As pro-Palestinian protesters at colleges across the country face condemnation and backlash from political leaders and media pundits, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and some Jewish-American politicians are voicing their support for the ongoing demonstrations.
College campuses across the country have seen waves of pro-Palestinian demonstrations since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that left about 1,200 dead. These protests by students and some faculty have drawn national attention in recent days amid crackdowns by school administrators and law enforcement at several prominent universities.
Critics say the demonstrators are "antisemitic" or promoting "antisemitism," saying that the pro-Palestinian movements on campus make Jewish students feel unsafe. While chants and actions that many view as antisemitic have occurred at some of these protests, many demonstrators say they are merely calling for a ceasefire and the end to the killing of Palestinians. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza following Hamas' October 7 attack.
JVP, which describes itself as the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, voiced support for the campus demonstrations in comments to Newsweek.
"We applaud the courage and determination of students all over the country who are peacefully protesting for an end to U.S. support to the Israeli military and calling on their own universities to divest from the Israeli military," JVP's executive director Stefanie Fox said in an email.
Fox said that "countless Jewish students" are part of the protests. "It is not antisemitic to protest the actions of the Israeli government which is waging a genocidal campaign on Gaza," she said.
Israel rejects the allegation that its actions are genocidal. Newsweek reached out to the Israeli embassy via email for comment.
In a Wednesday post on X, formerly Twitter, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised alarm about the campus demonstrations. He compared the situation to what happened in Germany when the Nazis were coming to power.
"Anti-Semitism on campuses in the United States is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s," he wrote. "The world cannot stand idly by."
In November 2023, JVP's chapter at Columbia University was suspended by the school. Gerald Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university and chair of the special committee on campus safety, said at the time that the group had "repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events."
Meanwhile, hundreds of students have been arrested at college campuses across the country in recent days, including at Columbia, Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University, University of Minnesota. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is Jewish, was detained along with students at Washington University in St. Louis on Saturday.
"The Stein campaign supports the demands of the students and their peaceful protest and assembly on campus. Student protest for peace and civil liberties has always represented the best part of our collective moral conscience," the presidential hopeful's campaign manager Jason Call told Newsweek in a Sunday email.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who is Jewish, voiced support for the protests as well.
"Right now, what Netanyahu's right-wing, extremist and racist government is doing is unprecedented in the modern history of warfare. They have killed in the last six-and-a-half months 33,000 Palestinians, wounded 77,000, two-thirds of whom are women and children," Sanders said.
"They have destroyed over 60 percent of the housing. They have destroyed the health care system. They have destroyed the infrastructure, no electricity, very little water. And, right now, we are looking at the possibility of mass starvation and famine in Gaza," he added. "When you make those charges, that is not antisemitic. That is a reality."
IfNotNow, which describes itself as a movement of American Jews organizing our community to end U.S. support for Israel's apartheid system and demand equality, has been advocating for a ceasefire as well.
"As a movement of American Jews, we refuse to let the Israeli military carry out these atrocities in our names & with our tax dollars. #CeasefireNOW," the group wrote on X last week.
Israel rejects the allegation that its treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.
Other politicians, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and Senator John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, have rebuked the protests.
"The things that have happened at the hands of Hamas are horrific, and yet these protestors are out there waving flags for the very people who committed those crimes," Johnson wrote in X on Thursday. "This is not who we are in America."
"I will say this that it's very clear, there is a very germ of antisemitism in all of these protests. And then sometimes, it flares up and again," Fetterman said Sunday in an interview with NewsNation.
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