The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), the largest teachers union in Massachusetts, hosted a webinar that featured three anti-Israel activists as its main speakers and was facilitated by a former MTA president who is also an anti-Israel activist.  The speakers used the platform provided by the webinar, which the MTA had advertised as focusing on “The Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism,” to promote a distorted and false history of Israel and the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs while ignoring or providing problematic answers to audience questions that challenged their views.

Introduction

The MTA is a teachers union in Massachusetts with 117,000 members comprised of teachers working in public schools, colleges, and universities.  The MTA executive committee called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on November 4, 2023.  In December, its board decided to move forward with authorizing the MTA’s professional development division to formulate curricular resources relating to “Israel and Occupied Palestine” for MTA members to utilize while also approving a resolution demanding that the Biden Administration “stop funding and sending weapons in support of the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people.”  Using incendiary language, the MTA board falsely accused Israel of genocide while ignoring the atrocities committed by Hamas and other Palestinians.

On March 21, the MTA took a further step and hosted a workshop webinar, “Anti-Racism Task Force Webinar: Context and Connection: Palestinian Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism.”  The webinar facilitator was Merrie Najimy (Elementary STEAM Educator, Concord Public Schools).  The presenters featured during the webinar were Leila Farsakh (Professor of Political Science, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, UMass Boston), whose bias on the conflict CAMERA has documented,[1] Heike Schotten (Professor of Political Science, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, UMass Boston), and Elsa Auerbach (Professor Emerita, English Department, UMass Boston; Jewish Voice for Peace Boston).  Najimy,[2] Farsakh,[3] Schotten,[4] and Auerbach[5] have supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

• Panelists villainize mainstream Jewish communal organizations and religious institutions, including synagogues, as arms of an Israeli propaganda machine and proponents of Jewish supremacism bent on using the charge of antisemitism to conceal Israeli crimes and suppress pro-Palestinian voices.
• Panelists express support for extremist organizations that seek to eradicate the State of Israel.
• Panelists erase Jewish peoplehood and redefine Zionist belief as unacceptable.
• The panelists’ remarks include numerous distortions and falsehoods:
• • Whitewashing unlawful campus activities and students’ failure to behave in accordance with campus expectations as mere pro-Palestinian activism by falsely claiming:

• • • UMass anti-Israel student protesters were arrested “for doing a sit-in”
    • MIT Coalition Against Apartheid was disciplined because of its pro-Palestinian activism
  • Incorrectly claiming Harvard University denied former Human Rights Watch (HRW) Director Kenneth Roth a fellowship due to his advocacy for Palestinian human rights when, in fact, Roth did receive a fellowship
  • Falsely claiming the land of Israel was always called “Palestine”
  • Advancing a narrative that Zionism has been the root cause of the conflict by mischaracterizing Zionism—a movement for national self-determination—as a European settler colonial movement premised on Jewish supremacism and bent on ethnically cleansing, expelling, and eliminating Palestinians
  • Omitting Palestinian collaboration with Nazis
  • Idealizing Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East before the establishment of the State of Israel
  • Misreporting the armament and manpower discrepancies between Jews and Arabs during the 1947-1948 War
  • Inaccurately claiming that Israel’s occupation of territories acquired in the 1967 Six-Day War is illegal
  • Painting Israel as the aggressor responsible for precipitating the 1967 Six-Day War as well as Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), Operation Protective Edge (2014), and May Conflict in Gaza (2021) by omitting how Israel’s military responses were precipitated by acts of aggression by Israel’s enemies
  • Making a moral equivalence between the State of Israel and Hamas, engaging in victim-blaming of Israelis, and downplaying atrocities against Israelis perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinians on October 7
  • Misapplying the “Palestinian” descriptor to all Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom do not self-identify as “Palestinian”
  • Recommending biased resources on Israel

The following analysis discusses these problematic features of the webinar panelists’ remarks in greater detail:

Smearing Jewish Communal Organizations

Much of the time devoted to antisemitism in the webinar focused on how antisemitism is supposedly weaponized by mainstream Jewish communal organizations to suppress pro-Palestinian voices.  Najimy states,

We’ve come under furious attack by teachers against antisemitism and the JCRC, calling us antisemitic, asking us to shut down this webinar.  Again, these are tactics designed to stifle debate.

However, the JCRC of Greater Boston never accused the panelists of being antisemitic, but simply noted how recent MTA messaging “plays into familiar and dehumanizing antisemitic tropes” while decrying “the promotion of an agenda that is often antisemitic.”[6]

Schotten claims, without providing evidence, “that fear [of being antisemitic/being perceived as being antisemitic] is actually purposely manufactured in order to keep you from talking about or teaching about Palestine.”  She casts mainstream Jewish communal organizations as arms of a Zionist “Multi-Million Dollar, Israeli State-Funded Propaganda Machine” in “attacking anyone who speaks out against Zionism” or “criticiz[es] Israel” as “antisemitic.”  She conjures up a vast conspiracy in which “Presidents of Ivy League universities” as well as “billionaires with lots of money to influence presidential elections and who sometimes sit on boards of those Ivy League universities” are alleged to be complicit.

The false claim that these Jewish communal organizations, university presidents, and rich individuals are cogs in a propaganda machine funded by the State of Israel echoes the antisemitic accusation of dual loyalty historically leveled against Jews [7] and the antisemitic belief about Jews conspiring to dominate others through the use of money and political influence.[8]  According to Schotten, charges of antisemitism are not simply mistaken or a result of oversensitivity on the part of victims of antisemitism, but are “lies” that are “misleading,” “unfair,” and “cover for Israeli crimes.”  This language troublingly intimates that those making claims of antisemitism are dishonest and intentionally operating through misdirection to conceal criminal behavior.  The claim that Zionists operate through misdirection in order to conceal malevolent designs has been voiced by antisemites.[9]

Contrary to Schotten’s false charge that mainstream Jewish communal organizations believe that mere criticism of Israel constitutes antisemitism, most of the Jewish communal organizations referenced by Schotten have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which does not define criticism of Israeli policies as antisemitic.[10]

Auerbach claims that her family’s “identity was stolen from them” by Zionism because the synagogues in the Midwestern city in which her family lived displayed Israeli flags, which, in Auerbach’s view, made them proponents of a supposedly “Jewish-supremacist state.”[11]  The language Auerbach uses of “Jewish supremacy,” which Schotten also uses, has roots in Nazi propaganda and has been utilized by white supremacists, like David Duke.  These references to “Jewish supremacy” simultaneously evoke “white supremacy,” effectively villainizing Zionist Jews as racists.

