2023-12-23 10:25:00
Several people hold a banner reading “The Union once morest anti-Semitism is strength” during a demonstration once morest anti-Semitism, in Brussels, Belgium, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Johanna Geron
The terrorist attack carried out by the Palestinian organization Hamas on October 7 has brought to the surface conflicting positions not only in public opinion at an international level, but also in academic authorities, professors and students, who are exhibiting dissimilar positions regarding where the border between objective discourse and expressions of fanaticism and its threats.
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The violence in the language and speeches of pro-Palestinian protesters whose strategy is observed at different levels of educational institutes and universities take more virulent positions day by day to confront the so-called anti-Zionism, which is nothing more than the throwing stone and the covert expression used by rioters so as not to be considered anti-Semitic – are giving rise to demands for educational policies that, in most cases, confront the values of academic freedom and freedom of expression. This is happening both in the United States, Europe and Latin America.
There is no doubt that the dialectic and rhetoric that fractured the university cloisters with statements that Israel is an apartheid, colonialist and genocidal state once morest the Palestinians has its origin in the profound ignorance regarding the conflict whose roots are anchored in political activism both from the anti-Western extreme left and the extreme right, and of course by groups favorable to radical fundamentalism such as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (known by its acronym BDS).
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For the first case, the reasons are as well known as those who lead and carry out such campaigns in different parts of the world. In the second point, the one that refers to BDS, the defenders of the boycott describe their actions as a campaign of economic pressure on Israel to withdraw from the disputed territories and respect the demand of several generations of Palestinians considered refugees by allowing their return to their villages and towns.
Critics of anti-Israel propaganda condemn – with valid reasons – these two points as a clearly anti-Semitic attempt to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel and as an attack once morest the Jews of the world who defend their right to exist as a Jewish National Home. .
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The truth is that the economic result of the boycott (BDS) has been insignificant in economic terms, although it attracted enough adherents in the academic and educational fields in different Universities that support the boycott of Israeli educational institutions and Universities. These groups, made up of activists and students, usually promote divestment resolutions and constant repudiations, participate annually in the anti-Israel Apartheid Week, organize different types of protests for the treatment that Palestinians receive and demand the policies of the return to the borders of 1967, if not those prior to May 14, 1948.
However, BDS is not a new movement; as early as 2017, it began and promoting complaints blaming Israel for what it called collective repression or mass punishment and isolation of Palestinians for the actions of “tiny resistant” groups. Despite this, in European countries (Spain and France) and Latin American countries (Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba) certain successes must be recognized. However, in the United States, the administration of former President Donald Trump and the current one of President Joe Biden have condemned BDS and its violations of various federal laws that require government contractors not to boycott Israel or prohibit companies that support the BDS receive contracts from the government.
Still, in recent weeks, as the fighting in Gaza has deepened, several loosely organized groups have become strong representatives of BDS and are trying to throw fuel on the fire driven by their ideology and anti-Semitism, although their supporters insist that BDS It is a direct action to protect the rights of Palestinians. However, the general public has understood following the brutal crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, that BDS is nothing more than an undeniable anti-Semitic effort to eliminate Israel as a Jewish State both in its strategy and in its tactics and rhetoric.
In the case of American Universities, although at first BDS made some progress, as its dialectical virulence grew, demands to suppress anti-Semitism grew with it. Government officials have warned that they will withdraw funds from Universities that spread and encourage hate speech from Hamas and other terrorist groups that deepen anti-Semitism. Faced with these events, the Department of Education office in Washington opened investigations into anti-Semitism that includes an increasing number of Universities who, with the support of donors and alumni, have demanded university policies that prohibit hatred, threats and violence that spreads militant jihadism that has spread in different houses of study.
The controversy over militant support for terrorist groups and BDS should serve as a reminder, especially in the current critical moment of escalation of military actions, of the enormous challenge faced by education and Universities, which must comply with the highest imperative, which is to train and remove people from ignorance, an element that is the fundamental stone where radical jihadism is born and expands.
Educating is the best and only way to dismantle the speech of hate and violence – even when it is a speech protected or covered up by community institutions – since it attacks the dignity and value of those who are the object of it, while undermining the sense of physical and emotional security of people, therefore, is an enemy of academic freedom and free learning in Western democratic societies.
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