Conservatives fighting ‘antisemitism' are actively targeting US Jews. Why?
The Trump administration claims that its moves to defund universities, arrest and deport students and force schools to demote or monitor professors are meant to combat antisemitism, protect Jewish students and remove 'Hamas-supporting' foreign nationals from the country. American pro-Israel groups including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Hillel International, Aipac and the Heritage Foundation have united behind Republican measures to crack down on higher education and its putative antisemitism. Religiously identified groups such as the Orthodox Union and Christians United for Israel have joined the chorus, celebrating the punishment of supposedly antisemitic students and professors. Whatever their varied pasts, today's pro-Israel groups are not about protecting American Jews. Instead, they are allies in Maga's war on free speech, academic freedom and the US's democratic society itself.
To be clear: the pro-Israel campaign to 'protect' Jews by punishing anti-Zionist speech often targets Jews. After a student complaint about a tenured Jewish professor's Twitter post, Muhlenberg College fired her. The ADL has rewarded Muhlenberg by grading it 'better than most' colleges for fighting 'antisemitism'. The ADL also accused Jewish Voice for Peace, a large, anti-Zionist Jewish group with chapters on many American campuses, of 'promot[ing] messaging' that can include 'support for terrorists'. Under pressure from the Trump administration, Columbia University expelled a Jewish graduate student and United Auto Workers local president who demonstrated against the war in Gaza.
To be clear: the pro-Israel campaign to 'protect' Jews by punishing anti-Zionist speech often targets Jews. After a student complaint about a tenured Jewish professor's Twitter post, Muhlenberg College fired her. The ADL has rewarded Muhlenberg by grading it 'better than most' colleges for fighting 'antisemitism'. The ADL also accused Jewish Voice for Peace, a large, anti-Zionist Jewish group with chapters on many American campuses, of 'promot[ing] messaging' that can include 'support for terrorists'. Under pressure from the Trump administration, Columbia University expelled a Jewish graduate student and United Auto Workers local president who demonstrated against the war in Gaza. Most chillingly, the Trump administration recently sent all staff at Barnard College a questionnaire inquiring if they were Jewish, ostensibly to gauge campus antisemitism. For many, the experience of being asked by the government to self-identify as a Jew was terrifying; as one historian put it: 'We've seen this movie before, and it ends with yellow stars.'
Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that publishes information on students and professors who supposedly 'promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews', has been targeting an Israeli American scholar of the Holocaust along with many other Jews (including the author of this piece). Project Esther, an initiative launched by the conservative Heritage Foundation – the thinktank behind Project 2025 – blames the 'American Jewish community's complacency' for the 'pro-Palestinian movement's' ability to continue working for 'the destruction of capitalism and democracy'. Maga's pro-Israel partners do not protect Jews; they help Trump in his war on our academic freedom and open society more generally.
Of course, unlike some pro-Israel groups, the Trump administration has a broader antipathy toward higher education. As JD Vance put it, 'the professors are the enemy'. But the pro-Israel movement furnishes Maga with a crucial weapon in their war on this 'enemy': charges of antisemitism. The entire 'US education system', according to Project Esther, has been 'infiltrated' by 'Hamas-supporting organizations' that now 'foster antisemitism under the guise of ''pro-Palestinian,' anti-Israel, anti-Zionist narratives … within the rubric of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and similar Marxist ideology'. Of course, by linking Palestinian solidarity with longstanding rightwing bogeymen like antiracism and communism, Project Esther gives away the game; their 'antisemitic' charge is a tool to silence Maga's left-leaning critics in higher education.
Meanwhile, many pro-Israel groups seem to tolerate Maga's proximity to antisemitism. If they didn't, we might expect to hear more about JD Vance's meeting with Germany's neo-Nazi-linked AfD, Steve Bannon's singling out of 'American Jews that do not support Israel and do not support Maga' as 'the number one enemy to the people in Israel', or Trump's claim that the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer is 'not Jewish' but 'Palestinian'.
The ADL went so far as to defend Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. True, the ADL rightfully criticized some of these other incidents, as well as Trump's antisemitic advertisements, and his meeting with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. But these cases do not seem to merit breaking with Maga. Why? Because the pro-Israel movement advocates for Israel, not American Jews.
For this reason, the American pro-Israel movement has been collaborating in the Trump administration's campaign to roll back everyone's constitutional rights. By now, most of us have seen the footage of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, both students at American universities, being surrounded by groups of government agents and forced into the backs of unmarked vehicles. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, promised that hundreds of other students have been stripped of their visas. Neither Khalil nor Öztürk have any demonstrated ties to Hamas. Khalil even spoke out against antisemitism, declaring that 'antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on this campus and in this movement'. Furthermore, as a permanent resident and a student visa holder, both Khalil and Öztürk are guaranteed first amendment protections. Yet Hillel International failed to condemn the arrests, and the ADL outright celebrated Khalil's.
Ultimately, Trump and many in the pro-Israel movement have allied against free speech in higher education because it is a pillar of an open society that threatens both of them. The right has long had it out for universities. The pro-Israel movement, meanwhile, saw the campus encampments with horror; a wide cross-section of students and professors from a variety of religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds came together to speak out against Israel's killing of tens of thousands of people.
Even more galling for the pro-Israel movement, Jews actively participated in the protests – even conducting Passover seders, as well as Kabbalat Shabbat and Havdalah services amid them. These young Jews are not alone; less than half of Americans now sympathize with Israel, and one-third believe Israel is committing genocide. These facts do not threaten American Jews, but they do threaten Maga and the heavily evangelical pro-Israel movement. As long as increasing numbers of students, professors and many others speak out for Palestinians' humanity, the pro-Israel movement, armed with disingenuous accusations of antisemitism, will aid Maga's war on American higher education and democracy itself.
Joshua Schreier is a professor of history and Jewish studies at Vassar College.
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