Why is the Trump regime accusing US universities of not protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitic activity on their campuses? Why have these attacks begun? Are they really concerned with anti-Semitism or are other hidden motives propelling these attacks?
This post argues that the reasons the Trump regime has given for the attacks on American universities, all of which are elite institutions of higher education, are disingenuous. Its weaponization of anti-Semitism provides a cover for the Trump's real intent which is to place American universities under federal control. As such, the attacks are just one of Trump's many processes designed to turn our country into an authoritarian state.
Conflating Anti-Semitism, Zionism and the State of Israel Anti-Semitism is a scourge which has plagued Western society for centuries. Its most horrible impact was the unspeakable destruction of human life during the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews perished. Because the Holocaust was the direct outcome of the Nazi's virulent hatred of the Jewish people, anti Semitism must be recognized for the enormous tragedy it engendered during WWII. It should never be politicized and exploited by a particular leader for political gain.
Yet the Trump regime's attack on the American higher education system purports to be defending Jews from anti-Semitism on college campuses. On February 3, 2025, Trump created the Federal Taskforce to Combat Anti-Semitism. It has been tasked to visit college campuses and investigate anti-Semitic incidents. The first group of 10 universities which are in the Task Force's crosshairs are Columbia; George Washington; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; New York University Northwestern; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.
Apart from the fact that anti-Semitism exists on US college campuses (I have had Jewish students who have encountered hate speak), this Taskforce is not about combatting anti-Semitism. Instead, it is part of a blatant effort to undermine, if not control, the United States' higher education system. It is also part of a battering ram to undermine the rule of law in the United State, a theme discussed in more detail below.
The disingenuous nature of the effort to rid college campuses of anti-Semitism clear from the actions taken by the Task Force since it began its work this past winter. First, without any due process, over $11 billion dollars in federal grants from many of the top research universities in the United States have been cancelled. Second, the Trump administration has demanded that Columbia University and Harvard University yield to federal oversight of hiring, faculty governance, curricula and provide periodic reports on whether these demands are being net.
Placing anti-Semitism in context Anti-Semitism is often conflated with criticism of Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel itself. However, this argument is flawed. First, anti-Semitism means hatred of Jews and has nothing inherently to do with Israel. Second, because there are several variants of Zionism, criticizing Zionism is not the same as challenging the right of Israel to exist. Finally criticizing a particular Israeli government, such as the current far-right and ultranationalist Netanyahu regime, is in no way anti-Semitic.
Historically, the prominent form of Zionism was socialist Zionism which dominated the Yishuv (the immigrant Zionist community in Palestine prior to the formation of the Israel) and then Israeli politics from 1948 until 1977 when the right-wing Likud coalition won its first national elections.
While socialist Zionists were left of center and had relatively little contact with or desire to interact with the local Palestinian population, they supported a democratic, secular political system. Israeli Palestinians were treated as second class citizens but were able to form political parties and elect members to Israel's parliament (Knesset).The Jewish religion was still given priority in the national education system. and personal status law was largely controlled by religious authorities.
During the Yishuv, a second strain of Zionism developed which, albeit limited in support, called for a bi-national state in Palestine. What made this perspective prominent was the support it received from prominent members of the Yishuv. One was Dr. Judah Magnes, the first president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was an advocate for a bi-national state. It was also supported by the famous philosopher, Martin Buber, author of I and Thou and many other influential books.
A proponent of a unity state was the Hashomer Hatzair (the Young Guard) which was a youth organization formed in the Austria-Hungarian Empire in 1913. At the left wing of the Labor Zionist movement, it argued that Palestine should be converted to a commonwealth after the British Mandate ended in 1948 with Jews as a majority but with equal rights for all its citizens.
But there also was a much darker side to the Zionist Movement. In the 1920s and 1930s, Zev Jabotinsky (1860-1940) was the architect of what came to be known as Revisionist Zionism. The Revisionists, who were a distinct minority in the Yishuv, argued that Israel had the right to populate nd control all of what ite deemed "Greater Israel. This included what came to be pre-1967 Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem and even parts of the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon.
Jabotinsky was an admirer of Benito Mussolini's fascist corporatist regime who he felt would help the Zionist movement . Embracing corporatist model of society, which denied any internal cleavages in Jewish society, Jabotinsky Revisionist Zionism became the ideological and political foundation of the Herut Party which was formed after Israel was established.
The Herut Party later became the larger Likud Party which won elections in 1977. It is noteworthy that Menachem Begin, Herut and later Likud's leader, engaged in terrorist activities in the 1936 against Palestinian Arabs, and the British and a United Nations envoy through his Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization). The most infamous attacks was the July 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Another terrorist group, Lehi (known as the "Stern Gang") and the assassination of UN Envoy Count Folke Bernadotte in September 1948. These attacks were an extension of Jabotinsky's Revisionist ideology.
Revisionist Zionism is also the ideology which has shaped the career of Benjamin Netanyahu. The current prime minister's career has been devoted to preventing the establishment an independent Palestinian state. Despite the Palestine Liberation Organization's recognition of Israel's right to exist with the 1993 Oslo Accords, Netanyahu has done everything, including funding HAMAS terrorists to offset the power of the PLO, to prevent a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict from becoming a reality.
Thus, we can see from this overview that Zionism as an ideology has been multifaceted. To criticize Zionism begs the question: which Zionism. are you criticizing? If it is the Zionism of Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert, who were all willing to pursue a two state solution, such criticism requires a nuanced. Each of these leaders came to support a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
West Bank settlements, which are illegal under International law, was begun by the Labor Party shortly after the June 1967 War when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Thus, criticism is valid here. But ift was Labor Party leaders and Olmert, haed of the liberal Kadima Party who accepted a two state solution.
This has never been the case of the Likud Party and certainly not of the far right members of Netanyahu's current government. Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Finance Minster, Bezalel Smotrich who seek to annex the Wert Bank and the Gaza Strip. Criticizing the nationalist and far-right ideology the Netanyahu government represents is completely legitimate and has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Thus, equating criticism by students on American college campuses of Israel's far-right and the manner in which has pursued the war in Gaza is bogus.
