[News] Israel lobby fabricates anti-Semitism crisis at Berkeley

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-lobby-fabricates-anti-semitism-crisis-berkeley/36516>
Israel lobby fabricates anti-Semitism crisis at Berkeley
October 16, 2022
------------------------------
[image: Students walk through a gate]

UC Berkeley Law students for Justice in Palestine have faced countless
threats and attacks from local, national and international Zionist advocacy
groups. (UC Berkeley
<https://www.facebook.com/UCBerkeley/photos/pb.100064522371356.-2207520000../10160005166289661/?type=3>
)

In a crisis manufactured by Israel lobby groups and right-wing media, law
students at the University of California at Berkeley are being accused of
anti-Jewish bigotry because of their public pledge
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Chh_43tpLnm/> not to host speakers who support
Israeli apartheid.

The attacks on the students are being fueled by one of Israel’s top career
lobbyists who is also a former Trump administration official.

But in a leaked confidential memo, a major Israel advocacy group has
admitted that these anti-Semitism allegations are bogus, as Jewish law
students are not facing any bigotry from supporters of Palestinian rights.

And instead of defending students’ free speech rights, the law school’s
leadership has been pandering to the campaign of lies.

In August, UC Berkeley’s Law Students for Justice in Palestine drafted a
bylaw “in support of Palestinian liberation,” the group stated
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch2ty0FvdWJ/>.

“We sent the bylaw out to dozens of student organizations, among which nine
student organizations decided through a democratic voting process to adopt
the bylaw,” the group wrote.

“Apartheid is a crime against humanity and as student leaders at Berkeley
Law we believe that we have an obligation to act,” the students affirmed.

In addition to not inviting speakers who support Zionism
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/video-why-anti-zionism-not-anti-semitism>
and Israeli apartheid, the bylaw calls for engagement with the boycott,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.

It also urges that organizations publicly state their positions on
anti-racism and anti-colonialism during their events.
Since the bylaw went public, Berkeley Law SJP has faced countless threats
and attacks from local, national and international Zionist advocacy groups
which have attempted
<https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/351854/berkeley-develops-jewish-free-zones/>
to portray the students as calling for a ban on Jews.

The furor picked up steam when Kenneth Marcus
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/kenneth-marcus>, a former Trump
administration official and longtime pro-Israel activist, alleged
<https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/351854/berkeley-develops-jewish-free-zones/>
in an article in *Jewish Journal* that the students were bringing back
“Jewish-free zones.”

“Anti-Zionism is flatly anti-Semitic,” Marcus asserted.

Marcus resigned
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-lobbys-kenneth-marcus-resigns-trumps-civil-rights-enforcer>
in 2020 as Trump’s top civil rights enforcer at the Department of Education
after it was revealed that he gave the Zionist Organization of America special
treatment
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/trump-administration-moves-curb-campus-criticism-israel>
in reopening a complaint against Rutgers University.

Previously, as head of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, an
Israel lobby group, Marcus had pioneered the tactic where pro-Israel
advocates file complaints to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil
Rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/title-vi-civil-rights-act>.

The complaints typically claim that universities have failed to protect
Jewish students by not cracking down on Palestine solidarity activism.

In 2017, President Donald Trump nominated
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/trump-taps-head-anti-palestinian-group-top-civil-rights-enforcer>
Marcus to lead the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights,
putting him in a position to adjudicate the very complaints he had helped
pro-Israel advocates craft.

After his resignation from the Department of Education, Marcus returned to
the Brandeis Center.

The incendiary, bad-faith assertions against UC Berkeley law students are
deliberately misleading, Dylan Saba, staff attorney at Palestine Legal,
told The Electronic Intifada.

“This is the strategy of Kenneth Marcus,” he said.

“His main political objective is to get anti-Zionism codified as
anti-Semitism, and he is looking to do that by stirring outrage around a
false narrative that Jewish students are under attack on campuses by
nefarious Palestine activists,” Saba added.
Leaked memo refutes claims

However, a leaked internal memo from the American Jewish Committee shows
that the lobby group may be growing weary of Marcus’ reckless tactics.

AJC, one of dozens of pro-Israel groups that had initially supported
Marcus’ claim
<https://jewishjournal.com/news/351954/exclusive-26-pro-israel-groups-release-a-statement-on-berkeley-controversy/>
of “Jewish-free zones,” has now acknowledged that it is bogus.

In a private memo
<https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/jewish-currents/AJC-Response-to-Berkeley-Law-Situation.pdf>
leaked
<https://jewishcurrents.org/in-internal-memo-american-jewish-committee-blasts-op-ed-on-jewish-free-zones-at-berkeley-law>
to *Jewish Currents* and published on Friday, Sara Coodin, AJC’s director
of academic affairs, conceded that Marcus’ “central claim was inflammatory,
resulting in a distorted picture of both this incident and the overall
climate for Jewish students on campus.”

