X does really bring out the worst in people – Ackman continues his reckless use of the platform. (Photo credit: AP)
Bill Ackman has been a very vocal defender of Israel as it carries out war crimes in Gaza.
Israel has already killed more than 14,000 babies there, not to mention the thousands of women and men, and some Hamas fighters too.
The recent student protests calling for a ceasefire and an end to occupation have been the latest to catch Ackman’s ire, albeit misguided:
This is anew low for Ackman – just to be clear, he is saying the American students protesting on campuses across the US are, Hamas.
Many Jewish students are also participating in those protests, and in many campuses are in leadership positions within the protest movement.
Not only is Ackman’s tweet antisemitic, it also put the lives of the students in danger. Jew-on-Jew hate has been on a sharp rise in recent months – where anti-Zionist Jews are labelled all sorts of antisemitic tropes, ranging from self-hating Jews to traitor Jews, by Zionist Jews.
Ackman labelling Jewish students as Hamas is particularly callous and hateful, given the fact that some of the protesting Jewish students will more likely than not, know someone who was affected by what happened to Jews in Israel on 7/10.
We know what the US is like with its gun violence – imagine some crazy nutcase saw this and began really thinking that the students are Hamas or affiliated with Hamas, and went on rampage.
That would be on people like Ackman who are fuelling the animosity and communal divisions.
And there are real threats to the students – yesterday at Penn university, a Zionist man was caught with a knife trying to walk through a part of the the campus filled with protestors:
The student body put out a statement, and released the exchange that took place between the police and the student representatives – it is worrying, and proves that this is just the tip of the iceberg:
“The ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment,’ through the Freedom School for Palestine’s Instagram account, issued a statement about the “Zionist with a knife” arrested during the “Seder on the Streets” event earlier today.
The statement contends that Penn Police only trailed the man while he made his way through the encampment, and dismissed a legal observer’s remark that the man had a second, hidden weapon in his fanny pack.
Additionally, it alleges that when an organizer asked how a police officer could “let a man with two knives walk through a crowd of families,” the officer responded, “Do you think he’s the only one here carrying a knife?”
The student representative addded:
“Even when a Zionist screams hate speech and carries multiple weapons, putting families with young children in explicit danger, supporters of our encampment are still the ones associated with violence,” the statement wrote.
The statement also contended that Penn administration attempted to stop the ‘Seder on the Streets’ event before it started — by telling organizers not to use the lawn next to the encampment.
Events like the incident earlier demonstrate that the administration’s concern is one-sided and it is ambivalent when violence is directed towards us”.
The divide lines are clear – there are those Jews like Ackman who care more for Israel than they care for Jewish lives – and then there are others like the Jewish students in the protests who care more about Jewish lives than they care about Israel.
