Tom Cotton Brings Hysteria About Campus Anti-Semitism to Its Absurd Conclusion: ‘Nascent Pogroms’

The hysteria regarding anti-Semitism and college campuses reached its naturally absurd conclusion on Tuesday when a sitting U.S. senator compared contemporary U.S. universities to the Nazi regime.

“Joe Biden has a duty to protect these Jewish students from what is a nascent pogrom on these campuses,” Sen. Tom Cotton declared on Fox News. “These are scenes like you’ve seen out of the 1930s in Germany.”

Thanks to Fox and a handful of FOMO-minded publications like The New York Times, pro-Palestinian demonstrations have come under intense and oftentimes bad-faith scrutiny as Israel’s war in Gaza has entered its seventh month. That war has become increasingly indefensible as “October 7th,” much like, “September 11th,” can only buy an avenger so much leeway as it responds to an unspeakable horror.

Israel’s government – led by a criminally indicted prime minister whose premiership may be the only thing keeping him out of prison – has responded by unleashing horrors of its own. Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in its assault on Gaza. The vast majority of residents have been displaced. Most buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Hospitals have been raided. Children are literally starving to death.

These are what war crimes look like.

Whatever scant coverage these abominations were receiving in the U.S. press has been supplanted by abject hysteria about anti-Semitism supposedly running amok on college campuses – particularly Columbia University. The media is awash in tales about protestors on college campuses telling Jews to “go back to Poland,” praising Hamas, or making other hateful and terrible statements. That some of these incidents did not actually occur on campus is no obstacle to their inclusion in the list of exhibits meant to “prove” the pro-terrorism bent of campus activists.

Some of Israel’s ardent defenders welcome nothing more than a pivot from the protestors’ legitimate grievances (e.g., dead kids) to the alleged anti-Semitism of the protests. Demonizing mass demonstrations is actually not difficult to achieve. Inevitably, there will be protestors – on campus and off – who say and do dumb, inexplicable, unconscionable things. They will then be held up as archetypes of the movement they purport to represent. When presented in this way, the message is clear. The anti-war movement is not merely “pro-Palestine,” it is “anti-Israel,” as some insist. Or worse, as others claim, it is “pro-Hamas.” Therefore, the whole enterprise is rotten.

On Tuesday, Cotton appeared on Fox News’ America Reports, where he was asked if the National Guard should be dispatched to Columbia University to protect Jewish students. To do what, is unclear, but this was his response:

It would certainly be welcome if the university presidents and their police forces would cooperate with the NYPD, but New York City has an obligation to enforce the law and to protect innocent civilians like those Jewish students.

If there’s a crime being committed in a private home, the police have every right to go into the home to stop the imminent crime being committed. So, they certainly have every right as well. And yes, I do agree that if Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD to protect these Jewish students, if Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to protect these Jewish students from what is a nascent pogrom on these campuses. These are his scenes like you’ve seen out of the 1930s in Germany. They should never be witnessed or tolerated here in America in 2024.

Cotton’s characterization of the situation at Columbia is absurd on its face. There is no need to explain why protests at the school are not anything like, say, Kristallnacht. But the senator’s matter-of-fact comparison underscores the broader reality that those looking to collectively smear protestors as anti-Semites feel no obligation to marshal facts for their claims. Moreover, their threshold for outrage is ridiculously low.

Take the case of Sahar Tartak, a Jewish student at Yale University who appeared on Fox News multiple times this week to discuss her latest column. “I was stabbed in the eye last night on Yale University’s campus because I am a Jew,” she alleged.

The column includes video of the incident, which is far from damning. It shows a throng of protestors walking past Tartak. At one point, one of them is seen waving a small Palestinian flag that appears to inadvertently make contact with her, at which point she exclaims, “Ow, ow! You stabbed–” before the video ends.

Several media outlets ran with Tartak’s characterization that she had been “stabbed,” which is a word that conveys a certain intent, not to mention physical damage. Yet in her media appearances, both eyes appeared unharmed. To the extent her eye was struck at all, the more responsible word to use would have been, “poked.” Moreover, it is hardly clear she was “stabbed” because she is Jewish. Yet, the incident is being touted as proof that Jews simply cannot feel safe on campus. So outraged was Sen. James Lankford, for example, he wrote to the U.S. attorney general to demand a federal response.

Meanwhile, Jewish students who tell a different story about what’s happening on campus are largely ignored.

And while we’re discussing Tom Cotton’s Kristallnot, the war in Gaza goes on unabated. Israel continues to bomb away without consideration for the safety of the territory’s students – or anyone else. Earlier, I mentioned Israel has destroyed or damaged most buildings in Gaza. That includes its 12 universities, all of which have been bombed. That’s in addition to the hundreds of other educational institutions within the territory. In all, more than 13,000 children have been killed in the war, according to the U.N., which ran a school that Israel bombed with deadly consequences. Talk about feeling unsafe on campus.

The campus anti-Semitism discourse conveniently elides all of this. Rather than engage protestors on the merits, critics are deploying ad hominem attacks to try to discredit the activists as rabid bigots whose cause is therefore invalid. Discussions about ethnic cleansing in Gaza take a back seat to whatever new anecdotes can be mustered to smear Israel’s critics. And fundamentally, that’s really the point of all this.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.