A recent post on the Academe blog, published by the American Association of University Professors, is attracting some notice--but perhaps not the sort of notice AAUP would prefer. The essay, "It's Not Too Late to Tell the Truth About Antisemitism on Campus" by Brooke Lober, Eli Meyerhoff, and Emily Schnieder, argues that claims of rampant antisemitism on college campuses are a variant of the "big lie" and "an effort to silence dissent and smear protesters."
Whether American college campuses have a serious antisemitism problem is a subject upon which reasonable people may disagree. There is also reasonable disagreement on when criticism of Israel is evidence of antisemitism, and many reasonable people are justifiably concerned that some universities have responded to anti-Israel protests with measures that unduly restrict free expression on college campuses.
What seems less reasonable is how the authors characterize the October 7 atrocities. Calling for a "more honest story about campus climate" that considers the "larger context" of the war in Gaza, they characterize October 7 as a "revolt" by "Palestinian militant groups" targeting "the infrastructure of occupation," and suggest that campus protest and activism did not arise until after Israel launched its offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
