Posted on30 October 2010.
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By Eyal Mazor
Under the leadership of Mort Klein, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)
is celebrating its success in its efforts to expand federal anti-bullying guidelines
stipulated under the US Civil Rights Act of 1964. So why in the world would Mort
Klein and his pro-occupation and pro-settlement ZOA be interested in federal civil
rights and anti-bullying policy in the first place? Perhaps a new-found interest in
protecting religious practice and reigning in on all instances of discrimination?
Of course not. Read on and prepare yourself to be outraged.
In a policy statement released this week, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
has adopted new guidelines that include protections against religious groups with
“shared ethnic characteristics.” Appearing alongside indisputably positive policy
changes that increase protections for LGBT and disabled students facing bullying
and discrimination, it may seem totally inappropriate to cast doubt on this particular
aspect of the policy, no matter who has brought it to the table. After all, expanding
categories of protection is a good thing. However, once we understand the ZOA’s
motives, it becomes clear that this development should be cause for alarm for anybody
wanting to preserve students’ rights to organize on American campuses for peace and
justice in Palestine and Israel!
Indeed, the ZOA took up this effort specifically as a way to clamp down on student
activism that has pushed universities to hold Israel accountable to international law.
How? Title VI of the Civil Rights Act says that colleges and universities that don’t
address issues of discrimination can lose their federal funding.
This is part of a strategy to scare public universities into putting a stop to entirely
legal and non-discriminatory activism that the ZOA and others just don’t like.
Klein is shamelessly trafficking in the language of bigotry and anti-discrimination
in an effort to criminalize campus human rights activism in favor of justice and
peace in Palestine and Israel. It’s hard to imagine a more reprehensible manip-
ulation of the legacy of civil rights struggle.
The story actually begins in October 2004 when the first complaint to US
Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in 2004 on the behalf of Jewish students at the
University of California at Irvine. These claims, which form the centerpiece
of the ZOA’s whole case to OCR, seem at best to be an extreme misrepres-
entation of actual goings-on, and at worst totally lack substance–and that’s
coming from their subjects: UC Irvine students themselves. In response to
the initial complaint the ZOA filed with OCR on behalf of Jewish students at
the University of California at Irvine in October 2004, the most prominent
leaders of the campus Jewish community actually came out and publicly
refuted the ZOA’s claims that UCI is a hostile environment for Jewish students.
In March 2008, prominent Jewish student leaders of UCI (including the presidents
of the campus Hillel, the self-described pro-Israel group Anteaters for Israel, and
the Jewish Fraternity and Sorority) issued a public statement clearly and directly
contradicting the ZOA’s claims about their campus, stating instead that “Jewish
student life thrives on campus, despite misinformation from outside organizations.”
In a story published in May 2008 issue of New Voices (since expunged from their
website, but available below), student leaders from UCI’s Jewish community testify
to being ignored, silenced, and even publicly discredited by ZOA and associated
activists for speaking the truth of their experience on campus. One student, then
President of Anteaters for Israel, even lost his position with the Israel advocacy
training group StandWithUs over a statement he made that the threat of anti-Semitism
on his campus has been exaggerated by community activists and organizations.
In another case cited in a recent op-ed, Klein also cites a battery case filed by a
female pro-Israel activist at the University of California at Berkeley against a
Palestinian student activist. In fact, all charges have been dropped against the
Palestinian student, Husam Zakharia, who said from the very beginning that he
lost control of a shopping cart overflowing with donated toys bound for Gaza when
it accidentally hit the female student.
Klein’s campaign seemed to really take off earlier this year when 13 Jewish
the Office of Civil Rights to investigate incidents of anti-Semitism. Among
the endorsing groups are Abe Foxman’s ADL, American Jewish Congress (AJC),
and Hillel– all of which have a track record of manipulating charges of anti-Semitism
to silence critics of Israeli policy.
More recently, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Senator Arlen Specter (D-CA)
have been championing in Congress Mort Klein and the ZOA’s proposal to amend the
Civil Rights Act. In September, Sherman and Specter introduced legislation that would
inscribe into federal law what the Department of Education has just changed in
federal policy. Shortly after the new guidelines were announced, Congressman
Sherman released a statement naming only Jewish students who face “severe and
persistent anti-Semitic hostility on their campuses” among groups who will enjoy
new protections under the policy.
Making no mention of any other communities facing religion-based discrimination, such as Muslims, Sikhs and other groups most impacted by the up-swell of Islamophobic discrimination, the political motives of the ZOA’s appeal is perfectly transparent. The ZOA is not and has never claimed to be an organization that fights bigotry or discrimination, nor do they purport to hold a message of universal tolerance. It is an organization set up to promote a pro-settlement, pro-occupation, right-wing Zionist agenda.
In addition to using federal anti-discrimination legislation to pursue a highly politicized agenda, one of the most troubling aspects of this campaign is that it has considerable de-amplifying effects for when authentic instances of anti-Semitism do arise. This type of action will not make Jews, or anyone else, any safe
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