your lunch money, it's not like they leave you alone the next day. They come back for more.
Is there a serious steelman argument for why it makes sense to reflexively call protests against Israel anti-Semitic? The Jews are a globally distributed (and somewhat loosely defined) cultural group, whereas Israel is a specific concrete geopolitical entity. They are just completely categorically different things. Even if you have insane pro-terrorist views and want to wipe Israel off the map (which, to be clear, I don’t support), it’s not necessarily the case that your reason for holding those beliefs is antipathy to the Jewish culture, religion or ethnicity. Indeed that might be why you hold those beliefs, but as far as I can tell it’s not logically required.
Criticising the government of Israel is not even anti-Israeli, let along antisemitic, any more than criticising the US government is anti-American.
And no one is complaining about people who restrict themselves to that.
The issue is those people who want to completely dismantle the state of Israel and evict (or kill) all the Jewish inhabitants. They call themselves "anti-Zionists", but they are simply racists because they are fine with the Arab citizens of Israel.
> The issue is those people who want to completely dismantle the state of Israel and evict (or kill) all the Jewish inhabitants.
This is equally as wrong as those Israelis who want to wipe Gaza off the map and occupy the entire West Bank. Sadly for the Palestinians, a bunch of people who believe this are part of the Israeli government.
A state which commits genocide forfeits its right to exist. A secular pluralistic state can exist in the place where the ethnonationalist Israel currently exists. But its formation and continued security must not be contingent on the genocide of a people.
Great, so we're in agreement: Gaza has forfeited its right to statehood after committing the October 7th massacre, literally aimed at destroying Israel. Quoting the Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad: "Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated."
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-official-ghazi-hamad-we-...
I won't support the idea that Hamas has a right to govern Gaza, no. But I think that ideally a single secular pluralistic state would encompass current Israel and the Palestinian territories, and I hope the people who live there would one day assent to such a peaceful coexistence.
Well, partial good news, then: we have a secular, pluralistic state that covers at least most of that territory, namely the State of Israel, and the Jews, Christians Muslims and Druze living there assent to peaceful coexistence.
And entirely different matter is the fate of the people who are not citizens of the state of Israel. Where do you hope for them to live (and why)? Surely not in the pluralistic state we just talked about, since peaceful coexistence is far from a mainstream viewpoint among that population, to put it mildly.
A relevant Ask Project video from recent memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grq1Ro9vlyU - note that none of the Palestinians consent to living peacefully with the Jews in one state.
There is rationality if you think like an autocrat - the goal is to crush dissent and any avenues of dissent so that people "self-censor" in fear.
Combine with upcoming extra-judicial detentions of citizens (we are already detaining legal immigrants in El Salvador), it's required to create a culture of fear and submission.
That it happens to be against a specific group of people is irrelevant - this is the tip of the spear.
There are approximately 16 million Jews worldwide, with over 7 million in Israel and 6 million in the United States. Outside of these two countries Jewish populations are relatively small and often lack significant cultural or political presence. Talking about Israel is talking about over half of the worlds Jews. Israel is the only country explicitly with a Jewish ethos in a way similar to how European nations reflect Christian traditions or Middle Eastern countries reflect Islamic ones. Its population includes large numbers of Jews who were expelled from both European and Middle Eastern countries.
While criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic much of the antisemitic rhetoric of the past has shifted toward targeting the state of Israel instead of Jews as individuals (once the Jews were expelled/driven from those nations and no longer a convenient target). Israel is often held to higher political and moral standards than other nations under the guise of justified by its classification as a Western democracy. For many this uneven scrutiny mirrors historical patterns of discrimination, now aimed at the Jewish state instead of (often no longer existing/relevant) local Jewish populations. In some circles, classic antisemitic tropes have simply been reframed: accusations once directed at “the Jews” have been redirected toward “Israel” or “the Israeli lobby,” invoking ideas of secret influence or global manipulation that echo longstanding racist narratives.
Source: I'm not jewish but in any racist feeling conversation I invoke that I am in order to challenge fascists and more often than not invoking that surfaces that the conversation does in fact have anti-jewish sentiment. What I find especially uncomfortable is how little historical context or nuance is expected when discussing Israel, compared to nearly any other nation or group. Conversations that would normally require sensitivity, acknowledgment of trauma, and awareness of systemic patterns suddenly become blunt and ahistorical when they involve Israel. The level of deference people extend to other populations in terms of lived experience, historical persecution, and collective memory often disappears entirely in this context.
