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discrimination
No, It's Not Antisemitic to Charge Israel With Genocide and It's Dangerous to Say It Is
It posits that Israel represents all Jews and therefore criticism of Israel becomes criticism of the Jewish people and it denies the victims of Israel’s behaviors their legitimate right to speak of their pain.
May 12, 2026
Is it antisemitic to say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza? More generally, is it “hurtful and insensitive” for someone to acknowledge the suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people? In recent weeks, actions by two different institutions of higher learning brought these two questions to the forefront.
On April 15, a group of faculty and student organizations at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, hosted celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mosab Abu Toha to speak at the campus. During his appearance, to set the stage for the poems he was to read, Abu Toha shared his experiences living in Gaza during the start of the Israeli assault. He told of the members of his and his wife’s families who had been killed in Israel’s bombing campaigns. Entire families erased, neighborhoods laid waste, memories eradicated. It was, he stated, a genocide.
Days after event, Le Moyne’s president issued a statement apologizing for the discomfort that Abu Toha’s remarks may have created for some in the college community. The letter noted that his use of the word genocide in connection with the state of Israel caused “real hurt” and was leaving “some members of our community to feel unwelcome.” The president concluded by affirming that “antisemitism, along with all forms of bigotry and hate, has no place at Le Moyne.”
Abu Toha responded to the president’s letter with an “open letter” of his own, rejecting the implication that using the word genocide to describe Israel’s actions could be termed antisemitic.
It is worth noting that the assumption underlying this assertion fits hand-in-glove with the claim of real antisemites who argue that the consequences of Israel’s bad behaviors can legitimately be visited on all Jews.
“Seriously?” he asked. “Are the crimes of the Israeli state representative of all Jewish people? I personally refuse to believe that is the case… I never used the word ‘Jewish’ during the entire event; I refuse to conflate the faith of Judaism with the actions of Israel.”
He concluded: “If anyone told you they felt ‘hurt’ because I used the word genocide, then I ask you: How should I feel? How should my wife feel after losing her father? How should my three children feel after losing their grandfather?”
And then, this past weekend, the University of Michigan held its commencement ceremonies. One of the speakers was the president of the faculty senate. He began his short but eloquent remarks by noting that while the university celebrates its athletes and their accomplishments, there are other heroes who should also be celebrated—those who challenged the stale and unjust status quo of the university by opening the doors to inclusion and understanding.
He began by mentioning a young woman who in 1858 challenged the school’s opposition to enrolling women as students. He went on to note the first Jewish faculty member and the Black Action Movement that pressed the university to expand their curriculum to honor the black experience, and closed by recognizing the “student activists… who sacrificed much to open our hearts to the injustices happening in Gaza.”
His remarks were so beautifully constructed and presented that they elicited a roar of approval from those in attendance. The video of the event appearing on the university’s website shows his colleagues and administrators applauding the speech.
Within a few days, the same university president who is seen applauding issued a letter denouncing the professor’s speech as “hurtful and insensitive” and “inappropriate.”
(To avoid “further controversy” the university removed the video of the event—in which the president is seen applauding the speech—from the website).
The question that must be asked, in addition to those noted above, is what is the logic behind this claim that the remarks of both Abu Toha and the faculty senate president were hurtful to the point of being antisemitic?
The place to begin is by asking: “What is antisemitism?” The simplest and clearest definition is that antisemitism is hatred of, stereotyping of, or discrimination against Jewish people because they are Jews. Like other forms of bigotry, it claims that there are inherent characteristics or behaviors that are shared by all Jews, simply because they are Jewish.
Given this, the only way that criticism of Israeli actions can constitute antisemitism is if the critic implies that Israel does what it does because it is Jewish and “that’s the way Jews are,” or if the person making the claim of antisemitism maintains that because Israel says it is a Jewish state that whatever it does represents all Jews and therefore criticism of Israeli policies is the same as criticism of the Jewish people.
This latter position has long been propagated by pro-Israel organizations. Until recently, this proposition was mostly rejected, but it has now come to gain acceptance. It is dangerous precisely because it posits that Israel represents all Jews and therefore criticism of Israel becomes criticism of the Jewish people. It is worth noting that the assumption underlying this assertion fits hand-in-glove with the claim of real antisemites who argue that the consequences of Israel’s bad behaviors can legitimately be visited on all Jews. Interestingly, this is the same logic that has long plagued Arab Americans who have been victims of hate crimes because it was claimed that their ethnicity or religion made them legitimate targets in response to the actions of some Arab groups in the Middle East.
