The Free Press has a new 20-minute film called “American miseducation”, centered on pro-Palestinian protests on American campuses. Given the pro-Israeli stand of that site, the tenor of this film is not surprising: its thesis is that aggressive pro-Palestinian demonstrators are not just anti-Zionist, but largely antisemitic, and on some campuses are intimidating and even attacking Jewish students, who have no “safe space” of their own. (The attack on the Cooper Union library, shown in this film, is an example.)
The film is made by Olivia Reingold, a Free Press staff writer whose bona fides are these:
Olivia Reingold co-created and executive produced Matthew Yglesias’s podcast, “Bad Takes.” She got her start in public radio, regularly appearing on NPR for her reporting on indigenous communities in Montana. She previously produced podcasts at POLITICO, where she shaped conversations with world leaders like Jens Stoltenberg.
And this is her intro to the film:
That was one of 14 pro-Palestinian rallies I’ve attended since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Like the Rockefeller Christmas tree, the activists behind these events consider innocuous institutions to be their enemies: Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Cancer Center, the American Museum of Natural History, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
They insist that their aim is to liberate Palestinians, and that they are not antisemitic. But attend enough of these demonstrations and you’ll start to see the swastikas. Some people have looked me in the eyes and said that Israelis are the new Nazis, the prime minister of Israel is the new Hitler, and Palestinians are the new Jews. Out of the scores of people I’ve spoken to, only two demonstrators told me that Israel has a right to exist.
The word Jew is rarely uttered by these protesters. Instead, people hurl terms like Zionist, settler-colonialist, and occupier. They speak of academic theories like decolonization and intersectionality—concepts many told me they learned at elite institutions like Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.
I decided to go to the source of these ideas: The American campus, where I spoke to scores of anti-Israel activists and dozens of Jewish college students across the country.
I asked: How did an ideology once restricted to the ivory tower come to inspire masses of Americans chanting on behalf of Hamas and Yemeni Houthis? How did Gen Z, the most educated generation in U.S. history, become sympathetic to terrorism? And, most fundamentally, how did our colleges come to abandon the pursuit of truth in pursuit of something far darker?
The result is The Free Press’s first-ever documentary, American Miseducation.
The questions she asks in her last paragraph aren’t really answered, although Critical Theory seems to be a good solution: the oppressor-narrative combined with some undercover anti-Semitism. But the movie poses its own questions. Is there really a difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism? Should antisemitic or anti-Palestinian speech be deemed hate speech? Who is being most targeted by campus demonstrations: the pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian students? (I’ve seen both groups claim that they are being oppressed.) My sympathies have been made clear on this site, but I’ll withhold them for now, for you should just watch this short movie.
After seeing this movie, Malgorzata told me glumly. “The good life for American Jews is coming to an end. . . . they are now more or less in the same situation that German Jews were in after Hitler came to power in 1933. The antisemitism started slowly, but then grew over time until it became too late escape.” As to what kind of anti-semitism will grow in America, she said, that cannot be predicted.
I was just trying to watch it on TFP but it sends you to sign in on a google acoount which i do not have (my paranoia on password security). So same thing here. Is there any way to view this by simply clicking on you tube or do i have to join yet another list? Age restricted? I am 75 for ceiling cat’s sake.
Gen Z most educated? Maybe so quantitatively but with what content?
Yes, just click on “Watch on YouTube” or go here:
Thanks for the try, but it seems to be insisting that I create a google account. I’ll just miss this one. Too bad but thanks for the try.
I don’t think the U.S. is in a pre-Hitler situation as took place in Germany.
At least not yet.
The cancer of fascism was the culmination of centuries of brutal atrocities against
Jews in Europe and the Middle East inspired in many ways by the idiocy
of Christianity and Islam and their bureaucracies determined to control the world.
Religion is the curse of the human race.