Defending Extremist Organizations

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)

Najimy describes a comment on the organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) submitted to the pre-workshop survey as follows: “Here’s another example of what came in in our survey: “‘Jewish Voice for Peace is a radical anti-Israel activist group,’ as if there is only one form of being a Jewish person.”  Rather than commenting on the substance of the charge, Najimy asserts that this webinar participant’s description of JVP as “a radical anti-Israel activist group” constitutes an attempt to restrict expressions “of being a Jewish person,” but JVP has often expressed its anti-Zionism by employing antisemitic tropes, defending purveyors of contemporary blood libels[12] and alleging Jewish dual loyalty.[13]  Also, JVP has platformed terrorists and collaborated with individuals linked to violent extremism, such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) supermarket bomber Rasmea Odeh, whose 1969 bombing killed two Hebrew University students.[14]  Auerbach is a member of JVP and has expressed support for Odeh.[15]  CAMERA has documented examples of JVP’s extremism.[16]

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Najimy defends the actions of UMass – Amherst students who were arrested participating in an event (described in more detail below) co-organized by the UMass chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an extremist organization Auerbach defends against criticism.  The organization’s extremist founder, Hatem Bazian,[17] has employed[18] antisemitic rhetoric.  SJP has received funding from organizations, like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP),[19] dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel.  Members of SJP have also engaged in the physical assault[20] of Jewish university students[21] and the disruption[22] of Holocaust Remembrance Day events.[23]  An analysis conducted by Dr. Ayal K. Feinberg found that “campuses with an SJP chapter suffer 253% more [antisemitic bias-]incidents than campuses without one.”[24]

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Auerbach defends the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) against criticism, but CAMERA has documented the organization’s extremism,[25] exemplified by its opposition to legislation to “prohibit antisemitism in public schools and institutions of higher education”[26] and its executive director’s expression of support for the invasion of Israel on October 7.  His remarks included the following:

The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7, and yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in, and yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense […] The Gazans were victorious.[27]

Commenting on CAIR’s executive director’s remarks on October 7, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates stated, “We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.”[28]

Samidoun

On social media, Najimy has also promoted a website associated with Samidoun, an extremist organization banned by Israel and Germany that open-source evidence indicates has links with the PFLP.[29]  Germany’s Interior Ministry described Samidoun as “an international network that spreads anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda under the guise of a ‘solidarity organization’ on behalf of prisoners in various countries.”[30]

Erasing Jewish Peoplehood

Najimy seems to believe “being a Jewish person” means being an adherent of a Jewish religion, not being a member of a Jewish people or nation.  This conception of “being a Jewish person” is evidenced in her description of the presence of “Jewish Arabs, Muslim Arabs, [and] Christian Arabs” in the land before the establishment of the State of Israel.  Similarly, Schotten describes Jewishness in religious terms, stating that “Judaism is a religious practice dating back 4,000 years.[31]  Zionism is a relatively recent historical innovation from 19^th and 20^th century Europe and a European, nationalist, settler colonial movement that seeks to eliminate Palestinians and their claims to Palestine.”  These claims by Najimy and Schotten, however, misrepresent the historical record.

Archaeological Record

Contrary to what Najimy and Schotten imply, Jews have historically been recognized as being a people or ethnic group, not simply a religious community, as evidenced in the earliest reference to “Israel” in the archaeological record found on the Merneptah Stele (dated to 1207 BCE), where the name “Israel” is designated by a sign indicating “a people or an ethnic group.”[32]  Beginning in the 10^th century BCE, “archaeologically discernible characteristics of a state” are identifiable.[33]  The indigenous presence of Jews in the land—evidenced archaeologically,[34] linguistically,[35] and scientifically[36]—continued for more than sixteen hundred years, long predating the Arab conquest of the territory in 636 CE.[37]

Textual Tradition

The primacy of nationhood for Jews is underscored biblically[38] and in rabbinic interpretation.[39]  Samuel Lebens, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, points out: “When Moses went to Pharaoh, he said, ‘Let my people go,’ not ‘Let my coreligionists go.’ A person can be a Jew without believing in Judaism.  In that sense, nationhood—for the Jew—comes first; religion comes second.”[40]

Polling Data

We see this primacy of Jewish peoplehood over religion reflected in polling data of American Jews, too.  When asked in 2019, “Do you consider being Jewish mostly a matter of religion, or more a matter of ethnicity and culture?” 59% of American Jews responded, “Mostly a matter of ethnicity or culture,” and only 24% responded, “Mostly a matter of religion.”[41]

Redefining Zionism

The negative descriptions of Zionism provided by webinar panelists effectively redefine Zionism to mean something other than what it is.  Farsakh states that the “Zionism that won, that established the State of Israel, which has existed for 75 years […]” is “exclusionary, not capable of accepting the Palestinians are equal.”  Schotten, as mentioned earlier, describes Zionism as “a European, nationalist, settler colonial movement” and a “Multi-Million Dollar, Israeli State-Funded Propaganda Machine.”  Auerbach asserts that support for Zionism is tantamount to support for a “Jewish-supremacist state.”  These uniformly negative descriptions of “Zionism” misrepresent the Zionist movement that Theodor Herzl understood as “a moral, lawful, humanitarian movement, directed towards the long-yearned-for goal of our people” and that Chaim Herzog described as “the national movement of the Jewish people.”[42]

Misrepresenting Zionism as a Settler Colonial Movement

The misrepresentation of Zionism as a settler colonial movement is an inversion of the actual character of the movement historically.  Robert S. Wistrich, the late Professor of European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University, described Zionism as “the first successful anti-colonial liberation struggle in the Middle East” that in the 1940s became “a leading pioneer of postwar decolonization and the liberation of oppressed peoples in the Third World.”[43]  The Zionist struggle for survival involved “resistance against the British occupation of Palestine.”[44]  The funding that the Jewish National Fund used to purchase land was not provided by “colonialist” organizations, but came from “millions of petty Jewish artisans, shopkeepers, workers, and professional people living in Central and Eastern Europe.”[45]  Moreover, Zionists “deliberately sought to avoid the capitalist exploitation of indigenous labor and the acquisition of private property,” aiming “to work and plow areas which were largely wasteland, to drain swamps and marshlands, to forest the dunes, and water the desert.”[46]  The historian Jeffrey Herf, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, argues, “Had it been up to the British Foreign Office or the U.S. State and Defense Departments and the CIA—the usual malefactors of Western imperialism—the Jewish state would have been stillborn” given their “overwhelming hostil[ity]” to the establishment of the State of Israel.[47]

