In his latest column, Philip Teir reflects on what he heard during a stay in New York (HBL 18.4). If the rendition of the incident is correct, namely that a university teacher was fired solely because of a single student’s reporting of a pro-Palestinian comment on a private Instagram account, it is of course deeply troubling, and there is every reason to be concerned about freedom of expression in this regard university.
But Teir also uncritically quotes a colleague who believes that this is not an isolated case, but “a trend that is sweeping the entire academic world of the United States right now.” The justification for this claim is that the student association SJP – Students for Justice in Palestine – has been banned at several universities. But SJP doesn’t seem to be a dove of peace, as Teir’s description might lead one to believe.
In Boston, SJP leadership called Hamas’ massacre and kidnapping of civilians inside Israel on October 7 a “creative” act by “freedom fighters” to reclaim “stolen land.” In Florida, a dispatch called the Hamas terror attack “The Resistance” and called on Palestinians in the diaspora to actively take part in the resistance movement. In Washington, slogans such as “Glory to our Martyrs” and “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” were projected onto the wall of the university library. Three studies have demonstrated correlations between active SJP chapters and the occurrence of anti-Semitic incidents on campus.
This raises the question of whether Teir’s anecdotal generalization of the “trend” in the US is consistent within the freer form of the column.
At the same time, Teir notes partly that the reporting student was Jewish, partly that “pro-Israel” donors have so much financial power at the universities that they are now afraid to publicly express their support for Palestine, and finally that it will be difficult for the teacher to get redress because the university can still always claim that the students feel “unsafe”. Here, Teir effectively renders an individual Jewish student invisible in the shadow of the well-known “Zionist lobby” which, through financial power, according to certain circles, is assumed to control, among other things, the American universities.
When Teir puts “insecurity” in quotation marks, it is also insinuated that the fear is not genuine but merely a tool to silence critical discussion about Israel-Palestine. The question becomes how Teir generally views the feelings of insecurity experienced by Jewish students due to SJP’s actions on campuses across the United States. Is it all manipulation to limit the universities’ freedom of expression, staged in collaboration with powerful “pro-Israel donors”? I hope this is not Teir’s position, although that is how the column can easily be interpreted.
In these harrowing times when the conflict in Israel-Palestine has escalated to an unprecedented level and when anti-Semitism has increased avalanche-like, it is extremely important to weigh one’s words carefully, even if it is “just” a column. Otherwise, you yourself contribute to unjustified slander and an increase in the already deep contradictions.
Yasmin Nyqvist, Turku
Response Among the various groups in the West that express their support for Palestine, there is unfortunately anti-Semitic abuse and outright glorification of the Hamas attacks on October 7.
Yasmin Nyqvist nuances the image of SJP, which I carelessly did not do. But precisely because it was a column, I wanted to be clear that I was primarily reproducing what I was told in the closed society I hung out with – that is, part of the anxiety that arose among academics in the United States, and which of course had to be put in its proper context: that the country officially supports Israel’s war.
The Twitter account Fight Back Better (@fightbackbettr) has relevant links regarding the struggle that staff at, for example, the City University of New York are waging against their employers.
Because I didn’t want to hang my colleague out, no people in the current case were named, no more, no less.
On April 19, New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen published a column about police actions at a Gaza solidarity protest at Columbia University. 108 students were arrested, a number not exceeded among student protests in the United States since 1968.
Despite Columbia University Chancellor Minouche Shafik cracking down on the protesters, pro-Israel groups have called for her resignation. Polgreen sees the situation as an expression of an increased right-wing turn of the universities, where a legitimate concern about anti-Semitism becomes a weapon for those who want to violate freedom of expression.
Philip Teir
Tags: dilute deep contradictions
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