The other consequence is that, as Abu Toha correctly notes, it denies the victims of Israel’s behaviors their legitimate right to speak of their pain and call out, with specificity, the agent who caused it because of the hurt that might cause those who support Israel—or in the case of the University of Michigan, to deny the right of students to empathize with and demand that Palestinian victims be heard, because acknowledging Palestinian pain might also cause hurt feelings.
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John Roberts Is George Wallace With a Harvard Law Degree
What the infamous segregationist from Alabama could not accomplish with violence, the US Supreme Court Justice has accomplished with a pen.
May 04, 2026
George Wallace was sworn in as Governor of Alabama in 1963 and famously declared in his inauguration speech (written by a Ku Klux Klan leader) "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." Two years later, Alabama state troopers violently broke up a nighttime voting rights march during which a police officer shot and killed young African American protester and Baptist deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson who was unarmed and protecting his mother.
In response, civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King and John Lewis, organized a mass march from Selma to Montgomery over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempt to deliver a civil rights and voting rights message to Gov. Wallace. It became known as "Bloody Sunday" as state troopers gassed and beat the protestors, including fracturing Lewis' skull and sending 57 others to the hospital. Televised images of the brutal attack shocked the nation, directly leading to President Johnson's push for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Numerous Americans, black and white, were injured and even died fighting for the Civil Rights Act. John Roberts and his five Republican Supreme Court colleagues effectively overturned the Civil Rights Act and essentially disenfranchised black voters.
George Wallace tried to disenfranchise black voters with violent state troopers. Roberts disenfranchised black voters with the stroke of a pen. It's not hyperbole to say that while Roberts wears the black robes of a judge, he may as well wear the white robes of the Klan.
It's not hyperbole to say that while Roberts wears the black robes of a judge, he may as well wear the white robes of the Klan.
In her dissent to Louisiana v. Callais in which the 6-member Republican majority of the Court effectively overturned Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act, Justice Elena Kagan wrote: “The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history. It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality." Kagan concluded, " I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.”
But the Court didn't destroy the Civil Rights Act in a day. It was part of a lifelong mission by John Roberts to do so.
Starting as early as 1981, as a 26-year-old lawyer just three years out of Harvard Law School, Roberts began his campaign to undermine the Civil Rights Act. He got himself a job as Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith. Congress was about to amend the Civil Rights Act to provide that state laws would be illegal if they had a racially discriminatory effect, without having to prove that they had a racially discriminatory intent—something almost impossible to prove.
Roberts zealously took on the assignment coming up with arguments against the Amendment. Roberts wrote over 25 memos opposing the Amendment. In one, he argued that the Civil Rights Act was "the most intrusive interference imaginable by federal courts into state and local processes."
Despite the efforts of Roberts and others in the Reagan administration, Congress passed the Amendment with overwhelming bipartisan support. Little did anyone imagine at the time that Roberts would become Chief Justice and the leader of right-wing Justices' ultimately successful efforts to undermine the Civil Rights Act as he had initially set out to do as a young Justice Department official.
At his confirmation hearing, Roberts told the Senate "The existing Voting Rights Act, the constitutionality has been upheld and I don't have any issue with that." He was lying.
In 2013, Roberts got his first shot at dismantling the Civil Rights Act. In his 5-4 ruling in Shelby v. Holder, he overturned Section 5 of the Act , which required that states with a history of racist voter suppression pre-clear changes in election laws with the Justice Department to be sure they were not reinstituting racial suppression. He argued that it was no longer necessary since racism in America had diminished since the Act had been passed. In response, many states previously subject to preclearance rushed to enact new voter suppression laws.
In coming years, the Roberts Court further chipped away at the Voting Rights Act. But Roberts finally got his opportunity to make the rest of the Voting Rights Act a nullity when Louisiana v. Calais came before the Court this year. In a 6-3 opinion, which Roberts assigned to his anti-voting rights ally Justice Samuel Alito, the Court overruled the other crown jewel of the Voting Rights Act which had previously held that racially gerrymandered districts were illegal if they had racially discriminatory effect. Instead, racially gerrymandered districts would only be illegal if it can be proven that they have a racially discriminatory intent, a bar that is almost impossible to clear.
