Campus Antisemitism Transcript

Interviewer: Welcome to EMET’s weekly webinar. This week’s webinar features Dr. Asaf Romirowsky. Dr. Romirowsky is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), and of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). He will be discussing the growing and seemingly unchecked anti-Semitism pervading our nation’s college campuses. This anti-Semitism is now permeating our public and private schools from kindergarten through 12^th grade.

Today’s webinar is co-sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), where I serve as Vice President and Treasurer. SPME works to bring truth to Middle Eastern studies and supports those faculty members fighting for it. SPME has been at the forefront of fighting the BDS movement. Since October 7^th, the BDS movement has become an increasingly powerful tool of the leftists and Islamist Jew haters.

We thank all of our viewers for their support of both https://spme.org/ and of https://emetonline.org/. Please make a contribution to these organizations online. This will help us continue our important work of bringing truth to both Capitol Hill and to our universities.

Today’s webinar will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date. I urge you all to share the link far and wide as the issues that we will be discussing require urgent attention. If you have any questions for Dr. Romirowsky, you can place them in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. I will try and address as many as possible a bit later in the program. Welcome, Asaf and thanks so much for joining us this afternoon.

Dr. Asaf Romirowsky: Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here.

Interviewer: I wanted to start by asking you to share your thoughts on what has transpired across this country since Hamas’s attacks last year. On October 7^th, we witnessed the barbaric massacre of 1200 people and kidnapping of over 250 others. The victims of these attacks were Israelis and Jews. In a sane world, one would have expected people across the globe to rally around the victims of the atrocities, but we do not live in the same world. We live in a world where anti-Semitism never fully disappears and it is exploding right now.

You and I have been dealing with campus anti-Semitism issues for quite a long time, and even co-authored a number of articles on the topic. In 2019, we wrote an article for the Jerusalem Post called, College Administrators are Aiding and Embedding Anti-Semites. In 2020, Newsweek Magazine published our article titled, College Administrators Must Address Antisemitism on their Campuses. Clearly, College Administrators did not heed our calls. Are you surprised as to how soon after October 7^th well-organized protests and encampments popped up? Were you taken aback as to how aggressive the protestors were? What were you thinking as you watched this all explode?

Dr. Asaf: First of all, thank you for hosting me, it is a pleasure to be here. Let me start by trying to frame the issue. Since before October 7^th, I have been arguing that none of this has come about in a vacuum. This is the culmination of a well-planned and multi-layered attack. Israel is facing a war on three fronts. The first front is the war on the ground. The war on the ground refers to physical battles in Gaza and in the North. The second front is the battle with the patrons of the war. These patrons include countries like Iran, Malaysia and others. The third front is the war on European and US campuses. This front is the war against Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood on American college campuses.

Immediately after the barbaric, modern-day Holocaust on October 7^th, an entire echo chamber promoted the libel that Israel is a colonial white settler state. This provided the pretext for them to laud the October 7^th Hamas attacks as acts of de-colonialism. University administrators and professors praised the attacks, calling them awesome and exhilarating. They were able to propagate these views based on the untruth that Hamas had committed a commendable act of decolonization.

The narrative against Israel, and the infrastructure to support it, have been nurtured since the 1950s and the 1960s. The Arab world bought university chairs and departments to amplify their story and they hijacked the agents of soft power, including those in academia, journalism and other places. They won and shaped hearts and minds. They taught that Israel can do no right, and the Palestinians can do no wrong. This is why you now see a consistent denial of reality. You see the denial of rape, of burning babies and of maiming and burning of bodies. Facts have been deflected by the echo chamber on college campuses.

The encampments we witnessed on campus last spring were probably the crescendo of anti-Israel activity. For many years, campuses have been spewing propaganda in a perverse 1984 reality. I would argue that we have seen actual terrorism on college campuses. We witnessed the presence of members of the Muslim Brotherhood on some campuses. At Columbia University, we saw individuals who were actually convicted for terrorism. In 2004 or 2005, Sami Al-Arian, a very famous professor at Florida University, raised money for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. His wife was part of the encampments at Columbia. His son-in-law is a professor of Middle East studies there. In addition to people with these kinds of connections, outside agitators are also fueling these protests. These outside agitators include people who were involved in movements like Occupy Wall Street. They also include members of groups like Code Pink. They receive a lot of money to create a consistent narrative of deflection.

