While the news of Columbia University president Minouche Shafik’s resignation may offer anxious Jewish parents and students some relief, on Sunday, June 2, Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced via Instagram that “We will be back” — a reference to re-erecting the campus encampments that, without a doubt, contributed to the rise of antisemitism on college campuses.
So much so that a recent ruling from a judge called the UCLA encampments “unimaginable and abhorrent” as they forced Jewish students to “denounce their faith” in order to participate in campus life. So incensed was U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi that in granting a preliminary injunction filed by three Jewish students against the school, Scarsi could not help voicing his shock: “This fact [the exclusion of Jewish students from campus life] … bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.”
And while the surge of antisemitism has been widely covered, celebrating the resignation of various college presidents may be shortsighted, as the problem of antisemitism does not reside in Claudine Gay, Minouche Shafik or Liz Magill, but in the institutions that have provided an imprimatur for antisemitism to flourish for the past two decades. The institutions here are the universities that champion tolerance and inclusivity but, as we have seen, betray those very values when it comes to certain groups that do not align with the worldview espoused by their favored ideologues: the dangerous alliance between the far left and radical Islam, known as the Red-Green Alliance.
Who bears responsibility for the proliferation of lethal ideologies contributing to hostility and fears for physical safety in the year 2024 in the United States of America? Treating the university as a microcosm of Western liberal democracies, the role played by students, professors and campus administrators sheds light on how the Red-Green Alliance has taken over our campuses and, by extension, our schools, streets and even our government.
When it comes to understanding the role played by students, the answer is quite simple: give a college student a slogan to chant and a poster to carry and witness the indelible force of student activism sweep before your eyes. That is to say, college and high school students have always cared deeply about amending the world, with restoring climate and racial justice coming in at the top for causes college students rally around. Add to this a mapping of world conflicts around the framework of oppressor and oppressed and a fixation on decolonization. Then a clearer answer emerges to the question of how a conflict — the Hamas-Israel war — in an area the size of Raleigh, North Carolina managed to capture the minds and hearts of American youth this past academic year. An answer that belies the lofty pursuit of social justice activists who care deeply about human rights.
This betrayal of human rights is most vivid in the case of Israel. The slogan “all eyes on Rafah,” hatched earlier in the summer as the IDF entered the city of Rafah in Gaza, begs the question: Where were these eyes when 619,910 were killed in Syria; 150,000 killed in Yemen; six million killed in Congo since 1996; and nearly 20,000 Ukrainian civilians killed as of February 2023? And for those who want to end “systemic racism,” how many of those have their eyes glued to the African continent where an estimated five million blacks are enslaved in Africa today?
Unsurprisingly, therefore, in the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, campuses did not explode with “safe spaces for Ukrainians” or “Russians out” signage and demands that universities divest from Russia. Statues remained untouched: No activist draped the vyshyvanka, a traditional Ukrainian shirt, on a statue of a great American leader nor unfurled the Ukrainian flag in place of an American flag. The reason is that, unlike the Russia-Ukraine war, the Hamas-Israel war is a perfect gateway to take down the West, found in the chants of “We are Hamas,” “Intifada Revolution” and “Long live Hamas!”
In sum, the hijacking of campuses from coast to coast by sympathizers of Hamas, the representative of Muslim Brotherhood-style Sunni political Islam, has very little to do with a conflict thousands of miles away and everything to do with a desire to undermine the United States of America. “Can we get a Marg bar America?” a keffiyeh-clad activist asked Shabbir Rizvi, a Chicago-based activist frequently seen on Iran’s state-run Press TV. Rizvi led the group in an induction ceremony, teaching a roomful of activists to chant “Marg bar Israel”: Farsi for “Death to Israel.”
Once upon a time, chanting “Death to America” and burning American flags happened on Iranian soil and we, in the United States, gaped and covered our mouths. Today, when these alarming trends are happening on our soil, we either do not take them seriously or side with those who wish for our demise. How did this happen?
The students who naively embrace these lethal ideologies may be naive, but the same cannot be said of professors who provide the oxygen for the combustion of antisemitism on our campuses. Indeed, as has been reported by AMCHA, the formation of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) in the immediate days following Oct. 7 is by far the greater threat to our universities, as these radicalized faculty members will continue to spread pro-Hamas rhetoric in their classrooms, provide cover for Israel-bashing, promote the academic boycott of Israel, and ultimately contribute to the demise of our institutions of higher learning.