Are you saying that atheists can’t be antisemites? Or that if Jews would only become atheists themselves the Muslims (this time around) would stop hating them? And the antisemitic atheists would welcome them into the fold?
Antisemitism transcends religion. It is a gross over-simplification to imagine that it would go away if religion disappeared. The antisemitism of official Christianity in the past is a red herring. Universal world atheism is an impossibly big ask with Muslim fanaticism as it is, was, and ever shall be. What drives antisemitism today in elite liberal circles is the one-dimensional areligious and secular doctrine of oppression, masquerading as anti-Zionism, making common cause with the Caliphate.
The text says: ” How did Gen Z, the most educated generation in U.S. history, become sympathetic to terrorism? ”
In the text, there is a link supposed to provide evidence for the assertion that “Generation Z” (as a whole) is sympathetic to terrorism. But when I go to see there, I can’t find any corroboration of that allegation. Am I missing something? Just asking, maybe I overlooked it.
I don’t think you meant to reply to me, but I will agree that the large burden of antisemitism among young people mentioned in the film runs counter to what I, too, have read elsewhere. In my age group (>65 — we vote!), support for Israel is something like 93%. In the 18-24 group it is lower but still a majority. Not everyone in that demographic is a student at an elite college.
Of course an atheist can be antisemitic but historically the brain washing
has come from religion. Study the history of Europe after Constantine and
you’ll find that revenge on the “Christ killers” was a strong motivation.
And of course many Jews would not accept Jesus as the Messiah:
another fatal sin. Islam as the “religion of peace” is a fairy tale and the
history of Mohammed’s conquests after he gained ascendancy is more than enough evidence against this myth.
The idiots on campus and elsewhere promoting this antisemitic crap seriously need to study the history of what happened in Germany before and during
the coming of the Third Reich.
“Some people have looked me in the eyes and said that Israelis are the new Nazis, the prime minister of Israel is the new Hitler, and Palestinians are the new Jews.”
Then there are the Black Hebrew Israelites, who claim that they are the real Jews, and all other Jews are imposters.
In a different way, other kinds of shape-shifting are much in the air lately. Students unable to find the Jordan River or the Mediterranean Sea on a map get excitement from donning a keffiyeh to chant something about a river and a sea at demos. Pretendians keep turning up at academic institutions. Indulgence of individuals who claim they were “born in the wrong body” is now conventional in “Progressive” doctrine. The new focus on identity is thus also combined with a lot identity shifting. I wonder what this reveals about the psychological bases of wokery?
RE Jerry writing: After seeing this movie, Malgorzata told me glumly. “The good life for American Jews is coming to an end. . . . they are now more or less in the same situation that German Jews were in after Hitler came to power in 1933.”
I was going to say “I think Malgorzata is wrong.” But then I noticed the phrase “more or less” in her quote. So the phrase that’s following “more or less” could mean many things.
American Jews are certainly not in the situation of German Jews after Hitler came to power in 1933. Who is (are) the equivalent politician(s) to Hitler: pathologically antisemitic and politically powerful?
I recommend reading this:
Musa al-Gharbi: It’s Easy to Misunderstand Antisemitism in America. Jan 11, 2024
https://musaalgharbi.com/2024/01/11/misunderstanding-antisemitism-america/
Summary
despite the ignoble history of antisemitism in the US and some unfortunate contemporary trends, the US is not awash with bigotry and oppression.
“Moreover, colleges and universities do not foment antisemitism or anti-Israeli sentiment …”
Qatar must be disappointed the billions of dollars it has spent on Middle East Studies departments in the US have been wasted. Oh, wait…
https://www.algemeiner.com/2022/03/23/middle-east-studies-association-votes-to-boycott-israel/
Musa al-Gharbi is a staunch DEI proponent who conveniently claims that “left ideology doesn’t drive antisemitism in America, if anything it helps suppress it” who simultaneously argues Zionism is “an ethnonationalist and religious project, [and] should be expected to be increasingly unpopular …”
He is devoting an awful lot of ink to the proposition that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. I don’t buy it.
