Aftermath of the October 7th Massacre
One day after the 10/7/23 Massacre that murdered, burned alive, raped, mutilated, and abducted thousands in Israel, student newspapers actually published articles condemning the state of Israel for its attack in Gaza. Protests began across campuses in the United States and on the streets, protesting Israel’s response even before Israel understood what it was that happened in the worst attack of Jews since the Holocaust.
The Three Fronts of the Unconventional War for Public Opinion
It’s critical that we understand the three fronts in which this unconventional war for public opinion has been raging for decades:
- International Institutions: The warfront of international institutions like the UN, the ICC, and the ICJ.
- University Campuses: The warfront of university campuses.
- Social Media Platforms: The third warfront, new to our time, is that of social media platforms or a digital reality.
Systematic Weaponization and Soviet Propaganda
In all of those three, what we have seen in terms of their feeding off of one another is the systematic weaponization of international rules-based order, principles of law, and human rights for the demonization, delegitimization, and double standards of the Jew among the nations, that is, the state of Israel. Soviet propaganda is alive and well in the name of progress across campuses, streets, and social media spaces in 2024.
Impact on Public Perception
The reality that fueled the articles published on the 8th of October, and the human rights understanding that needed to be applied equally and consistently so that “never again” is weaponized systematically with “Zionism is racism” peddled as the first blood libel. The result of the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism enabled and peddled the next lie, that is of Israel as an apartheid state, with 23 years of Israel apartheid weeks since that 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism created a space in which, on every single campus across North America, Israel was known to be the next blood libel and apartheid state.
Orwellian Inversion of Fact and Law
On October 8th, 2023, in what is the continuation of this unconventional war for public opinion that has been raging for decades, is the third and most Orwellian inversion of fact and law. So what we have here is a collapse of those foundational principles in the international institutions, translated into the university campus spaces, including with academic programming and teaching, inculcation of those weaponized principles that Zionism is racism, that Israel is an apartheid state, and that Israel is committing genocide. In fact, these appeared in those articles on October 8th, none of it a coincidence.
Intersection of Anti-Semitism
We must recognize not only the intersection that became clear, not only in the anti-Semitism that fueled the atrocities of 10/7 but in the anti-Semitism that fuels the responses to the atrocities starting 10/8, that are silent unless you’re a Jew, that deny even while those barbaric savages live-streamed the atrocities they perpetrated. That support, “We are Hamas from the river to the sea,” and “Glory to our martyrs,” projected on university libraries. The Hamas Charter that, like Mein Kampf, calls for the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews. Finally, that attack Jews around the world in encampments that do not let through any identifiable Jew or self-defined Zionists—not to the classroom, not to the library, not to their offices.
Online and Offline War
What we have to realize is that intersection and, of course, the fueling of it using online memes and hashtags. We know that what happens online does not remain there. There is a war that we have to be prepared to fight back in. It is a systematic war that has co-opted and weaponized international rules-based order and human rights institutions, and in many ways intersected on 10/7 and since 10/7.
Call to Action
It is a call to action for us all to understand that process that enabled this demonization, delegitimization, and double standards of Israel, and to stand up to it. Because if one identity cannot be protected, then no identities will be able to be protected—not online, not in university spaces, and not by the international institutions.