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JCPA: Overstating Anti-Israel Sentiment On UCSC's Campus?

The other day I received a document from The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank which recently attacked one of our intermittent contributors, that attempts to portray an environment of anti-Israelism and antisemitism at the University of California-Santa Cruz. The article’s abstract reads,

Over the past five years, a distorted and hostile attitude toward Israel has prevailed at the University of California-Santa Cruz, creating an intimidating environment for members of the campus community, particularly Jewish students. Much of the anti-Israeli bias has been generated by the university’s predominantly leftist faculty members, who have injected their personal ideology into course curricula, classroom lectures and discussions, and events and speakers sponsored by departments, research groups, and colleges.

It so happens that my very close friend Abram Stern (who was Bar Mitzvahed by Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, and whose older brother is named for Reb Zalman, whereas his father Gerd and Reb Zalman are friends going back at least fifty years) is a Teaching Assistant and MFA candidate at the University of California-Santa Cruz in its Arts & Film/Digital Media program. I ran the article past him for his thoughts on the subject. Here’s his response:

It seems a little over the top, conflating ‘the left’ and antisemitism in a way that isn’t very convincing. The stuff on the panels seems the least hackishly written part of the piece. I haven’t heard anything about it, however.
Angela Davis is calling for the release of all minority prisoners? Come on… She’s against the private prison industry. And what does she have to do with Israel? Not much. Are they implying she wants to put Jews in the prisons after she takes the Blacks out? I don’t really grok. Santa Cruz is a very liberal town, but this paper writes about the city council’s ‘left wing bias’ as though the elected city government doesn’t reflect the community; it certainly doesn’t reflect the country as a whole, but it does represent SC; Hell, a month ago there was a parade through downtown SC with Robert Anton Wilson rolling in front with a pot plant in his lap, with the cops directing traffic. Maybe we should elect some token Republicans to have ideological diversity so there’s less bias?
There is a fairly anti-religious sentiment on campus in general, but I guarantee it’s less ‘cool’ to be an Evangelical student at UCSC than a Jewish one. If there’s anti-Israel sentiment it’s certainly dwarfed by the anti-American [ie., anti-American imperialism] sentiment on campus. I’ve had a few conversations with other students about Israel/Palestine and it usually comes down to people wanting a non-violent resolution. There is a pro-Israel/pro-settlement/pro-wall guy in my department who’s ranted about it as part of his presentations a few times and he was never scolded or booed or anything. (Nor has the Buddhist ex-Scientologist been hassled about his religion.) People don’t like the wall, but that’s fairly universal against walls, borders, etc. There’s a guy in my department who’s proposed turning the wall between Mexico/America into a big drum with big acoustic transducers.
I had an Arabic kid in the Intro to Digital Media class I taught, he’s been involved in some of the campus Islamic groups (as well as this). On his ‘about me page’ on the class wiki he said something like ‘Hey my name’s M. and I’m not a terrorist so please don’t be afraid of me.” Sigh. I dunno. I don’t doubt that there are some reactionary lefties who can’t tell the difference between the EZLN and the Palestinian struggle, but I don’t think it’s a dominant sentiment. Furthermore the ‘lefty bias’ on campus is being overtaken by the school’s new set of priorities — becoming Silicon Valley’s engineering school. All the money is in engineering, corporate sponsored fellowships, and all that. It’s tragic really.
At least we still have Ralph Abraham.

You can visit Abram’s website at aphid.org.

8 thoughts on “JCPA: Overstating Anti-Israel Sentiment On UCSC's Campus?

  1. It is also worth noting the unbalanced extent to which liberals are held accountable for the anti-Zionism on the fringes of the left, while conservatives enjoy a perennial free pass regarding all traditional right wing flavors of antisemitism.
    In other words, all liberals must own their Chomskies and Finkelsteins while conservatives need not bother themselves with the Dana Roherbachers, Pat Buchanans, Paul Findleys, Robert Novaks…. I believe such a phenomenon says something in itself.