This is all part of what I would consider to be the normalizing of anti-Semitism within American society. Anti-Semitism is being normalized politically, culturally, and academically. In my opinion, it is also impacting the political campaigns as we look forward towards the November election. As always, whatever happens on campus never ends on campus.

Interviewer: Yeah. So, let’s expand on this. Why do you think universities tend to be hotbeds of anti-Semitism while providing safe spaces for every other demographic? In my opinion, there is a frightening parallel with Germany before World War II. Nazism basically started with the brown shirts on German campuses and then infiltrated all of society.

In that context, can you discuss the influence of the 1960s radicals on the academy? Can you discuss the impact of foreign faculty members and students who bring their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel biases with them? Please talk about the role that intersectionality and the Red-Green Alliance on the situation.

Dr. Asaf: Sure. It is critical to understand the historical evolution of all this. Since the 1960s, we have witnessed a huge growth in numbers of what I call scholar activists. These are individuals who have given up their scholarship in the face of activism and propaganda. Universities should be conducting inquisitive research and not encouraging activism and propaganda. Unfortunately, however, many professors are no longer being judged on their scholarship. In many cases, professors are at the helm of the marches in the quads calling for death to Jews. A lot of them are leading the entire movement on social media. Since October 7^th, some professors have actually called on their students to attend pro-Palestinian rallies and have offered class credit in exchange.

The encampments are also important. It is critical to discuss them in context. At the beginning of the last spring semester, we already knew the students at Columbia and elsewhere were going to be receiving pass-fail grades. Ergo, we knew there were going to be no consequences for anti-Semitic student activists and their actions. They could destroy property, take hostages, hijack institutions, and manifest a 1968-like environment on their campuses with no repercussions.

They were already protected in the larger campus environment. In the humanities, in particular, people have adopting more of a leftist, Marxist ideology. The latest stats reveal that the academy in general is much more open to those kinds of viewpoints. Of course, liberal viewpoints almost always outmatch conservative views on college campuses.

The question of honest discourse and exchange of ideas is really a larger question of whether there is a balance in the academy. In the 1990s, professors taught Middle East related courses as dealing with complex two-sided issues. Today, professors of the humanities, in particular, no longer teach a balanced syllabus requiring students to think for themselves. Rather, students are instructed what to think. Some university administrators, like University of Florida President, Ben Sasse have highlighted this issue. He noted that the job of the university is not to spoon-feed students but rather to teach them how to learn. He told students that if they were seeking to be spoon-fed, cajoled and cuddled, they should find a different university to attend. So, there is a question about what the function of the university should be.

The anti-Semitism we witnessed recently was amplified by the trigger words associated with the philosophy of intersectionality. At the top of the pyramid of intersectionality are those who are most oppressed. According to the prevailing narrative, the Palestinians are the most oppressed and they are clearly at the top of that pyramid. So, those who support the oppressed, must immediately support the Palestinian cause. This means that disciplines and departments like women’s studies, LGBTQ studies and black studies, must immediately align with the Palestinian cause. They support the perceived underdog based on identity politics and because of feelings and not facts. There is no underdog cause greater than that of the Palestinians. The Palestinian cause is the central or gold standard within the philosophy of intersectionality.

Viewing the Middle East through the lens of intersectionality, allows one to ignore other events in the region. The Abraham Accords are an example of this. The impact of the Abraham Accords was monumental. They normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world. However, they had little to no impact on the campus narrative. This is because Palestinian narrative is considered central to all Middle East related issues and to American foreign policy in the Middle East. I would say they actually pushed back on the Abraham Accords and tried to bring the conversation back to the Palestinian cause. They tried to argue the Palestinians are the central issue in the Middle-East. All of this set the stage for the reaction to the attacks of October 7^th.

The intersectionality paradigm feeds the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS). BDS views the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a black and white or binary issue. BDS uses trigger phrases like social justice and human rights to construct their narrative. It presents Jews and the pro-Israel communities as white and upper middle-class. As such, the intersectionality argument forbids them from being viewed as an oppressed minority. These paradigms and narratives do not represent the truth. They are ahistorical and they contradict the reality on the ground. However, they place the Jewish community in the position of having to prove they are actually a minority and that anti-Semitism is racism.

