Rising antisemitism – and not only on college campuses and not only on the right – on the one hand and on the other the politically motivated deployment of invented claims of antisemitism to stifle and discredit dissenters of the relentless bombing of Gaza are a part of the complex, entangled, and contradictory political ecology of this moment.

Neither one is a new phenomenon, but with the outbreak of fighting, first in Israel where 1200 were slaughtered on October 7 and shortly thereafter in Gaza where the death count rises above 16,000 (and counting,) both have spread in reach and gained in intensity.

For anyone who hopes to live in a world of substantive equality, peace, and freedom resisting both is imperative.

While the political class and media gang up against the three presidents of Ivy Leagues colleges for their misspeak and moral insensitivity in the face of rising antisemitism, the resumption of bombing and consequent mass murder of the people of Gaza – over 16,000 – going on right before their (and our) eyes, courtesy of Netanyahu and the Israeli military machine, doesn’t seem to merit the same outrage from these interlocutors.

“One down. Two to go,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement on Saturday. “This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most ‘prestigious’ higher education institutions in America. This forced resignation of the president of Penn is the bare minimum of what is required.”

Beware Beware Beware!

“Rot” for Stefanik – a Trump flunky – goes far beyond the presence of antisemitism on college campuses. And even if it didn’t I would have little confidence in her sincerity and capacity to address antisemitism. After all, the MAGA movement, and she is one of its leaders, is a purveyor of the worst kind of antisemitic tropes and constantly rails about the takeover of the country’s most “prestigious” college campuses by the left .

Even her choice of the word “rot” I find suspicious. It strikes me s a close cousin of “vermin.” And guess who uses that term?

Biden and his administration have shown a capacity to think anew, to challenge neoliberal orthodoxy at the level of theory and practice. As a result Biden has embraced a new economic worldview and associated economic policies on the domestic level that have lifted up working people and their families.

But one can’t say the same with respect to the global theater. He’s old school in many ways, and it could come back to bite him, as it bit Johnson. I would hope he and his administration do some rethinking of their policies internationally and make adjustments to new global realities, not least the presently exploding conflict between the Israeli government and the Palestinian people.

A point of departure would be a ceasefire in the one sided war of the Netanyahu government and the Israeli military against the people of Gaza.

A friend sent me a link that allowed me to listen to the speakers at the recent “Free Palestine – Ceasefire rally” in D.C. I can’t say that I listened to every speaker on the program (it was long), but I listened to enough to make me think other centers of organization and initiative articulating unifying demands, reaching out to a diverse and broad audience, and bringing together Palestinians and Jews (and others as well) are necessary.

At the local level such an undertaking strikes me as more doable for most of us.