The coordination of FJP is impeccable. Within days of Oct. 7, 100 founding members emerged at the University of California at Santa Cruz. And on Oct. 8, just one day after the biggest massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a “Day of Resistance Toolkit” was sent to over 1,000 SJP chapters nationwide. This “how-to” manual — sent just one day after the Oct. 7 massacre — instructs students on how to “take over a campus” with ready-made slogans and graphics, including a template of a Hamas terrorist on a paraglider with “insert your name” and “organization logos at the bottom” as helpful tools for creating graphics.
The recent formation of FJP reveals how organized and well-planned the campus takeovers have been, in that the radicalized cohort of faculty members provide the fuel to Students for Justice in Palestine — the Hamas-supporting students who harass our Jewish kids on campuses — by sending letters to campus administrators demanding that students be allowed to act out without consequences. In sum, the faculty plays a most critical role in the racialization of our campuses, for their marshaling orders provide an academic stamp of approval, thus hoodwinking the morally confused administration afraid of bad press and lawsuits.
In sum, the encampments quite literally symbolize the takeover of campuses and reveal how a tiny conflict thousands of miles away has successfully united Marxists and Islamists on the basis of antisemitism, and how this union signals a threat not only to our universities but to the West. Indeed, as antisemitism is the first symptom indicating that the immune system has been compromised, the explosion of this age-old disease must be examined.
Antisemitism: A Lethal Ideology
In her opening statement at the June 19 Munk Debate on antisemitism, attorney Natasha Hausdorff observed that anti-Zionism is “the most important topic of our age.” From the outside, it must seem strange to say, for how could hatred directed at 0.2% of the world’s population be the “most important topic of our times?” However, if you know a thing or two about antisemitism, it is one of the first critical symptoms of a diseased society; it is the alarm system that goes off to signal decay within a society.
At its core, antisemitism is an ideology, a belief system, that views the Jew or Jews collectively as representing that which is most abhorrent and vile in the world. To rectify the world, “the Jew” must be exterminated. It is for this reason that Hannah Arendt, the German-Jewish philosopher, observed that antisemitism is genocidal. It is the perennial casting of the Jew in the role of the villain. The Jew is an avatar, an archetype, for what a given society deems to be morally evil. This is why, for the antisemites, fighting the Jew becomes a virtuous act — to rid the world of the Jew is a moral requirement.
Antisemitism can be mapped out in three distinct eras: medieval anti-Judaism, modern antisemitism and anti-Zionism. In each era, the Jew is seen as violating the guiding principles of the society. In simple terms, in the era of medieval anti-Judaism, Jews were seen as violating the tenets of Christianity, culminating in the accusation of deicide. In the era of modern antisemitism, the Jew was viewed as violating the purity of race or what was then thought to be the most advanced field of inquiry: race science. And in the era of anti-Zionism in our time, the Jew, vis-à-vis Israel, is seen as violating human rights. Why human rights? What are our guiding principles? Human rights. This is why, if you look at the form that antisemitism takes today, it is dressed in social justice language: accusations of apartheid, racism and genocide, each a violation of human rights.
Antisemitism, therefore, is not a simple “othering” of people, but a deeply pathological phenomenon where the world makes attempts to chronically rid the world of the Jew, only to summon him over and over again. It is perhaps for this reason that Jean-Paul Sartre writes that “If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would have to invent him.” Additionally, it is the moral permission slip to do unto the Jews the very things you accuse the Jews of committing.
For this reason, antisemitism plays a critical role in globalized ideologies. It is the first stop along the way station of “Globalize the Intifada,” the signifier for destroying Western civilization.
The Red-Green Alliance: A Global Ideology
If the French cliched expression “cherchez la femme” suggests women’s nefarious role in doomed events, in the case of the Red-Green Alliance, “cherchez L’Union Sovietique” describes the birth of this lethal alliance as the Soviet Union, a Marxist state, provided the Arab world with ideological support. Indeed, in understanding the successful spread of neo-Marxism in the West, the role played by the Soviets cannot be understated: The alliance between the Marxists and Islamists “makes sense” as it is rooted in spreading anti-Western, anti-colonial ideologies.
We in the West became acutely aware of this union after 9/11. It slapped us in the face. As Michael Kelley, a senior journalist for The Washington Post, wrote in his column, “Marching with Stalinists,” 9/11 became that moment when Americans had to face the notion that they were deeply hated and that among them were a group of people — the leftists — who wanted, no less than Islamist terrorist groups such as the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, to see the demise of the United States.”
