Free antisemitic speech is still antisemitic and indefensible
One of only two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has always been a vehemently outspoken critic of Israel. She explained her recent vote against the Israel Security Supplemental Bill, for example, as a refusal to “support unconditional military aid that further escalates the already horrific humanitarian situation” in Gaza.
Often accused of antisemitism, Omar has maintained, as many others do, that she strongly condemns Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, while accepting the nation itself as “America’s legitimate and democratic ally.”
There can indeed be a valid distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism — with the first aimed at the policies and actions of Israel’s government, and the latter directed against Jewish people and institutions. Although anti-Israel activists, often echoing Omar, typically assert that their protests are leveled only at Zionism, some have lately demonstrated a shocking inclination to employ classically antisemitic themes and images.
One appalling instance recently surfaced at the University of California’s Berkeley Law School, when Dean Erwin Chemerinsky announced a series of three dinners for graduating students, to be held at his home. Although the event had nothing to do with Gaza’s agony, the Berkeley chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine seized on Chemerinsky’s Jewish identity to call for a boycott of the celebration.
They placed posters throughout the law school, as well as on their Instagram account, featuring a grotesque caricature of Chemerinsky........
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