There is another aspect to all this that is critical to understand. When apartheid ended in South Africa, college campuses needed a new cause. The Israeli-Palestinian dynamic filled the void and became the new apartheid cause celebre for campuses across the globe. So, Israel became the new apartheid state. Jews became white and Palestinians black. There was an attempt to parachute the debate about race relations in the United States into the reality in the Middle East. It was digestible, it was binary, and it was something that that could be easily adopted. It also fitted with the Marxist-Leninist narrative being propagated and embraced on college campuses.

Many so-called progressive groups have tried to assert their progressivism is somehow articulated in Gaza. Progressives have established groups like Queers and Gays for Palestine, or for Gaza. One of the greatest ironies in this is that openly gay people would literally be hung in Gaza. The Pride Parade happens in Tel Aviv, not in downtown Shuja’iyya or Jabalia or anywhere else in Gaza City. So, this disconnect between fiction and reality, serves as a microcosm illustrating the overall disconnect between what is perceived to be reality on American college campuses and the regional reality on the ground. They dismiss reality in every way, shape, or form.

Our challenge is to determine how to hold our institutions accountable. We must insist they teach the facts and they maintain scholarship. While it is easy to quantify the fanfare on the campus quad, it is harder to determine how much indoctrination is happening in college classrooms. We know many professors and TAs are using and abusing the podium. We are aware they are indoctrinating students based on the fallacious narrative I described. Quantifying and changing this, is something we have been trying to work on.

Interviewer: Diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) initiatives are being used for indoctrination purposes on college campuses. These initiatives have overtaken campus culture and play an important role in the acceptance of anti-Semitic speech and actions there. Given the explosion of anti-Semitism over the past few months, I am hoping campus DEI initiatives are being examined more critically. Colleges invested tens of millions of dollars into these programs. They hired DEI deans and forced students and faculty to attend indoctrination classes. As you point out, the DEI paradigm regards Jews oppressors and colonizers while Palestinians and other Muslim groups are viewed as victims. Do you see these DEI programs evolving or changing? Do you think DEI programs might be expanded to recognize Jews as a protected class? Is there a chance they will be dismantled completely?

Dr. Asaf: Well, we need to have hope. It is important we believe in the institutions and try to save them, or at least improve them. We must hold them accountable for doing what they are supposed to do. The current religion on campus is one I consider to be the anti-fact religion, and DEI has amplified it. A challenge we face is that the anti-Semitism portfolio falls within the purview of the DEI officers.

As you mentioned, these institutions have invested huge sums of money into the DEI industry. That being said, universities in states like Texas and Florida have fired DEI officers because of their toxicity. Of late, we have seen the text messages and other information from Columbia administrators validating the anti-Semitism we knew to be true. These administrators are unintentionally parachuting their own politics. We all saw the famous Stanford case where the chief DEI officer admonished a judge speaking at Stanford Law School. She basically called on everyone to protest the judge’s speech because he was conservative. The judge upbraided her for her ignorance and stupidity. Eventually, she was dismissed. This case illustrates how DEI is being weaponized on campus. The diversity, equity and inclusion are for some and not for all.

There is a clear double-standard when you review the configuration of minorities on campus. There are debates about whether Asian Americans, Hindus, Sikhs and Jews should be considered minorities. However, there is little argument about whether African Americans and Palestinians are to be considered minorities. The concept of Muslim centrality plays into all of this. Anytime the Jewish community mentions anti-Semitism, the word following must be Islamophobia. We have seen that play out politically as a way to equalize or parallel every act of anti-Semitism. This also explains while post October 7^th, people are calling for death to Jews. They are not calling for death to the right or left, but only to Jews. This supports the Nazi analogy you referred to earlier.

I am hopeful there will be some level of self-correction by the institutions themselves. If the institutions want to retain their reputations as research institutions, they are going to have to produce results. The universities have an actual product that they are supposed to produce. Civil unrest on campus distracts the university from completing its mission. As such, they will need to self-correct to some extent. This could be a silver lining in the fight against campus anti-Semitism.

I am also hoping the hearings on Capitol Hill will have a meaningful impact on campus anti-Semitism. The committees are now demanding information under discovery. They are demanding text messages and other information and are exposing bad actors and their nefarious activities.

Interviewer: Asaf, why has it been so difficult for campus administrators to address rising anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on their campuses? You and I have been dealing with this for a very long time. We have witnessed anti-Israel marches, sit-ins and disruptions. We have seen cancellations of events featuring Jews or Israelis. The haters have seemingly been running free on campuses for a very long time and this began well before October 7^th. I know that administrators are worried about free speech and academic freedom. However, they do not seem concerned about civil rights for Jewish students. They do not seem as troubled about assaults on Jewish students, on Hillels and on other communal centers. They do not seem very concerned about the right of Jewish students to express their beliefs without fear of retribution.

