Given the assaults on Israel this summer for its “disproportionate” response to Hezbollah attacks, many feared fall semester on campuses would be afire with anti-Israel campaigns. So far, it’s more like the usual, growing drumbeat: a few large anti-Western/anti-Israel events accompanied by a continuous drip, drip, drip of defamation – leaflets, posters, verbal sniping in classrooms, “academic” panels. Here’s a campus sampling:

Boston:

After Harvard opened the school year with a talk by a former Iranian President whose country promises to vaporize Israel with nuclear bombs, a church in Harvard Square followed up a few weeks later with the former PLO spokesman, now Columbia professor, Rashid Khalidi, who came to blame Israel for Palestinian woes. His far-left audience pushed the event toward full-assault mode. Over at MIT on Sept. 21, Noam Chomsky opened the season with an hour-long anti-Israel rant to a hall filled with breathless admirers. One of my staffers reported: “500 students prostrated themselves in front of him. The supposedly most influential intellectual in America said that the Israelis stage-managed their own trauma in Gaza … to get world sympathy … and not one of the best and brightest spoke up.”

Coming soon to Harvard’s Divinity School is a major hate-Israel fest. Entitled “Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision,” it’s sponsored by “The Pluralism Project.” The pluralism here will consist of Muslims, Christians and Jews blasting Israel. The Israeli speaker “finds inspiration in the growing movement of young Israelis who are refusing military service.”

Anti-Israelism often takes subtler forms. Moving south: At Brown University in an Arab language class, the professor referred to Israel as Palestine (something we hear is quite common) – until a Jewish student spoke up.

New York City:

At Queens College – A professor taught in her Intro Politics class that Palestinian suicide bombers are freedom fighters.
Columbia invited and then dis-invited (only “for security concerns”) Iran’s President Ahmadinejad – the one who wants to kill all the Jews in Israel – to speak at its World Leader’s Forum. Later, an “anti-war” coalition held a rally in the middle of College Walk to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Intifada.

At SUNY Stony Brook – the Americans for Informed Democracy sponsored Ghazi Khankan, of CAIR (a hostile anti-Israel lobbying group) to it’s “Hope Not Hate: The Future of U.S.-Islamic World Relations.” The event turned into an Israel bash.

At CUNY Hunter College – there was a nice sized poster: Star of David=swastika

At NYU – A law school panel on the future of Hezbollah had a very negative spin against Israel.

If you are reading this report and have children or know students on these campuses, are you encouraging them to stand up for Israel, Jews and their community? Are you thinking that “this too shall pass” or tacitly hoping they take care of themselves, their grades, and their career paths? What will you do? When will you start? Pro-Israel groups have been preparing students for the campus battles. In the weeks ahead, this column will report on their observations and their struggles.