The Fascist Assault on Campus Protests
The United States, champion of free speech, freedom of assembly, democracy, and liberty has once again seen waves of violence and oppression by police and government officials against peaceful protestors. Only by wilfully disregarding the law and the basic principles upon which this country is supposedly founded could it be argued that these protests, which have sprung up on college campuses across the country, have been doing anything wrong. The forces of fascism are doing everything to smear the protestors, claiming that they are supporting Hamas, rather than their stated intention of opposing US support for ethnic cleansing, and have accused the protests of being antisemitic and violent.
Antisemitism is real. It is a despicable prejudice built on a foundation of bullshit. Besides a few cherry-picked examples from the past year, and not from the recent campus protests, I haven’t heard about antisemitic acts or statements being made at these protests. A great number of the protests have been organized or attended by Jewish students, who rightfully decry their identity, culture, and religion being exploited to commit violence and silence dissent.
The only violence that I’ve heard about has been that which has been committed by police and campus security officers, as well as fascist vigilante thugs. The closest thing I’ve heard to protestors acting violently is the tired rhetoric of protestors “clashing” with police, which is a euphemism for what happens when police come in to forcefully end protests, assault protestors, and some people among the protestors have the audacity to try to protect themselves and their comrades.
I would bet that the majority of violence and violent rhetoric being directed against a minority US population since the Hamas attack last October and Israel’s subsequent destruction of Gaza and the slaughter of its people has been against people of Palestinian-descent and those associated with them. I would also be willing to bet that the majority of the violence committed against Jewish people at these protests was executed by the police and the aforementioned fascist thugs against the Jewish students and faculty among the protestors.
The fascist elite in the US and Israel are, as has become their modus operandi, labeling any criticism of Israel or protests of its actions as antisemitic. The genocidal war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that such protests be quelled. Unusual for a foreign politician to be able to order the politicians of another country to violate their own laws and the rights of their own people. But US politicians are all too happy to take the order and run with it. Not because they truly believe in the false equivalence between opposing Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians and antisemitism, and certainly not because they even oppose antisemitism or give an actual fuck about Jewish people, but because it is politically and financially beneficial for them to do so. In addition to bribes that politicians receive from pro-Israel lobbyists, for the fascistically inclined among them, the weaponization of antisemitism is a tool which allows them to dismantle free speech protections, bring universities and the whole concept of independent liberal education to heel, and persecute other minority groups.
When men like Mike Johnson speak out against antisemitism and argue that these protests are illegal and not protected free speech, it is in the interest of shutting down all dissent by any means. His only intention is harming and silencing protestors; he truly could not care less about Jewish people. Mike Johnson is a fascist, a racist, and undoubtedly an antisemite. He is among the sort of people that Israel has on its side. They will gladly partner with antisemites and support their use of the weaponized label of antisemitism against left wing human rights activists if it serves their short-term goals. Those who support Israel, and in so doing ally themselves with people like that, should do so knowing they’re making a deal with the devil.