Colleges also have codes of conduct. Clearly, much of what transpired over the past academic year violated these codes. Why have presidents, other administrators and even members of the board of trustees, allowed the inmates to run the asylum? Do you think that the Capitol Hill testimony of Claudine Gay and Liz Magill and their subsequent firing will have meaningful implications? Will it wake up administrators and result in policy changes? Are there steps the universities can take if they utilize their codes of conduct?

Dr. Asaf: Well, I think it cuts both ways. It is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the hearings on Capitol Hill showcased the rot on the campuses and revealed that Gay and Magill did not even know what constitutes anti-Semitism. They were clearly coached by the same law firms as to what testimony to give. That being said, both Magill and Gay still hold tenured positions at their respective institutions. They are still collecting a significant salary, and they returned to echo chambers they came out of. So, the universities at large are the larger industrial academic complex we need to examine. Many of their administrators lack backbones. They are afraid of the backlash that comes with being seen as not embracing DEI. Most administrators have not really wanted to rock the boat. They have tried to avoid offending anybody on campus.

On the positive side, we are seeing more and more Jewish donors speaking out and taking their money elsewhere. It is obvious that universities are concerned about their purses. Harvard, as an example, has lost money in its endowment and fewer Jewish students are applying there. Universities operate like large hedge funds and Harvard has an endowment of a small European country. That being said, during COVID, they claimed to not have sufficient funds to pay their cafeteria workers. As such, the withdrawal of donor funds may have the potential to impact how administrators address anti-Semitism.

I say this tongue in cheek, but it is true. The Jewish, pro-Israel community bought the buildings, while our enemies bought the education. From a cost benefit analysis, they have realized a much better return than we have. They have played the long game. Our lack of investment in the faculty is our largest deficit. It explains why we are behind the eight ball. Catholics and Jews are the two largest populations in the US. Both invested more capital and time in our institutions than any other population group. Both are the populations now being turned on by those very institutions. Ironically, after October 7^th, it was the conservative Catholic universities who invited Jewish students to attend their colleges and provided a safe environment for them. This should serve as a reality check for us about who we should be aligning with.

Right now, we are watching how the universities are reacting and responding to the scrutiny being placed on them. Harvard is refusing to give documentation to Virginia Fox’s Committee and is basically trying to shove everything under the carpet. Other universities around the country are acting in a similar fashion. They are on the defensive and asserting they can solve their anti-Semitism problems themselves. Public scrutiny is critically important. The silver lining is that they are being held accountable for violations of tax laws for the monies they have coming in.

As you and I know so well, many universities have refused to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Without a clear definition of anti-Semitism, anti-Israel activists try to get away with anti-Semitic speech by asserting it is free speech. They claim they are not racist but are just anti-Zionist. According to them, they are merely critics of the state of Israel. If anyone had any doubt that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, October 7^th validated they are synonymous. Unfortunately, these institutions have operated for decades based on established orthodoxies and they are trying to push back against change. We need to push them toward reform for the sake of our students and their kids and grandkids.

The first line of giving for most Americans is still their alma mater. We like to believe we are sending our kids to the same institutions we graduated from. That is not necessarily the case. So, we have to determine where we can make a difference. We have to evaluate what can be improved, and what patterns are going to change going forward. This will also help us determine the colleges to which we send our kids and grandkids. Obviously, the metrics we use to make these decisions are also based on the ability to receive a good education and get a good job after college.

We are seeing a silver lining in corporate America. Some law firms and hospitals are rescinding offers to students from colleges they consider anti-Semitic. They are refusing to hire graduates from those colleges because they assert the quality of their graduates no longer represents the quality of people they want to hire. If they are anti-Semitic, they are racist and the firms in question are not going to hire them. This is indeed a silver lining. Corporate America is speaking out, and we can use that to our advantage.

Interviewer: Yeah. I think Sullivan & Cromwell hired an outside company to screen all applicants and other law firms are following suit. So, that is good news, and I thank you for mentioning it. The way college presidents handled campus anti-Semitism in the spring, reminded me of the way the Biden administration has been appeasing Iran. College presidents have been appeasing the fascists on their campuses. This appeasement has served to make them double down. Many even interrupted graduation ceremonies at the end of the school year.

