Juno News - McGill anti-Israel encampment promotes “revolutionary” youth camp

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 but one group that has been conspicuously silent throughout all of this has has been the group you

00:00:13.960 would expect to be the most vocal about this the jewish studies programs on university campuses now

00:00:20.180 when i was at university i took a class on the jewish history of north america which was a

00:00:25.640 fascinating class i learned a great deal about how integrated jews were in the historic and

00:00:31.220 cultural fabric of canadian and american society and there were a lot of programs just like that

00:00:36.660 around the country and a lot of professors in these spaces that have not been speaking up about this

00:00:41.300 barbara kay wrote about this in a piece of the national post where she is one of my favorite

00:00:45.860 columnists and i suspect one of yours as well if you read there barbara always good to talk to you

00:00:50.480 thanks for coming on today it's a pleasure to be here andrew thanks for having me so i'll start

00:00:55.600 i i let's accept your premise at face value because i think you're very correct about this

00:01:00.060 i have not seen a large and vocal condemnation from these or any other academic groups but

00:01:05.580 is this coming from a tacit or explicit agreement with these activists or is it coming from fear

00:01:12.320 that these professors do not want to stick their necks out and be even further marginalized

00:01:17.860 well first i should say that uh although jewish studies you're correct the jewish studies

00:01:22.660 departments have been institutionally pretty mute uh there have been many individual jewish academics

00:01:31.040 who have been quite vocal but they are vocal as individuals or as part of some very um ad hoc

00:01:39.720 uh networks academic writers networks and they write op-eds and they you know write for all kinds

00:01:45.640 of publications i have no core but they tend to be the pariahs and for doing well either they're let's

00:01:51.700 just say that they're out there on their own i mean i don't think they're condemned uh in their

00:01:57.840 you know professionally i don't think they face cancellation within their departments uh but

00:02:03.400 institutionally the jewish studies departments and the jewish studies the association of jewish studies

00:02:10.020 uh which is an american organization i'm not sure if it covers uh canada as well they have been um

00:02:17.560 not only uh not vocal uh in opposition to all this uh anti-zionist and anti-jewish activity uh but

00:02:28.080 they are officially one might say sympathetic to the anti-zionist movement uh many of them are some of them

00:02:36.160 are active in the bds movement just i'll give you one example um a former rabbi in my synagogue in

00:02:43.440 montreal described this to a group of us uh at a learning day at our synagogue he said he had he had

00:02:50.000 when he'd been a rabbi and then he had taught in the jewish studies department at drew university

00:02:55.200 and he said he went to uh this was two years ago he went to uh the annual conference of jewish studies

00:03:00.720 the association of jewish studies which is for that discipline and he said the theme of the

00:03:07.360 conference was justice uh and he said the major push of the conference was justice for the palestinians

00:03:17.200 and he described one exhibit an artistic exhibit that was a series of photographs of palestinian

00:03:24.240 children only you didn't see their faces you just saw their outstretched arms and on their arms they had

00:03:29.600 uh with uh sharpies written you know tattooed numbers which i don't have to tell you is um a holocaust 0.79

00:03:37.680 inversion tactic of just the lowest and the the uh really uh very undignified and and uh very hurtful

00:03:48.880 needless to say to those who remember the holocaust who have had relatives killed in the holocaust so

00:03:53.840 this idea of using the holocaust against ourselves in order to um to whip up a sentiment of a of a very 0.63

00:04:03.120 acute you know level uh for palestinians as opposed to and this this is the kind of thing you see quite 0.99

00:04:10.560 often it comes under the heading of what i would call a pathological altruism in which you're so concerned

00:04:18.240 with um the harms that your side of uh of a uh conflict is causing to the other side that you

00:04:27.520 you you won't take your own side you know what was that definition of a liberal someone who won't

00:04:32.160 take his own side in an argument anyways yeah and i would also point out too that studying something

00:04:40.320 you know women's studies gender studies uh you know jewish studies all of these things it doesn't

00:04:45.520 necessarily mean that there is a support for the group being studied i think you know one example

00:04:51.680 of this there was i forget the name of the university but there was like some men's studies

00:04:55.120 department that was launched and you looked at the uh faculty for it and it was like every single one of

00:04:59.920 them i think probably hated men more than anything else in the world and you know jewish studies that you 0.97

00:05:05.840 used to see a lot of jewish professors in there but a lot of them are not necessarily zionist and and

00:05:12.000 again nor should they be necessarily there shouldn't be a litmus test if you're able to teach the

00:05:16.240 material and teach it well but the reality there is that a lot of these departments a lot of the social

00:05:22.560 sciences in general have all been taken over by this oppressor oppressed dynamic and when you can't

00:05:29.040 even teach math or chemistry without talking about decolonizing the curricula uh certainly in jewish

00:05:34.800 studies you're seeing those very same dynamics and i think that's why a lot of these departments

00:05:38.800 have been so silent on this well i agree with you and i i think the uh this whole the the whole

00:05:45.040 um rubric under way of intersectionality in which jews are routinely excluded uh they are not

00:05:53.280 considered uh intersectionality is of course the inter intersectionality of all victims the oppressed