Erasing Non-European Jews from Zionist History

Schotten’s description of Zionism as “European” fails to take into account the fact that from the outset of the movement, Zionism appealed to Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, too.  Algerian Jews were present at the First Zionist Congress, and a group that self-identified as “Zionist Youth” sent greetings to the First Zionist Congress.  Zionist groups emerged in Morocco and Egypt in 1898, with several hundred Jews in Egypt becoming members of the World Zionist Organization.[48]  Zionism’s proposal of a “return of Jews to their ancient homeland, where they would have sovereignty,” held much appeal to Jews living in a poor community in Fez.[49]  Zionist sentiment would also be found among Jews living throughout the Arab world.[50]  In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, approximately 10,000-20,000 Jews from Muslim-majority lands decided to live in Palestine.  Following the establishment of the State of Israel, 40,000 Jews from Yemen, more than 100,000 Jews from Iraq, and many Jews from Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, among other places, traveled to the State of Israel.  Today, a majority of the Israeli population is comprised of those descending from Jews who left other Middle Eastern countries.[51]

According to recent polling data, “80% of American Jews say caring about Israel is an important or essential part of what being Jewish means to them.”  By caricaturing supporters of Zionism as proponents of a “Jewish-supremacist” ideology, the webinar panelists stigmatize most American Jews, excluding the vast majority of them—whose care for Israel “is an important or essential part of what being Jewish means to them”—from what the panelists regard as an appropriate way of being Jewish.[52]

Whitewashing Student Misbehavior as Mere Pro-Palestinian Activism

Najimy falsely claims that 57 University of Massachusetts – Amherst students protesting an alleged “Israeli massacre of Palestinians” were arrested “for doing a sit-in,” an assertion flatly contradicted by University of Massachusetts Spokesman Edward Blaguszewski, who stated that “the arrests were based on the refusal to comply with a lawful order by UMass Police to leave the [Whitmore] building.”[53]  According to the spokesman, this order to students to vacate the building was consistent with the university’s “standard protocols that require members of the public depart to ensure public safety and the protection of property within the building.”[54]

Similarly, Najimy falsely suggests that the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid was disciplined by the MIT administration due to its alleged activism on behalf of Palestinians, but the group was actually suspended for holding “unsanctioned demonstrations” that “disrupted and endangered students.”[55]

Incorrectly Claiming Harvard University Denied a Former HRW Director a Fellowship

Najimy also falsely asserts that “Harvard University blocked the fellowship from the former Human Rights Watch Director [Kenneth Roth] because of his advocacy for Palestinian human rights,” but Harvard University ultimately decided to offer him a fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy[56] notwithstanding the many false claims made by Human Rights Watch and Kenneth Roth documented by CAMERA.[57]

False Historical Claims

Territory Always Called “Palestine”

Farsakh gives the impression that the name “Palestine” has always been applied to the territory of Israel even as the name “Israel” was also applied to the territory in the Bible.  As Farsakh states, “Palestine as we know it always existed as a district.  It exists also in the Bible as Israel.  There were also Philistines, but in modern times, since the Ottoman Empire, I would say, and even before, there is always something called Palestine.”  However, the region was not always called Palestine.  Indeed, ancient documents discovered in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria, used the name “Canaan” to refer to the area, a name that is also applied to the area in the Bible before it was later designated as “Israel.”[58]  It was only after the Romans defeated Jews during the Bar Kochba Revolt that the Romans renamed land inhabited by Jews as “Palestina” in 135 CE in order to punish Jews and prevent future revolts against Rome.  The historian Bernard Lewis has observed that although the term “Palestine” was at times found in Greek and Latin writings before 135 CE, the term was employed as an adjective in apposition to “Syria” to refer to coastal territory in which Philistines lived, but was not applied to Judea.[59]

Idealizing Arab-Jewish Relations in the Middle East Before the Establishment of the State of Israel

Najimy waxes nostalgic about how Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Palestine supposedly got along so well in the Middle East before the establishment of the State of Israel, leaving viewers with the impression that relations between Jews and others in the region would have remained good had the evil Zionists not come on the scene and messed things up:

Before the creation of Israel, the land of Palestine was populated by Jewish Arabs, Muslim Arabs, [and] Christian Arabs.  They were all living for the most part peacefully […] Palestinians and Jews lived together once, they can live together again, so I actually think there are lessons to learn there and hope for the future.

Najimy, here, claims to describe a time in which interfaith comity prevailed between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle East, an idyllic state of affairs that was cruelly interrupted by the establishment of the State of Israel, but the paradisiacal picture she paints does not accurately reflect the historical reality.  During the period between 637 CE to 1099 CE, treatment of Jews in Palestine by Arabs was variable, with Arabs at times treating Jews poorly and at other times tolerating Jewish subjects.[60]  After 1517, Jews experienced “spasmodic ill-treatment by their Muslim rulers.”[61]  Between 1886 and 1914, a number of “Jewish settlements [were] attacked by Arab bands.”[62]  Between 1920 and 1948 when the State of Israel was established, Jews in Palestine were attacked on multiple occasions by Palestinian Arabs, including the Hebron Massacre and Safed massacre.[63]

The aforementioned examples show that, contrary to the impression left by Najimy that the establishment of the State of Israel is responsible for hostility between Jews and Arabs, this hostility preceded the emergence of the State of Israel.  As historian Martin Gilbert observes, Arab ill-will “predated Zionism by many centuries,” with “[t]he emergence of Zionism provid[ing] it with an excuse and a spur, a label on which to attach age-old animosities.”[64] Palestinian Arab opposition to Zionism assumed explicitly anti-Jewish form in petitions “demand[ing] an immediate end to Jewish immigration,” with one petitioner in 1921 expressing the following:

The Jew is clannish and unneighbourly, and cannot mix with those who live about him.  He will enjoy the privileges and benefits of a country, but will give nothing in return.  The Jew is a Jew the world over.  He amasses the wealth of a country and then leads its people, whom he has already impoverished, where he chooses.[65]

Historians Eunice G. Pollack and Stephen H. Norwood have compared the kind of idealized portrayal of Jewish-Arab relations before the establishment of the State of Israel above to the “happy darkey” fable spread by White Southerners in the United States falsely claiming how “loyal slaves lived in harmony with paternal masters” to justify slavery in the American South.[66]

