One might wonder why the most racist president in our nation’s history is
supposedly outlawing “antisemitism” on US campuses.
Trump plans to intimidate the nation’s colleges and universities into
banning any discussion of Palestinian human rights. In effect, he has
defined the limits of free speech for all of higher education, as he has
defined the meaning of “antisemitism” for all Jewish Americans.
Yet his power base is white supremacist: Christian men, the type who march
through the streets chanting “Jews won’t replace us.” Could anything be as
contradictory?
Trump is certainly protecting Israel, the US colony, by obliterating freedom
of speech on campuses. The fact that most US Jews do not want their religion
or ethnicity defined by an apartheid state in the Middle East means nothing
to him.
But white nationalism is more complex. Conservative evangelicals in the US
have been advocating for the creation of an Israeli state for over a
century. According to their doctrine, Jesus is to reappear when all Jews are
returned to the Holy Land. But something else would happen as well; Jews
would no longer be part of a Christian America. For white supremacists, an
ascendent Israel represents the hope of ethnically cleansing this country of
all Jews.
A featured evangelical leader at Trump’s recent Hanukkah party, the Rev.
John Hagee, once said that the “Holocaust was part of God’s plan to return
the Jews to Israel.” In fact, white supremacists want to send everyone
“home,” be they Black, Latino, Muslim or Jew.
Fred Nagel Rhinebeck, NY
