Anti-Zionism on Campus Quotes

“But in our zeal for activism, we have forgotten that when a student government takes a side in a conflict, when it decides that there are not two sides after all, it thereby abandons its role in the scholarly mission of the institution for the activism. And as the Judicial Board noted, where a student government's objective should be to protect and promote the interests of minorities, including minority opinions, against the tyranny of the majority, when the government chooses one side, it becomes the tyrannical majority instead. That is the moment when the activism begotten by scholarship overthrows the scholarship - the moment when the university launches its own destruction.”
― Andrew Pessin, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“When the very professors and departments are the source of the hatred and disseminate propaganda disguised as fact and offer speakers without credentials as if they are experts, what chance, really, does the next generation of students have of learning the truth about Israel?”
― Daniel Swindell, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Part of the reason it's so hard to defend Israel is that facts and truth have lost their importance and been replaced by feeling and emotion.”
― Jared Samilow, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“One wonders how organizations that don't care about truth and facts are permitted to operate on college campuses, where you would think that truth and facts are important values.”
― Tomer Kornfeld, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“When we permit the anti-Israel hostility, we permit the antisemitism. We can no longer permit it.”
― Eliana Kohn, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“When the campus allows just a single narrative, the open-minded students do not seem so open-minded anymore. They have already made their decisions on who is oppressed and who is not. It's no surprise that when you've decided that Jewish students are privileged white kids, you've decided that antisemitism is impossible - even as you demonstrate it yourself.”
― Eliana Kohn, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“To exist should not be to resist but to coexist. To exist should be to dialogue. To compromise. To strive toward peace. To reject these values is to threaten lives on both sides of the struggle.”
― Jesse Arm, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Instead of working to engage debate and refute contentious ideas, students and faculty are shutting down avenues of inquiry and blocking the attempts of others to examine difficult issues. Such bullying stymies learning and is anti-intellectual.”
― Jill Schneiderman, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Academic freedom does allow for protest. Students should protest and argue about positions with which they disagree. But academic freedom does not imply that differences of opinion may be voiced via taunts, nor does it suggest that intimidation is a legitimate and productive means to affect change. Academic freedom does not mean that students should be pressured to avoid unique and difficult educational opportunities because others impugn them.”
― Jill Schneiderman, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“The more I read about the group, however, the clearer it became that it lacks a focused ideological backbone. It, in fact, provides a virtual home for postmodern anticolonialist views, communism, and even Jihadism. Mostly, it provides a reference group for young students who look for social ties and a sense of self-significance. Not surprisingly, though, the strongest ideological denominators among many of the activists were anti-Israelism and antisemitism.”
― Ami Pedahzur, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Targeted abuse of Jewish students is called free speech.”
― Jan Poddebsky, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Selective neutrality should be the instrument with which the university administration distinguishes those who contribute to a respectful campus climate and productive discourse and debate from those who disrupt such a climate and discriminate against various identities. It must be selective, not in the sense of being inconsistent but in the sense of defining and shaping appropriate campus norms.”
― Judea Pearl, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“The one-way prism worn by BDS advocates is most glaring when it comes to the issue of self-determination. Some of their intellectuals preach for hours and hours on the moral right of Palestinians to self-determination. At the same time, they intentionally forget, wish away, or deny the moral right of their neighbors to that same self-determination. In the old days, we used to label such intellectuals racists and shun them from the company of those of goodwill. Nowadays, the label racist is reserved primarily for Islamophobes and white settlers, real and imaginary, while the distinct racist character of the BDS ideology is rarely condemned for what it is. It is time to change that.”
― Judea Pearl, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“As many of us have witnessed, BDS tactics are brilliant. Boycott has never been its aim; what university would go along with such a childish, antiacademic idea? Its aim has always been to bombard campuses with an endless stream of anti-Israel resolutions. The charges may vary from season to season, the authors may rotate, and it matters not whether a resolution passes or fails, nor whether it is condemned or hailed. The victory lies in having a stage, a microphone, and a finger pointing at Israel saying, 'On trial!”
― Judea Pearl, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“As we have seen in Donald Trump's Republican primary campaign, delivering insults instead of confronting arguments is an effective tactic. In BDS's case, it purports to replace fear with contempt.”
― Cary Nelson, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“The episodes demonstrate the now-mainstream leftist belief that even those Jewish or Israeli voices that are critical of Israeli occupation must be silenced, for only eliminationist discourse is acceptable.”
― Philip Mendes, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“BDS is propaganda. It operates as such. Continuous repetition of simple messages is reinforced by threat of social alienation. It is surprising how well it propagates its message of diametrically opposite factors, the sources of good and the sources of evil.”
― Shlomo Dubnov, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

“Countering speech with speech is important and theoretically sounds wonderful, but the reality is frequently less speech against speech than screaming against screaming and a generalized escalation of tensions (and toxicity) surrounding Israel on campus.”
― Jeffrey Kopstein, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS