Bad atmosphere for Jewish Students on College Campuses

Submitted by KL (United States), Nov 9, 2002 at 13:36

I am a first year student at a major university here in the US. The school has become a breeding ground for anti-semitism and anti-Israel feelings. There are "progressive" political groups (i.e. njsolidarity, and the like) who hold massive rallies and group meetings in conjunction with Islamic groups of the campus, campaigning against Israel. These groups of comrpised of many kids who know nothing about the history of Israel. Ask them what the Six-Day War is and you will get a blank stare in return. They are ignorant. I asked a person who runs one of the organizations if he was aware of the blantantly anti-Jewish material infused into Palestinian children's schooling, if he had ever read a book or seen a video geared toward children, glorifying suicide bombers. When I explained to him that I had seen such a video recently, he insinuated it was a hoax.

These "activists" don't fully research both sides of the situation before presenting their information, and don't take into account whom they are hurting. Though they claim that they speak only against the state of Israel and not the Jewish people, often times they cross the "line of propriety". In fact, a couple weeks ago anti-Israel graffiti in both chalk and marker was written by the Hillel House and on some of Hillel's property. A film was shown a couple weeks ago displaying the struggles of Palestinians and the cruelties of Israelis. Norman Finkelstein spoke last week about the Israeli "apartheid". Several pro-Palestininan speakers of Jewish heritage have spoken, possibly to further validate the claims of the political groups. If Jews speak out against Israel, it MUST mean Israel is in the wrong.

This coming week is going to be chock-full of anti-Israel demonstrations. No students at my school, except for some of the Jews , seem willing to fight for the rights of the Jews.

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