US envoy: Campus anti-Israel sentiment stems more from ignorance than antisemitism

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew maintains that the growing hostility toward Israel on American college campuses stems more from students’ ignorance than antisemitism.

“I have been on campuses for several years, as a professor and an administrator at significant universities,” Lew tells the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

“I think that one should be very careful before reaching conclusions about the nature of the threat and the depth of hostility that people are talking about.”

“We are witnessing an ugly manifestation of antisemitism. I am very sensitive to this.”

“[But] I don’t think that’s the prevailing position on college campuses,” arguing ignorance is a far greater factor at play.

“There is no real understanding [among American college students] of history, of the story of Israel’s founding or the centuries of antisemitism that preceded it,” Lew laments.

He maintains that most people chanting “From the river to the sea — Palestine will be free — don’t know what bodies of water they’re referring to,” or that the phrase is calling for “the elimination of the State of Israel and the Jewish people within it.”

“So you’re dealing with matters ranging from well-founded hatred to slogans of ignorance.”

“What I tell people is that you can’t escape it. It is impossible to say, ‘Oh, people say ugly things, they should be silenced.’ We don’t do that in America, we don’t silence ugly speech. We stop things if they are violent or harm people directly.”

“You need to be able — as a student or an academic — to respond and say: ‘You don’t understand history. Let me tell you about it.’… It’s not pleasant to have this conversation, but contact should be made, not abandoned,” the ambassador argued.

He recalls how his father was able to attend law school in New York after quotas were lifted on Jewish enrollment and cautions against “conclud[ing] that this is a hostile environment and we must not be part of it. This is a big mistake. We need to be stronger.”

He also disputes the conclusion made in a recent Atlantic magazine story titled, “The golden age of American Jews is ending.”

“I think this is one step too far. The situation is very disturbing, and I’m not trying to [downplay] the fact that ugly things are being said or there are situations [in the US] that no student or academic should have to deal with. But you have to have the ability to stand your ground and fight back. And in fact, the American system rewards you for it. The alternative is to surrender to hatred,” Lew argues.