Former Israeli ambassador to US urges FBI probe into funding of antisemitic incitement on campuses
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren described the recent ongoing antisemitic activities on American college campuses as "intolerable, unacceptable, and exceedingly dangerous."
Oren, a prominent American-born historian and a Columbia University alumnus, emphasized that antisemitic campus activities are carefully organized and funded by external players.
“These demonstrations are orchestrated and funded from outside. These aren’t spontaneous demonstrations,” Oren explained in an interview with The Media Line.
The former Israeli ambassador urged the FBI to investigate the money trail that fuels the ongoing antisemitic protests at Columbia University and other U.S. campuses.
“Jewish students, professors and staff can’t go on campus,” Oren warned, adding that the radical students ultimately threaten not only Jews but Western society.
He also noted that some Jewish academics have joined the anti-Israel rallies and said, “They fail to see that this path also ends badly for them.”
As a historian, Oren placed the current wave of campus antisemitism within the broader context of the radicalization that has taken place on American campuses during the past half century since the student revolts in the 1960s.
“They went back into the campus and spent 50 years instilling their ideas into students and professors to inspire government officials and corporate executives on this particular set of self-declared anti-establishment ideas as trojan horses for antisemitism,” Oren explained.
“These people need to be prosecuted, but in the end, this isn’t a job for local police. This requires federal agencies to stop foreign agents from sewing chaos in America and its allies,” Oren said.
Ariel Beery, a former Columbia graduate, agreed with Oren’s assessment about the forces behind the current campus antisemitism, which targets the Jewish state, as well as all those who support Israel.
Beery believes that Israel's adversaries – unable to overpower Israel through military means – have shifted to using "soft power" by "funding guerrilla groups" to confront Israel.
"These protests are a manifestation of the soft-power tactics used by Israel's enemies," he stated.
“Anti-Western interests recognized that the leverage point was students and professors,” Beery continued.
“Many of these academics would shape many minds, so even if a small percentage of those students remain anti-Zionist years after flirting with the idea, the compounding effect becomes significant,” he added.
Members of Congress recently urged U.S. President Joe Biden to step in and protect Jewish students from the security threats emanating from the mass anti-Israel protests at various U.S. universities.
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler urged university presidents to take action and stop the mobs on campuses or resign from their posts.
“Every single one of these college and university presidents who refuse to take action should immediately resign in disgrace and if they don’t resign, [they] should be thrown out,” Lawler urged.
“I have never seen a more disgraceful act than what we are seeing on college campuses right now,” he added.
Columbia University has emerged as, perhaps, the most problematic of all American universities in regards to displays of antisemitism.
During an episode of THE ROSENBERG REPORT on Thursday, ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg described Columbia University as the “ground zero” of pro-Hamas manifestations across U.S. campuses.
Rosenberg noted that anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments are increasingly a central component of hatred towards America and the wider Western world.
Threatening slogans – “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” “Hamas give them hell,” “Death to America” – are increasingly heard at the same rallies where hatred of Jews and hatred of the West are becoming indistinguishable.
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The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
