But Is It Good For The Jews?

The Hypocrisy of Trump's Crusade Against Antisemitism

“Yes, but is it good for the Jews” is an old punchline—a meme before such things existed-of a long-running joke about people whose reaction to any world event, political moment or choice of toothpaste (well, practically) is to consider how it would affect the tribe.

I’ve been thinking about that question whenever I see the words “Donald Trump” and “combat antisemitism” in the same paragraph. It’s a little rich, to say the least, for Donald Trump to present himself as a defender of Jewish values, culture, history or belief.

This is from the man who, according to Vox and The Washington Post told Jewish audiences things like this:

• “Stupidly, you want to give money. ...You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.”

• “I’m a negotiator, like you folks; we’re negotiators,” he said, adding: “This room negotiates perhaps more than any room I’ve spoken to — maybe more.”

• “A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me; you have no choice.”

• After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.

Now, after his Justice Department’s new Task Force to Combat Antisemitism sent 60 universities a notice that they are being monitored or investigated, Trump repeats what he said on the campaign trail:

“My promise to Jewish Americans is this—with your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”

What’s that they say about “with friends like these…?”

As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, Wesleyan’s Michael S. Roth wrote in this New York Times opinion piece,

Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.

All of these agendas — from dismantling basic government functions to crushing the independence of cultural and educational organizations to criminalizing political speech to legitimating petty presidential vendettas — endanger the principles and institutions that have actually made this country great. For Jews, a number of these agendas do something more: They pose a direct threat to the very people they purport to help. Jews who applaud the administration’s crackdown will soon find that they do so at their peril.

Abductions by government agents; unexplained, indefinite detentions; the targeting of allegedly dangerous ideas; lists of those under government scrutiny; official proclamations full of bluster and bile — Jews have been here before, many times, and it does not end well for us. The rule of law and the right to freedom of thought and expression are essential safeguards for everyone, but especially so for members of groups whose ideas or practices don’t always align with the mainstream.

Like so much else, this enormous decision of great consequence was made ad hoc, by a president who acts purely on impulse.

The New York Times sets the scene for how Trump decided to go after higher education:

As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?

“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

And then there’s this:

On a parallel track, a few powerful aides in the West Wing, including Mr. Miller, have separately moved to stymie funding for major institutions without formally going through the task force.

These aides have spoken privately of toppling a high-profile university to signal their seriousness, said two people familiar with the conversations.

Finally, today’s Times has a story headlined As Harvard Is Hailed a Hero, Some Donors Still Want It to Strike a Deal which in part tells how the university rebuffed overtures from the White House to restart talks after Harvard rejected its demands to shred academic freedom.

The Harvard Corporation, the secretive board that runs the school, said the list of changes the White House demanded in a letter on April 11 were so onerous — requiring faculty power to be reduced and government audits of university data — that the school would not agree to any of them and broke off talks with the administration.

Most, but not all, members of the Harvard Corporation, emboldened, in part, by the positive reaction to the school’s combative response to the White House, are adamant that they will not so much as negotiate with Mr. Trump. On Monday, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court, challenging its threats to slash billions of dollars from the school’s funding.

I don’t see how any university, or law firm for that matter, can enter into any kind of negotiation with Donald Trump, who can’t be trusted on anything. Why aren’t more Jewish organizations calling out Trump for cynically using antisemitism as an excuse for anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism and fascism?

I’m glad Harvard is suing and that lawyers are fighting back against Trump’s parallel attacks on law firms. I don’t know which “high-profile university” will be the one to fall if Trump and Miller are successful, but they’re all at risk.

Make no mistake. Trump’s war on universities has nothing to do with antisemitism and everything to do with his—and Stephen Miller’s—hatred for liberal thought.

Michael Roth cites the instance of the Tufts University doctoral student who was handcuffed, driven off and indefinitely detained for allegedly expressing antisemitic views. By now, most people know what Rümeysa Öztürk, did—she wrote an op-ed!

This op-ed. You’re welcome. It quotes James Baldwin and calls on the school Administration to “meaningfully engage with and actualize the resolutions passed by the [Student] Senate” which demanded the University disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. Hardly radical stuff.

How many op-eds have been published expressing similar views? Does Donald Trump want to send thought police to the doorstep of every one of his opponents?

Of course he does.