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Notes -
Very minor tustle between two FSU students, one wearing an IDF shirt which provokes a somewhat hysterical reaction from a female student who pushes his phone.
This is an act of desperation, it's going to increase antisemitism because wildly disproportionate responses like this reveal the underlying criticisms made by "anti-semites" to be true.
What criticisms have you made that this shows to be true?
Not just myself, but many have made the criticism that the US federal government is unduly influenced towards defending the political and cultural interests of Jews above and beyond other groups of people, including most notably White Americans.
I myself have pointed to other prominent instances of this, like Jewish groups getting hundreds of millions in handouts from DHS. There's actually been an update to that story recently- the Israel supplemental bill included a $390M increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program with $230M available through Sept 30, 2026. Schumer is pushing for an additional $500M bringing potential 2026 funding to $730M. A massive expansion of the program.
It is true that the US is a strong ally of Israel and spends money on Israel, and it is also true that the US government strongly opposes anti-semitism, including giving grants to some groups dedicated to fighting it.
It's not clear that 1) being critical of either of those things is anti-semitic, 2) that a university punishing a student who harassed a Jewish student is evidence of either of those things or is convincing other people that they are true, or 3) that this is convincing people to be anti-semitic in some further or additional sense.
That is, to the first, it is wholly possible to believe that the US alliance with Israel is wrong and that the US shouldn't spend money on minority issues without being anti-semitic. So even if this incident influences people to believe those things, it's not clear that increases anti-semitism, or reveals the criticisms made by anti-semites to be true.
Presumably anti-semites oppose money being spent on combating anti-semitism, even though it's possible to believe that money shouldn't be spent on combating anti-semitism for non-anti-semitic reasons. But you should not jump from that coincidental agreement to the conclusion that more people are supporting anti-semitism itself.
Here it might be worth the sober reminder that American rejection of anti-semitism appears to be rising, not falling. Per page 5, in 2021 60% of US adults say that anti-semitism was either a somewhat serious or very serious problem, which then rose to 68% in 2022, 74% in 2023, and then fell slightly to 72% in 2024. Noticeably this is not a significantly partisan issue - Democrats are somewhat more likely to say that anti-semitism is a serious issue, but it has equalised recently, and in 2024 70% of Republicans and 74% of Democrats say that it's a problem. Most also believe that anti-semitism has increased in recent years. This makes it at least superficially plausible, to me, that US institutions are coming down harder against anti-semitism because that reflects the genuine popular will of the country.
So the thesis that institutional crackdowns on anti-semitic actions is causing people to become more sympathetic to anti-semitism just seems contrary to the available data. It looks like the American people are becoming more concerned about and more opposed to anti-semitism.
How can the American people be getting more opposed to anti-semitism even while, at the same time, they believe that anti-semitism is becoming a bigger problem? Probably there is a range of understandings of the term (e.g. a Republican might say that anti-semitism is a big problem while thinking of pro-Palestinian protests; Zohran Mamdani says that anti-semitism is a "crisis" that "we have to tackle" but presumably does not have those protests in mind). But it's also possible - in fact, I think likely - that the very small number of militant anti-semites in America has become bolder and more assertive lately, and taken more actions. Thus it can simultaneously be true that anti-semitism, at least as measured in anti-semitic incidents, is increasing even as opposition to anti-semitism increases even more rapidly.
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