> Israel is often held to higher political and moral standards than other nations under the guise of justified by its classification as a Western democracy.
If you really think it’s just a “guise” then I can understand your point of view. But it’s very hard for me to agree with that assessment. Israel is treated entirely differently than say Islamic countries in the West. We would never accept the blatant disrespect for international law that they display if they were an Islamic nation, and just keep sending them weapons.
So I’d say the source of the tension is that Israel isn’t really a Western democracy, but it enjoys the privileges of being one.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Yes, I do think many people see “Western democracy” as often being a rhetorical guise when it’s used around Israel. The same critics of Israel were making these arguments long before October 7th, so for many observers, the current surge in moral outrage (justified or not) feels like theater, moral framing being used to amplify preexisting criticism. Similar to how some accuse Israel of using antisemitism as rhetorical cover. Also it's kind of a jerk/manipulative move to start with 'if you truly believe'. If you don't think I'm acting in good faith just straight call me out next time.
Saying you don’t think it’s a guise doesn’t really engage with the perception that it is. To me that feels like sidestepping the core concern rather than trying to understand it. And saying you don't view Israel as a Western democracy doesn't really shift the conversation, because the anti-Israel rhetoric I’m referring to is often based on the claim that “we expect more from Western democracies.” Dismissing that framing removes you from the very context that kind of speech operates within — and makes meaningful engagement with you around with it much harder/irrelevant.
Israel is a Western democracy just like the U.S. was during Jim Crow, or Ukraine is now (or is aspiring to be) despite suspending elections during war. Flawed Western democracies are still Western democracies. The issue is not the label, it's how it’s used, and whether we're willing to apply a contextual lens so that we can have understanding when we evaluate them.
What sets Israel apart is its situation. That's the whole point I'm making, there is much more than a bullet point checklist that anti-Israel people want to reduce the discussion to. It’s a democracy under constant existential threat, surrounded by actors who call for its destruction. Its people carry generations of trauma. From the Holocaust, from exile, from violence, some so much historical anti-jewish hate, propaganda, not even relating to the conflict. That context matters and shapes how speech is interpreted on the Israel supporting side. And it shapes the urgency with which threats rhetorical or real (or nonexistent but perceived) are received. When we critique Israel as a democracy we need to also extend the lens of historical memory, lived experience, and threat assessment that we apply to others. Otherwise that can get interpreted (rightly or not) as not about democracy but about double standards. Otherwise we are just saying 'bad is bad' which while totally true and valid, isn't productive.
Understanding doesn’t mean agreement. But without context, it’s easy to lose sight of why Israel supporters see the world the way they do. As a country shaped by exile, historical isolation, and the memory of being targeted for elimination by their neighbors when they lived in previous nations, now facing neighbors and groups that continue to call for its destruction. Criticism that ignores this doesn’t create accountability it shuts down meaningful dialogue. It was hard to make America see how horrible it's Jim Crow era was, and American's weren't implementing it in part out of current and historical existential threat (unless you believe 'white replacement' racist bullshit). Without allowing for the lense your opposition are viewing the world from the other side isn't going to hear you because to them the lense is very import to understanding their position, it in fact shapes their position.
You are going off on a tangent. Freezing grants to universities has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. The administration says it does, but then so did Putin when he invaded Ukraine: his claimed goal was to de-nazify Ukraine. Would it have made sense to discuss antisemitism in the context of Putin's invasion of Ukraine?
Trump himself dabbles in antisemitism, see evidence I have provided here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43640267#43640505
Read most hacker news discussions, the top responses often cover other aspects/questions raised. I am responding to someone's question raised, in Hacker News style, not going off on a tangent. You've been here long enough to know that and that you are making a bad faith argument, not actually engaging with what I said.
I don't think grants should be pulled nor do to I support Trump's policies. I don't think all criticism is anti-semitic, but I understand why/how they way some people approach it.
What abouting other situations isn't a response, especially when I am talking about why people have specific feelings about a specific situation. Again you are failing to engage and instead yourself are going off on a tangent.
