While the anti-Israel left routinely claims that hatred for Israel is not anti-Semitism, students at Harvard would be hard-pressed to make that distinction in the aftermath of a recent incident highlighting anti-Israel anti-Semitism. Last week, Jewish students in the Harvard dormitories woke up to find flyers under the doors from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee informing them that they had been evicted from their dorm rooms.
“We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in the next three days,” the flyer read. There was no distinction made between Israelis and Jews, leftist Jews and conservative Jews, peaceniks or defense hawks. All Jews are the same to the anti-Israel crowd.
The Anti-Defamation League rightly condemned the disreputable tactic. “This tactic is designed to silence and intimidate pro-Israel advocates at Harvard and campuses around the country,” the group said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time advocates for Palestinian Arabs have tried this thuggery. Just last year, hundreds of Jewish students at Florida Atlantic University – the former home of terrorist professor Sami Al-Arian – received similar notices. And this sort of sentiment isn’t foreign to Harvard, either. Just last year, the Harvard Crimson reported a joke invitation to a social club called “The Pigeon.” “Jews need not apply,” the footnote to the application read.
Anti-semitism is alive and well … on the campus left. And no hiding behind anti-Israel sentiment can hide that uncomfortable fact.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).