My friend Maarten Boudry, a Belgian philosopher, has been increasingly demonized for his heterodox views, especially on the Hamas/Israel war, since he is sympathetic to Israel (he isn’t Jewish). In the latest post on his Substack site, also published in condensed form in The Jewish Chronicle, Maarten recounts how there is a near-unanimity among European academics that Israel is the Great Satan. Any dissent on this issue is ruthlessly suppressed. Because of this, one gets a false impression, says Boudry, that European academia is united in hating Israel, Zionists, and, by extension, Jews.
Boudry himself, as you see below, has lost his position at the University of Ghent because of his outspokenness. In the article he does a small experiment showing that there is indeed dissent that Israel is committing “genocide”, but academics who disagree about the Israeli “genocide” dare not speak up. This “spiral of silence”, as Steve Pinker calls it, suppresses speech, and is one reason why many American universities are beginning to adopt institutional neutrality—a policy that promotes free expression.
Click below to read the Substack piece. 
Unless you’re in Europe, you have no idea how strong and pervasive the anti-Israel pressure is. In an article in Quillette, Maarten and I described how we and another academic were canceled from giving a talk at the University of Amsterdam on the ideological suppression of science—a talk that had absolutely nothing to do with Israel. And yet we were explicitly told by the student science organization that our talk was cancelled because of our views on Israel. That was my first experience with cancellation, and believe me, it affected me strongly. I couldn’t believe that fellow scientists were blackballing us simply because of our views on the war, and for a talk that had nothing to do with that war. We were, apparently, tainted.
But on to Maarten’s narrative; his quotes are indented below. He begins by describing the academic consensus that Israel aims at genocide in Gaza, and recounts his own demonization.
In Europe, social pressure is even more intense than in the United States. A petition opposing the IAGS resolution garnered hundreds of signatories in the U.S., but only a handful in Europe—primarily in Germany and around a single London-based center for antisemitism research. In the Low Countries, where I live, my stance on the Gaza war has left me increasingly isolated within the ivory tower. In an interview with the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, the rector of my alma mater, Ghent University, declared that any academic questioning the genocide in Gaza can no longer rely on the protections of academic freedom: “This is a line that cannot be crossed.” Five professors have called on the previous rector to discipline me for my “Zionist-tinged” views. I’ve also been deplatformed twice at the University of Amsterdam for my views on Israel, a matter I detailed inQuillette together with my friend and fellow cancellee, the biologist Jerry Coyne.
And yet, for the past two years, I have been receiving regular emails from academic colleagues that can be summarized as follows: “I completely agree with you and am glad that you’re fighting this battle, but please keep it quiet—I don’t want to get into trouble.” The social pressure to condemn Israel, preferably in the strongest possible terms, has become so intense that many dissidents no longer dare to speak out. After a number of such discreet messages of support, I began to grow annoyed. To the outside world, it appeared as if I was the only academic rejecting the official narrative—but in reality, many others agreed with me.
This reluctance to speak up gives rise to what psychologists call pluralistic ignorance: people mistakenly assume that they are alone in holding a dissenting opinion and therefore either remain silent or misrepresent their own views, inadvertently perpetuating the illusion of consensus and raising the social cost of dissent.
Maarten then did a nonscientific experiment (there could have been respondent bias), but one showing there’s a lot more sympathy for Israel than you’d guess from living as a European academic:
In the spirit of the [“Emperor has no clothes”] fable, I wanted to see whether there was a way to break the spell. What if people could anonymously explain why they believed the emperor was naked, without exposing themselves to social or professional risk? To test this, I collected anonymous testimonies from academics with dissenting views on Israel and Gaza, by putting out a call on X in Dutch. The testimonies that landed in my inbox were both sobering and chilling.
Chilling to the reader, but also chilling to speech. Academics in Europe won’t dare to speak in sympathy with Israel, or contest the stupid “genocide” canard against Israel, for fear of professional repercussions. There’s a long list of responses, but I’ll give only a few:
A senior lecturer at a Dutch university writes: “I’m afraid to share my thoughts freely with my colleagues and feel restricted in my freedom to speak openly about this.” A philosophy professor describes academic debate on the war in Gaza as effectively “impossible”: “Critical voices are silenced through exclusion, dismissal, and sometimes even violence. In such circumstances, I don’t feel compelled to express my critical thoughts openly.” Another Dutch lecturer admits bluntly: “I certainly keep my mouth shut about my views to my colleagues.”
