Israeli official says war is ‘moment of reckoning' for colleges that don't unequivocally denounce terrorism
Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism Michal Cotler-Wunsh said college campuses are facing a "moment of reckoning" following war breaking out in Israel.
Universities across the U.S. are facing a "moment of reckoning" as support for Hamas' attacks against Israel erupt on college campuses, Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism said.
"This is a moment of reckoning… for universities, for social media spaces, for elected officials. It's a moment of reckoning for what we have enabled for far too long in that moral ambiguity, if you will. This is a time for moral clarity and courage in calling out the moral ambiguity," Michal Cotler-Wunsh told Fox News Digital in an interview.
Cotler-Wunsh, a human rights lawyer, serves as Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism and traveled to the U.S. earlier this month to speak to news outlets and others on the horror of the war and how Israelis of every age are responding to the fight – whether that be on the front lines or by organizing funerals for their fallen compatriots.
As the war rages for the third week, she argued that it is "time to pick sides in many ways," and that colleges, elected officials and others can’t feed an echo chamber with "false moral equivalency" between Israel and Hamas, as it actually empowers "the war of terror."
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"It doesn’t matter if it's through mainstream channels or on social media platforms, [the moment people] don't call out false moral equivalency, what that does is actually empower the war of terror on civilization," she said. "It's what terror uses. It uses fear and distrust and disinformation. Those are part of its weapons."
Protests have broken out in major cities and on college campuses in the U.S., both in support of Israel and in support of Hamas.
Members of NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine and a similar faculty group, for example, took over the school’s library for around 90 minutes on Friday, hanging banners and chanting in support of the Palestinians.
While the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups wrote a statement earlier this month pinning blame on Israel for the war.
"We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence," the statement said. Harvard's president responded that she condemns Hamas' atrocities and that the groups did not speak for the school.
Cotler-Wunsh argued that college campuses have become breeding grounds where foundational principles such as free speech have been "weaponized" to "demonize, dehumanize, delegitimize and apply double standards" to individual Jewish students, and also to Israel as a nation.
"For a lot of years, I've been struggling with the fact that DEI principles, whether in the workplace or on university campuses – diversity, equity and inclusion – they cover everybody. But they do not afford protection to Jewish students or Zionist students or any students that support the right of the State of Israel to exist. Well, if principles of DEI do not apply equally and consistently to all, ultimately everybody has to know that they will not apply to any," she argued.
The special envoy also pushed back against the argument championed by those in support of Palestinians that Israel is an apartheid state, saying the nation is home to Muslims, Christians, the Druze, Bedouins and others who peacefully co-exist. She argued that the false narrative about Israel as an apartheid state enables the demonization of the country because there’s "no justification for being a racist."
"You can delegitimize because there's no support for anybody who is a racist, or supports apartheid. And you can apply double standards to anybody who is perceived to be a Zionist or a supporter of Israel's right to exist. And in that sense, campuses have played a very, very pivotal role in what we've seen."
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She added that "there are countries like Qatar and others that are funding academic programs in our universities that no longer fulfill their mission to teach people how to think. But inculcate and teach people what to think with a deep ideology that is deeply antisemitic, that is deeply targeting the individual Jew and the Jewish nation state's right to exist."
Cotler-Wunsh was appointed special envoy to combat antisemitism just weeks before the war broke out, and said that she is using the office to address and expose antisemitism, not just for Israelis, but for Jews across the world. She applauded Jews and non-Jews in the U.S. who are joining protests in support of Israel as "heroes" and is calling on campuses to unequivocally denounce terrorism against Israel.
"I think that this is a moment of reckoning for university campuses," she said. "Because if anybody cannot unequivocally – without if, buts or sos – denounce the atrocities, the war crimes, the crimes against humanity of Oct. 7, then they have shown us that there's a problem on university campuses," she said.