Jews Sought to Resettle and Expel Arabs

Despite such anti-Zionist hostility, “Jewish leaders in Palestine […] sought to build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities” in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, but Muslim leaders opposed such efforts, actively fostering anti-Zionism among Muslims.[67]  Contrary to Farsakh’s false claim that “Jewish settlers who came from Eastern Europe and Central Europe […] c[ame] [to] […] live in Palestine not with the natives already living there, but rather to resettle it from them and to expel those who were living on the land,” the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, envisioned “flourishing relations between Jews and Arabs”[68] in a future Jewish state and believed that the success of Zionism would benefit all, not just Jews: “The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.  And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”[69]  Similarly, David Ben-Gurion, a Russian-born Jew who became leader of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the first prime minister of Israel, made clear that the interests of Jews and Arabs need not be understood as in conflict with one another, but rather as inextricably intertwined, stating that there was “no conflict of interest between the Jewish people as a whole and the Arab people as a whole….We need each other.  We can benefit each other.”[70]  Ben-Gurion thought that the flourishing of the Zionist enterprise would redound to the benefit of both Jews and Arabs, stating “that a great Jewish community, a free Jewish nation in Palestine, with a large scope for its activities, will be of great benefit to our Arab neighbours, and from the recognition of this fact will come a lasting peace and lasting cooperation between the two peoples.”[71]

The 12^th Zionist Congress resolved,

the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development.[72]

Not a single Zionist organization surveyed in 1947 by the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) indicated they sought to remove Palestinians, but rather respected individual property rights.  Far from seeking to steal Palestinian property and expel Palestinians from the territory, Zionists sought to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in the land.[73]

Schotten claims that Israel expelled and ethnically cleansed ~750,000 Palestinians during Israel’s 1947-1948 War of Independence.  However, there was no blanket order for Jews to clear areas of Palestinians, and the vast majority of Palestinian refugees did not flee as a result of being expelled by Israelis.  Moreover, the exact number of Palestinians refugees resulting from the war is disputed with various numbers given.  CAMERA’s Gilead Ini helpfully explains estimates regarding Arab refugees resulting from the 1947-1948 War in the following passage:

Estimates vary on the number of Palestinians who became refugees as a result of the war. Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the number to be between 500,000 and 600,000 […] The British Foreign Office suggested the number was between 600,000 and 760,000. A 1950 report by the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine endorsed an estimate of 711,000 refugees by an “expert of the Statistical Office of the United Nations.”[74]

Many of the Arabs who decided to flee Israel actually did so despite British and Jewish appeals for them to stay.  As Israeli historian Benny Morris has observed,

Under British mediation, the [Israeli leadership agreed to a ceasefire], offering what the British regarded as generous terms. But then, when faced with Moslem pressure, the largely Christian leadership got cold feet; a ceasefire meant surrender and implied readiness to live under Jewish rule. They would be open to charges of collaboration and treachery. So, to the astonishment of the British and the Jewish military and political leaders gathered on the afternoon of 22 April at the Haifa town hall, the Arab delegation announced that its community would evacuate the city.

The Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, and the British commander, Major-General Hugh Stockwell, pleaded with the Arabs to reconsider … but the Arabs were unmoved … (Morris, 1948 and After, p 20).[75]

The Israeli labor union, Histadrut, similarly appealed to Arab residents of Haifa following the incident.[76]

In the current war initiated by Hamas against the State of Israel, the Israeli military is not ethnically cleansing Palestinians, but rather encouraging Palestinian civilians to evacuate parts of Gaza in which Hamas terrorists are embedded so as to make it less likely that Gazan civilians are inadvertently killed while Israel targets terrorists hiding behind and beneath human shields.  Evidence that Hamas terrorists are embedded in and beneath civilian infrastructure is plentiful.

Palestinians Played No Role in Nazi Campaign

Contrary to Farsakh’s claim during the webinar that “the Palestinians perceived it [the Holocaust] as a great tragedy, but they could not understand why they had to pay for the massacres that the Europeans did on their fellow citizens,” Palestinian leadership, far from viewing the Holocaust as a great tragedy, enthusiastically collaborated with Nazis, aiming to extend the Nazis’ agenda to the Middle East and North Africa.  Indeed, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, declared that Arabs were “natural friends of Germany because both are engaged in the struggle against their three common enemies: the English, the Jews and Bolshevism” while offering to help Nazis through “intelligence cooperation and sabotage operations in North Africa” as well as through the broadcasting of antisemitic propaganda in North Africa and the Middle East.[77]

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, have continued Husseini’s rejectionist legacy by supporting Palestinian violence against Jews and, contrary to Farsakh’s claim that Palestinians “made peace with Israel through the Oslo process,” Palestinian leaders have rejected multiple opportunities to make peace with Israel that would have enabled the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state.[78]

Israel Was Better-Armed and Had Greater Manpower Than Arab States in 1947-1948 War

Farsakh also claims that Israel was better-armed and had more troops during the 1947-1948 War, but this claim is false.  In terms of the number of arms, Walter Russell Mead, Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, observes,

In November 1947, the Yishuv, as the Palestinian Jews were widely known, counted roughly 17,000 rifles, 3,700 submachine guns, 205 machine guns, 775 light machine guns, scarcely over a dozen antitank guns, 750 mortars, and no antiaircraft guns, field guns, communications equipment, or tanks in its arsenals.  There were no ships or planes.  The Arab armies, on the other hand, had all of these weapons and more.[79]

Similarly, Israeli historian Benny Morris notes, “the 800 Arab villages and dozen or so towns of Palestine, in December 1947, may have possessed more light arms than the Yishuv.”[80]  In terms of manpower, Morris similarly observes how Israeli troops were outnumbered:

The Palestinian Arabs outnumbered Palestine’s Jews by a factor of two to one.  And the surrounding Arab states mustered a total population of forty million, with an additional, vast demographic hinterland stretching into the Arabian Peninsula and across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, as compared with the Yishuv’s paltry population of 650,000.  The Yishuv, to be sure, received a small stream of volunteers from Diaspora Jewry (and the Christian West).  But the Palestinian Arabs and the Arabs of the confrontation states, who both also enjoyed the services of foreign volunteers, were incomparably stronger in demographic terms.[81]

Palestinian Refugees Have a Right to Return According to United Nations GA Resolution 194

Farsakh claims that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 recognizes the right of Palestinians to return to the territory they left during the 1947-1948 War.  The actual text of the non-binding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, however, does not include recognition of such a right:

refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date … [R]epatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of refugees and payment of compensation [should be facilitated] (Paragraph 11).