. . . . Among the testimonies are also voices with the relevant expertise, rarely heard in mainstream media. A professor of military law stresses that “extreme caution is required” on the question of genocide and warns against “jumping to conclusions.” Some actors, he notes, “automatically assimilate the conduct of hostilities with acts of genocide, but this reasoning seems incorrect to me.” A doctor of law and former advisor to the International Court of Justice, who has pored over previous genocide dossiers for many years, writes in a lengthy email: “I am not convinced that Israel is committing genocide, but I am currently raising capital and will not risk taking this position publicly.”
Dissenting opinions can be found even at the highest levels of academic institutions. A vice-chancellor of a Belgian university observes: “The Gaza mania that is currently prevailing seems to me a collective madness. The call to declare what Israel is doing a genocide is in line with this.” Yet in official communications, universities often strike a different tone, shaping and constraining the debate. A Ghent academic notes that the election of our new rector Petra De Sutter—who is strongly anti-Israel—further worsened the atmosphere: “I saw this tendency strengthen following the rector elections. Either you were outspoken, or else you were better off keeping quiet. The election result and the political convictions of the new rector have reinforced their ideology.”
. . . .Another lecturer’s testimony illustrates how subtle yet pervasive the professional and social repercussions can be, even for tenured staff: “I stopped reposting and commenting about Israel on X after noticing that my university suddenly stopped sharing any of my achievements. While colleagues were receiving retweets and links to their projects, mine went unnoticed, whereas this had never happened before.” The pressure extended to the social realm, with colleagues unfollowing him or no longer responding to messages. Ultimately, he gave up the fight for family-related reasons: “The decisive factor came when my wife asked me to leave the fight to others. We simply cannot afford to lose our jobs.” Several colleagues describe struggling with guilt for remaining silent, scolding themselves as “cowards” or “sell-outs.”
And the understatement of the year:
Several colleagues explicitly argue that the academic hostility towards Israel stems from antisemitism.
This hostility, says Boudry, also obtains largely in Canada, and in Europe can degenerate into threats of violence for those sympathetic to Israel or Jews:
Even before October 7, an Israeli academic working at a European university relates how he moved his tutorials off campus, because the threat of physical violence was constantly on his mind, even though his academic field was completely unrelated to Israel or the Middle East: “I always worried about being known as an Israeli and outspoken about my views that someone could just show up and attack me.” After the October 7 massacre and the ensuing Gaza war, of course the situation became far worse. An anti-Zionist website hosted on a server in the Netherlands even placed bounties for assassination as high as $100,000 on the heads of Israeli academics.
If you think this violence is directed simply against “Zionists”, and has nothing to do with Jews, I have some land in Florida to sell you. People didn’t stop to survey people’s views on Israel before they commit massacres on Australian beaches or in American synagogues.
In the end, Boudry concludes that censoriousness, threats of professional reprisal, and threats of violence have produced an artificial and false consensus about Israel being The Great Satan:
The academic consensus on Israel is, therefore, partly a mirage. Pluralistic ignorance, suppression of dissent and fear of professional and social reprisal have produced an artificial unanimity that is untethered from evidence and reasoned debate. In particular, the “Gaza genocide” accusation has become the Left’s equivalent of the stolen election hoax on the American Right—a baseless claim that signals ideological allegiance precisely because it defies logic and evidence. It functions much like mantras such as “men can get pregnant” or “scientific and Indigenous ways of knowing are equally valid”: deep down everyone understands that it’s nonsense, but that is precisely what allows it to serve as an ideological litmus test. Breaking the spiral of silence will require more people to step forward and call out such nonsense, thereby lowering the social cost of dissent.
Again, the only remedy for this is a tough one; dissenters must be willing to speak out in a climate of hostility. And European universities must do more to allow free speech. I don’t know of any university outside the U.S.—though here I may be wrong—that both promotes freedom of speech and maintains an policy of institutional neutrality, whereby the school takes no official position on moral, ideolotical, or political issues. If we think we have things bad in America, remember that it’s far worse across the pond.
******
A poster in Dam Square, Amsterdam, photographed in May, 2024:
As someone who is not Jewish and only in the last few years acquainted himself with the history of modern Israel, I am baffled at how people can conclude that Israel is committing “genocide”.
Most baffling is what happens when Israel does exactly as its opponents want, which is to leave an area completely and leave it to the Palestinians. That happened in 2005/2006 in Gaza…Israel even excavated graves and removed them. And what happened? The Palestinians chose a murderous death cult as its leadership, and promptly began lobbing rockets into Israel. This necessitated a blockade to prevent the transfer of weapons into Gaza…which is then distorted to accuse Israel of abusing the Palestinians.
Anyone who looks at this objectively cannot conclude that the Palestinians made the most of their marvelous opportunity in Gaza, to show the world that they are capable of self-governance and able to live peacefully with their neighbors. Billions spent on making tunnels for terrorists, while that money could have been spent on infrastructure for the people. How can anyone support this?
