A Jewish Perspective on the Rutgers Holloway Controversy
Rutgers University has the second-largest Jewish population of any American public university. The recent antisemitism on the Rutgers campus and the illegal encampment has become a matter of central concern to both Jewish students and their parents.
There are three paramount issues: 1) the attempt by the protestors to compel Rutgers to divest itself of its relationship with Tel Aviv University; 2) the failure of the University administration to consult with Jewish students about the negotiations with protestors; 3) the lack of protection provided to Jewish students who felt threatened by the demonstrators.
The latter two concerns were the subject of a letter from Democratic New Jersey Members of Congress Josh Gottheimer and Donald Norcross. The letter provided the facts behind the concerns and specified remedial measures. The letter will serve as a future agenda for how Rutgers is meeting the concerns of Jewish students and parents.
On Thursday, May 23, 2024, Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway will testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce at a hearing entitled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.” The New Jersey Jewish community will await Holloway’s responses regarding the abovementioned issues. Based upon the tone of the hearing announcement made by Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R- NC), Holloway is in for a rough grilling.
Specifically, Congresswoman Foxx accuses Holloway and Northwestern University President Michael Schill of having made “shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments on their campuses. They have surrendered to antisemitic radicals in despicable displays of cowardice.” This contention was reinforced by New Jersey Republican State Senator Jon Bramnick, who criticized the decision to “meet the demands of protesters illegally occupying the campus and causing a disruption. Negotiating with protesters who violate the law only invites more people to follow suit, and the taxpayers deserve answers to the misguided actions of the university administration.”
Holloway's agreement to negotiate with students unlawfully making demands legitimizes these claims. That is particularly true of the attempt to coerce Rutgers into divesting itself of its relationship with Tel Aviv University. Holloway says that he will never agree to this. Yet many in the New Jersey Jewish community, including myself, will be understandably skeptical of him, given his agreement to meet with the protestors on this issue.
There is another urgent need that must be met by not only Holloway but all university presidents confronted with antisemitism in their student bodies and faculties. Antisemitic leaders in the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement defame Israel by using the word “genocide” to describe the Israeli efforts to defend its very existence against the truly genocidal Arab Palestinian Hamas regime in Gaza.
This Israeli defense effort is being made in a war Hamas started by attacking the Jewish state on October 7. The invasion was marked by Hamas terrorists killing babies, raping women, and kidnapping innocent civilians, holding more than 200 of them hostage. This widespread rape of Jewish women by Hamas terrorists has been more than conclusively established by journalistic investigations.
There is no question of the genocidal intent of the Hamas regime against the Jewish state of Israel and its citizens. This genocidal intent has been openly proclaimed time and again by Hamas itself, as conclusively documented by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine. Hillary Clinton has supported Israel in its goal of destroying the Hamas regime and terrorist infrastructure.
The Israeli incursion into Gaza is the central element of their effort to preserve their existence by destroying Hamas terrorist infrastructure. The projected Israeli conquest of Rafah is critical to the success of this mission.
At this point, it is essential to define the word “genocide.” The word was created by the famed Polish Jewish lawyer and Holocaust refugee Raphael Lemkin to describe the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.
Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defined genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The keywords regarding “intent” — a basic requirement of the genocide definition — are italicized above. Unlike Hamas and its avowed intention to destroy Israel and its people, Israel has NEVER had the intention “to destroy, in whole or in part,” the Palestinian Arab people.
The tragic Palestinian Arab innocent civilian casualties are a natural result of the war against Israel that the genocidal Hamas regime started. Similarly, the tragic, innocent civilian German casualties in the Second World War were a natural result of the war that the genocidal Nazi regime started. It is an absolute obscenity and defamation to describe Israel, which is fighting a genocidal regime, as staging a genocide itself.
A claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is a pure and straightforward blood libel. Yet, it is the most effective means of Hamas spreading antisemitism. Unless Holloway and other university presidents emphatically refute as blood libel the Palestinian Arab claim of “Israeli genocide,” the lie will continue to be accepted and serve as rocket fuel for antisemitism on college campuses throughout America.
I am not asking that Holloway agree with me regarding my support for Israel’s Gaza invasion policy. Yet, to equate Israel’s Gaza invasion with genocide is antisemitic defamation and moral corruption of the worst order. It is incumbent upon Holloway to emphatically repudiate the hate speech that Israel is in any way involved in perpetrating a genocide of Palestinian Arabs.
Finally, given Rutgers's loss of credibility during this period, Governor Phil Murphy should appoint an independent oversight commission regarding the antisemitic disorders at Rutgers. The commission should have a bipartisan chair of two individuals no longer involved in New Jersey electoral politics.
Two prospective appointees come to mind: Democratic former State Senator Ray Lesniak and former Republican Congressman and State Senator Leonard Lance. Both are individuals of unquestionable integrity and supreme public service competence.
The appointment of Lesniak and Lance to serve as co-chairs of any Rutgers oversight commission would be a fine legacy item for both individuals, not to mention an excellent legacy item for Phil Murphy as well.
Alan J. Steinberg of Highland Park served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin Law School.