Free antisemitic speech is still antisemitic and indefensible

One of only two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has always been a vehemently outspoken critic of Israel. She explained her recent vote against the Israel Security Supplemental Bill, for example, as a refusal to “support unconditional military aid that further escalates the already horrific humanitarian situation” in Gaza. 

Often accused of antisemitism, Omar has maintained, as many others do, that she strongly condemns Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, while accepting the nation itself as “America’s legitimate and democratic ally.” 

There can indeed be a valid distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism — with the first aimed at the policies and actions of Israel’s government, and the latter directed against Jewish people and institutions. Although anti-Israel activists, often echoing Omar, typically assert that their protests are leveled only at Zionism, some have lately demonstrated a shocking inclination to employ classically antisemitic themes and images.  

One appalling instance recently surfaced at the University of California’s Berkeley Law School, when Dean Erwin Chemerinsky announced a series of three dinners for graduating students, to be held at his home. Although the event had nothing to do with Gaza’s agony, the Berkeley chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine seized on Chemerinsky’s Jewish identity to call for a boycott of the celebration. 

They placed posters throughout the law school, as well as on their Instagram account, featuring a grotesque caricature of Chemerinsky holding a bloody knife and fork, with the caption “No Dinner with Zionist Chem While Gaza Starves.” Chemerinsky and I are friendly acquaintances, having coauthored a short essay on judicial ethics in 2004. 

Chemerinsky recognized the image as “blatant antisemitism,” invoking the “horrible antisemitic trope of blood libel” and attacking him for “no apparent reason other than I am Jewish.”  

He wasn’t exaggerating. 

The portrayal of Jews as leering blood drinkers — historically known as a “blood libel” — dates back to Medieval times, and it has been used ever since as an excuse for pogroms, expulsions, and worse. It was a staple of Germany’s Der Stürmer in the Nazi era and can be seen today in its American descendant, the far-right, neo-Nazi publication The Daily Stormer. Louis Farrakhan antisemitically refers to Jews as blood-suckers and the myth of evil Jewish vampires — not the moon children of “Twilight” — has been widespread in Europe and the Middle East. 

Other campuses have also seen antisemitic imagery. At Harvard, for example, the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African and African American Resistance Organization posted a drawing depicting a hand bearing a Star of David and a dollar sign holding nooses around the necks of two Black and Arab men. Even worse, a group called the Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine shared the post on its social media account. 

After the Harvard administration condemned the “vile and hateful antisemitic tropes,” the groups took down the posts. The students claimed that the offensive image had been “negligently included” due to “a combination of ignorance and inadequate oversight.”  The faculty group apologized without explanation, saying only that they removed the content after it “came to our attention.” 

Neither group explained how the blatantly hateful accusation of Jewish financial manipulation could so readily be embraced by students and faculty at America’s premier university. 

Berkeley’s Law Students for Justice in Palestine did not have the decency to apologize. They somewhat sanitized the social media version of the poster, removing the blood from Chemerinsky’s utensils but leaving the ghastly grin with flecks on his lips. 

They followed up by posting a quote from the late George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and originator of airplane hijacking. 

Here is another quote from Habash, whose tactics were too extreme even for Yasir Arafat: “To kill a Jew far from the battleground has more of an effect than killing 100 of them in battle.” 

The subsequent disruption of Chemerinsky’s dinners generated considerable press coverage, much of it devoted to the absurd claim of a First Amendment right to give amplified speeches at the dean’s backyard party. It is important, however, not to miss the antisemitic undertone of their protest.  

The Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine denounced Chemerinsky’s dinners as “no more than PR events for Zionist admin to distract us from the genocide in Gaza.” The group claimed to have targeted him because he failed to take a public position on “U.S. complicity with the unfolding genocide,” and “continues to approve of UC investments into weapons companies.” 

As Chemerinsky has repeatedly pointed out, however, his student dinners have been annual events, he has said “nothing in support of what Netanyahu’s doing,” and neither he nor the law school plays any role in university investments. 

In fact, Chemerinsky has been supportive of Palestinian rights, even stressing that the student group’s antisemitic posters “were protected by the First Amendment.” In 2007, he represented the family of Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist who was killed in an Israeli military operation while she was attempting to save a Gazan home from destruction. His wife, Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk, told the protesters, “We agree with you about what’s going on in Palestine.”  

Chemerinsky has dedicated much of his long career to the protection of individual and minority rights, only to be hounded and vilified, alone among Berkeley administrators. As he sorrowfully acknowledged in an interview, “It’s hard for me to see any reason why they are coming after me, other than I am Jewish.” 

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.