00:06:01.040 and jews are never included in the category of the oppressed they are always part of the oppressor 0.99

00:06:06.960 groups so it it sort of conflates jews with um their state and as you say uh many jews are not

00:06:14.880 particularly zionist but when jews in authority over other students or in a position of authority

00:06:21.120 over students and they're in a jewish studies program uh become actively anti-zionist or or are part

00:06:27.600 of the bds movement or are um teaching anti anti-zionism rather than uh teaching it as part of you know

00:06:36.960 history and here's here's the situation today and here is the uh b here is when zionism the concept

00:06:45.120 started and who started it and who was for it and who was against it that's history but once you already

00:06:50.320 have a jewish state and zionism obviously won the argument um you you you can't keep arguing uh that

00:07:00.160 anti that zionism is a curse as naomi klein has called it uh you cannot say it it must be ended

00:07:09.200 how do you end zionism do you end you would have to end israel in order to end zionism so it's a very 0.87

00:07:14.960 different kettle of fish last night uh the monk debates andrew um i don't know if you saw them

00:07:19.760 but anyways uh wonderful international lawyer natasha uh hausdorf teamed up with douglas murray the in

00:07:26.080 the incredible douglas murray and they were discussing this very thing and um natasha said look

00:07:32.880 uh you don't have to be a zionist but but think of it as this way it's like if a mother and a father

00:07:39.440 or sorry if if two parents a man and a woman get married and they they say they don't want to have

00:07:44.240 children they've they both agree they don't want to have children but by accident they have a child

00:07:50.960 you don't you don't agree that it's okay to murder the child i mean because they didn't want it right

00:07:56.720 so we have a state with seven million jews in it that's half the world's population and for anybody

00:08:01.760 in jewish studies today to be arguing that not only was zionism a mistake but it's a mistake that has to

00:08:08.000 be rectified then you have to be very careful with your words what do you mean it it was a mistake

00:08:13.600 and now the state of israel is illegitimate for that reason um you know i'd be happy if all kinds of

00:08:21.040 movements that uh ended up in in national movements uh or that that you know uh had been considered

00:08:28.000 illegitimate before they became nations there israel was created as a nation along with many other

00:08:34.160 nations in the middle east uh nationalism was not a thing a century ago and it became a thing so this

00:08:43.680 this idea that you could just loosely play with the idea of yeah you know zion is a big mistake uh

00:08:50.400 let's try something else and and there's something else that a lot of jewish studies professors are into

00:08:56.080 now is this thing called diasporism which is yeah zionism was a big mistake uh you know what uh we

00:09:04.160 need to be jews who uh we we repudiate zionism and uh it's good jews were meant to live in exile 1.00

00:09:13.600 because their their rationale is uh uh it is unnatural for jews to have power over anybody else 0.71

00:09:22.640 okay for other people when you have a very very extreme subset of orthodox jews that believes that

00:09:27.840 but it's an incredible incredible minority there it's there's it's so fringe that i i never even

00:09:33.440 include the natura carta people are like um they're crazy people uh i consider them literally crazy they

00:09:40.880 are living in such a bubble of and they are have no influence whatsoever except in so far as they are

00:09:47.920 used as tools uh you know by palestinian the palestinian isms ists and um yeah i mean but

00:09:56.720 but nobody no jew i know ever even mentions them in a calculus of uh where are we going and what's

00:10:03.520 happening in the world they they are beyond beyond the pale so beyond the pale that orthodox jews want 1.00

00:10:11.280 nothing to do with them and even chabad and all these other people they they're off the map but we're 1.00

00:10:16.960 talking now about very mainstream people uh who do have influence and authority in universities

00:10:22.400 their academics um they are in um you know institutions like hillel and all kinds of places

00:10:29.440 where young jews look to them as models and authority figures and they're saying um we should be happy in

00:10:37.840 exile we should not have power over other people we've we've misused it it's okay but

00:10:43.360 everybody else is allowed to have power over jews i mean if we're if we're should be happy to live in

00:10:50.880 exile then we're basically saying we we are um contracting out our right to have power over

00:10:57.600 anybody and and but you can have power over us you can have power over us but we can't have power over

00:11:02.240 anybody else so how did that work out for us throughout history not so well not not that you

00:11:08.000 know i i was about to ask you you know what what jews think of a certain subject and then as i was

00:11:12.400 doing so the old joke of you know three jews and five opinions come to mind is that you know jews can't

00:11:16.880 even necessarily agree with themselves let alone each other on a lot of matters but the upside of that is

00:11:22.480 it's both an upside and the downside the upside is we we grant anybody in israel here any jew can say 0.56

00:11:31.200 what's on his mind or her mind without fear of getting bumped off or even spat at or you know uh

00:11:40.640 getting doxxed on i mean we allow perfect freedom of expression within our people and our people

00:11:49.200 we are we are bonded not as christians are by belief we are bonded by peoplehood so we admit to without

00:11:57.520 resentment yeah there's super orthodox and there's totally secular there's atheists now we don't care 1.00