There is no argument. It's a distraction to both make people spend time thinking about it, and discredit the protestors' opinions.
> Is there a serious steelman argument for why it makes sense to reflexively call protests against Israel anti-Semitic?
Probably not. I grew up with extreme left-wing parents deeply involved with the Palestinian cause (but don’t sympathize with their views myself). I’ve heard them and their friends express a vicarial, seemingly irrational distaste for the US and Israel infinitely many times. I’ve also heard a lot of terror romanticism, not just for Palestinian terrorists but also the IRA, etc. But I’ve never heard anyone express any animosity towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group.
I think I can understand where the misunderstanding comes from though: These are very ideological people with deep seated feelings (hate mostly) connected to those ideological views. Most people don’t think or feel that way, and the closest thing they can relate to is racial hatred. So that’s the inference they make. In Swedish there’s a saying that roughly translates to “as you understand yourself you understand others”. I think that’s mostly what we’re seeing here.
> These are very ideological people with deep seated feelings (hate mostly) connected to those ideological views. Most people don’t think or feel that way, and the closest thing they can relate to is racial hatred.
This is a very interesting point.
Not sure how your personal experience in Sweden with your parents applies other than that the label doesn't apply to your parents.
My mom was very pro-Palestinian. She came to it from midwestern U.S. Irish/German Catholic doctrine. It very much had an anti-semitic component in that context. And it became apparent to her when I called out some of the attitudes/things people were saying as a kid. It's part of what caused me to adopt a default 'I'm going to challenge the popular narrative' position even though I'm not jewish, because even my mom unintentionally had accepted it and incorporated it into herself.
Can’t speak for your mother of course, but I was talking about more people than my parents. A lot more.
And I was pointing out it's not really useful to go by anecdotal evidence. Especially to anecdotal evidence from the other side of the world when it comes to political issues in another nation.
The midwestern catholic block I grew up in actually makes up more than my mother. Which again highlights your anecdotal evidence/experience/understanding being a Sweden centric view that doesn't comprehensively understands the U.S. centric topic at hand.
There is no serious argument or logical explanation to your question. What you said is obviously true.
But of course, Trump and his people don't care about truth, logic, hypocrisy, morality, justice, decency, or anything else. They support Israel and are thrilled to see Palestinians killed. They also hate "the left", people in universities, and anyone who disagrees with them.
So, they will use any rhetorical tactic no matter how brazen or outrageous to discredit the protestors and create the narrative they want. It is about fabricating their own reality.
In this specific case I imagine they also find some amusement in "using the the language and tactics of the left against them." I.e. pretend to be fighting against bigotry.
Can you identify a person that best exemplifies this steelman argument?
I was asking if there is one, not asserting that there is. I don’t understand your question.
Flying Hamas flags, saying "From the river to the sea", and calling for intifada are all antisemitic, not anti-Israel.
Being anti-Zionist - but only to the Jews in Israel, and not the Arabs, is also antisemitic (and racist).
You know the Israeli government has also used the phrase "From the river to the sea", right?
"Intifada" just means "uprising"; the original Palestinian intifadas referred to nonviolent work stoppages, protests, etc. The attempt to imply it means something grosser is your ignorance and/or racism.
> Being anti-Zionist - but only to the Jews in Israel, and not the Arabs
This thought is incoherent. It's like saying Blacks protesting America are also protesting Black Americans.
"From the river to the sea" was an ISRAELI SLOGAN, by the Likud party since 1977, the party currently in power, that was then re-appropriated by Palestinians. Like many slurs have been throughout history.
It's a palestinian response that in essence says "no, you're not going to wipe us all out, we will be free."
Also it's very hypocritical, gaslighting, and manipulative to pearl-clutch about "from the river to sea" as Netanyahu (of Likud) and Trump openly plot to displace all Palestinians "from the river to the sea". It's one thing to say it, it's another to do it, as the Israelis are. It shouldn't be surprising though. Likud has openly been saying for the last 50 years this was their plan. Likud still does speeches with images of "Greater Israel" on the lectern. The pearl-clutching and gaslighting is just to paralyze and distract while they execute their land grab and invade the neighboring countries.