So those who are so fervently against Israel and are so oblivious to the failures of the Palestinians are either woefully uninformed, or are coming to the situation with anti-Semitic priors.
I’d read Maarten’s Quillette article on the “genocide canard” published in Quillette: “Not even they believe it.”
Yes. Me, too. It was excellent.
A Spiral of Silence is chilling. It’s chilling that so many are willing to admit support for Israel in private but not in public for fear of retribution.
People are often cautious about expressing a heterodox view. When I disagreed with a colleague in print, I was always polite and charitable about it—partly because kindness is a good principle to practice but also because I didn’t want my words to lead to a misunderstanding that could create ill will. Reluctance to express views that go against the grain is quite normal.
But the kind of reluctance that Boudry is talking about is different. He is talking about people refusing to speak because they fear an extreme and pathological response, an inevitable firestorm that threatens social banishment, career destruction, blacklisting, doxxing, threats against family members, and even violence. It’s easy to understand why people remain silent, why they would abandon the Jews to save themselves—a common refrain.
What could possibly explain the deep emotion that would incite people to such a response? What could bring people to think they simply must take it upon themselves to destroy another for expressing a position contrary to the crowd?
In this case the answer is obvious. It’s the deep-seated hatred of the Jews and of Israel—a hatred to which intellectuals are not immune. Jews in our midst are tolerable so long as they stay below the radar. But the Jews of the State of Israel have the temerity to defend themselves, and that is intolerable.
Norman today’s “new” antisemitism, as I’ve argued here, would be small scale if not for TikTok, primary info source of those under 30 and a wildly pro-Pal platform (about 97%).
The constant refrain from our leaders that (non existent) “WHITE SUPREMACY!” and irrelevant “Neo Nazis” are the cause is wildly off base.
It is all the woke “3rd world socialists” and the increased and more muscular Islamic immigration to the west.
Shalom from NY Norman!
D.A.
NYC
I’m not a TikTok subscriber, so I don’t know what I’m missing. But yes, it’s the left that concerns me the most. Today’s students—mostly inculcated by teachings from the left—are tomorrow’s leaders. Shalom from the Pacific Northwest!
In Europe (where I once lived for several years) there may be another factor in addition to historic antisemitism, Islamic colonization and leftist ideology. A deep shame over complicity in the Holocaust can be alleviated somewhat by pointing to Jews and Israel as the evil ones instead of the barbarian Islamic Hitler-loving savages trying to wipe them out.
“It’s the deep-seated hatred of the Jews and of Israel”.
It may be, but I’m not convinced. I’m not sure that it starts with Jew hatred. I think it’s just as likely that it starts with simply seeing the poor Palestinians as today’s fashionable cause to support. And since Israel kills Palestinians, then Jews are bad.
This knee-jerk position is encouraged by social media, ignorance, and an increasingly influential Muslim population in the West. But, above all, ignorance.
I can only hope that you’re right and that this is just a fad. But Jew-hate does seem always to be available for use when it’s needed.
In respect to the Roolz, I’m done for the day.
Nobody wants to hear about Israel any more. . . .
The expanding anti-Semitism is one of the more troubling facets of a political left that seeks social hegemony, dominates our educational and other cultural production, and loves to police “respectable” discourse. At root, there is an illiberalism at work that is the true “existential threat” to democracy that the left so frequently rails against elsewhere.
“Physician, heal thyself” falls on the deaf ears of those who insist the world’s woes are always elsewhere. Ironic that those who flatter themselves as being the vanguard of progress embrace one of the oldest of hates.
Successful people (particularly) often take this kind of cancellation emotionally hard – aside the illegitimacy of their cancellers. It is often quite personal – like Richard Dawkins’ opinion that his cancellation by a Bay Area radio station of his youth (which later cancelled him for being “Islamophobic”) contributed to his stroke.
Fortunately I’m not nearly successful enough to be seriously cancelled and my long suffering editors are tolerant of my “transphobia” and “Merkava Tank Level Zionism.”
D.A.
NYC
Interesting that the radio station cancelled Dawkins for “Islamophobia” instead of his more frequently expressed “Christophobia”. That tells us what side they are on, but the question is why? I think the answer is fear – a real Islamophobia, meaning fear of Islam, an ideology of intolerance and violence. So they side with that ideology, which is utterly opposed in every possible way to every value they say they endorse, from women’s rights to gay rights to religious tolerance and beyond.
