Palestinian protests at Stony Brook reveal a polarized faculty

As an Israeli-American professor, I am appalled by the disturbing student uprisings dividing university campuses across this country, and diverting our attention from the real war in the Middle East. On our Stony Brook University campus, what I have found most disorienting is the internal polarization among faculty, eroding collegiality and trust among informed educators. This week, after 29 pro-Palestinian protesters, including two faculty, were arrested for defying university President Maurie McInnis’ clear orders, the hypocrisy and duplicity of social activists educating our students became inescapable.

To help manage student unrest before this event, an undergraduate wrote a proposal to College of Arts and Sciences faculty suggesting a campuswide course on nonviolent protest. I expressed support given its promise to tear down walls and build bridges where students and faculty could safely dialogue. The proposal was quickly shot down, and deviously diverted by the faculty’s unrelated criticism of the student’s presentation style.

When McInnis presciently issued a campuswide email, underscoring the administration’s commitment to freedom of speech bound by respect for the law, it seemed clarity and fairness would assure peace and order. That night, the opposite took place.

After repeated orders to disperse all tent encampments at unsanctioned university spaces by 11 p.m., tent protests grew. Police cleared the encampment by 3 a.m., and sadly, several college students and others were arrested and suspended from campus. The placement and timing of these antagonisms appeared deliberate; they took place on the grassy quad long reserved for Hillel, on the eve of its commemoration of the Holocaust and Israel Independence Day. The next day, where protesters had marched with their Free Palestine signs and flags, the annual festival unfolded calmly and peacefully, cordoned off by police guards.

Sadly, these types of campus events now require physical separation by barricades and police presence. But the saddest upshot came in a less obvious and more insidious form: latent anti-Jewish sentiment in our internal faculty exchanges. As several colleagues denounced the police force, one noted the problem could have been averted had the Jewish group moved its long-scheduled event elsewhere. Several other groups of faculty and students reported being verbally harassed, intimidated and spat on, a claim divergent with the nonviolent narratives of protesters and their organizers.

While faculty supporters of civil disobedience, some quick to qualify themselves as Jews, say they seek freedom of speech and genuine dialogue, they try to shut out Zionists and Israeli institutions, including those of higher learning. They seek collective punishment of people like me. They perpetuate false terminology by irresponsibly disseminating incorrect information that encourages students to refer to Israel as a “colonial” or “apartheid” state conducting “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.” As a political science professor, my duty is to educate students to use correct terminology and recognize the political ramifications of misuse. I expect that my fellow faculty, whatever their political positions, should as a matter of academic and moral integrity honor the rules of law and the tasks of education.

When I tried to remind colleagues to beware the perils we are sowing, the most keen of humanists told me to “take my concerns elsewhere.” After all, the group discussion was about “moving forward” to “defuse tensions” on campus. Though I might be shunned by my colleagues, I ask: How can we move forward if we exclude a group of people who feel their own personhood is denied?

These days on campus demonstrate that even the best-intended faculty risk failing the test of new antisemitism.

This guest essay reflects the views of Gallya Lahav, professor of political science at Stony Brook University.