On Tuesday’s “CNN This Morning,” CNN Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga criticized college presidents for their handling of antisemitism on campus by noting that “There are plenty of other issues that they felt that they can address head-on, and yet, when it comes to the issue of antisemitism, there’s always this veiled, well, it’s complicated,” and “there’s no other issue, whether they’re social justice movements, anything else that we’ve looked forward, as progressive citizens of the world, that we haven’t addressed head-on, and yet this is the one issue we keep coming back to that we have to be sort of equivocal about here.”
Golodryga stated, “I don’t remember seeing anything like this. We surely didn’t when we were on college campus[es]. And shame on these university heads and leadership at these schools from all over the country.”
She added, “There are plenty of other issues that they felt that they can address head-on, and yet, when it comes to the issue of antisemitism, there’s always this veiled, well, it’s complicated, it’s Israel, it’s Zionism. No, it is unadulterated antisemitism. And when you’re speaking out about Hamas murdering, not just Israelis, they murdered Jews, you have to just say that outright. That is an issue that’s affecting Jews around the world, and now it’s created a scenario — and we’ve talked about it on this show, and God bless the United States of America, and I am so happy to live in the U.S. as a Jew, but to have conversations with family members, with friends, with loved ones, what are you doing? Are you taking your mezuzah down? What are you talking to your college students about? It is unacceptable. Are we kidding ourselves? In 2023, there’s no other issue, whether they’re social justice movements, anything else that we’ve looked forward, as progressive citizens of the world, that we haven’t addressed head-on, and yet this is the one issue we keep coming back to that we have to be sort of equivocal about here. And there’s nothing to hold us back from standing up for the rights of Jews, the rights of Muslims, the rights of all minorities, and say[ing], in this environment, in this day and age, it is unacceptable to be saying, death to Jews, death to Israelis, death to Zionism, whatever it is.”
Co-host Poppy Harlow then said, “And look, if you’re going to say, never again, we have to remember, what was October 7? That was the biggest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust in a single day.”
Golodryga responded, “And all of a sudden, there wasn’t even a 24-hour period of mourning before it became victim-blaming, two sides to this story. No, it is not difficult for college campus leadership to come out and say, what happened on October 7 was a massacre, it was unacceptable, and we will do everything we can to protect our Jewish students, just as well as we will our Muslim students and every other [minority] on our campuses.”
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