This week’s column is different because it is shaped by Josh’s choices. At the end, I add two of mine.
M. Gessen, who won the 2023 Arendt Prize for their New Yorker article, “In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” is now a columnist for the New York Times. Their Sept. 15 column about Brooklyn College refusing to host a Jewish Currents event probes how colleges and universities in the U.S. have become hostile to pro-Palestine speech.
Through dozens of email messages, the closest I got to why Jewish Currents was shut out of not just the leaky theater but all the secondary venues, too, was that the venues are too small for everyone to squeeze in all at once — which is true but irrelevant, since no one was proposing to do so.
Particularly given the way this was all communicated, I think a simpler explanation is fear. Certainly, there would be good reason for Brooklyn College leaders to fear the way these issues are manipulated in public discourse. By choosing the path of excessive caution, however — canceling the event entirely and being cagey about the reasons — Brooklyn College not only betrayed its own mission, it also scored another victory for those who cynically wield accusations of antisemitism to quash open discussion and turn facts into dangerous secrets.1
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on a Jewish doctoral student who was denied the Law of Return because of his politics. In its first sentence, the law says: “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh.”2 The case is astonishing.
[Leo] Franks believes he was deliberately punished for his political activism and prevented from making aliyah by officials in Israel’s Interior Ministry, which handles immigration and citizenship.
“The story here is that the courts have given the Ministry of Interior free rein to make decisions about who can be a Jew in Israel on the basis of his politics,” he said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The degree to which Franks’ activism factored into his immigration troubles — his citizenship application was mysteriously closed and he currently faces an order to leave the country by Sunday — is not clear. The Interior Ministry did not respond to questions from JTA. While it raised concerns about his entanglements with law enforcement and about his motivation for being in the country in communications with Franks, the ministry did not directly say it was ordering him to leave because of his political activity.3
From the Boston area comes the strange story of a non-Jewish, pro-Israel protestor who allegedly shot a pro-Palestine advocate. According to GBH, pro-Palestine advocates warned the police about Scott Hayes.
Nathan Foster, who is Jewish, said Hayes directed much of his anger at Jews who support a ceasefire in Gaza.
“What Scott and his group were doing was not making any distinction,” he said. ”Anybody who believes that Palestinians are human beings, we’re going to harass them and intimidate them. And one method of that was to call them [an] antisemite.”
Activists have collected a series of Hayes’ social media videos and photographs showing Hayes bumping against demonstrators and verbally accosting them.4
A third person in the U.S. has immolated themselves in front on an Israeli consulate to protest the country’s war on Gaza. Ha’aretz has the story on Matt Nelson, who suffered severe burns.
In his video, Nelson said his act of protest "is a call to our government to stop supplying Israel with the money and weapons it uses to imprison and murder innocent Palestinians, to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza and to support the ICC indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government."5
ProPublica has a tremendous report on how U.S. senior officials rejected evidence from their own agencies that Israel was blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”6
Israel has shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in the West Bank for at least 45 days. The army raided the building and provided employees with an order to close.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
M Gessen’s article is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/opinion/brooklyn-college-jewish-currents-gaza-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU4.JHwZ.4LXy3TFzIoSs&smid=url-share
Israel’s law of return: https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1950/en/34127
Here’s the JTA story about Leo Franks: https://www.jta.org/2024/09/20/israel/israel-expels-british-jewish-activist-who-tried-to-immigrate-under-law-of-return
GBH’s story is here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-09-19/pro-palestinian-protesters-say-they-warned-newton-police-about-scott-hayes
Haaretz’s story is here: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-09-17/ty-article/man-suffers-severe-burns-after-self-immolation-protest-outside-israeli-consulate-in-boston/00000191-ff7b-d26c-ad95-ffff043d0000
ProPublica’s story is here: https://www.propublica.org/article/gaza-palestine-israel-blocked-humanitarian-aid-blinken