From a US State Dept study that I'm sure everyone is surprised is still up:
"recent studies have shown that a better predictor of antisemitism is not a right or left-wing perspective but a conspiratorial worldview and a penchant for authoritarian type of government"
I struggle to put my finger on who that reminds me of.
https://2021-2025.state.gov/from-right-to-left-and-in-betwee...
Calling someone anti-Semitic is exactly the same thing as calling someone Russophobic, Sinophobic, or saying they have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It's a rhetorical weapon to call people who are critical or people who have been harmed irrational. It switches the roles of abuser and victim by accusing the victim of irrational hatred towards their abuser.
The only reason that word isn't experienced the same as the other words that express an identical idea is because of the horrific history of violence against Jewish people carried out by Nazi Germany, legitimizing the word.
Times have changed and Israeli's find themselves in the position of power rather than on the receiving end of it, so they consume the legitimization of the word while abusing it in the same way all other authoritarian regimes abuse language. Worse, actual anti-semites are able to abuse the word to harm jewish people, their history, and damage the word/idea itself.
Here is a more eloquent explanation of the whole thing by Timothy Snyder: https://snyder.substack.com/p/antisemitism-and-antisemitism
Sorry, you think there's no longer appropriate and legitimate situations in which to call someone antisemitic? What does Israel's relative position of power have to do with how Jews are treated in other countries?
For that mater, I wouldn't necessarily use the word Sinophobic, but you don't think Asian-Americans being assaulted and harassed over the "Kung-flu" have a reasonable complaint or claim that their abuser was motivated by anti-Chinese sentiment?
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Israel's direct enemies make it very explicit that they are antisemitic. Consider Hamas' charter, for example.
Those enemies have long used European allies that descend from a long line of antisemitism, from both left and right wings. They often use "Israel" as a cover for their anti-Jewish beliefs. Several United Nations agencies seem to exist for the sole purpose of condemning Israel, while ignoring much worse issues elsewhere -- and that's not because Israel is uniquely bad.
Israel's right wing government has taken advantage of this. So much anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitic that they can lump in all of the many, many valid criticisms. They believe, with some justification, that they will never receive fair treatment so they might as well do what they are accused of.
I don't wish to "both sides" this. I'm just explaining that Jews have experienced so much bad faith argument that even Jews who are disgusted by the Israeli government expect outside criticism to come from a similar malfeasance. Maybe you specifically want to have a good faith discussion, but statistically the odds aren't great. So the arguments get shut down by the most expedient means, not the most correct ones.
I buy the claim that Hamas is an antisemitic organization. Their 1988 charter is quite explicitly antisemitic and although their more recent charter attempts to walk that back, it’s not clear how much sway the members who wrote it actually have within the organization or whether it was just written for Western consumption.
I already said that antisemitism is one reason one might not support Israel, so of course I don’t dispute that some anti-Israel organizations are indeed antisemitic.
But we’re not talking about Hamas; we’re talking about Colombia students. Is there any evidence that they openly supported Hamas? If not, why is it relevant?
The Columbia protests were plainly and unabashedly pro-Hamas, e.g. the chant "يا حماس يا حبيب اضرب اضرب تل ابيب" (Oh Hamas, oh beloved, strike strike Tel Aviv), or the protestors exclaiming "We are Hamas", or any of the other explicit pro-Hamas statements that have been caught on camera.
But I'm not sure what other pro-Palestinian protests have occurred since 2023 other than pro-Hamas protests. Have there been any explicitly pro-Palestinian protests that have advocated against Hamas, or for any other political entity?
Ah, I was addressing the first sentence in particular, about the conflation of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism.
As for Columbia... no, there's zero reason to think they supported Hamas. There might well be antisemitism in the roots of this somewhere -- left-wing antisemitism is a real thing and didn't appear in response to Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
But there is zero reason to think that the people being harassed are antisemitic. That is a right-wing belief that all Muslims are terrorists.
Just to be clear about my perceptions: Israel does face serious terrorism from Muslim countries, and I think that this reaches American young people by being "washed" through anti-semitic (white) intellectuals. But attacking university students for their sincere and non-violent beliefs is horrific (even if I think that some of their beliefs are wrong).
As someone who's actually Jewish, has Israeli friends, and had kibbutzim relatives from back in the day, I agree that this is what the Israeli government and society tell themselves.