This was the argument that Roberts first made as a young Justice Department attorney back in 1982. As Chief Justice, he finally succeeded in his long campaign to revoke the Civil Rights Act.
Meanwhile, if a state can claim that it's gerrymandering is motivated by ensuring that its political party wins, it's totally cool with the Roberts Court. With the Court overturning both Section 2 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it effectively repealed the entire Voting Rights Act that so many had fought and died for.
The very next day, Florida passed a redistricting law that would allow for new levels of gerrymandering designed to erase districts with large populations of black voters.
Roberts accomplished with a pen what George Wallace had tried to accomplish with violent state troopers.
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Exposing the University of Michigan’s Violence Against Chinese Scholars
UM research Dr. Danhao Wan reportedly committed suicide after being questioned by federal authorities, revealing a broader pattern of political discrimination.
Apr 26, 2026
On April 17, CODEPINK and the local University of Michigan community gathered to hold a vigil in honor of UM researcher Dr. Danhao Wan on the one-month anniversary of his death. According to reports, Dr. Wang died after jumping from an upper floor of the G.G. Brown Building on North Campus, shortly after being targeted and questioned by federal authorities.
Over 30 members of the local community attended the vigil, bringing candles and flowers. They joined in a traditional Chinese bowing ceremony. During the vigil, CODEPINK and US Peace Council member Bob McMurray spoke to the crowd: “Tonight, I want us to remember there is a Mom and Dad mourning the loss of their son; there are people here in the university research community feeling his absence every day; and we, as the human family, have lost a brother.”
For weeks, Dr. Wang’s death went uncovered by the media. By the time it hit the news, the Chinese Consulate in Chicago had already confirmed the incident as a suicide and demanded an investigation of the “unwarranted interrogations and harassment of Chinese students and scholars.”
This is not the first time a Chinese scholar has been targeted at the University of Michigan; it is part of a broader pattern of political discrimination. In the last year, five Chinese scholars have been accused of various crimes, detained for months on end, and ultimately deported after the quiet dismissal of their cases due to a lack of evidence.
When individuals like Dr. Wang are targeted, it is not only their livelihoods that are threatened, but the very purpose and meaning they have built their lives around.
This discrimination is not new. In 2018, the Trump administration launched the China Initiative, a deeply flawed and racially biased program that targeted Chinese and Chinese Americans for “suspected espionage.” More often than not, federal authorities targeted individuals with no evidence of wrongdoing—simply for their identity. As a result, a new climate of suspicion and fear took root across academia. Though few convictions were made, many Chinese scholars suffered permanent professional and personal harm. They began to self-censor, withdraw from collaborations, or leave the United States entirely. For them, the US was no longer safe.
Although the China Initiative was formally ended under the Biden administration due to widespread criticism of its racial bias, its underlying logic has not disappeared. Instead, it has evolved into a broader atmosphere of suspicion directed at Chinese scholars, particularly in fields tied to advanced technology and science. At the University of Michigan, this pattern is especially visible.
Take the case of Dr. Chengxuan Han, a Chinese PhD student who was arrested for mailing roundworms commonly used in biological research. In most academic contexts, such an error would result in a minor administrative penalty. Instead, she was jailed for months and subjected to a full criminal prosecution. This outcome was wildly disproportionate to the alleged offense and one that effectively ended her academic trajectory.
Another scholar, Dr. Yunqing Jian, was accused of "agricultural terrorism” for breaking protocol and shipping materials to the US without the proper paperwork. Renowned biologists refuted this claim, saying it was impossible to use Fusarium graminearum, the fungus Dr. Jian studied, as a bioterrorist weapon. In the world of research deadlines and red tape, scholars say it's typical to try to streamline research by acquiring your own materials, even if that means skipping some paperwork. Dr. Jian has spent years researching how to mitigate the harm caused to crops by Fusarium graminearum, which is native to North America. While she did break protocol, it is absurd to accuse her of weaponizing the fungus, especially without any evidence.
Similarly, the cases of UM scholars Xu Bai, Fengfan Zhang, and Zhiyong Zhang demonstrate how ordinary research practices were reframed as criminal acts merely because of the identity of the scholars. Even though charges against them were dropped and the cases dismissed, the damage had already been done.