I do not understand why these students have not been expelled. One college president claimed she could not expel foreign perpetrators because they would then lose their student visas. This appeared to be a major concern for her. What are your thoughts on negotiating with these terrorist supporters? They are terrorizing their own campuses, and yet administrators are negotiating with them instead of punishing them. Perhaps you can address the outrageous compromises some of these schools have made. Northwestern promised to accommodate two visiting Palestinian faculty members each year and to provide full scholarships to Palestinian students. Please touch on some of these compromises and your thoughts on the way student terrorists are being rewarded.

Dr. Asaf: Agreed. First of all, let me be clear, the demands university presidents are capitulating to, are BDS demands. This demonstrates the success of the BDS movement and highlights that the actors and foundations behind the BDS and campus movements are one and the same. My mantra these days is, deport and defund. I think it is one worth adopting. We need to screen foreign students and foreign faculty to ensure they are not coming to the US with terror ideologies. They should be asked if they were ever a member of a foreign terrorist organization and should not be allowed to enter the US if they answer yes to that question.

We should be examining foreign funding and violations of tax laws. We should determine whether universities are violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and other laws. This applies to both the people and the monies they accept from other countries. The Qataris and others are investing huge amounts in our universities and there are strings attached. They know that buying a department chair or professorship, means they are buying the politics associated with it. We need to crack down on that. Controls around foreign investment is one way to deal with it. Prosecuting tax law violations is another. I think we need to be doing a much better job at screening our visiting faculty and students. The American western liberal institution is being hijacked by totalitarian regimes and we need to break the orthodoxy they have brought with them. Universities need to be held accountable for maintaining an exchange and discourse of ideas.

The other part of the problem is the cancel-culture environment. Because of this environment, professors believe that they can intimidate the institution and shut down viewpoints they do not like. This is an anathema to the entire academic infrastructure. They are allowed to express their own viewpoints but the question is about how they are disseminating information. They are indoctrinating students and violating their roles as professors and as institutions. We need to hold them accountable. I think it is outrageous that university presidents are capitulating to terrorism. That is the bottom line. Terrorism is hijacking our institutions in the name of free speech. They are trying to turn America on its head, and that is why this nefarious activity should not be allowed. Professors disseminating propaganda and terrorism should lose their jobs and not be hired again in any capacity. They should go back to where they came from.

We need to root out the bad apples. Whether they are faculty or administrators, they need to be pushed out. There needs to be a way to stop the bleeding. Once we do, it is going to take a long time to reverse it. We are seeing the results of the long game they have been playing. On October 7^th, we witnessed horrific and barbaric acts. We saw this in our lifetime and now we are seeing them defending this modern-day Holocaust. They are defending terrorism and they have crossed a clear red line. So, if universities are to maintain their social standing in American society and if they are to continue reflecting what America represents to the world, they need to combat terrorism and anti-Semitism. This should be their number one priority. In this regard, we need to push the envelope as hard and as far as possible.

Interviewer: You mentioned the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism a couple of minutes ago. For a number of years, EMET has been working on legislation called the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. It passed in the house a few months ago. Chuck Schumer has been sitting on it in the Senate and it is a real shame. The legislation codifies the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. It would serve as a tool for college administrators to identify anti-Semitism and enforce civil rights of Jewish students on their college campuses.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, was run by our friend Ken Marcus, for a period of time. At that time, the Department of Education (DOE) actually enforced Trump’s executive order codifying the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. It is my understanding that this has not been the case under the Biden administration. Since spring, there have been a multitude of anti-Semitism related complaints involving the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights. At the same time, they have received many complaints about Islamophobia. What is happening at the DOE? Obviously, the upcoming election is going to play a role in how active the DOE becomes in protecting Jewish students, but what do you see happening right now?

Dr. Asaf: Ken Marcus pointed out a long time ago that the DOE has been sitting on a lot of these issues. Bureaucracies take time to act and they move slowly. I think that the Fox Committee has been very proactive in working to fight anti-Semitism on campus, but they need evidence and they need data. Part of helping our students is teaching them what Title VI filings require and helping them to collect and present the evidence needed. There is also a challenge in that some students do not want to file complaints while they are still on campus. Understandably, these students fear retribution. So, it takes time to gather the evidence needed to move forward. Given how bad the environment is for Jews on campus, my hope is that more students will take action to hold their universities accountable. Title VI is a phenomenal tool we have to help students.

