Belief Israelis Are ‘White Colonizers’ Has Stoked Campus Antisemitism
- January 28, 2024
During an interview with PBS’s “Firing Line” aired on Friday, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Amb. Deborah Lipstadt stated that anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses is partially due to a view that Israel is “the oppressor” and stated that campus antisemitism has come out of a view that “Israel are white colonizers.”
Lipstadt stated, [relevant remarks begin around 38:20] “Maybe it’s — for some, it’s an ignorance. You hear things, oh, the Israelis, oh these — look, some of those students who are marching on campuses, whether it’s in England, whether it’s in France, whether it’s in Germany, whether it’s in the United States, if you ask them, from the river to the sea, they don’t know what river, what sea. … And it’s an ignorance, but students [glom] onto things. Who is the oppressor? The person with the tanks. Who is the oppressed? The person with the stones. But here it’s been much more than that.”
Host Margaret Hoover then said, “You are a student of antisemitism. You are an academic in this field. You have written [about] and understand the history of antisemitism, but also how it has emerged in modern times and in the contemporary moment since the founding of Israel. Explain how antisemitism in this contemporary moment has taken on the language of liberation.”