Because the grand plan is to take over the West, the final battle will be between the Reds and the Greens as alliances form and break apart. Take, for example, the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which collapsed when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. Similarly, the Red-Green Alliance will fold. And as in the case of the Germans and Soviets, who found themselves enemies overnight, the Reds and Greens will engage in warfare.
But who would win? If we are to learn anything from the rise of totalitarian states, it is that revolutions eat their children. As such, the first victims of radical Islam will be the very people who marched in solidarity with the cause they so fervently believed in. Who were the first victims of communism in the Soviet Union? The infamous purges of the 1930s orchestrated at the behest of Stalin targeted an entire group instrumental in bringing about the revolution. In the end, in the battle between the Marxists and the Islamists, the Marxists would most definitely be the first to be purged. The willing trumpeters who rally around slogans such as “Queers for Palestine” or “By Any Means Necessary” will soon find themselves the victims of necessary mass purges.
In sum, the how of this Red-Green Alliance is a case of the “useful idiot” syndrome, a confluence of ideologues who, for the time being, are willing to put some fundamental differences aside to reach their desired goals. For the Reds, who continue to want to overthrow capitalism despite mounds of evidence showing that communism in practice never works, the Islamists are a welcome ally. For the Islamists, the goal is not to overthrow capitalism, but Western democracies. One would think, however, that the Reds would understand that they are being “played” or, far worse, that such an alliance destroys the very pillars they hold dear.
How could they not see the dangers of radical Islam? Is not the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 a cautionary tale of lending one’s support to a regime that is an anathema to the rights of minorities and women, not to mention freedom of the press and assembly? Cautionary because leftist ideologues and theoreticians played a critical role in supporting the overthrow of the shah of Iran. Leading Marxist literary critic Michel Foucault praised the Islamic revolution in Iran, stating that Iran is the perfect location for a “first great insurrection against global systems.” In sum, Foucault’s worldview contributed to one of the greater heists in the history of Western thought: The blind and largely uncritical support to a backward and anti-progressive Islamic regime led to the butchering of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.
Undermining the dangers of radical Islam can likewise be seen in how we incorrectly identify the cause of the conflict between Israel and her Muslim neighbors as having to do with territory, race and oppression when, in reality, the conflict is driven by the religious zealots of Islam. Take, for example, how we are told that Hamas is the radical and unsavory neighbor to Israel’s direct south-west, whereas the Fatah party governing the Palestinian Authority in Judea, Samaria or Area A of the West Bank, is the reasonable peace partner. In Arabic, al-Fatah means “the opener.” Within the context of political Islam, it means to open society up for Islam to rule, what Jonathan Spyer calls a “formula” for political Islam to prosper: “Islamist fervor plus state capacity.”
Interestingly, for the Islamists who have proven to be clever and who are continuing to tolerate the Marxists, the strand of antisemitism shipped to the West takes anti-colonial undertones. To the West, that is, to their sophomoric allies on college campuses, Islamists brand Jews as colonists and racists; to themselves, an entirely different strand of antisemitism takes form: Jews are apes and pigs, unworthy of living as equals in the Middle East.
And so the Red-Green Alliance is, in many ways, a master chicanery. The victims, of course, in all this will be the willing participants who chant “Free Palestine” and “Globalize the Intifada.” But the victims will also be those who minimized campus antisemitism, those who looked away as American flags burned on American streets, and an entire generation of freedom-loving Westerners who know little of the grandiose replacement plans set in motion by radical Islamists.
As recently reported by the New York Post, Jewish graduates of elite New York City schools are avoiding their parents’ and grandparents’ alma mater: Columbia University. “For the first time in over 20 years, we will not have a Ramaz graduate enrolling in Columbia College,” the Ramaz School said recently. And while the rabid Jew-haters who chant “Zionists off our campus” will be pleased, what history teaches is that when Jews flee spaces, these spaces continue to decline.
It is not for nothing that the Jewish character of Arthur Miller’s 1993 play “Broken Glass” yelled, “Don’t you understand? When the last Jew dies, the light of the world will go out!” Let us then take this explosion of antisemitism seriously, for in combating Jew-hatred, we fight the greater threat to our vibrant democracy: the Red-Green Alliance.
Naya Lekht received her Ph.D. in Russian literature and wrote her dissertation on Holocaust literature in the Soviet Union. Naya is currently the education editor for White Rose Magazine and a research fellow for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. She is on the faculty at the Ramaz School.
