- United States
- Letter
An Open Letter
To: Pres. Biden
From: A verified voter in Flagstaff, AZ
May 3
From The Atlantic
This disparity explains why the campus anti-Israel protests have so alarmed many American Jews. The schools are reverberating with slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” which to many ears means “Destroy the state of Israel and kill, expel, or subjugate its Jewish inhabitants.” We hear chants of “Globalize the Intifada,” which translates as “Bring mass murder to Jews everywhere on Earth.” We hear Jews blamed by association for every problem from police brutality to climate change—even both of those things at once. We see checkpoints on campus where Jews are quizzed on their beliefs before they are allowed to approach the university library.
All of this presents a tremendous political problem for Biden. Of course, he’s not in charge of the art world or the literary milieu or the unions. He does not have much influence over public education, and even less over local politics. But he personifies American liberalism, and his political hopes in November are deeply intertwined with American liberalism’s image and standing.