As usual, the vote at UCSB was accompanied by abhorrent anti-Semitic outbursts. This, even though the student senate had passed a unanimous resolution against anti-Semitism earlier this month. As one UCSB student reported in his letter to the local student paper:
I am disgusted by the normalization of anti-Semitic language so casually thrown around at the meeting. In those eight hours, I was told that Jews control the government, that all Jews are rich, that Zionism is racism, that the marginalization of Jewish students is justified because it prevents the marginalization of other minority groups, that Israel sterilizes its Ethiopian women (this is obviously not true), and that Palestinians in America who speak out against Israel are sought out by the IDF and denied entrance into Israel (also a ridiculous conspiracy theory). I heard a senator—someone who is supposed to be my representative—say that people were only voting against this resolution because they were afraid of losing “Jew support.” I heard my peers laugh at the mention of terrorists hurling stones at the heads of Israeli civilians intending to kill them. I saw students smile and cheer enthusiastically as a woman stood up and said the words, “I am ashamed to be a Jew.” The rhetoric I heard from students opposing Israel at this meeting could easily be equated to arguments that I have only seen in quotes at museums or mentioned in textbooks for their use in the justification of historical persecution of the Jewish race.One ought to praise the Israeli and Jewish groups at the UCSB campus for defeating BS yet again. But it seems that there is little justification to praise the campus itself. As with all campuses that have opened space for BS debates, this campus too has fallen prey to the dark side of Palestinian activism.
