Law Enforcement Must Act against Antisemitism-Fueled Violence and Intimidation Andrew McCarthy
Charlie’s post on the rising tide of antisemitism, as well as the indifference (and worse) to it in the media and on American college campuses, should be required reading. Until perusing it, I had missed the sleight of hand in the New York Times’ coverage of the appalling incident Wednesday at the Cooper Union, where Jewish students were barricaded in a library to protect themselves from a pro-Palestinian mob (many of them, as ever, young white radical leftists). Here’s the part of the Times’ report that stopped me in my tracks:
The tensions inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war that have roiled university campuses in the United States spilled into the Cooper Union in New York on Wednesday, with pro-Palestinian protesters pounding on one side of locked library doors and Jewish students on the other. [Emphasis added.]
In his superb news post on this incident, our reporter Zach Kessel includes the relevant video clip (from a post on X/Twitter by Jake Novak). Have a look at it.
I’ll wait — the clip is just six seconds long.
Now, if you just read the report in the Times, you would naturally assume that there was a locked door separating the pro-Palestinian “protesters” and the Jewish students, with both groups pounding on it. But that’s not what happened. The mob pounded on the door. The Jewish students were, as the Times states, “on the other [“side of the locked library doors”]. But they were not pounding. They were huddled and undoubtedly frightened that the mob was going to break through.
How long do you figure the Gray Lady’s reporters and editors agonized over how to frame the story so that it was literally accurate but still utterly mendacious — the “both-sides garbage” that Charlie aptly describes.
When Rich and I recorded the podcast this morning, I repeated an argument I made on X/Twitter yesterday (here): It’s not good enough for government officials (such as President Biden) to rhetorically condemn the shocking incidents of antisemitism-fueled intimidation and violence. The federal and state governments have civil-rights laws on the books that empower them to prosecute. I discussed one of them on the podcast, Section 241 of the federal penal code, which states in pertinent part:
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States . . . they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
The statute has been held constitutional because there is no free-speech right to threaten and intimidate people out of the enjoyment of their basic rights. That kind of incitement, that type of extortionate and intimidating speech, is an inextricable part of mob violence — such that Section 241 provides for potential death-penalty charges or a sentence of life-imprisonment if death results from the threatening conduct, as it sometimes does.
It is atrocious in the United States of America in 2023 that Jewish people are made to live in fear and be intimidated out of enjoying the basic rights we all take for granted — to walk the public streets, move about school and attend classes, attend religious services, wear clothing that signals their adherence to their faith, and so on.
Again, read Zach’s report. The Cooper Union mob wasn’t content with the “free Palestine” claptrap — by which the “protesters,” in their “from the river to the sea” zeal, mean that Israel should be extirpated. They were also chanting, “Globalize the intifada from New York to Gaza.” “Intifada” refers to the violent campaigns against Israel — spearheaded by Hamas and other jihadist groups — that took place from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005. If you’re bringing the intifada to New York — and that certainly does appear to be happening — then you’re conspiring to attack Jews, not merely “dissenting against Zionism” and “protesting the occupation.”
What happened at Cooper Union, just like what happened on the New York City subway a few days ago when a man punched a woman in the face because he believed (correctly) that she was a Jew, is lawless violence and intimidation. It is not free speech. Law enforcement has not only the power but the duty to prosecute it aggressively and convey the strong message that it will not be tolerated.
In America, you have every right to rally in favor of Palestinians. You are free to chant that Israel — the only place in the Middle East where Arabs live freely in a democracy — should cease to exist and be replaced with a glorious authoritarian sharia state or a Marxist paradise. You can be obnoxious and annoying in making your case. But you have no right to put people in fear for their safety or prevent them, through intimidation, from exercising their basic rights.
Federal and state investigators need to restore the rule of law. Make like January 6: Scour the video, identify the people violating the civil-rights laws, and prosecute them — like you undoubtedly would if the students barricaded in the library were Muslims and the mob banging on the door was Jewish.
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