But, it's a self-serving myth that enables them to overlook the outsized role of their policies in fomenting anti-Israel sentiment. The Holocaust created a ton of worldwide goodwill towards Jews that Israel has completely squandered in the decades since WW2 with their treatment of the Palestinians.
By loudly proclaiming that anti-Israelism is the same as anti-semitism, Israel has made it hard for themselves to distinguish between the two, but easy to brush off legitimate criticism.
Well, it depends on why you're protesting against Israel.
If you're supporting the dismantlement of the only Jewish state, like Hamas is, then you are in a precarious situation: why do you argue uniquely against Jewish self-determination?
Do you routinely protest in support of tear down all nations without prejudice, or just focus your antinationalism on the one liberal, democratic Jewish state? If so, why do you feel that only the Jews lack the right to defend themselves as a nation? Is it because you prefer to see the Jews defenseless against harassment and attempts at their genocide?
Parent comment had the word "reflexively".
The protests against Israel are by and large about their treatment of the Palestinians. I'm not close enough to know how many are really advocating for dismantling the state. I'm sure some people do believe Israel is "invalid" since it was created by imperial whim and displacement of the local Arabs. Of course if you take that stance then it's hard to justify the existence of many other nations, the US included. Israel just happens to be more recent and the world has different standards now.
But anyway, the answer to your question is majorly complicated by the fact that many of the most anti-Zionist people are... Orthodox Jews. They seem to have well articulated answers to your questions that can be found online.
If the protests about Israel were largely about their treatment of Palestinians, why did the world erupt in protest against Israel, largely in unison, mere hours after they were invaded by Hamas terrorists on October 7th?
On October 8th, 2023 in Times Square while the blood was still fresh on the ground from the massacres in Israel, protesters chanted "Long live the intifada" and "Smash the settler Zionist state". Visibly Jewish people were followed and had "Hamas should have killed more of you" shouted at them. All only hours after the invasion.
Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee (in)famously issued a memorandum right after the attack "hold[ing] the Israeli regime entirely responsible for allunfolding violence."
On October 9th at the Sydney Opera House, hundreds of protesters chanted "F** the Jews" (and allegedly "Gas the Jews").
In Grand Central on October 9th, protestors marched for the "resistance" (i.e. Hamas) and "right of return" (i.e. banishment of Jews from Israel).
All of this happened weeks before the ground invasion in Gaza began on October 27th. Two days later, dozens of travelers were injured as hundreds of protesters stormed a flight from Tel Aviv landing in Dagestan, Russia, as they sought to harrass "Jewish refugees" (i.e. Israelis). Of course, the global antisemitism only continued to climb, with 10,000 incidents recorded in the 11 months following 10/7.
Even this week, a pro-Hamas group organized a shutdown of Grand Central Terminal, while in the real Gaza, protests are sweeping the strip _against_ Hamas. If the mission is solidarity with Gazans, why not protest in favor of the issue that Gazans themselves are risking their lives to advocate for: the removal of Hamas?
> many of the most anti-Zionist people are... Orthodox Jew
There's like 6 of them, and they are called Neturei Karta. The other several million Orthodox Jews do not share their views.
On top of that they are only against having a specifically Jewish government (they refuse to vote), but they do NOT agree with not allowing Jews to live in Israel.
There are many possible criticisms of Israel that don't have anything to do with Jewish self-determination, though... or is the idea that because it's the only Jewish state they get a free pass on all their conduct? I'm not following the logic.
There are many legitimate possible criticisms of the state of Israel, and protesting around those criticisms is a frequent occurrence within Israel.
But how many protests have you seen outside of Israel that were debating a narrow Israel domestic policy issue, versus calling into question the legitimacy of the "Zionist entity"?
There is no free pass only a viewing through the very real lense that “the Jews” has been replaced with “Israel” or “the Israeli lobby,” by racist groups.
Pretty sure when the Crusaders showed up in the middle ages, the locals protested against Christians too.
Everything you've typed is an attempt to deflect criticism of Israel by exploiting Jewish sentiment, and it's frankly gross.
> pressure Columbia over its handling of anti-Israel protests and other allegations of antisemitism at the university
I don't think the article is saying anti-Israel is antisemitism. My reading is there are antisemitic behaviors within the anti-Israel protestors.
Like what?