Title VI helps students, but it does not help faculty. Many of us have been working on ways to support faculty in the fight against anti-Semitism on campus. Organizations, including SPME and EMET, are providing bono legal advice to faculty. We help them to deal with their unions and their administrations and to counter unjust disciplinary measures taken against them. We aim to support them in their legal challenges and to help them push back against anti-Semitism in their respective disciplines. We are also helping them to fight BDS and to push back against efforts to push Jews out from campus. Attempts to expel Jews from campus is something we saw happen within the CUNY system. The CUNY system has acted horrifically as regards attempting to expel Jews and pro-Israel individuals from their campuses.

So, we have many challenges. The Department of Education has been helpful to date. However, as you mentioned, recently they have been trying to shelve a lot of these issues. We need to lobby and push these issues forward once again. We need to campaign for the passing of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and, as I said before, we need to hold universities accountable. They need to adapt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. It is the most widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism and the one used by the State Department. The universities are operating as islands with respect to the definition of anti-Semitism. This is because the IHRA definition does not allow anti-Zionism to be separated from anti-Semitism and they are not comfortable with that. Denying that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is only a way for them to try to deflect and to push reality aside. If you analyze events on campus today, you will see that the anti-Israelism that they are putting out is 100% anti-Semitic. Natan Sharansky’s 3-D test of anti-Semitism is well known. He has said that if was to rewrite his indicators to identify what constitutes anti-Semitism today, he would need to go much further than before, given current realities on the ground.

Interviewer: Yeah, that is very interesting. What are your predictions for the upcoming academic year? Is there any reason to think the protests will not continue? We know student agitators received a slap on the wrist, at most, last year? They were photographed, fingerprinted and immediately released. Administrations, like those of Harvard, dropped charges against recently arrested students. Jason Riley’s Wall Street Journal column today covers this exact topic and I recommend reading it. Jason Riley quotes the editors of the Harvard Crimson, who chastised the decision by Harvard to drop charges. The Crimson stated, “Harvard may have further emboldened pro-Palestine student groups ahead of the return to campus in September.” So, what are your predictions on the upcoming semester?

Dr. Asaf: I am not optimistic and I agree with the op-ed you are referring to. I do not think the opposition are sitting on their laurels. They are actively planning for the upcoming semester. As an historian, I never predict the future. However, I know that patterns of behavior tend to repeat themselves. To my mind, the encampments are a preamble to what we are going to see in Chicago during the DNC. I think we are going to see more of these protests between now and November and I think Jewish students and the pro-Israel community needs to be prepared for this. We should not go into the new school year with blinders on.

Let’s put this into context. Students at Berkeley, Columbia and other universities, followed carefully prepared playbooks on October 9^th and 10^th. They followed detailed plans on how to activate their campuses. None of the post-October 7^th activity developed in a vacuum. In the same way that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other groups planned for October 9^th, so they are planning their future activism. Now we also have Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) groups operating on many of these campuses. FJP acts to support, defend and instigate anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity on college campuses. So, I agree with the Wall Street Journal piece. We are going to see more activity on campus in the fall semester and we should not be surprised. We should definitely prepare for a very turbulent fall and school year.

As the war in Israel continues, current events will continue trickling down into campus. Anti-Israel activists will continue to deflect and deny realities on the ground. I think we need to prepare for this in a very strong way. All of us need to provide pro-Israel faculty and staff as much support as we can. We need to engage in hand-to-hand combat on the campuses, because they are going to need our support. We are fighting for American Western values, and American society, and we are fighting against terrorism. We should not mince words on this. This is actual terrorism. This is the Muslim brotherhood in America, and terrorism should not be tolerated. We need to be prepared to combat this in a very forceful way.

Interviewer: Okay. Thanks, Asaf. There are a lot of questions from our audience and I want to try and address as many as possible. Someone asked if any effort has been made to organize faculty members who are opposed to what is going on campus? Examples of well-known figures who may help with this are people like Larry Summers and Steven Pinker. Could the faculty opposed to anti-Semitism threaten to protest? What is going on at the faculty level?

Dr. Asaf: I think that we do not have enough volume in this area. Prominent figures like Summers and Pinker have spoken out. Some faculty members have left their institutions and moved to institutions like Yeshiva University. They have tried to make a point of publicizing their reasons for leaving and I think it is important that they leave with a bang. I think it is important to openly fight the fight. I think people with status on these campuses should be speaking out, and we are here to help amplify their messages. Many of our members are faculty members at different levels in the universities. I am concerned about untenured junior faculty even more than I am for senior ranking faculty.

