Cancel Culture and Israel-Hamas War

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Colleges are struggling to balance campus safety for their students and free speech concerns amid the hostile rhetoric around the Israel-Hamas war.

As GOP presidential candidates call for the removal of foreign students supportive of Hamas, colleges have been lambasted after some groups on their campuses made statements in support of the terrorist group.

But free speech concerns cloud the problem of campus security as debates arise over certain language used by pro-Palestinian students, with some arguing the phrasings support the Palestinian people while others describe them as antisemitic or a call for the genocide of Israelis.

At George Washington University, pro-Palestinian students lit up the school’s library with phrases including “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” and “Glory to our Martyrs.”

“There’s nothing wrong with supporting Palestinian identity. There is something deeply wrong when that happens in the context of calls to ‘confront and dismantle Zionism’ or other kinds of clearly, indisputably, antisemitic rhetoric,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Much of the debate over protest language is rooted in the definition of antisemitism, which itself has long been debated in academia, according to American University professor Lara Schwartz, who specializes in dialogue across differences.

“The vocabulary is extremely contested here,” Schwartz said. “What constitutes antisemitism, and when critiques of Israel as a country and a government crosses over into antisemitism, is a highly contested area. And it was before Oct. 7.”

GOP presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is advocating for the U.S. government to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism — directly tying criticism of the state of Israel to anti-Jewish bigotry.

Haley also says the U.S. should take away the nonprofit status of colleges and universities that do not do enough to act against antisemitism, using that IHRA definition.

But Schwartz, who is Jewish, said Haley’s proposals are overly broad and attempt to police antisemitism to an extent that is not reasonable.

“This just sounds to me like a person doing the politically expedient thing within her party and in our moment,” she said. “A cheap play of attacking universities.”

Other candidates have more directly threatened college students who criticize Israel, especially those who show support for Hamas. One of the largest pro-Palestinian student organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has celebrated Hamas’s attacks.

“Any campus group that characterizes terrorism against Israeli civilians as ‘a historic win’ or calls for ‘armed confrontation’ or calls rape ‘a form of resistance’ — I don’t think I should have to say it, but I believe that such organizations making such claims should not be welcome on any college campus, that they create a hostile environment for Jewish students, or Israeli students,” Greenblatt said.

The ADL and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter to college and university presidents calling for them to investigate the activities of SJP chapters on campuses.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), another 2024 White House hopeful, said the U.S. should “deport” foreign students who support Hamas, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has sought to shut down SJP chapters in colleges in his state.

Those actions have raised concerns about free speech; DeSantis’s move specifically claims that students who have voiced support for the Hamas attacks are illegally aiding the group.

“It is important to understand that as a matter of the First Amendment, having an idea is very different than taking an action, and having an idea is generally protected and conduct is not,” Schwartz said, adding that DeSantis is intentionally misusing laws around terrorism to hinder the speech of students.

“[The politicians] have done a little sleight of hand where they take statutes that we have around material support to terrorist organizations and try to twist them into something that might apply to expression, such as agreeing with the existence of an organization,” she continued.
Others argue such speech qualifies as incitement of violence and is therefore not allowed under the First Amendment.

We’re a civil rights organization,” Greenblatt said. “We deeply believe in free speech, but my free speech, it’s not free speech when I’m intentionally endangering other people, and that’s what’s happening here. And the idea that this is somehow free speech is just wrong. It’s factually incorrect. And so the people making these arguments don’t have a leg to stand on. They really don’t.”

On campuses, while some professors choose to discuss the conflict with their students — both in an effort to educate and support them through traumatic situations — others have chosen to avoid the topic altogether.

“I think it’s especially tough for people who are junior, because you don’t want to say anything that will get the higher-ups in the administration mad at you,” he added.

Controversial debates in college classrooms are not new, but efforts to regulate them generally are, White said, pointing out criticism from Republicans of higher education regarding LGBTQ issues and race in recent years.

As politicians push college administrators to better regulate their student’s actions, the pressure has forced students into difficult situations, Schwartz said.

Evidence please.

I certainly don’t support them.I feel bad for the plight of the innocent people in Gaza no sympathy for the terrorists hiding like wolves among the sheep.

