2. Anti-Israel sentiment at that most progressive of colleges, Oberlin, is bleeding into anti-Semitism (or maybe anti-Israel sentiment is simply providing a cover for latent anti-Semitism). Professor William Jacobson has the details here, but even if you don’t read the whole post, read the end of it, where he quotes a lengthy Facebook post from a recent alumna about anti-Semitic incidents she experienced or witnessed as a left-wing, but pro-Israel Jewish student there. I won’t endorse the claim that every one of these incidents was anti-Semitic, as such, but, assuming they are all true, they paint a very disturbing picture. I was particularly struck by her claim that multiple times she heard Oberlin students dismiss the Holocaust as “white on white violence.” How narrowminded, historically unaware and just plain oblivious to any experiences outside the modern American context can one be to dismissively describe the Holocaust that way? Multicultural education apparently doesn’t include understanding historical events in context, nor even having empathy for the experiences of victims of racism who don’t fit politically correct American paradigms of such victims. Or maybe it’s just about the Jews, who can’t be seen as victims so long as Israel exists. Or both. [Update: I just noticed that the Post covered the controversy at Oberlin today. If you are interested in what’s going on at Oberlin, you really must read the Facebook post noted above; it strongly suggests that problems at Oberlin complained of by Jewish students go well beyond mere controversy over Israeli policy.]

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3. An Israeli leftist activist, Ezra Nawi of the anti-occupation group Ta’ayush, aided by an activist with the “human rights” group B’tselem, was caught trying to entrap someone into selling land on the West Bank to a Jewish buyer. Nawi was quoted as follows: ” ‘Straight away I give their [land-sellers’] pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force,’ Nawi is heard saying in reference to the Palestinian Authority’s counterintelligence arm. ‘The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot.’ ” B’tselem responded primarily with agitprop, by attacking the messenger and making excuses for the miscreants (link is in Hebrew).

4. In a true theater of the absurd, a large group of activists at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference shut down a Shabbat dinner and discussion hosted by left-wing American Jewish and Israeli organizations, because of the latter’s participation. Many participants describe the demonstration as both anti-Semitic and physically threatening (and the hotel felt obliged to call the police), but we can limit ourselves to the sheer craziness of radical LGBT activists shouting “free Palestine” and anti-Israel slogans to shut down an event involving an Israeli LGBT organization when Israel is a gay rights haven and the Palestinian territories, to say the least, are not.

5. Remember Lamiya Khandaker, the Connecticut College student who provoked a campus-wide two-minutes hate against Jewish, pro-Israel professor Andrew Pessin based on the false allegation that he had called Palestinians “rabid pit bulls” when he was referring to Hamas? According to her LinkedIn profile, last May, well after her allegations were discredited, the dean of the college awarded her a “Scholar Activist Award.” (The college through its office of communications declined to comment, and the dean of the college as of last May did not respond to emails requesting confirmation.)

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