Can you provide some evidence for the claim that “Musa al-Gharbi is a staunch DEI proponent”?
You take exception with the claim that ““left ideology doesn’t drive antisemitism in America, if anything it helps suppress it.” How is “left ideology” defined? Most people who are left are not woke. I’m a leftist and I hate wokeness, hate DEI, and support Israel. I would be surprised if al-Gharbi confounds leftism with wokeness. Al-Gharbi has a book in the works about wokeness which will be published by Princeton University Press.
“Can you provide some evidence for the claim that “Musa al-Gharbi is a staunch DEI proponent”?”
I can not, for I got this completely wrong. He is NOT a staunch DEI proponent, in fact he has bravely documented the lack of efficacy of DEI initiatives. Mea culpa and my apologies for being incredibly sloppy.
“You take exception with the claim that “left ideology doesn’t drive antisemitism in America, if anything it helps suppress it.”
I stand by that. Wokism is exclusively “left ideology”, certainly not right ideology, and I would assert that it and the intersectionality of CRT are the basis for the majority of the explosion of anti-Israel demonstrations and anti-Semitism we see in the recent Western world today. I too am “a leftist and I hate wokeness, hate DEI, and support Israel” but I am not going to minimize its impact, or its genesis in and promulgation by the academic left.
I find al-Garbi’s (mis)characterizations of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and the nature of Zionism as obviously odious repugnant, and his arguments against both distorted and disputable in the article to which you linked.
I disagree about “wokism” being an “exclusively ‘left ideology'”. I have argued here at WEIT that “wokeness” is orthogonal to the traditional left-right political axis, noting that actual Marxists are among its sharpest critics, and that capitalists seem to like it just fine. As I wrote in 2020:
GCM
It is certainly true that there are anti-woke people across the political spectrum. Wokeness, however, seems to be much more common among poeople who at least claim to be on the left, and are on the left on other issues. With regard to right-wing racism, yes, they also put a group (their own) at the top of the pyramid, whereas the woke put some real or imagined-to-be oppressed group at the top. There the similarity ends, though. There are other woke ideas (“sex is a spectrum”, “self-ID trumps science”) which have nothing to do with right-wing racism and no Orban-like people subscribe to them.
Even I, a non-Jew, started sensing 15+ years ago that the relative tranquility, in the West, that Jews were made to purchase with the Holocaust was in disintegration.
And when I saw the notion of “Equity” being put forth, I knew this was going to translate into vast Jew-hatred. Afterall, if you are so persecuted, How can you also be so successful? The sin of the Jews is to be successful in spite of mass persecution…..and this is THE cardinal sin against intersectionality.
But clarification, What does this mean: “As to what kind of anti-semitism will grow in America, she said, that cannot be predicted.” Is it a reference to how viral and punitive it will be? Job discrimination? Kristallnacht? Much, much worse?
Peter Boghossian said in one of his Street Epistemology sessions – in the context of that session, a dialogue – that instead of “antisemitism” to use “Jew hating” – for clarity.
Just today, driving around I was recalling the recent 12-year old that interviewed a protester, all I could remember about “Anti-Zionism” was … basically in the end, Jews are getting trashed, somehow.
”the most educated generation in U.S. history.”
We can change this to “most credentialed,” for whatever those credentials are worth. It still amazes me that people point to grades, graduation rates, and on-to-college numbers as though they can then compare the intellect and knowledge of one generation to another. Hint: an “A” doesn’t mean what it once did; a college diploma doesn’t mean what it once did; a high school diploma doesn’t, either. We are sending the middle of the bell curve to college—the standards of admission and graduation, when they exist, can be dismally deficient. But as long as the tuition checks don’t bounce, we can pretend all is well.
Finally got a chance to view this. Very disturbing. That’s pretty much all I can say. This will be very hard to fix—an entire generation poisoned.