The Trump Administration has begun a full-fledged assault on freedom of speech and has focused on colleges and universities and the issue of Palestinian rights. It has singled out Columbia University for its handling of pro-Palestinian protests. The protests were directed against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and the widespread deaths and destruction that were designed to “eliminate” Hamas for its actions on 7 October 2023. The scale of destruction undermines Israel’s claims of self-defense: while remnants of Hamas still exist, it is difficult to imagine that the organization poses any substantial risk to the Israeli state.
The Trump Administration has suspended about $400 million of grants to Columbia University. According to The Washington Post:
“Several agencies sent a joint letter demanding disciplinary changes and the right to monitor an academic department as a precondition to restoring $400 million in federal funding. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is investigating Columbia not only for civil rights violations but also for ‘terrorism crimes.’
“Administration officials, including Trump, have been vague about what constitutes antisemitism. But the crackdown fulfills multiple campaign promises: a pledge to stand with American Jews, whom he heavily courted for their votes in November; a promise to combat ‘anti-American’ behavior on liberal campuses; and, perhaps his top policy priority, the deportation of noncitizens living in the United States illegally.
What is clear is that Trump is willing to use the full power of the federal government, including its purse strings, to dramatically change behavior — by both students and administrators — on college campuses. Trump applauded the detention of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and called it ‘the first arrest of many to come.’”
The Trump Administration has not defined what it means by antisemitism. It refers to a hopelessly vague statement made by the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia. That definition reads:
“Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Note that the working definition does not mention the state of Israel. It only refers to Jews. The relationship between Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and its obligations as a secular state in the international system is fraught with peril. Does supporting the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people attack or denigrate Judaism? For some in Israel, the expansion of Israeli borders to those roughly comparable to the covenant made by God to the Jewish people is such an offense. But secular international law does not recognize the Bible (or the Koran) as authoritative. Moreover some living in the contested regions trace their heritage to a period of time before Jews even arrived in the region. Indeed, the very name, “Jerusalem” means “City of Shalem” (a non-Jewish deity).
The current danger is that the Trump Administration conflates antisemitism with any attack on the state ot Israel. Some attacks on Israel are clearly antisemitic–calls for the elimination of the state of Israel are unquestionably antisemitic. But are calls for recognizing the right of self-determination for Palestinians necessarily antisemitic? My own opinion is that as long as those calls are restricted to areas not recognized by a majority of states in the system as part of Israel (the Gaza Strip, the West Back, and the Golan Heights), they do not represent an attack on the state of Israel. It is a fine, but defensible, distinction and one worth protecting.
But fine distinctions are often lost in protest movements–they are often a messy amalgam of people with very different agendas. In my own experience in protests against the Vietnam war, the movements were populated by some who genuinely thought that US policy was morally indefensible; some thought the war was impossible to win; some joined the protests because they supported North Vietnam; some supported North Vietnam because they were socialists or communists; and some joined the movement in search of rock and roll, sex, and drugs. The same is true of the protests against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
We still do not know what Mahmoud Khalil did or said in the Columbia anti-Israel protests. He certainly was a central figure in the movement, but his proposed deportation by the Trump Administration was justified because he participated in “activities aligned to Hamas.” He was in the US legally as a student at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (I have a degree from that school) and thus was protected by the US Constitution. At some point we deserve to hear more specific details about what Khalil’s “activities” were that were not protected by the First Amendment. I sincerely doubt, however, that Khalil will be found to have done nothing more than to forcefully advicate for the rights of the Palestinian people.
The decision to punish Khalil was accompanied by punishments against Columbia University for its failure to prevent antisemitic acts on campus. Those punishments are outlined in a letter to Columbia sent by the Trump Adminstration. That letter can be viewed below
The scale and scope of these punishments are extraordinary and represent a ruthless threat to all colleges and universities in the US. The arrogance of asking for all these changes to be detailed in 7 days is breathtaking. It represents a very direct intervention by the state into the curriculum of Columbia by putting various departments in “receivership”. Finally, by not carefully articulating the charges against Khalil, the Trump Administration has created a huge grey zone in which academics might fear to express their true thoughts for fear of jeopardizing their institution. These moves mimic the actions of the Nazi Government as described in an article in Nature:
“The problem originated in 1933, when the Nazi government issued a law that stripped those who had decided to leave Germany because of persecution not only of German citizenship but also of academic qualifications, mostly doctorates.
“Soon after, the law was extended to any German resident exhibiting ‘antisocial behaviour’ — a move targeted at Jewish, communist and dissident academics.
“Each university was ordered by the ministry of education to alter its rules to facilitate the derecognition of doctorates. Although the 31 universities then in Germany differed in the extent to which they applied the law, by 1945 an estimated 1,000 academics had lost their titles in this way.”
The problem originated in 1933, when the Nazi government issued a law that stripped those who had decided to leave Germany because of persecution not only of German citizenship but also of academic qualifications, mostly doctorates.
Soon after, the law was extended to any German resident exhibiting ‘antisocial behaviour’ — a move targeted at Jewish, communist and dissident academics.
What makes this position of the Trump Administration so galling is that it does not hold itself to the same standards. One of Trump’s key adivsors, Elon Musk, retweeted this post, which is unquestionably anitsemitic: “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.” The Trump Administration should immediately cancel all of Musk’s contracts with the Federal Government if it does not want to contradict its own policies.
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink”
― George Orwell, 1984
World Politics News 