Reprimand at York

Engage is reporting that York University has officially fined and reprimanded the ringleaders of the student mob which created a hostage scene in which Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves in the campus Hillel for their own safety. Jewlicious has more background.

I noted at the time that, while the putative dispute had nothing to do with Israel (instead focusing on the York Federation of Students support for an on-campus strike), the ringleaders nonetheless tried to argue that the Jewish membership of the anti-YFS contingent was solely motivated by a desire to oppose pro-Palestinian groups on campus -- one advocate bluntly stated that "The public positions put forward by this campaign cannot be taken at face value." This, of course, justified an angry mob chasing a largely Jewish group across campus with cries of "die, bitch, go back to Israel" and "die, Jew, get the hell off campus."

The assertion that any and all Jewish political agency is a facade for "Zionist" ends is hardly isolated. We've all heard how the (Jewish) neoconservatives' pressed to invade Iraq for the benefit of Israel (whether Israel actually benefited is, of course, left unclear). Most conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the media/banks/financial markets/entertainment industry assume that these are subject to Zionist manipulations. The very statement which spawned the Livingstone formulation was likewise over a controversy that had nothing to do with Israel, until Mayor Livingstone declared that "I don’t believe a word of it" -- it being the possibility that Jewish groups would oppose an anti-Semitic statement directed at a Jewish reporter for reasons independent of one's position on Israel. The idea that Jews might have additional reasons for being uncomfortable with the Chas Freeman nomination was treated as being an utter absurdity. "Anti-Zionist Zionist" Steve Cohen wryly noted that simply noting the existence of anti-Semitism on the left rendered nullities all his public statements opposing Zionism as "platitudes". I could go on, and on.

This assumption is utterly lethal to Jewish participation in the political sphere. When tied in this way to presumed Jewish deception and malfeasance, there is literally no way for Jews to assert political opinions without watching them be pre-emptively dismissed as "Zionist". Cohen demonstrates that even opposing Zionism doesn't immunize from this treatment, but conditioning Jewish political participation on them disavowing Zionist ideas (as we saw in Venezuela and South Africa) would be anti-Semitic in of itself (the mid-century National Review did not cease to be racist just because it found George Schuyler).

The ringleaders of the York riot are, predictably, crying about how they are being victimized for "stand[ing] up against racism." They show virtually no awareness of how deeply their actions re-entrenched it. A violent mob organized around the fundamentally anti-Semitic idea that Jewish activists don't have any beliefs but Zionism (and if they say otherwise, they're lying)? That's the core of racism, staring you in the face.