The memo is marked “confidential,” an indication that AJC has been happy to
allow false allegations to continue circulating even when it knew them to
be unfounded.

The lobby group also admits that it was “a strategic move” by Students for
Justice in Palestine “to alter the existing charter of student groups’
bylaws,” and acknowledges that it was a “compelling and effective strategy,
one that may well represent a blueprint for SJP’s future interventions on
other campuses.”

A Jewish student at Berkeley, who was previously an AJC fellow, had “shared
his informed opinion about this situation,” Coodin’s memo states.

According to the memo, the student had reported “that the passage of these
bylaws caused a good amount of healthy debate amongst students when the
news first broke a month ago but has since dissipated.”

“He stated that Jewish students’ experience on campus ‘hasn’t really
changed’ because of this situation,” Coodin adds.
Doxxing students

But the attacks have only escalated.

One of the many Israel lobby groups maligning Berkeley Law SJP and other
student groups is Accuracy in Media.

Adam Guillette, CEO of Accuracy in Media, was previously a vice-president
of Project Veritas <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/project-veritas>, a
right-wing organization that has been a major player in undermining
<https://aftmichigan.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/what-is-project-veritas12.pdf>
progressive organizations, Planned Parenthood clinics and teachers unions.

Last month a federal jury in a civil case found Project Veritas had violated
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/us/politics/project-veritas-lawsuit.html>
wiretapping laws and committed fraud, although they portray themselves as
citizen journalists.

This week, Guillette’s Accuracy in Media funded a mobile billboard to drive
around downtown Berkeley, depicting a photo of a sieg-heiling Adolf Hitler
with the words “All in favor of banning Jews, raise your right hand.”
One Twitter user suggested that Accuracy in Media put the photos of student
leaders on the billboard “and wander around the city. Let them feel
uncomfortable a bit.”

The Twitter user added that exposing their names might deter “prestigious
firms” from hiring the students – an intimidation and revenge tactic used
by blacklist sites such as Canary Mission
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/canary-mission>.

“We’re considering that, in fact,” Guillette responded to the suggestions.
Israeli government propagandists

JewBelong <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jewbelong>, another group
masquerading as a civil rights organization, also spent money on a
billboard truck to drive around the Berkeley campus area.

It also suggested that student activism for Palestinian rights was somehow
comparable to Hitler’s murder of millions of Jews – a breathtaking
trivialization of the Nazi genocide.
JewBelong has a history
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/meta-facilitates-bullying-palestine-activists/35991>
of targeting Palestinian social media users, occasionally offering cash
prizes to those who participate in such harassment.

The group’s co-founder <https://www.jewbelong.com/bios-2/> Archie Gottesman
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/archie-gottesman>, has been a board
member of organizations such as the Israel on Campus Coalition and the
liberal-Zionist faux-feminist
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/fake-feminist-group-zioness-used-rappers-image-without-her-approval>
group Zioness <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zioness>.

The Israel on Campus Coalition has worked secretly with the Israeli
government
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876>
to spy on and smear campus supporters of Palestinian rights.

Gottesman is a strange choice for an organization that purports to be
concerned about genocide. “Gaza is full of monsters,” she tweeted in 2018
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/dmfi-board-member-archie-gottesman-wanted-burn-gaza>.
“Time to burn the whole place.”

She is currently on the board
<https://demmajorityforisrael.org/who-we-are/leadership/> of Democratic
Majority for Israel, a group that lobbies within the Democratic Party.

Yuval David, a JewBelong advisory board member, is affiliated with the
Jewish National Fund and the far-right Israel lobby group StandWithUs, both
groups that work against Palestinian rights.

David is joined on the advisory board by Hen Mazzig
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hen-mazzig>, a former Israeli soldier
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/meet-hen-mazzig-israels-guru-grotesque-behavior>
who according to an investigation by *The Forward* secretly worked
<https://forward.com/israel/412206/did-this-pro-israel-superstar-work-as-a-secret-agent-on-college-campuses/>
with the Israeli government to promote its propaganda efforts on American
campuses.

Israeli actor Noa Tishby <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/noa-tishby>,
another advisory board member, is also a government propagandist, having
earlier this year been named as the Israeli foreign ministry’s “special
envoy <https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/special-envoy-noa-tishby> to
combat anti-Semitism and delegitimization” of Israel.

She appears to have been deployed to the Berkeley campus in that capacity
to boost the Israel lobby smear campaign.
She was seen on Thursday mingling with members
<https://jweekly.com/2022/10/13/actor-and-pro-israel-activist-noa-tishby-visits-berkeley-amid-law-school-controversy/>
of campus pro-Israel group Tikvah: The Zionist Voice
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/tikvah>.