CAMERA’s Alex Safian observes that the language of “be[ing] permitted to [return]” falls short of indicating recognition of a right of return:

Because this only recommends that refugees be permitted to return, it can hardly be characterized as creating a “right.” Moreover, the requirement that returnees first accept living “at peace with their neighbors” meant that Palestinian returnees would have to accept Israel’s right to exist, something that very few of them, even today, seem truly willing to do. Further, it did not even hint at any return rights for descendants of refugees.[82]

Israel’s Occupation of Territories in 1967 War is Illegal

In her presentation, Schotten refers to “the ongoing illegal military occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967: the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem,” but many reputable legal scholars disagree with this claim.  As CAMERA has noted, “many international legal scholars suggest that Israel’s occupation of the territories is not itself illegal.”  For example, George P. Fletcher, the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University School of Law, has also written that “it is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies,” a situation that applies to Israel’s acquisition of the territories in the defensive 1967 Six-Day War.[83]

Israel Has Been Committing Genocide Against the Palestinians

A number of the panelists claim that Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians, but this claim is false for a number of reasons:

• The claim that Palestinians have been experiencing genocide for the past 75 years is contradicted by demographic evidence indicative of a growing Palestinian population:
• The Palestinian Central Bureau has indicated that as of 2013, the Palestinian population has grown eightfold following the State of Israel’s establishment.
• The United States Census Bureau International Database indicates that the Gaza Strip’s population has increased 600 percent since 1960.
• The claim that Palestinians are currently experiencing a genocide perpetrated by Israel is also contradicted by the evidence of Israeli stated intentions and actions:
• Israeli governmental authorities have consistently indicated Israeli military activities are directed at the terrorist organization Hamas, not Palestinian people as a whole.
• Israeli activities, such as providing humanitarian corridors through which Palestinian civilians can evacuate and enabling the processing of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, underscore that Israel’s campaign is targeting Hamas, not Palestinian civilians.[84]

John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, states, “Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that’s fought an urban war.”  These measures include Israel’s use of precision guided munitions (PGMs) and technologies as well as tactics increasing the accuracy of non-PGMs.[85]

Comparing Israeli behavior to Nazi genocide is a form of “genocide inversion,” which the IHRA definition of antisemitism considers a form of antisemitism.  Deborah E. Lipstadt, an American historian and U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, describes “genocide inversion” as “turning the victims of genocide into perpetrators.”[86]  The U.S. State Department also considers “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” to be an example of antisemitism.[87]

Israel Has Engaged in Apartheid

The webinar panelists also accused Israel of engaging in apartheid with Najimy and Farsakh mentioning that Amnesty International has made this accusation, but this charge of apartheid is false.  CAMERA has documented Amnesty International’s numerous falsehoods and distortions in making this accusation.[88]  Many Jews attempted to foster positive relations between Jews and Arabs based on the principle of equality, which differs from the case of South Africa, where Dutch individuals functioned as colonial agents trying to dominate the indigenous population.[89]  Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stated, “In our state[,] there will be non-Jews as well – and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well.”[90]  Israel’s Declaration of Independence also articulates a similar commitment to “uphold absolute social and political equality of rights for all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race, or sex.”[91]  Arab Israeli citizens are accorded equal rights under the law, vote in Israeli elections, teach at Israeli universities, and serve in Israeli governmental positions.

Omissions of Historical Context

The 1967 Six-Day War

In describing the 1967 Six-Day War, Farsakh states, “Another war erupts in 1967,” later elaborating that “Israel surprises Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in what was the Six-Day War,” but omits the fact that Arab leaders were explicitly speaking about the elimination of Israel, Egyptian troops had amassed at Egypt’s border with Israel, and Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel’s southern port, which constituted an act of war.  These actions preceded and justified Israel’s decision to preemptively strike.

Four Wars Between 2008 and 2021

Farsakh states that “Israel launched four wars between 2008 and 2021” without explaining why these wars were launched, leaving viewers with the false impression that the State of Israel launched wars of aggression against Palestinians rather than defensive wars directed at terrorists operating behind and underneath a civilian population.  The four wars to which she seems to refer are the following:

• Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009)
• Operation Pillar of Defense (2012)
• Operation Protective Edge (2014)
• May Conflict in Gaza (2021)

An assessment of the causes of these wars shows that Israel launched these wars in response to various Palestinian acts of violence directed at Israelis.  Operation Cast Lead was launched in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.  Operation Pillar of Defense was launched in response to increased rocket attacks from Gaza directed at Israelis.  The launch of Operation Protective Edge resulted from a series of events beginning with Hamas terrorists’ abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers (Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah).  The May Conflict in Gaza was launched in response to rocket fire emanating from Gaza directed at Israelis.

Webinar Panelists’ Remarks and October 7

None of the panelists focuses on atrocities associated with October 7—rocketing, torture, rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israeli citizens, including many civilians—but when panelists do briefly allude to October 7, they effectively draw a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas, engage in victim-blaming of Israelis for the atrocities perpetrated against them, and downplay the atrocities committed against Israelis.

Making a Moral Equivalence Between Israel and Hamas

Najimy states, “Civil society here and around the world is demanding […] the release of Israeli and Palestinian captives,” applying the same terminology of “captives” to both innocent Israeli civilians held hostage by Hamas, like the baby Kfir Bibas, and Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel who have been convicted of horrendous atrocities, like Marwan Barghouti, who is responsible for, among other heinous acts, murdering a Greek Orthodox monk and shooting Israelis at a bat mitzvah celebration in a banquet hall, killing six Israelis and injuring 26 others.[92]

Victim-Blaming of Israelis

Najimy decries “blaming the oppressed [Palestinians] for the actions of their oppressor,” but seems to have a blind spot for victim-blaming when it comes to Israelis.  In responding to a webinar participant’s submission on the subject of Palestinians voting for Hamas to the pre-workshop survey, Najimy asks,

Why would [Palestinian] people vote for Hamas?  […] This is an example of something that needs context.  We have to ask ourselves legitimately, “How do we understand what happened?  What happens when the failure of a peace process and a government who winds up upholding the occupation is your reality?  Does it lead to people making different choices, like voting for Hamas?”  It’s a legitimate question, but framed this way, it’s framed as blaming the Palestinians for their own circumstances.

Najimy, here, seems to deprive Palestinians of their agency while suggesting that Israel is to blame for Palestinians voting for a radical Islamist terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel and murdering Jews, as exemplified by the atrocities committed by Hamas associated with October 7.

Downplaying Atrocities Committed Against Israelis

Farsakh speaks of “the event of October 7^th and the massacres that followed,” using neutral language to describe what happened to Israelis on a day on which more Jews were murdered than any single day since the Holocaust while making sure to label what followed (presumably Israel’s response) as constituting “massacres.”

Misapplying “Palestinian” Descriptor to All Arab Citizens of Israel

Schotten claims, “A full 20%-25% of Israel’s citizens are Palestinian,” seemingly referring to Israel’s Arab population.  However, while she presumes to identify them as “Palestinian,” data suggest that most of Israel’s Arab population does not identify as “Palestinian.”