There are a bunch of lawsuits going on now. I am in Philadelphia right now. One of our colleagues at Haverford College, a Quaker College, is being sued. He is a tenured Israeli professor who is being accused of bias against Palestinians. His politics are left of center yet he is being attacked because he is an Israeli. The university is leaving him hanging. There are a variety of other lawsuits going on now as well. I think that it is important for faculty who have name recognition to speak out. This helps the larger movement in the general community. It also helps faculty members deal with their administrations in hand-to-hand combat.

Part of the reason for creating SPME was to create a community of scholars. The Association for the Study of Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is another organization providing a supportive community for scholars. These organizations provide support to people who feel isolated and marginalized. We let them know they are not alone. It takes tremendous courage for faculty to speak out in today’s environment. Speaking out could result in significant consequences for them and could severely impact their standing within their own institutions. In some cases, we have witnessed verbal and/or physical violence against them. I want to stress that it’s not that simple for senior faculty to speak out because of fear of retribution.

Interviewer: Thanks, Asaf. Someone asked if you can talk about how SJP and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are involved on campuses. We could spend an hour talking about SJP, but maybe you can touch on it for a minute or two.

Dr. Asaf: Sure. Many Muslim charities are operating on US campuses. As I said before, they have ties to terrorist organizations, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. SJP is an outgrowth of a group that was known as the General Union for Palestine Students (GUPS). It has its roots in the PLO. These organizations are activating campus groups and using the universities to promote their agendas. CAIR has members with active ties to terrorism. They partner with groups like Code Pink and Black Lives Matter. It is important to understand that these groups are involved in a coordinated effort to finance student organizations and to train their members. They have activated their tentacles on the campuses to further their agendas. That goes back to my earlier mantra of deport and defund. If we have evidence of wrongdoing, we should deport and defund the perpetrators. There is ample evidence of terrorism on campuses. It is a clear red line and it needs to be stopped. It is not free speech, it is terrorism. If people are supporting Hamas, they are supporting terrorism.

This is the kind of evidence we need to provide to the Department of Education. We need to provide it to the administrations themselves and to the communities where the universities are located. We should talk to law enforcement and others about the use of terrorism on campus. It needs to be stopped. We have enough evidence based on the events that took place in the encampments in the spring.

By the way, the attorney general in Virginia has opened up a case dealing with a group known as the American Muslims for Palestine and with the SJP. The case is examining their ties to terrorism. Yesterday the court ruled that they have to produce evidence. We are hoping this evidence will reveal their financial connections with terror groups. My hope is that this case will convince other attorney generals around the country to pursue similar ones. We know what groups like SJP are doing, we know they are promoting a terror agenda and we know they are promoting BDS on college campuses.

Interviewer: Someone asked where you would suggest that Jewish parents consider sending their children. Are there good institutions out there that have not allowed SJP on their campuses or have expelled them?

Dr. Asaf: As I said, I think that the Virginia Attorney General’s investigation may result in new cases dealing with the hate groups on the campuses. Some of the SJP groups have been expelled, but they have been allowed to return after completing some kind of training. They have been permitted to become recertified as a legitimate campus group. The certification is critical. I think the set of US campuses conducive for Jewish students is changing. I think many of the Ivy League schools have become Poison Ivys. I say it tongue in cheek, but I think it is true. Southern schools have been strong in terms of protecting Jewish students. Florida schools have enforced measures dealing with anti-Semitism. Governor DeSantis has taken active steps to crack down on anti-Semitism in Middle East studies, he has acted to adapt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, passed anti-BDS legislation, and worked to expel groups with ties to terrorism. Places in Texas have acted similarly. In general, southern schools, with more conservative values, have shown less tolerance for anti-Semitism on their campuses.

However, let me be clear, there is no university in America today that is immune to campus anti-Semitism. The difference lies in the levels and grade of bias they are permitting. The same propaganda we have seen on college campuses, is now spreading into schools from K through 12. We need to make sure that our students and their parents are prepared to identify what is happening on campus. We do not buy a house or a car without inspecting it first. Similarly, we should not attend a college without knowing the extent of hatred being disseminated there. To do this, we can examine trends, patterns and the availability of community resources. There are a lot more resources available for Jewish students than there were years ago. I think we have to balance multiple factors when finding a suitable place for our kids to go to school. A highly rated school is important, but so is the environment in that school.

