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Since the Israeli government responded to the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas with an invasion of Gaza, there have been mounting concerns about the threat of antisemitism in the United States. As I write this Thursday afternoon, Congress is trying to clamp down on pro-Palestinian campus protests almost as police have been trying to remove protesters themselves at sites around the country.
By a vote of 320 to 91 Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would give educational institutions an expanded definition of antisemitism — an effort to address fears that criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza is mixing with hateful treatment of Jews. By Thursday, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey was on the floor of the Senate, urging his colleagues to support it that very day.
The “rise of antisemitism across the country on college campuses has made me … increasingly concerned” about the safety of Jewish students, he said. And while the right to protest was important, “When it crosses a line either into violence or discrimination, then we have an obligation to step in and stop that conduct,” he said.
Casey, who has proposed similar antisemitism measures since 2016, sought to approve the measure through unanimous consent, a fast-track procedure meant to bypass the Senate’s often-cumbersome rules. The outcome of that effort remains to be seen as I write this. Whatever happens, it is unlikely to end the argument about the measure, which builds from a 2019 executive order signed by Donald Trump.
Among the 91 House “no” votes was — spoiler alert! — Summer Lee, long a critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Just this past weekend on CBS public-affairs program “Face the Nation,” she spoke in defense of protesters, saying that “They’re looking for some sort of acknowledgement from our leadership … that we want our country, we want our government, to go in a different direction.”
Doubts weren’t limited to Lee or fellow members of the so-called progressive “Squad.” Conservative Republicans such as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert voted no … as did Democrat Jerry Nadler of New York, a Jewish representative who had sponsored similar bills in the past.
In a committee debate with Western Pennsylvania’s own Guy Reschenthaler, Nadler noted that this resolution included a definition of antisemitism whose own author didn’t want to see it enshrined in law.
The definition offers up a number of examples of the kind of thing that could constitute antisemitic behavior, some of which are no-brainers like “calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews.” But critics say other examples — such as “applying double standards” to Israel by “requiring of it behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” — blur the line between antisemitism and criticism of Israeli policy.
“To codify [those examples] into law is to [call] antisemitic what may in some contexts be, and in some other contexts may not be,” Nadler told Reschenthaler. He noted that the definition’s chief author, Kenneth Stern, has expressed similar concerns, arguing that putting such illustrations into the law risks having the government weigh in on a debate in which Jewish people themselves may disagree.
Reschenthaler countered that there is already an antisemitic double standard at work, with colleges defending a “woke agenda” that protected transgender students, among others.
“Yet the second you call for the genocide of Jews, the second that you say that you don't feel comfortable with Jews in campus, that's when they decide that there's is a First Amendment protection,” he said.
There’s been bipartisan reaction against news clips of protesters around the country seizing buildings or preventing students from entering buildings. But Pittsburgh itself has been an exception: An encampment set up in Oakland’s Schenley Plaza parklet last week quietly closed down Monday. The entire demonstration resulted in only two arrests, during a confrontation with university police the night before.
The administration of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who won the mayor’s office amid controversy about his predecessor’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests, touted its handling of the situation as a win. Police Chief Larry Scirotto said the outcome reflected a mutual understanding in which police agreed not to enter the camp if protesters avoided property destruction and antisemitic behavior.
Protesters offered a less flattering assessment of police in a statement: “Their elevated presence kept many people on high alert,” they said, accusing police of seeking to intimidate demonstrators to “ensure we did not grow, which we did.”
Others complained that the encampment got established at all. Casey’s Republican rival this November, Dave McCormick, had already posted a video outside the site complaining, “What a sad day when you see these kids on campus not knowing the difference between right and wrong” — even though the tents in the background weren’t actually on campus, and no “kids” could be seen doing anything at all.
And last week Jeremy Kazzaz, the founder of a new Pittsburgh-based advocacy group seeking to raise political awareness of antisemitism, wrote to city officials to object to protesters taking possession of the plaza without a permit.
“The apparent exemption granted to the encampment undermines the integrity of our legal system and sets a troubling precedent for future demonstrations,” he said in a statement that also decried the city’s slow response to antisemitic graffiti that appeared outside a North Side home last month.
“If the city of Pittsburgh does not enforce the law objectively and respond promptly to incidents of hate,” he wrote, “it risks sending a message that hate crimes against certain groups are permitted.”
Still, Kazzaz told me that the Oakland protest didn’t stoke the same fears as protests elsewhere.
“There were signs that were problematic” on the plaza, he said. “But it wasn’t the same scenario as what we have seen in other cities. I’m thankful for that.”
The quiet dissolution of the Schenley Plaza camp recalls the 2012 denouement of the Occupy Pittsburgh protest, in which then-Sheriff Bill Mullen moved deliberately on a court order to oust protesters from a Downtown camp that had existed for months, giving them time to leave on their own. We’ll see whether an act of Congress can produce a better result than what the city had this week.