• According to polling conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute, 13% surveyed self-identify as “Palestinian.”
• A 2017 study by Arik Rudnitzky and Itamar Radai observed that 8.9% of Israel’s Arab population self-identify as “Palestinian in Israel/Palestinian citizen in Israel” while 15.4% self-identify as “Palestinian.”
• Another study conducted in 2020 by Tel Aviv University’s Camille Fuchs observed that 7% of non-Jewish citizens of Israel self-identify as “Palestinian.”[93]

Webinar’s Recommended Biased Resources on Israel

In Najimy’s remarks, she recommends viewers consult the following organizations and media outlets as they appeared on the slide in her presentation for what she describes as “an alternative point of view” on Israel and Palestinians (You can click on the hyperlinked names of the organizations and media outlets below to find CAMERA articles documenting their false claims about Israel and the Middle East.):

• Human Rights Watch
• @972mag (Israeli)
• @btselem (Israeli)
• @breakingthesilence (Israeli)
• Al Jazeera English (Qatar-based)
• Jewish Currents
• @middleasteye (David Hearst)
• @democracynow (Amy Goodman)
• The Intercept
• The Chris Hedges Report
• @mondoweiss (German)

Conclusion

The above analysis demonstrates that the MTA webinar featured many problems:

• Villainizing mainstream Jewish communal organizations and religious institutions
• Expressing support for extremist organizations that aim to destroy the State of Israel
• Rendering Zionist ways of being Jewish unacceptable through erasing Jewish peoplehood and redefining Zionist belief
• Whitewashing unlawful activities on campus and students’ behavior that was not in accordance with campus expectations as mere activism on behalf of Palestinians
• Incorrectly asserting Harvard University denied a former HRW Director a fellowship
• Falsely claiming the land of Israel was always called “Palestine”
• Mischaracterizing Zionism as a European settler colonial movement
• Omitting Palestinian collaboration with Nazis
• Idealizing relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East prior to the establishment of the State of Israel
• Misreporting the number of arms and people among Arabs and Jews involved in the 1947-1948 War
• Inaccurately describing Israel’s occupation of territories acquired in the 1967 Six-Day War as illegal
• Painting the State of Israel as the aggressor in the 1967 Six-Day War and several subsequent military conflicts by omitting important historical context
• Making a moral equivalence between the State of Israel and Hamas, engaging in victim-blaming of Israelis, and downplaying atrocities against Israelis associated with October 7
• Misidentifying all Arab citizens of Israel as “Palestinian”
• Recommending biased resources on Israel

Unfortunately, the concerns expressed by teachers and community members in advance of the webinar were warranted.  At the outset of the webinar, MTA President Max Page stated, “The taskforce hosting this event and other committees of the MTA will sponsor upcoming events on other important issues, including the rising tide of antisemitism.”  If President Page wants to remain true to his word when it comes to following through on his expressed commitment to have the taskforce sponsor upcoming events on “the rising tide of antisemitism,” these events must pay significant attention to anti-Zionist expressions of antisemitism in K-12 classrooms and on college and university campuses.

[1] Gilead Ini, “MIT’s Jerusalem Contest: A ‘Veneer’ of Neutrality Can’t Conceal Bias,” CAMERA, 23 July 2007, https://www.camera.org/article/mit-s-jerusalem-contest-a-veneer-of-neutrality-can-t-conceal-bias/.

[2] Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, “It’s Ethnic Studies ‘Groundhog Day,’ This Time in Massachusetts,” The Algemeiner, https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/11/19/its-ethnic-studies-groundhog-day-this-time-in-massachusetts/.

[3] Ali Abunimah, “Palestinian, Arab American Scholars Back ASA’s Israel Boycott, Condemn ‘Intimidation,’” The Electronic Intifada, 8 Jan. 2014, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-arab-american-scholars-back-asas-israel-boycott-condemn-intimidation.

[4] Petition: Stand Against Apartheid Lawfare!  Stand With the American Studies Association,” US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, https://usacbi.org/2018/01/petition-stand-against-apartheid-lawfare-stand-with-the-american-studies-association/.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jeremy Burton, “An Open Letter Regarding Recent Mass Teachers Association Activities,” Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, 20 March 2024, https://www.jcrcboston.org/an-open-letter-regarding-recent-mass-teachers-association-activities/.

[7] “Antisemitism Defined: Allegations of Dual Loyalty,” World Jewish Congress, 23 Feb. 2022, https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/defining-antisemitism-dual-loyalty.

[8] Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, Antisemitic Myths: A Historical and Contemporary Anthology (Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 75.

[9] One such antisemite is Adolf Hitler, who wrote, “For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks” (Extracts from Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, Yad Vashem, https://www.yadvashem.org/docs/extracts-from-mein-kampf.html.).

[10] “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism.

[11] Auerbach mentions the “waving [of] Israeli flags” as playing a role in her family’s decision to “steer clear of synagogues,” but Jack Wertheimer, the Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary, has argued that excluding “symbolic references to Israel” from synagogues could have deleterious effects on congregational life: “Those congregations that banish overt discourse and symbolic references to Israel will suffer great harm because they will try to sanitize Judaism of core elements—kinship and land” (Jack Wertheimer, The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today (Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 200.).

[12] One such purveyor is Jasbir Puar.

[13] Miriam Elman, “Antisemitism on the Left: The Case of Jewish Voice for Peace,” Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate, ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld (Indiana University Press, 2021), pp. 113-133.

[14] “Antisemitism and the Radical Anti-Israel Movement on U.S. Campuses, 2019,” Anti-Defamation League, 20 May 2020, https://www.adl.org/resources/report/antisemitism-and-radical-anti-israel-movement-us-campuses-2019.

[15] “Feminist Scholars to Obama: End Prosecution of Palestinian Survivor of Sexual Torture,” The Electronic Intifada, 24 Oct. 2014, https://electronicintifada.net/content/feminist-scholars-obama-end-prosecution-palestinian-survivor-sexual-torture/13973.

[16] Ricki Hollander, “Updated: ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ (JVP): What the Media is Concealing,’” CAMERA, 30 Oct. 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/jewish-voice-for-peace-jvp-what-the-media-is-concealing/.

[17] “Profiles in Hate: Hatem Bazian,” Campus Watch, 5 Nov. 2011, https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/19590/profiles-in-hate-hatem-bazian.

[18] Maya Aizenman, “Pro-Palestine Group Stoops to New Low,” The Berkeley Daily Planet, 6 May 2002, https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2002-05-06/article/11791?headline=Pro-Palestine-group-stoops-to-new-low—Maya-Aizenman.

