Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus professor of law at Harvard University, has been denouncing Harvard Divinity School on YouTube and perhaps elsewhere for being a “cesspool” of antisemitism. He is equally critical of Harvard’s School of Public Health and somewhat less so of the university as a whole.
I agree with Professor Dershowitz that there should be “no double standard.” As the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution puts it, he holds that all individuals should have “equal protection under the law.” He contends that at Harvard Divinity School and elsewhere in the university, Jewish students might not be receiving exactly the same protection that Black and Gay people are receiving. To the extent that this double standard is the case, it should be condemned and corrected.
Although he doesn’t say as much about this, I also agree with him that obstructing, defacing or destroying private or property should be prohibited in theory and in practice. There is a time and place for peaceful protests. They must be peaceful, however.
I disagree with much of what he otherwise says because in these discussions he seems not to make two distinctions that I think we must. The first is that he does not distinguish between being opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, on the one hand, and being antisemitic, on the other. The result is that he often refers to those who oppose these policies of Israel as “antisemitic.” As evidenced by the fact that some Jewish people openly oppose these policies, this is not so.
The second is that in these discussions he seems not to distinguish between supporting the Palestinians, on the one hand, and supporting Hamas, on the other hand. The result is that he frequently refers to those who support the Palestinians as being supporters of Hamas as well. As evidenced by the fact that many who support the Palestinians are outspoken in their opposition to Hamas, this also is not the case.
I am disappointed that in these discussions Professor Dershowitz seems indifferent to how much suffering and death Israel is inflicting upon the people of Gaza and the West Bank. In a burst of pure evil, on October 7, 2023, Hamas killed about 1,250 people and took about 250 hostages and all but a very few of the victims were Israelis.
But since then, in addition to turning the region into rubble, Israel has killed or wounded a minimum of forty times as many citizens of Gaza. This is grotesquely more than the Bible’s “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.” The claim that most of these losses were the unintended sided effects of justifiably aiming at open or hidden military targets is not plausible to me.
I know of only three ways of justifying what Israel is Gaza and the West Bank and I am convinced by neither of them. The first is that in the Bible’s account of the Israelites returning to Canaan after centuries of slavery in Egypt God tells them to exterminate all who were living there because it was to be their uncontested homeland. But using the Bible this way includes premises about it that I don’t share even though I am those who relate to it as Scripture.
The second possible way of justifying what Israel is doing is more plausible to me but still not sufficiently so. It is that many of the nations that are criticizing Israel are hypocritical because they have or are doing the same thing and worse.
The third is even weightier o me but still not convincing. It is that several times the Palestinians could have enjoyed their own state if they had been willing to accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Yet, it now looks to me as though nothing short of completely eradicating the Palestinians will satisfy the current leaders of Israel. At the very least, this is an overreaction to the evils of October 7.
All of this is pertinent to what is now happening at Harvard Divinity School. It is safe to believe that most of its faculty and students openly oppose what Israel is doing and in Gaza and the West Bank. At times, this probably makes participating in the life of HDS an uncomfortable experience for Jewish students and faculty. Insofar as this is the case, it is because the difference between being Jewish and being a supporter of what Israel is now doing in Gaza and on the West Bank is not being honored in practice. If this is what is happening, it is not acceptable and must be condemned and corrected.
But this is not the whole story. Another part of it is that it is likely that some professors and students at HDS do not support this distinction in theory either. Although they condemn it while Professor Dershowitz celebrates it, they agree with him that there is no political difference between being Jewish, on the one hand, and supporting what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank on the other. This is because they have made some version Identity Politics their own.
We can unfold the basics of this is in three steps. The first is to say that considering an individual’s social location helps one to understand him or her. The second thing is to say that in political matters knowing a person’s social location is the most important thing to know about him or her. The third is to say that each member of a group is praiseworthy or blameworthy for what the group as a whole has or is doing even if he or she individually disapproves of it. This is anathema to individualism of the cultural religion of the United States.
But even this is not the end of the story. Another part of it is that people have used implicit forms Political Identity thinking as they plundered, tortured and killed millions of marginalized people for thousands of years. Strictly speaking, its current advocates are not creating Political Identity thinking. As representatives of historically oppressed groups, they are making explicit what has long been implicit and relating it to representatives of historically oppressive ones.
Where does all this leave us? Is Harvard Divinity School actually a “cesspool” of antisemitism? If you believe that all those who oppose Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank are antisemitic, the answer is “Yes.” If you don’t believe this, the answer is “No.”