CUNY's Anti-Israel Crowd Meets to Redefine Antisemitism
On Wednesday, October 26, 2022, CUNY4Palestine, CUNY Law’s Students for Justice in Palestine and CUNY’s Jewish Law Students Association are hosting a teach-in featuring Within Our Lifetime (WOL) founder and CUNY Law alum, Nerdeen Kiswani.
Event Link: tiny.cc/C4POct26IHRA
The purpose of this teach-in is to oppose the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism by City University of New York (CUNY) and to “discuss current students' organizing to defeat IHRA for the second time in two years.”
The IHRA definition has been accepted by 38 countries, including the United States, and supported by the UN Secretary-General and the European Union.
The event, titled “IHRA AND THE CO-OPTATION OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ANTISEMITISM: INTERSECTIONAL PALESTINE ORGANIZING AT CUNY AND BEYOND,” comes at a time when antisemitism has been put center stage by rapper Kanye West.
Yet while most Americans have expressed disgust for West’s bigotry, recognizing it clearly for what it is, Kiswani and her ilk have chosen this time to lecture others about how antisemitism should be defined.
The IHRA definition says it is antisemitic to deny Jews the right to self-determination. In addition, it says it is antisemitic to hold Israel to standards not required by any other democratic country.
These points are rejected by Kiswani, Within Our Lifetime and others who identify themselves as anti-Zionists.
CUNY’s history with the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism is checkered. In April 2021, CUNY’s Student Senate voted not to adopt the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. Then, in September 2022, under pressure due to its pending case with the federal government, CUNY announced it would be “expanding [its] DEI training for staff, administrators, and student leaders to help them understand and recognize the various forms of antisemitism.”
CUNY said this effort would include “utilizing educational tools such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.”
CUNY: A “Hostile Environment” for Jews
CUNY, a publicly-funded school, has been the subject of allegations of rampant antisemitism dating back at least to 2015. That’s when the first report investigating antisemitism at CUNY was commissioned by CUNY’s chancellor.
The atmosphere on CUNY’s campuses has not changed much since then. A complaint filed as recently as July 2022 with the U.S. Department of Education charges that CUNY has created a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students” and committed violations of the federal Civil Rights Act.
Case in point: Kiswani, a recent graduate of CUNY’s School of Law, was chosen to speak at her commencement ceremony, despite her long history of antisemitism. Kiswani has a history of calling for the death of Zionists and Israel’s destruction. She supports and incites violent resistance and honors leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terror group, among other terrorists.
(Kiswani’s group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL) was previously known as NYC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a radical and aggressive anti-Israel group. In 2018, Kiswani rebranded it as Within Our Lifetime.)
Another speaker at the “teach-in” also hails from CUNY: Fatima Mohammed, who is affiliated with CUNY Law’s SJP chapter.
At a March 30th, 2022, WOL-led protest targeting Jewish organizations, Mohammed instructed activists to “Demand that Zionist professors are not welcomed on your campus. Demand that Zionist students are not in spaces where Palestinian students are.”
These anti-Israel groups have been shutting down attempts to quell the rising antisemitism at CUNY for years. Every time the topic of antisemitism comes up, these groups come along, shouting above the noise to silence Jewish voices.
Just a few examples of this include:
December 2021: CUNY’s Law Student Government Association passed a resolution that essentially attempted to ban Hillel and other Jewish institutions from campus.
April 2021: The Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA) at CUNY Law, along with several SJP chapters, WOL, IfNotNow, JVP, AMP, Al-Awda, and many other allied groups, campaigned against a University Student Senate (USS) Resolution entitled “Condemning Anti-Semitism and Supporting the CUNY Jewish Community.” In an attempt to redefine antisemitism, they launched a major campaign against the internationally recognized definition of antisemitism -- #IHRAoutofCUNY. Ultimately, these groups prevented CUNY USS from adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
June 2022: After an NYC council hearing was called to investigate the antisemitism growing on CUNY campuses, the anti-Israel group CUNY4Palestine attempted to gaslight Jewish students by claiming that the hearing was “nothing more than an attempt to quell student organizing and criticism of Israeli state colonial and apartheid rule" and encouraged supporters to send an email to the CUNY administration to "let them know that they should be supporting CUNY students and workers organizing in solidarity with Palestinian liberation - not throwing them under the bus."
Antisemitic Violence in New York Incited by Within Our Lifetime
The CUNY event also comes on the heels of the last two years of unending violence against Jews in New York. The NYPD has recorded 195 confirmed incidences of hate crimes against Jews in 2022. This consists of 41% of all confirmed hate crimes in 2022.
A number of the attacks have coincided with countless protests held all over NYC’s five boroughs by Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime (WOL).
These demonstrations are consistently peppered with hate-filled and violent rhetoric, including WOL’s most prominent slogan: “Resistance By Any Means.”
Examples of Violent Language From Anti-Israel Rallies in NYC
Violent Attacks by WOL Activists
WOL activists have been responsible for some of the most coordinated and violent anti-Semitic attacks on individual Jews in New York, including:
The attack on Joseph Borgen, a young Jewish man who was on his way to a pro-Israel rally on May 20, 2021, in Manhattan. Borgen was simply wearing a yarmulke on his head when a menacing group of activists, including Waseem Awawdeh, surrounded Borgen and began punching him, kicking him and beating him to the ground.
“I felt a liquid being poured on my face and at first I thought I was getting urinated on,” reported Borgen, “but it turned out I was getting maced and pepper sprayed. My face was on fire. That pain was worse than the concussion and all this other stuff that followed.”
Awawdeh was arrested for the assault and charged with hate crime assault, gang assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.
The attack on Matt Greenman in Midtown Manhattan on April 20, 2022. Greenman was on his way to a pro-Israel rally, wearing an Israeli flag on his back and supporting himself on a crutch for a sprained foot. Saadah Masoud, a leading WOL activist, began following Greenman.
“He started getting closer, along with his friends who got near me,” Greenman recounted, “and then from behind he attacked me, threw me down, punched and kicked me in the face a bunch, and then he left and said, ‘That’s what you get for being a terrorist.’ I went to the ER, was told I have a mild concussion and a possible fracture above the eye.”
Masoud is facing federal hate crime charges for the attack.
Let Jews Define Their Own Discrimination
Despite what is being shown in the media, the antisemitism facing Jews in America is not just coming from Kanye West or the white supremacists that are supporting him. Jews are feeling the heat from all sides.
Right now what is sorely needed is for the world to recognize antisemitism whether it comes from the right or the left, whether it comes from white supremacists or the anti-Israel crowd. Not only when it is convenient.
Let the Jews define their own discrimination. (Not a small tokenized minority that pushes down its own people, but the majority who understand that anti-Zionism is just another form of antisemitism.)
No other minority is forced to redefine their discrimination based on the needs of those who want to discriminate against them.
KIswani, WOL and the other anti-Israel groups have no right to define antisemitism, and CUNY must do what it takes to turn the tide on the wave of antisemitism in their midst. Whether you vow to “go deathcon 3” on the Jews, or you are screaming to “Globalize the Intifada,” both are serious forms of antisemitism that can lead to real violence against Jews.
A Final Note to the CUNY Administration:
Have the courage to protect your Jewish students. Enact the IHRA fully and make it clear once and for all that Zionists and Jews will not be demonized on your campuses.