Feminist anti-Israel rhetoric is hardly a new phenomenon — it was, after all, at a women’s conference in 1975 that the phrase “Zionism is racism” was adopted and promoted. But the situation has gone from bad to worse, as feminists who once were crusaders for liberal causes and fighters for the underdog now support anti-Semitism clothed in anti-Israel rhetoric. In their zeal, many feminists back groups that are anti-democratic, anti-women’s rights and anti-Semitic.
Recently I posted a query on a Jewish Studies professors’ website that asked if “pervasive acceptance of anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-conservative ideas” was a common occurrence in the Women’s Studies Program on the campuses they knew.
What spurred me to ask the question was my reaction to the Conference of Women Historians I attended last spring, hosted by the University of Connecticut at Storrs. I had observed much that was clearly anti-Western and anti-conservative and wanted to know if this was pervasive among Women’s Studies departments at the universities with which my colleagues were familiar.
The responses brought into focus the changes that have taken place among liberal intellectuals over the past three decades.
For example, I received a joint response from Nahla Abdo and Ronit Lentin (Trinity College, Dublin), affiliated with the Jerusalem Center for Women and Bat Shalom.
Abdo called my query “garbage” and “nonsense” — but she nevertheless linked Israel to apartheid, racism and anti-democracy. Lentin wrote to “disabuse” me of my “naive notions about Israeli democracy and fairness….” Neither woman made an attempt to construct an open dialogue.
The attitude reflected by Abdo and Lentin — and their like-minded peers at the Conference of Women Historians — led me to further question what appears to be a trend in academia in general and Women’s Studies programs in particular.
Some analysts have noted the influence in academic circles of Marxist theory misapplied to Israel. Ilsa Glazer, an anthropologist, wrote to me that she had been in academia since 1958 on three continents. “In my experience anti-Israel attitudes have dominated campuses if the professors of key departments are Marxist…At this point the virulence is growing. What is true of Women’s Studies is true in anthropology ….”
This misapplication continues partially because lack of knowledge about Israel allows for an easy acceptance of propaganda’s distortions. The one-sided presentation of information in regard to Jewish and Arab culture only intensifies this ignorance.
Dr. Bob Solomon of Edmonton, Canada, wrote, “Women’s Studies departments here in the Canadian West, of course, offer courses in [sic] Islamic women, e.g., but they do not in Jewish women, to the best of my knowledge, and in Arab women, but not Israeli. I know of no Israeli or Jewish groups invited as artists or lecturers, although Arab, Muslim, and other non-Western ones appear frequently. I call this ?soft’ bias. The Arab film festival was on campus, the Jewish one off-campus….[T]he academic tower wavers once again for Jews.”
This informational bias influences the political correctness movement. A non-Jewish colleague, who asked not to be identified, remarked to me that at her university support of non-feminist causes would delay or prevent tenure, promotion and friendship in Women’s Studies Programs. The non-feminist cause she mentioned was support of Israel.
The anti-Western and anti-Israel attitudes typical of Marxists and others on the far Left are shared by radical feminists. Michael Weingrad, a professor at the University of Leeds, e-mailed me that “the anti-Israel, anti-West, and anti-conservative climate sounds like much of the academy today, both here in England and in the U.S. The Jewish Studies program here is part of a conglomeration of programs including Feminist Studies and Cultural Studies that just put on a huge annual conference last weekend entitled ‘Translating Class, Altering Hospitality.’
“The hostility to the West, to any politics outside a radical Marxist or neo-Marxist orientation, and the conviction that Western capitalism is the enemy of all that is good in the world and must be destroyed was so evident from the start that I decided not to attend.”
A student of his who did attend told Weingrad that there was a “pervasive anti-Israel climate” at the conference.
Some of my respondents confirmed that this climate has existed far longer than many had imagined. “The final straw for me,” wrote Dr. Ida Selavan Schwarcz, “was when NOW [National Organization for Women] marched with Palestinians to protest some Israeli activity. I sent a letter of resignation. I am talking at least thirty years ago…”
Dr. Schwarcz had been a strong supporter of NOW until the chapter in her Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill was taken over by “radicals” who did not share what had been the liberal ideals of the largely Jewish chapter.
Long-established feminists worry about these attitudes. Alice Sparberg Alexiou of the Jewish feminist magazine Lilith told me in a telephone conversation that her publication had noted this trend for more than a decade, and that one of the reasons Lilith was founded was to counter these ideas.
The open anti-Semitism on college campuses goes beyond Women’s Studies departments, of course. Commenting on recent campus reaction to the Arab-Israeli conflict, National Review’s Jay Nordlinger termed it “even more anti-Israel than usual. It was more anti-Semitic, too. (Sadly, these two ‘anti’s’ seem to be going together more and more lately.}”
An example of this confluence, Nordlinger noted, occurred on May 7 at San Francisco State, when Jewish students participating in a peace rally were removed by police for their safety amid screams of “Hitler didn’t finish the job!” At the University of Michigan’s “Perspectives on the Muslim World: Unveiling the Truth,” the main book sold was The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, which includes a chapter entitled “The Myth of the Holocaust.”
The alarming trend in the feminist worldview is part and parcel of the radicalization of liberal politics, on campus and off, that began to occur more than two decades ago. Too many on the Left show a fascination for dictators and terrorists, and support ideologies that reflect open hatred for Western leaders and ideals. By moving toward a repression of open dialogue — and, most frightening, a fascist-like acceptance of a “correct” way of thinking — this movement has become an enemy of Israel and the Jewish people.
It should come as no surprise that supporters of radical Islamic groups who advocate civilian murder, and political factions that favor a weakening of Western influence, would be anti-Semitic. Nor should it surprise us that they distort current events and history.
What should come as a surprise is the relative lack of constructive criticism and opposition from the majority of university scholars and administrators; the blind acceptance of the deconstruction of human-rights ideals by longtime feminists; and the continued support of anti-Jewish causes in the academic community.
The current rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and on American college campuses is fueled by anti-Israel distortions and partial truths. Modern-day “Third Wave” feminism, in its support of anti-Israel anti-Semitism, has failed to protect its ideals when it comes to Jews. And on this count history will judge it.