NO! Anti-Zionism is NOT Anti-Semitism

"No, Erwin Chemerinsky: Anti-Zionism is NOT Anti-Semitism, UC Berkeley Law School Dean Champions Free Speech EXCEPT For Fundamental Criticisms of Israel"

“Protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continue to mount around the world. Discussion and debate is raging on campuses and elsewhere, much of it bringing to light the long-buried truth about Israel’s roots in ethnic cleansing and servitude to imperialism, the apartheid nature of its rule over Palestinians, and the genocidal character of its current siege of and war on Gaza. All of this is very good, long overdue, and much needed.” (from http://www.revcom.us)

But there has been a powerfully-backed political counter-attack defending Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, and threatening anyone who speaks out in favor of the Palestinian people. UC Berkeley Law School Dean Chemerinsky has been a key figure in this attack, expressed in his Los Angeles Times op-ed piece titled “Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now”.

Chemerinsky’s op-ed painted a picture of campuses where “blatant antisemitism” is “rampant” and “has become prevalent.” He declared that it is time for “campus administrators” (i.e., people with substantial power over students’ lives and futures) to “stop being silent” and to “condemn” this so-called antisemitism as “not acceptable on our campuses.”

But anti-Zionism is NOT the same thing as antisemitism. Dig into the facts - how Israel was founded in ethnic cleansing, how it has continued for decades as an apartheid state, how it has served and benefited powerful imperialist countries including most especially the US, how it is now conducting a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza. The elimination of Zionism does NOT mean the elimination of the Jews.

Come to discuss these crucial issues, in the spirit expressed in the statement “A Dangerous Conflation”, signed by 1,475 Jewish writers, artists and activists, which concludes: “When we say never again, we mean it.”

Read the whole article, No, Erwin Chemerinsky: Anti-Zionism is NOT Anti-Semitism at http://www.revcom.us