Appalling and frightening. In no way can this be shrugged off as anti Israeli government policy. It is Jew hate, pure and simple. When it comes to anti-semitism, I worry much more about Europe than the US. They like to snear at the US for, well just about everything. But every country in Europe who were required too, cooperated with the Final Solution. They all sent as many of their Jews to the camps as they could (or they killed them in situ). They can do it again and this is how it starts. Europe is not a place of peace and harmony, despite all their finger wagging. They have been trying to kill each other for thousands of years. Now, with their new Muslim neighbors, they are headed on that path again.
I take your point, but it is not quite true that every country
in Europe that had to collaborated with the Holocaust. See:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/rescue-maps
I want to insert a positive note, which is that there are television commercials that are getting pretty regular now that expose antisemitism. The NFL, to their great credit, always posts various commercials with important social messages, and that includes commercials on antisemitism. Here is one of them that aired in the last Super Bowl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6vzc9Kl2M
It is this sort of thing that lends oxygen, however slowly, to turning this damn thing around.
Wow. Thanks, Mark. I hadn’t seen it
There was a spot calling attention to antisemitism last weekend (I can’t remember if it was during the AFC or the NFC playoff game (airing on CBS and FOX, respectively) last weekend. It was by these guys: https://www.bluesquarealliance.org/
In the late 1940s, Pete Seeger’s terrific, pop-Lefty folk group The Weavers used to sing Israeli songs. This ended, no doubt by sheer coincidence, in the 1950s, shortly after Stalin’s USSR realigned with the Arab world, and began spewing out the Israel/colonialism/apartheid/genocide party line. This line has dominated the pop-Left (in academia too) ever since.
I remember “Tzena, tzena” for one
Some parts here might seem to lean toward the “words are violence” view and should be banned. Is asserting a $100,000 bounty on Jewish academics criminal and violent speech? And incorrect though the claim is, should the law criminalize asserting that Israel is committing genocide because it causes harm and could lead to horrific acts like in Australia? I worry the danger is that we inadvertently give credence to claims in diverse areas (e.g., Islamophobia?) about utterances being equivalent to acts of violence and as harmful or leading to harmful acts. Even just thinking about it from a free speech perspective, should we suppress some speech because it leads other people to suppress their speech?
I think that you are painting Europe with too broad a brush. Both me and my wife work in German academia and neither of us has an issue rejecting the Gaza genocide.
I would say the more politicized the field and the more Muslims in the country, the worse the issue. But I would also say that Germany and anything east of it does not have this problem as it is described in your post. The thought of firing a professor for questioning the Gaza genocide is ludicrous.
My academic colleagues in New Zealand were both ignorant and cowardly. Almost none supported me when I spoke up as a Senior Lecturer for reason, evidence, free speech, academic freedom and Israel, against “other ways of knowing,” indigenous perfection, homeopathy, and religious fundamentalism. I believe a university exists to discuss controversial topics, but Human Resources repeatedly summoned me in response to complaints from fanatical parents and students. The union turned woke and useless. Thank heavens for the Free Speech Union. I managed to keep my job to age 65, even winning a Personal Grievance, but I was tired, shunned, lonely and disgusted, my career sabotaged. Retirement at the beach is great.
Congratulations Raymond! A shame your colleagues were not more supportive.
“And gentlemen in [Hamilton] now abed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with [the Free Speech Union].”
Bravo and best wishes, Professor Richards. —From another patient well satisfied with the condition of emeritis.
Can one be sympathetic to the people of both nations (and yeah, I cynically regard them as such, de-facto or de-jure, I don’t care) but have contempt for the leadership of both, albeit for different reasons?
I left what was supposed to be a reply (#14) to your comment, Michael, but it somehow posted as a stand-alone comment. Just so you know.
Got it.
I am not the least bit sympathetic to people who would behead me with glee if they had the chance.
I try not to respond to Michael Sisley’s comments because he has said he has some communication difficulty and I worry that his words can be easily misunderstood. But I think the moral equivalence he expresses here, even if it is just of the “I don’t really know anything at all about the issue but a pox on both their houses” variety does need to be condemned. After all, the “people” of only one “nation” want to push the other into the sea and drown those who survive the march, and then start on the rest of us once victorious in Palestine. Foreign countries have even less control over the political leaders than the citizens. That neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor whoever is leading Hamas this week meets with our approval shouldn’t be an excuse to say there is no difference between them, and what they want to do should they win.
Bravo to Maarten Boudry for his moral clarity in picking the right side and sticking with it.
I’m autistic. So yeah, I can be a bit confusing.
I just have no respect for whoever is running Hamas nor for Netanyahu.
Well, I am and I do.
I’m sympathetic to all but have contempt for the decades of leadership by both who seem to take turns in spoiling the party.
Something hopeful happens then one makes either a subtle or brutal move and back to step one.
Pardon my cynicism.