Last spring term, the Arab Student Association (ASA) allowed T-shirts to be distributed at its screening of the film “Occupation 101.” The T-shirts featured an Israeli flag with a swastika next to it marked with a big red ‘X’, insinuating the annihilation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. In order to further degrade Jews and Israelis, the T-shirt shirts read “Stop the Zionist Nazis,” equating myself and fellow Jewish students with those who annihilated half of our people during the Second World War. The T-shirts were handed out to and taken by my fellow students, some of whom wore the T-shirts throughout the screening.
I photographed the T-shirt, and along with a fellow student, submitted an official complaint to the Bias Response Team, which is run by the same people who run the LGBTQA. Its response to my complaint was that this does not break any clear rules, as it falls under “free speech,” and that there is not much the Bias Response Team can do to address the distribution of such T-shirts. The ASA is funded with our tuition money, and the building in which the T-shirts were distributed (150 Columbia) is state property paid for with our tax dollars. I eventually met privately with the leaders of the ASA, who promised to write a letter of apology to the Jewish community but in the end never followed through with their pledge. It is with great confusion that I am witnessing such an extreme reaction against the use of the swastika when it targets the queer community, whose leaders evoke “freedom of speech” when the same symbol is targeted at Jews and Israelis. As an openly gay, Jewish-Israeli man, I find it outrageous that when I am threatened with the swastika as a Jew and as an Israeli, “freedom of speech” is evoked and there is no response from the campus community. However, it is only when my gay identity is attacked that people suddenly use words such as “hate crime” and “feeling unsafe.”
I find it ironic that those who are put in charge of fighting bias respond themselves in a very biased manner when the swastika is used to target Jews and Israelis versus when it is used to target gays and lesbians. Every day on campus, I see the same students who distributed and wore these T-shirts, which for me is even more threatening than anonymous vandalism.
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