  2. The other day I received a document from The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs… For all of us in danger of wanting to make up our own minds about the mysterious “document”, it turns out to be a publicly-available Web article, written by 1 UCLA ex-prof and 2 UC Santa Cruz profs, available
    here.
    For those who view this sort of thing as primarily about how Israel is beheld and not part of a larger football game between opposing “left”/”liberal” and “right”/”conservative” camps — in other words, I guess, people beyond the poisonous bubble of U.S. politics — it would be interesting to hear from more UC Santa Cruz students.
    Of whom apparently 20 percent are Jewish. Anyone else out there with an informed opinion on the article?

  3. actually, the link was broken inside the html. the word “document” should have been a highlighted link. that was an oversight, not an intentional move.
    god forbid i’d want to encourage people to make up their own minds about such things. after all, that’d run completely contrary to our site’s mission of promoting critical thought.
    so um, are you just here to be a troll and pick fights by — first and foremost — expecting the worst and not giving the benefit of the doubt, and, secondly, being incredibly snarky in your remarks?

  4. Furthermore the ‘lefty bias’ on campus is being overtaken by the school’s new set of priorities — becoming Silicon Valley’s engineering school. All the money is in engineering, corporate sponsored fellowships, and all that. It’s tragic really.
    Considering the disdainful tone by which you note the construction of UCSC’s new engineering school, I take it that you view yourself as a “leftist”? I just want to be clear that you’re not objective in your views. And what does engineering have to do with politics? You’re coming off as quite close-minded; just because a department isn’t in the humanities doesn’t make it part of the Right Wing Conspiracy. Most of my engineering professors were fairly liberal (UC Berkeley). You have to remember that professors choose their campus based, in part, on where they will have to live, and for some engineering professors, it will be very pleasant to live in a self-proclaimed “progressive” town like Santa Cruz.

  5. god forbid i’d want to encourage people to make up their own minds about such things. after all, that’d run completely contrary to our site’s mission of promoting critical thought.
    That’s too bad. As for my own response, it is conditioned by your decision to position the source — as a right-wing think tank, and as the source of a scurrilous attack on a contributor [particularly on comparing your characterization of said attack to the actual attack] — before getting to the message. If critiques are weak, I expect that that weakness will come out all by its lonesome.
    So um, are you just here to be a troll and pick fights by — first and foremost — expecting the worst and not giving the benefit of the doubt, and, secondly, being incredibly snarky in your remarks?
    I would suggest toning down your ad hominem attacks; this isn’t about me, nor about your apparent irritation, nor even about whether your friend Abram’s dismissal of the article — sorry, “document” — should be the be-all and end-all of the UCSC critique. If you have substantive points, it’d be more useful to make them. Deep breaths, perhaps?

  6. As a Santa Cruz grad (class of ’94, holmes) with deep intellectual debts to the faculty (including Angela Davis) and the atmosphere, the anti-semitism/anti-Isra el thing has been around for a while – at least since I was a student, and it mostly shook out in one of two ways:
    1. general criticism of Israel — military occupiers, violators of Human rights, etc. most of which I agreed (and agree) with, in addition that Zionism (despite the UN), may still be a kind of racism, or at least a vulgar nationalism which — at santa cruz and at other liberally minded schools, is an intellectual no-no.
    2. The lame lefty slide that tends to equate all occupations (i.e. “US out of Iraq, Israel out of Palestine”) in a reductionist kind of way that does nobody any good. Back in the days of the first Gulf War, the anti-war movement wasn’t a good place for Jews to be because of the blind criticism of ISrael that folded itself into opposition to that war. This, sadly, is a tendency of the American left, but it is no more prevalent at UCSC than at other schools.
    Don’t turn UCSC into the next Columbia.

  7. Zionista:
    It is also worth noting the unbalanced extent to which liberals are held accountable for the anti-Zionism on the fringes of the left, while conservatives enjoy a perennial free pass regarding all traditional right wing flavors of antisemitism.
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    … except that the difference is that the “liberals held accountable” are JEWS who actually AGREE with the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic line.
    As witness AYK’s post on this very thread.
    And the Jewish names topping your list of liberal anti-Semites.
    The conservatives who you claim have been “given a free pass” have explicitly, repeatedly distanced themselves from the rhetoric of the old-time conservatives. They denounce the equation of Zionism and racism, whole-heartedly support Israel’s right to defend itself, and denounce those who try to pass off anti-Semitism as “anti-Israeli political discourse”.

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