The three scholars had spent months in jail awaiting their trial. In a letter, Zhiyong Zhang spoke of his confusion over the situation:
I like the research atmosphere in the University. I like the people here. They are kind and polite. I am living a happy life here. However, unfortunately and apparently, some people don't like us. They want to connect us with politics. But what is politics? I didn't know what politics is when I was 13 years old, at which age I decided to study biology. Now I am also confused about what politics is. It's so abstract. We didn't hurt anyone, and we don't want to hurt anyone, either. We just want to do research and find something that can benefit humanity. That makes me feel my life is meaningful, although I can not make much money.
Zhang decided to study biology because his grandfather and father were both diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in their mid-30s: “I thought I could change to study neuroscience to cure the disease of my family and all the people who are suffering the pain from the disease… So this is what I am doing here.” At 32, he worries he will soon suffer the same fate.
Originally, the three scholars were informed by the University of Michigan that they had 30 days to pack and leave. Since they’d spent all their free time in the laboratory, they decided to use their last few weeks to visit the Grand Canyon. While there, the UM administration backtracked on their words, informing the scholars they had to leave immediately. At the airport, while attempting to return home, they were intercepted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and arrested.
This was no coincidence. The UM administration not only provided the wrong information, but they also had terminated their SEVIS status, which gave them permission to live and study in the US, making them vulnerable to federal authorities at passport control.
The repeated pattern points to a system in which Chinese researchers are treated as potential threats merely on the basis of their identity—which is all a part of the larger campaign to paint China as an enemy of the United States.
Dr. Danhao Wang’s life and work stand in stark contrast to this narrative. An assistant research scientist in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, Dr. Wang dedicated his career to advancing semiconductor technology. His research focused on gallium nitride, a material critical to modern electronics and essential for improving the speed, efficiency, and energy consumption of devices ranging from smartphones to renewable technology systems.
He made significant contributions to understanding how these materials behave at the atomic level, correcting long-standing assumptions and helping to unlock new possibilities for high-performance electronics. His work also explored how next-generation semiconductors could remain stable under extreme electrical conditions, paving the way for more efficient energy systems and emerging technologies.
We must put increased pressure on the University of Michigan and other universities to do more to protect their international students.
The repercussions of this research are vast. Semiconductors with such high performance potential could potentially make the data center industry obsolete by enabling a smaller device to do what normally takes an entire facility. For the US, gallium nitride semiconductors are the key to significantly improving its high-power weapons systems, and China’s current dominance over the material is considered a looming threat. This is all part of the US preparation for war against China, and the ongoing arms race around strategic resources and technology.
It’s reported that Dr. Wang was planning to return to China in May and already had a job set up. This raises even more questions over the circumstances of his death, and many Michigan locals have begun calling for an independent investigation.
Like most scientists, Dr. Wang’s research stemmed from deep intellectual commitment and passion. Years of specialized training, long hours in the lab, and a singular focus on discovery defined his life’s work. When individuals like Dr. Wang are targeted, it is not only their livelihoods that are threatened, but the very purpose and meaning they have built their lives around.
His death is a profound tragedy. And while the full circumstances remain unclear, it occurred within an environment where Chinese scholars have repeatedly been subjected to intense surveillance and unfair targeting.
The broader political climate cannot be ignored. Increasingly, US policy and rhetoric have framed China as a primary geopolitical adversary, particularly in areas like technology and national security. This framing has filtered down into academic spaces, where international collaboration between the US and China is now essentially criminalized.
The Chinese Consulate in Chicago has criticized the US for “overstretching the concept of national security” and has called for a full investigation and accountability. These demands should not be dismissed.
There must be transparency around the circumstances leading to Dr. Wang’s death. There must also be concrete safeguards to prevent discriminatory investigations targeting international scholars. This includes stronger legal protections, clearer institutional accountability, and accessible mental health support for those under investigation.
Universities, in particular, have a responsibility to protect their students and researchers. The University of Michigan is clearly doing the opposite. They are not protecting their students; they are instead actively targeting them by aiding these discriminatory investigations, putting all international students at risk.
We must put increased pressure on the University of Michigan and other universities to do more to protect their international students, to preserve the integrity of academic research, to protect international collaboration, and to ensure that scientific progress is not undermined by federal discrimination. If institutions fail to act, the cost will not only be measured in lost careers but in lost knowledge, lost innovation, and lost lives.
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