The article doesn't say. but if you google, you can find articles like this:
> Citing “serious and pervasive” problems uncovered through nearly 500 student testimonials, the faculty task force recommended revamped anti-bias training for students and staff and a revised system for reporting complaints about antisemitism.
> Jewish students felt pushed out of many clubs and organizations
https://apnews.com/article/campus-protests-israel-palestine-...
Any idea why Columbia in particular? Dozens of universities had protests of varying kinds, and they fell over themselves trying to comply. Does something make Columbia stand out? Or was it an arbitrary pick to be an example?
A working theory is a grudge from a long time ago over not buying land from trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/trump-columbia-u...
https://snyder.substack.com/p/antisemitism-and-antisemitism
But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews.
And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and New York punished, will see Jews being punished -- and they will be pleased by this. The same goes for universities as a whole. Universities are often understood by antisemites to be Jewish. The attempt to bring universities to heel will be met by antisemites with approval.
If that sounds wild, 4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled. Including musk, and Trump's first chief strategist Bannon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9pXCuJnbc&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw&t=18s
You underestimate antisemites if you think they won't be aware of whether the people the government is punishing at Columbia are the antisemites or the Jews. Rather, there are two kinds of antisemites and the racist kind is fine with cancelling the woke kind.
...and at the same time, the other side has been continuously complaining about the US government's support of Israel.
I don't think this is the answer.
Decades Ago, Columbia Refused to Pay Trump $400 Million
A quarter-century ago, the university was looking to expand. It considered, and rejected, property owned by Donald Trump. He did not forget it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/trump-columbia-u...
From the article:
> Brown University and Princeton University have also had their NIH grants frozen, and the agency is reviewing its funding to Harvard University as part of a broader Trump administration review of some $9 billion in federal funding to the Massachusetts school.
makes one wonder how many people currently in clinical trials will suffer because of this
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From the story: "Last month, White House began to pressure Columbia over its handling of anti-Israel protests and other allegations of antisemitism at the university..." If anyone thinks this is about antisemitism please check out the links below.
John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, reiterated his assertion that Trump said, “Hitler did some good things, too,” in a story published Tuesday in The New York Times. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-...
Donald Trump dabbles in Nazi allusions too often for it to be a coincidence. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/trump-nazi-allusions...
Trump's re-election campaign that featured a symbol used in Nazi Germany. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53098439
Trump’s latest flirtation with Nazi symbolism draws criticism https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4677700-trumps-latest-...
Trump campaign accused of T-shirt design with similarity to Nazi eagle https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/11/fac...
Donald Trump's 'Star of David' Tweet About Hillary Clinton Posted Weeks Earlier on Racist Feed https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-...
Some key text from the article:
At the behest of its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH will not only block new funding for the university, but also stop paying investigators working on all existing NIH projects. Although these researchers will not be ordered to stop work, they will need prior approval from NIH to draw from existing disbursements, according to an NIH source.
Wow. This is literally the definition of doublespeak.
> The administration also accuses the [60] universities of racism through their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs [...]
How so? Racism vs Asians and Whites and Jews is still racism by the letter of the law.
War is peace. Diversity is racism.
It's scary to see Chomsky's theories and Orwell's nightmares unfold in realtime. It's like nobody is able to think anymore.
Newspeak is established, right now, and nobody does anything against it.
...kings are not elected, but made ;)
Your point? Americans don't kneel.
There's a lot kneeling right now.
.. not all of them, sure.
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Source?
For example, the university appointed Joseph Massad to teach a class on Zionism. Check out his article about the "astounding", "awesome" massacre on Oct 7 by the "innovative Palestinian resistance" (Hamas) - https://electronicintifada.net/content/just-another-battle-o...
It's just an example of a much broader pattern though, see e.g. Shai Davidai's posts https://x.com/shaidavidai
Campus security and police at Columbia are not allowing pro-Israel assistant professor @ShaiDavidai on the part of campus being occupied by the far-left and Islamic extremists. To protect the autonomous zone, the university is keeping out its critics.
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1782419968077803590
The wife of a terrorist is protesting with Columbia University students. Sami Al-Arian was deported from the US in 2015 for aiding Islamic Jihad.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1785504227244052872
Columbia University hired a Muslim professor, Muhamed Abdul, who said: “Yes, I am with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad” on his social media account.
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