00:12:05.760 we don't care what we care about is your uh your commitment to jewish peoplehood and to um uh

00:12:15.520 furthering the healthy interests of the jewish people now you that that doesn't mean you have to

00:12:22.400 support israel and everything that israel does you don't have to support zionism you don't have to support

00:12:26.640 any of that but it doesn't give you license to align yourself with the enemies of the jewish people

00:12:33.680 and to say yeah you've got the right idea yeah eliminating israel good idea and that's what you

00:12:40.720 know these groups like independent jewish voices and um jewish voices for peace they're using their status

00:12:49.200 as jews to uh to join in the chorus of voices that wish jews would disappear from the face of the earth 1.00

00:12:57.680 and they are abetting them and giving comfort to them and saying speaking as a jew or yeah my grandmother

00:13:05.760 who's dead unfortunately in the holocaust uh would have approved that's that's something that uh you see 0.92

00:13:11.920 people like you know i've seen jews say oh she she definitely would have been on on uh bds she 0.68

00:13:18.640 definitely would have uh been ashamed of what israel's doing i don't think so i think these are

00:13:23.600 the same as the christians that say you know jesus would have been trans or something like you you see

00:13:28.000 all yeah yeah yeah weird revisionism but but i i wanted to ask you about that barbara because there is

00:13:34.320 to use the language and worldview of the left here which talks about privilege as you know basically

00:13:40.640 meriting or taking away the merit of your position a lot of the jews that do this i've seen are ones 0.73

00:13:47.040 that have tremendous amounts of privilege they are jews that have not had to deal with anti-semitism or

00:13:52.720 at least not that that i would see they're jews that oftentimes are coming from very upper middle

00:13:57.760 class if not outright wealthy families and you see this in other groups as well i mean the number of

00:14:02.240 like environmental activists whose like parents are you know these you know billionaires or something

00:14:07.520 is insane but that doesn't really matter when you're saying the quote unquote right things in

00:14:13.200 the same way that all of the indigenization of curricula now and the importance of connecting to

00:14:19.440 your people to history doesn't apply to jews because jews are also bound by their history and by their

00:14:25.360 connection to the land that we now call israel but that that deep connection doesn't matter when you

00:14:31.040 have been maligned as the quote unquote oppressor that's right you i mean you can you can say uh

00:14:36.880 oh uh as some diasporas do they say oh yeah all that stuff about uh next year in jerusalem and uh

00:14:43.760 my heart belongs to zion and all that that's just romantic stuff it's like a metaphor it doesn't

00:14:48.480 literally mean that uh jews have to be attached to the land of israel well sorry but it does and and

00:14:55.200 if you want to detach yourself from the jews i don't care you know say i'm not a jew anymore i'm out of 0.99

00:14:59.920 here fine all i ask is you know what don't dump on the rest of us and don't don't help other people

00:15:06.880 who would really like to see us disappear uh is that too much to ask really and don't say speaking

00:15:12.800 as a jew uh you know even trotsky in in in in the soviet union uh he he uh his name used to be lev

00:15:20.160 bronstein uh but he didn't say speaking as a jew i'm a party member and i i believe that uh you know

00:15:27.840 jews should be uh uh persecuted people like just you know decide one or the other i'm not with you 1.00

00:15:35.040 i'm out of this people goodbye good luck and you know i'll just go my own way but the privileged

00:15:41.680 jews you're talking about yes they're the university crowd uh they want to be part of the herd they've 1.00

00:15:46.480 bought into the whole intersectional thing they've bought the whole uh and they're very full of

00:15:50.480 self-righteousness they see themselves as a new prophets um and they are using their they're

00:15:55.760 weaponizing their their status their social sociological status uh as jews uh to abet 0.89

00:16:04.480 a perniciously anti-semitic movement uh and then there's the the jews that are just plain ignorant and 1.00

00:16:10.880 they're what i call useful idiots um who go along because they get all their news from tick tock and they 0.87

00:16:17.440 um they're incurious they don't know anything about history they they know nothing and they're just

00:16:22.960 they're foolish silly people they need a cause they're looking for something they they they have 0.92

00:16:28.160 no connection to their jewish history or past or communities uh no no deep connection anyways and

00:16:34.720 and uh they don't have a cause so they're looking um and in a way they they feel they're this is a social

00:16:42.240 justice cause they've been trained to think that way uh they think that is that that israel is a

00:16:48.480 colonialist state which it isn't it isn't an apartheid these are all libels but they believe 0.99

00:16:53.440 them why shouldn't they their propaganda mill uh you know the the bds crowd their propaganda mill is

00:17:00.960 phenomenal because they don't have to worry about studying or doing anything constructive in life this is

00:17:05.920 their whole life is is relentless propagandizing against israel and the jews well i appreciate it 1.00

00:17:15.680 very much and like i've said to you in the past barbara i'm so grateful you continue to use your

00:17:20.560 voice in the way that you do when there are so many costs to doing so in this day and age and i

00:17:25.760 appreciate it very much barbara k thank you thank you andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton

00:17:30.560 show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - June 23, 2024

McGill anti-Israel encampment promotes “revolutionary” youth camp

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