The number one job of the institution and of parents and grandparents is to maintain the safety of their child. Some universities are not maintaining basic safety for all students on campuses. This is what we observed during the spring. We saw kids are being attacked verbally and physically. Universities unable to maintain student-safety, should lose their constituents. Student-safety is another element for which universities need to be held accountable.

Interviewer: A number of people are asking for more information about the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. They want to know why Chuck Schumer is not putting it to a vote on the Senate floor. I want to respond to some of these questions.

I think Schumer is not sending it for a vote because he does not want to force Democrats to be on record voting against Democrats. Many Democrats do not support the IHRA definition, for different reasons. Shumer does not want to make Democrats look bad, especially in an election season during which he wants to retain control of the Senate. The question is whether we can do anything about that. EMET has been working on other legislative vehicles to try to get the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act passed. EMET is working through the Appropriations Committee and the Sub-committee on Education.

What we really need is more data and more first-hand information from students. This will help lawmakers understand why this legislation is so critical. Please work with Hillel and Chabad and other Jewish organizations to gather first hand stories from Jewish students and send it to us. We will make sure your information reaches the appropriate lawmakers. So, everybody’s help is needed. Please also call and pressure your lawmakers to get this legislation passed. EMET is all over this right now.

Asaf, someone asked what SPME does. If they make a donation to SPME, how will it be used?

Dr. Asaf: So, again, we provide our members the tools that they need to fight anti-Semitism on campus. We provide our faculty members with whatever they need to maintain their standing in their institutions. Different areas in which we provide support include scholarship, documentation or pro bono legal work. We also provide them with strategies when it comes to dealing with BDS related matters. The support needed varies from campus to campus but we let faculty members know they are not alone. We help them craft letters to their institutions and we help with other materials as well.

SPME is a multidisciplinary organization. Many of the topics that come up relate to the Middle East and we are able to help bring subject matter experts to their campuses. We work within faculty to address issues within their own departments. We also award microgrants. So, we offer many different ways to help our members figure out how to deal with anti-Jewish events on their campuses.

We also support staff through the Association for the Study of the Middle-East and Africa (ASMED). ASMEA provides a non-hostile environment for our faculty members to exchange ideas, present at academic conferences and peer review journal articles.

Interviewer: We have an audience question about outside funding of the campus protests. Asaf, please use the last few minutes to touch on outside funding for campus agitation, including that provided by Rockefeller, Ford, Soros, Westpac and others.

Dr. Asaf: Sure. Campus funding is coming from many of the same groups that have been funding BDS activity. Foundations like Westpac in New York, are the fiscal trustees for some of these BDS groups. Groups like the Tide Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers are providing funding. There has been a great deal of Soros money coming in as well. They have a clear agenda and they know exactly how their funds are being used. The uniformity of the spring encampments came as no surprise. This includes the tents the agitators slept in and the food they ate.

The universities are laundering money coming in through some of the Palestinian groups on campus. We have to do a deep dive to analyze the chain of funding. We need to determine which sources of campus funding have terrorist and BDS ties. If universities are located within states that have anti-BDS legislation and BDS organizations are funding BDS activity on campus, there are legal consequences. We can then eliminate those funding sources.

Beyond that, we know that many anti-Semitic activities are funded by money coming from the Middle East. Muslim charities outside of campus also facilitate campus agitation. I mentioned the lawsuit being conducted by the Attorney General’s office in Virginia. They are investigating the ties between American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and SJP.

We need to determine if external organizations are violating their not-for-profit status while promoting their nefarious agendas. We have a number of tools available to us. The Department of Education and Ways and Means Committee can take action on tax violations and FARA related issues. So, we do have tools in our toolbox to expose these charities and organizations who claim to have clean records and virtuous intentions but who actually have nefarious intentions and ties to terrorism.

Interviewer: We have run out of time. I appreciate everybody who listened in. I am sorry I was not able to address all of the questions from our audience. Maybe Asaf can come back for a follow up. There is a lot more to discuss and a new semester coming up very soon. Thank you all for your support for both of our organizations. Asaf, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. I really appreciate it. We will look forward to seeing you next week with another great webinar. Have a good day.

Dr. Asaf: Thank you as always.

[END]