At Smith College, Antisemitic Acts Lead to Condemnation of Islamophobia

Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts responded to recent antisemitic incidents on campus by condemning “Islamophobia” and pledging to review an anti-Zionist group’s demand that the school adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Does this strike you, as it does me, as peculiar? More on what’s been going on at Smith, and the administration’s tone-deaf response, can be found here: “Smith College Condemns Islamophobia in Response to Antisemitic Graffiti, Says School Considering BDS Measure,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, March 6, 2024:

Late last month, someone graffitied a swastika on campus and stole several mezuzahs, small parchment scrolls containing Hebrew verses from the Torah that members of the Jewish community fix to their doorposts. The Daily Wire first reported the story on X/Twitter.

The school’s president, Sarah Willie-LeBreton, addressed the incidents in a letter to the campus community last week. She proclaimed that there is “no place for antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any form of hate at Smith College,” demonstrating what higher education experts have described as a reluctance on the part of university presidents to address antisemitism as a standalone problem.

If there had been any suggestion of “Islamophobia” on the Smith campus, that would have been one thing, but there was none. No Muslims had been insulted, not a single microaggression had been reported by any Muslim students or faculty, no one tugged at someone’s hijab or passed around pictures of Muhammad. So why did Willie-LeBreton think she had better mention “Islamophobia” in an expression of equal-opportunity indignation? Why can’t antisemitism be denounced on its own, without this insensate urge to always mention Islamophobia with it in the same breath, especially when there hasn’t been any Islamophobia in the first place? What would Sarah Willie-LeBreton, an African-American, think if, during the Black Lives Matter kerfuffle, someone had announced that “after the death of George Floyd, we can no longer be silent. We must take a stand against white racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia”? I don’t think she’d be pleased.

Willie-LeBreton should have responded to the precise matter at hand — antisemitism — and not diluted the message to include nonexistent outrages. Here is what she might have said: “It is my sad duty to report that all is not well on our campus. Mezuzahs have been stolen. A swastika has appeared on campus. This is antisemitism. It must not be tolerated. When the perpetrators are found, if they turn out to be students, they will be expelled. If they are faculty or staff, they will be fired. I don’t think there is more that need be said.”

Willie-LeBreton continued, listing actions the college is taking in response to the incidents, including “considering a divestment request” which was proposed by the anti-Zionist campus club Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). According to SJP, the school has already acceded to their demand that products sold by Sabra Dipping Company, LLC, owned by PepsiCo and the Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group Ltd., be banned from campus. The group has repeatedly vowed to target Smith’s endowment, hoping to force the school to divest from companies that conduct business in or with Israel….

Does it make sense — moral sense — after mezuzahs have been stolen and at least one swastika written somewhere on campus for Smith’s president to immediately announce that the college is considering a BDS request from Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that has accused Israel of genocide?

SJP protesters routinely chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free.” Does Sarah Willie-LeBreton know what that means? It means that the Jewish state must disappear, to be replaced by a twenty-third Arab one. The Jews who are now in Israel will be expelled, or killed. That is the true call for “genocide.”

It wouldn’t surprise you, would it, if members of SJP — the organization that demands that Smith enforce BDS, and stop buying products linked to Israel — turned out to be the ones writing swastikas and stealing mezuzahs? After all, the group has a long record of terrorizing Jewish students on dozens of campuses. Why would they not attempt the same at Smith?

Hussain Abdul-Hussain of, [sic] Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank based in Washington DC, challenged the college to cite one example of anti-Muslim conduct, and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) on Campus denounced Willie-LeBreton’s response as “irresponsible and dangerous.” Other users weighed in, calling Smith College “beyond parody” and an “utter failure.”

Abdul-Hussain, of course, is correct. There have not been any “anti-Muslim acts” at Smith, because had there been, CAIR would have yelled to high heaven about them. Of course, at this point, Muslims on campus may help Willie-LeBreton out by suddenly remembering that they had had their hijabs snatched, or someone made an unpleasant face which, of course, was prompted by “Islamophobia.”

On Monday, after Jewish students at Tufts University were spit on and called antisemitic epithets during a student government session held to consider passing four BDS resolutions, university spokesperson Patrick Collins said “Islamophobic words” are entirely unacceptable. By chance, three reporters from The Tufts Daily who were present for the session did not record overhearing any utterances of anti-Muslim rhetoric….

But there were not any “Islamophobic words” uttered at the student government session. Three reporters with the student newspaper said they had not heard any. So why did the university spokesman Patrick Collins say that “Islamophobic words” were unacceptable when none had been uttered? And why did he say nothing about the actual antisemitic hate displayed, when Jewish students were spit on, and made the object of “antisemitic epithets”? Like Willie-LeBreton, Collins was determined to downplay any antisemitism and to emphasize nonexistent instances of Islamophobia.

It seems that few want to denounce antisemitism by itself; it must always be joined at the hip, like Chang and Eng, with Islamophobia — even when there have been no incidents of islamophobia to deplore.

There has been a horrifying surge in antisemitism on campuses — not just name-calling, but physical violence — including holding temporarily hostage, spitting on, and beating up, Jewish students. There are no reports, anywhere, of Muslim students being subject to any of this. So why must deploring “antisemitism” always be accompanied by anathematizing a non-existent Islamophobia? Isn’t this a grotesque case of wanting to be “even-handed”?