That is my quote but probably a mistake using the quote feature. It is easy to make that mistake when there are multiple quotes.

Sorry.
I’ve only had one cup of coffee this morning so brain isn’t firing on all cylinders yet.

My view on the Arab-Israeli thing is somewhere between "mistakes are being made on both sides" and "a plague on both their governments," depending on how charitable I'm feeling at the time. Either way, I'm not about to fly anybody's national flag.

The "cancel culture," or whatever you want to call it, is happening in the UK also, at least when I read the news I get the impression that the public are being trained to side with Israel. When I see that, it makes me feel like supporting the Arabs just to stick it to the UK propaganda machine, but so far I've remained calm and done no such thing.

It's all kicking off in the UK, Israeli flags going up and getting torn down, demos by the rival factions getting out of hand, violence. Haven't they got enough slaughter of the innocent in the war zone itself without exporting it round the world? Reminds me of the stuff I used to hear about after football matches sometimes, where the hooligans would ask passers-by which team they supported and then kick the s**t out of them for giving the wrong answer. Still, as a man who has (so far) never been subjected to extreme atrocity, it's easy for me to sit in judgement and play God.

How did it ever come to this? My best guess is that it started when the Romans broke Israel up 2000 years ago. Not surprisingly, the Israelis never forgot that. Then after all those centuries, when the Arabs had somewhat naturally come to think of it as theirs, somebody recreated Israel. So now the Arabs are (perhaps understandably) furious about that, and since then war has never ceased between the two nations.

What's the answer? Dunno. I guess the only thing for it is to look after the casualties. It's such a thorny issue that I'm even nervous about posting this.

Hamas IS the Palestine government, which is supported by the Palestinian citizens.  They are all complicit.

. Perhaps by “defend itself,” he means kill thousands of innocent Palestinians. Perhaps we have different notions of self defense.

Something I noticed in the whole 'cancel culture's debate is that when someone is being 'cancelled' by the left, the right decries cancel culture as a whole; whereas when the right is trying to 'cancel' someone on the left, the left is more likely to actually defend their positions instead of acting like nobody should face social consequences for unpopular opinions. It's similar to when the right laments that movies aren't more apolitical; whereas when a movie advocates conservative positions, critics from the left focus on faults in those positions, rather than act like it's the presence of politics of any kind that's the problem.


Hey, that's not fair! Every reasonable Zionist will tell you that 1 Jewish life is worth 20 Muslim lives! That's why Israel's actions are proportionate and reasonable! Silly critics of Israel think Muslims are human beings equally deserving of dignity and rights! Those ethnic Jews (that is to say: Palestinians. I have to clarify because Zionists are grossly uninformed and think that 100% of Palestinians are 100% ethnically Arab) threw away their rights centuries ago the moment they converted to Islam! Now get back into your Bantustan and be grateful we don't decide that 1 Jewish life is worth 100 Muslim lives!

Something to take note of the casual supporter of Israel (ie: most supporters of Israel who support it out of societal pressure to do so) is how they pay far less attention to the conflict when it is Palestinians being killed by Israel. Palestinian anger must seem pretty irrational and motivated by hate when one remains voluntarily, knowingly ignorant of actual Palestinian grievances and experiences. It reminds of a time I was reading an article on National Review (an allegedly intellectual, respectable conservative periodical) when I saw a writer suggest that Palestinians call the founding of Israel the Nakba ('catastrophe') because it resulted in the founding of a Jewish state (and Muslims just hate Jews for no reason bc theyre evil!); this reveals an implicit refusal to consider anything Palestinians have to say. The foundation of Israel was a catastrophe for Palestinians not because those darn Jews got a country of their own, it's because Palestinians were forced from their homes en masse at gunpoint, forced into impoverished enclaves, denied international recognition, and had their ancient villages and holy sites bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. But noooooooo, they must just hate Israel because they hate Jews for not being Muslim! /s

Attribution error

Hamas won a bare plurality of votes (44 percent to the more moderate Fatah party’s 41 percent) but, given the electoral system, a strong majority of seats (74 to 45). When a unity government was finally formed in June 2007, Hamas broke the deal, started murdering Fatah members, and, in the end, took total control of the Gaza Strip. In other words, Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. .