[19] “American Muslims for Palestine (AMP),” NGO Monitor, 23 July 2023, https://www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/american-muslims-for-palestine-amp/.

[20] Frances Dinkelspiel, “Jewish Student Sues UC Berkeley Over Assault By Palestine Supporter,” Berkeleyside, 7 March 2011,  https://www.berkeleyside.org/2011/03/07/jewish-student-sues-uc-berkeley-over-assault-by-palestine-supporter.

[21] “Temple University Student Assaulted on Move-In Day,” ABC 6, 21 Aug. 2014, https://6abc.com/attack-assault-temple-university-north-philadelphia/274275/.

[22] Joe Eskenazi, “Pro-Palestinian Group Defying U.C. Order to Cease Activities,” J. The Jewish News of Northern California, 3 May 2002, https://jweekly.com/2002/05/03/pro-palestinian-group-defying-u-c-order-to-cease-activities/.

[23] Adam Levick, “Extremism of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP),” CAMERA, 25 Aug. 2016, https://camera-uk.org/2016/08/25/guardian-again-whitewashes-the-extremism-of-students-for-justice-in-palestine-sjp/.

[24] Ayal K. Feinberg, “From Scholarship to Swastikas: Explaining Campus Antisemitic Events,” Academic Engagement Network, p. 30, https://academicengagement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/From-Scholarship-to-Swastikas-Explaining-Campus-Antisemitic-Events_AEN_Ayal-Feinberg_2021.pdf.

[25] Sean Durns, “The Washington Post Covers for CAIR, Again,” CAMERA, 15 Dec. 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/the-washington-post-covers-for-cair-again/.

[26] Ibrahim Hooper, “CAIR-NJ Action Alert: Tell NJ State Senate That Campus Opposition to Israel’s Human Rights Abuses Is Not Anti-Semitic,” Council on American-Islamic Relations, 8 July 2019, https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-nj-action-alert-tell-nj-state-senate-that-campus-opposition-to-israels-human-rights-abuses-is-not-anti-semitic/.

[27] “CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad at American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) Convention: I Was Happy to See the People of Gaza Break the Siege on October 7; They Were Victorious; The People of Gaza Have the Right to Self-Defense – Israel Does Not,” The Middle East Media Research Institute, https://www.memri.org/reports/cair-executive-director-nihad-awad-american-muslims-palestine-amp-convention-i-was-happy-see.

[28] Gabby Deutch, “White House Distances Itself from CAIR, Condemns Director’s ‘Antisemitic Statements,’” Jewish Insider, 7 Dec. 2023, https://jewishinsider.com/2023/12/white-house-distances-itself-from-cair-condemns-directors-antisemitic-statements/.

[29] David Litman, “CNN’s Elbagir Misleads on Released Palestinian Terrorists,” CAMERA, 28 Nov. 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/cnns-elbagir-misleads-on-released-palestinian-terrorists/.

[30] Christoph Hasselbach, “Why Germany Banned Hamas and Pro-Palestinian Group Samidoun,” DW News, 24 Nov. 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/why-germany-banned-hamas-and-pro-palestinian-group-samidoun/a-67546361.

[31] Yonatan Adler, Associate Professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at Ariel University, has argued that “Judaism”—understood as the “adopt[ion]” and “promulgation” of the Torah as “authoritative” and “legally mandated” among Judeans—“emerge[d] only sometime during the second century BCE,” not 4000 years ago, although “[i]t does not seem unlikely that at least some of the practices that came to be legislated in the Pentateuch were part of Judean culture already in the Persian period, possibly including a taboo against eating the ‘hip sinew’ and perhaps also circumcision.”  Adler states, “The origins of practices such as these may reach back to extraordinarily early epochs, possibly to before the emergence of any kind of distinct ‘Israelite’ identity.  The evidence from Elephantine that points to a Judean practice of some form of ‘Passover’ ritual, as well as of a seven-day period probably coinciding in time with what we know of as the Festival of Unleavened Bread, may also reflect very early practices whose origins remain opaque” (Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal (Yale University Press, 2022), pp. 234-235.).

[32] John Efron, Matthias Lehmann, and Steven Weitzman, The Jews: A History, 3^rd ed. (Routledge, 2019), p. 6.

[33] John S. Holladay, “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in the Iron IIA-B (ca. 1000-750 BCE),” in Thomas E. Levy, ed., The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (New York: Facts on File, 1995), pp. 372-373.

[34] William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), p. 99.

[35] Richard Elliott Friedman, The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters (HarperCollins Publishers, 2017), p. 100.

[36] Harry Ostrer and Karl Skorecki, The Population Genetics of the Jewish People, Human Genetics, 2013, vol.132(2), p.119-127; Shai Carmi et. al., Sequencing an Ashkenazi Reference Panel Supports Population-Targeted Personal Genomics and Illuminates Jewish and European Origins, Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5835.

[37] Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 10^th ed. (Routledge, 2012), p. 1.

[38] For example, the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1b-18), which modern biblical scholars consider one of the oldest texts in the biblical canon, refers to “a people,” or “‘am,” leaving Egypt (Friedman, The Exodus, pp. 36, 39.).

[39] “The Rabbis […] clung to an ethnic conception of Jewishness.  For many of them, either a Jewish mother or a formal conversion was required to enter Israel.  But, while it is assumed that Jewish practice and subscription to fundamental Jewish concepts are part of what it means to be Jewish, they are not determinative” (Michael L. Satlow, Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice (Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 154).  One can see the weight ascribed to Jewish peoplehood in how rabbis conceive of Jewish conversion: “To convert to Judaism is to refuse to leave the Jewish people; it is to cleave to them.  It seems to have very little to do with G[-]d” (Samuel Lebens, A Guide for the Jewish Undecided: A Philosopher Makes the Case for Orthodox Judaism (Koren Publishers, 2022), p. 14.).

[40] Samuel Lebens, The Principles of Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 1.

[41] “AJC 2019 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” American Jewish Committee, 2 June 2019, https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2019.

[42] Gilead Ini, “Joseph Massad’s Mangled Lexicon,” CAMERA, 30 March 2005, https://www.camera.org/article/joseph-massad-s-mangled-lexicon/.

[43] Robert S. Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), p. 512.

[44] Ibid. p. 513.

[45] Ibid. p. 523.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Jeffrey Herf, “Israel Is Antiracist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-Fascist (and Was from the Start),” SAPIR Journal, Spring 2023, https://sapirjournal.org/israel-at-75/2023/04/israel-is-antiracist-anti-colonialist-anti-fascist-and-was-from-the-start/.