Members of Tikvah sued the university’s governing body
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/bogus-allegations-anti-semitism-create-real-climate-fear-arab-muslim-students-us/11563>
in 2011, and even filed a Kenneth Marcus-style complaint with the US
Department of Education.

The plaintiffs failed to produce any evidence to support their claims of
anti-Semitism and the lawsuit and federal complaint were tossed out
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/victory-campus-free-speech-us-dept-education-throws-out-anti-semitism>
.
Celebrities promote lies

Meanwhile, celebrities and lawmakers outside Berkeley are also fueling the
manufactured anti-Semitism claims against Berkeley students.

First-term member of Congress Ritchie Torres
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ritchie-torres>, a New York Democrat
who has received huge donations
<https://jewishcurrents.org/ritchie-torres-is-the-future-of-pro-israel-politics>
from pro-Israel donors, falsely asserted
<https://twitter.com/RitchieTorres/status/1578439106337525760> that “most
of the Jewish community” would be “banned” under the bylaw.

Torres was using an anti-Semitic talking point promoted by Israel lobby
groups that Jews are monolithically supporters of Israel.
And a New York state lawmaker said he wants to strip UC Berkeley of its
federal funding
<https://worldisraelnews.com/congressional-candidate-vows-to-strip-uc-berkeley-of-funding-over-anti-israel-ban/>
if elected to congress.

Actor and comedian Sarah Silverman also promoted the false “Jew-banning”
claim, but was quickly corrected by Twitter users.
Last but not least, entertainment icon Barbra Streisand asserted that
anti-Zionism can “bleed” into anti-Semitism. Jewish students hit back

As in the past, UC Berkeley officials have sided with Israel lobby groups
instead of protecting their students.

Law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky admonished
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch2ty0FvdWJ/> the students for taking
anti-racist positions in support of Palestinian rights.

In an email to student leaders, he asserted that the bylaw could be
considered by some in the Jewish community to be anti-Semitic.

Berkeley Law SJP said that in response to the dean, anti-Zionist law
students wrote a statement in support of the bylaw, rejecting the
implication that Jewish safety is threatened by calls for Palestinian
liberation.

Law school dean Chemerinsky, who said he supports Israel and opposes the
boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights,
wrote
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/there-are-no-jewish-free-zones-on-the-uc-berkeley-campus>
in the *The Daily Beast* that there was no “Jew-free zone” on campus and
that Israel supporters and Israeli officials are still welcome.

“Most importantly, no group has violated the Law School’s policy and
excluded a speaker on account of being Jewish or holding particular views
about Israel,” Chemerinsky wrote. “Such conduct, of course, would be
subject to sanctions.”

Excluding a speaker because of their religion – something no campus group
has proposed or supported as Chemerinsky affirms – would clearly be
discriminatory. But the idea that students could be punished for refusing
to host someone “holding particular views about Israel” is alarming.

Berkeley, as a public university, is bound by the US Constitution’s First
Amendment: The government can neither forbid nor compel political speech.

That means precisely that student groups are free to invite or not invite
speakers based on their views. A pro-Israel campus group cannot be
compelled to invite a speaker critical of Israeli apartheid, and advocates
of Palestinian rights cannot be required to host an apologist for the
Israeli government’s crimes against Palestinians.

Chemerinsky’s blurring of the meaning of discrimination suggests further
infringements of free speech rights to come.
Failure to protect students

Palestine Legal’s Dylan Saba told The Electronic Intifada that he was
disappointed in the dean’s response.

“It reflects his own personal political commitments,” Saba said. “It’s very
clearly getting in the way of his responsibility to protect his students,
especially those who take political positions that may run contrary to
established positions in the US and at the law school.”

University administrators, Saba said, should be working “to the extent they
can to protect their students who are being targeted and doxxed by very
powerful people who disagree with their politics.”

Saba said that if university officials do take punitive measures against
Berkeley law students, “which I don’t think they will, someone should sue
them.”

Saba added that it is telling that no one in power seems to be that
concerned that Hillel <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hillel>, the
national Jewish campus organization, has adopted its own bylaws around
support for Israel.

Hillel’s rules prevent its members
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-campuses-need-non-zionist-jewish-spaces/30996>
from hosting or even co-hosting events with anti-Zionist speakers, or
speakers – including presumably Jewish speakers – who support the BDS
movement.

“Hillel pretends to be the center for Jewish life on campus and not a
political organization,” Saba said.

Its rules clearly restrict the participation of the many Jewish students
who support BDS or identify as anti-Zionist.

Hillel is “a Zionist organization that holds these commitments in their
charter without backlash and furor from university administrators,” Saba
noted.

And of course no Israel lobby groups have accused Hillel of setting up
“Jewish-free zones.”

*Nora Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada.*
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