The March 9 letter signed by 124 Jewish institutions alleging that campus faculty and programs are contributing to antisemitism against students is not a neutral or concerned statement arguing for Jewish safety. It is a continuation of the same violent logic that we see used to justify the airstrikes on Palestinian refugee camps, bombs killing schoolchildren in Iran and hatred and violence directed at Palestinian and Arab students and faculty on this campus. As members of Jewish Voice for Peace at UC Berkeley, make no mistake: We are hyperaware of antisemitism here and beyond. This is why we are compelled to unequivocally identify this letter as faulty, racist and fearmongering. We are chilled by the prospect that our university would consider the submitted data or entertain the interests of Zionist stakeholders who proudly call for the censorship of Palestinian perspectives, a censorship which contributes to the active endangerment of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students on college campuses.
At the letter’s center is a report made by the Amcha Initiative, which claims that pro-Palestinian sentiment among faculty is the driving force behind campus antisemitism. It is neither new nor controversial to say that Amcha is a radically right-wing, anti-Muslim extremist organization. Amcha’s explicit and continuous opposition to boycott and divestment movements — including its director’s opposition to divestment from South African apartheid — reveals its concern is not Jewish safety but rather the suppression of legitimate political dissent. The organization’s online database — used in the report at hand — is a concerningly McCarthy-esque collection of information being weaponized in order to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Indeed, this database identifies UC Berkeley’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter’s own Palestinian solidarity as antisemitic. Our solidarity exists on this campus because we have seen the Zionist entity burning, bombing and violently displacing Palestinians from their homeland in our name for the last 78 years. Groups such as the AMCHA seek to continue this violence while hiding behind the pretext of promoting Jewish safety.
Through this letter, this “safety” has been weaponized against valued members of our campus community. We align with Ussama Makdisi — the chair of the Palestinian and Arab Studies program — when he says that this report is an assault on “the principles of basic decency.” Anything less is a betrayal of the academic promise that faculty on this campus have made and a continuation of the anti-intellectualism perpetuated by both Israel and the United States.
Jewish Voice for Peace at UC Berkeley is thus deeply concerned, albeit not surprised, that the university has claimed to be considering this letter “seriously.” Time and time again, we have observed campus, the broader UC system and this country slide deeper into a fascism predicated on imperialism and racism. As Jews on this campus, we reject the notion that our safety necessitates the investigation and censorship of those standing with Palestine.