[48] Martin Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands (Yale University Press, 2011), p. 135.

[49] Ibid. p. 136.

[50] Ibid. p. 138.

[51] Yossi Klein Halevi, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (HarperCollins Publishers, 2019), pp. 39-40.

[52] Alexandra Herzog, “It Must Be Restated: Israel is Central to Judaism and Jewish Identity,” Jewish News Syndicate, 9 Feb. 2024, https://www.jns.org/it-must-be-restated-israel-is-central-to-judaism-and-jewish-identity/.

[53] Greta Jochem, “57 Arrested at UMass Sit-In Protest of War Profiteers, Palestinian Bloodshed,” MassLive, 26 Oct. 2023, https://www.masslive.com/news/2023/10/57-arrested-at-umass-sit-in-protest-of-war-profiteers-palestinian-bloodshed.html.

[54] Scott Merzbach, “57 Arrested at UMass Walkout, Sit-In Calling for College to Condemn Israeli Attack,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, 26 Oct. 2023, https://www.gazettenet.com/Protesters-at-UMass-arrested-for-civil-disobedience-as-others-demonstrate-at-Northampton-company-with-defense-industry-ties-52795419.

[55] Alec Schemmel, “MIT Suspends Anti-Israel Student Group Over Unsanctioned Protests,” The Washington Free Beacon, 14 Feb. 2024, https://freebeacon.com/campus/mit-suspends-anti-israel-student-group-over-unsanctioned-protests/.

[56] Jennifer Schuessler and Marc Tracy, “Harvard Reverses Course on Human Rights Advocate Who Criticized Israel,” The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/arts/harvard-israel-antisemitism-roth.html.

[57] Alex Safian, “Kenneth Roth Reacts to Truth Like a Vampire Reacts to Sunlight,” CAMERA, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/kenneth-roth-reacts-to-truth-like-a-vampire-reacts-to-sunlight/.

[58] Eric H. Cline, Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel (University of Michigan Press, 2010), p. 13.

[59] Bernard Lewis, “Palestine: On the History and Geography of a Name,” The International History Review, 1 Jan. 1980.

[60] Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 2.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ibid. p. 4.

[63] Ricki Hollander, “Anti-Jewish Violence in Pre-State Palestine/1929 Massacres,” CAMERA, 23 Aug. 2009, https://www.camera.org/article/anti-jewish-violence-in-pre-state-palestine-1929-massacres/.

[64] Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House, p. 140.

[65] Ibid. p. 149.

[66] Eunice G. Pollack and Stephen H. Norwood, “Uncle Tom and the Happy Dhimmi: Reimagining Subjugation in the Islamic World and Antebellum South,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2024, https://www.meforum.org/65271/uncle-tom-and-the-happy-dhimmi.

[67] Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House, p. 149.

[68] “Altneuland: Herzl’s Legend,” Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, https://huc.edu/library_blog/altneuland-herzls-legend/.

[69] Theodor Herzl, “Texts Concerning Zionism: ‘The Jewish State,’” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-quot-theodor-herzl.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid. p. 173.

[72] Quoted in “Palestine: Correspondence with the Palestine Arab Delegation and the Zionist Organization,” Cmd. 1700 (London, 1922).

[73] John Strawson, “Colonialism,” Israel Studies: Word Crimes; Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Donna Robinson Divine, Miriam F. Elman, and Asaf Romirowsky (Indiana University Press, 2019), pp. 33-44.

[74] Gilead Ini, “Backgrounder: Palestinian Arab and Jewish Refugees,” CAMERA, 12 May 2009, https://www.camera.org/article/backgrounder-palestinian-arab-and-jewish-refugees/.

[75]  Alex Safian, “Deconstructing ‘Israeli Apartheid,’” CAMERA, 1 March 2012, https://www.camera.org/article/deconstructing-israeli-apartheid/.

[76] “Do not destroy your homes … and lose your sources of income and bring upon yourselves disaster by evacuation. The Haifa Workers Council and the Histadrut advise you for your own good to stay and return to your regular work” (Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004; p 206)” (Ibid.).

[77] Jeffrey Herf, “Nazi Antisemitism & Islamist Hate,” Tablet Magazine, 6 July 2022, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/the-nazi-roots-of-islamist-hate?ref=quillette.com.

[78] Sean Durns, “CAMERA Op-Ed: An Overlooked Legacy of Arab Rejectionism,” CAMERA, 10 Jan. 2018, https://www.camera.org/article/camera-op-ed-an-overlooked-legacy-of-arab-rejectionism/.

[79] Walter Russell Mead, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022), p. 277.

[80] Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (Yale University Press, 2008), p. 399.

[81] Ibid. p. 398.

[82] Alex Safian, “Backgrounder: The Palestinian Claim to a ‘Right of Return,’” CAMERA, 1 Sept. 2000, https://www.camera.org/article/backgrounder-the-palestinian-claim-to-a-right-of-return/.

[83] “CAMERA Prompts NY Times Correction: Occupation is not ‘Illegal,’” CAMERA, 14 Oct. 2015, https://www.camera.org/article/camera-prompts-ny-times-correction-occupation-is-not-illegal/.

[84] Tamar Sternthal, “NPR Complicit in UNRWA Underreporting of Aid Trucks,” CAMERA, 24 Dec. 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/npr-complicit-in-unrwa-underreporting-of-aid-trucks/.

[85] John Spencer, “Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Nation in History,” Newsweek, 31 Jan. 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/israel-implemented-more-measures-prevent-civilian-casualties-any-other-nation-history-opinion-1865613.

[86] Deborah Lipstadt, Antisemitism: Here and Now (Scribe Publications, 2019), p. 147.

[87] “Defining Antisemitism,” U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/.

[88] “Amnesty’s ‘Apartheid’ Video: 15 Lies in 15 Minutes,” CAMERA, 17 April 2023, https://www.camera.org/videos-publications/amnestys-apartheid-video-15-lies-in-15-minutes/.

[89] Strawson, Israel Studies, pp. 33-44.

[90] Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed (Yale University Press, 2011), p. 235.

[91] Ibid. p. 236.

[92] Lee Green, “Marwan Barghouti’s Links to Terror,” CAMERA, 4 Sept. 2002, https://www.camera.org/article/camera-alert-marwan-barghouti-s-links-to-terror/.

[93] Tamar Sternthal, “Israeli Arabs Largely Reject Henriette Chacar’s ‘Context’ on Israeli Arabs,” CAMERA, 28 July 2023, https://www.camera.org/article/israeli-arabs-largely-reject-henriette-chacars-context-on-israeli-arabs/.