Protesting for Palestine (and thus against Israel) is not inherently antisemitic. Russia is undoubtably engaged in some forms of subversive agitprop, but it's a long stretch to assert they would gin up human rights protests (that is not the mindset they want to create). And 'outside actors' here almost certainly means organized local grass-roots organizers, not Kremlin moles.

@Anixx: <shrug> She could say the moon is made of green cheese, too; that doesn't make it so. She has a vested interest in disparaging the protesters (since she's the one who called the cops on them). Probably best not to take her word as unvarnished truth. But the question is closed, and I'm not interested in confronting your bias. best to let this dog lie.

@TedWrigley - I don't think it's necessarily such a simple question. A protest against Israeli actions in Palestine is evidently not anti-Semitic itself. But if you have hundreds of people protesting, might one of them say or do something anti-Semitic by the by, even though that is not part of the purpose of the protest?

@Obie2.0: Possibly, but what of it? There are plenty of people who refer to all Muslims as terrorists, congresspeople who label Ilhan Omar a Jihadist, an ex-president who calls non-white immigrants 'vermin'… Suddenly we should get all aflutter because a few people (angry about the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans) say bad things about Israel? Please…

@TedWrigley - I wrote "might one of them say or do something anti-Semitic by the by," you said "possibly," but then seemingly equated it with saying "bad things about Israel." Which is strange, because the whole point was that someone might say something anti-Semitic, not just a bad thing about Israel.

Anyway, that aside, your argument makes little sense to me. One should be aflutter about Islamaphobia and xenophobia, as in the examples that you gave, but one should also be aflutter if someone says something anti-Semitic (not just a criticism of Israel, no matter how heated). Yes, even if they say it because they are angry about Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip. The flip side of not making any special assumptions about anti-Semitism among pro-Palestinian protesters is not giving any special license.

Of course, one needs to be careful not to assume anti-Semitism, as I said. At least one user here has declared me an obvious anti-Semite (ironically, while some other users declare me a clear pro-Israeli stooge), so I am well aware of the need to make that distinction. But nor does one get a pass on genuine anti-Semitism just because it goes alongside legitimate points. Like the user here who claimed that when certain pro-Israel organizations are too publicly Jewish, they understand why people supported Hitler. That view does not stop being anti-Semitic just because Israel was mentioned.

@Obie2.0: My argument is pretty simple: it's called 'equality'. If we allow s___talk about one group, we should allow s___talk about every group; if we don't for one group, we shouldn't for any group. Tolerating islamophobia but objecting to antisemitism is pure bigotry masquerading as righteousness. Of course, I'd prefer we don't tolerate any, but…

@TedWrigley - And objecting to both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism is righteousness, whereas accepting both is...something else.

I'd like to be clear about that, because the reaction to the instances of Islamophobia and xenophobia that you mention should definitely not be "since I cannot do anything about them, I guess I will give them a pass and give some other kinds of bigotry a pass to make it fair."

So let's say that my argument is pretty simple: it's called 'equality'.

@Anixx - I don't necessarily agree with you just because I disagree with Ted. The question is still a push question and founded on dubious assumptions.

This question was not to discuss equality or inequality or islamophobia (which is not mentioned in the question at all). The question is quite simple: is there evidence that behind the recent antisemitic actions stands Russian influence or not? That the accidents were antisemitic and posing threat to security was admitted by the cited statement by the university president. They also claimed that people from outside of the campus were involved in the icidents.

@Obie2.0: That's all well and good, but as I said before you can say the moon is made of green cheese if you want. That doesn't make it true. I've literally never heard you say anything against Israel or in anyway suggest any Jewish person might have said or done something offensive. I'm not going to criticize you for that, but I'm not going to criticize pro-palestine people for their positions either. The insistence that I should is hypocritical.

@TedWrigley You must be a little inattentive.

That might sound harsh, but I cannot think of any other explanation. You'd have to not be reading this chat, to start with, where I talked about Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

@TedWrigley - You would also have to avoid reading my comments. I suspect some of the more...animated...ones have been deleted, but you would have to not read pretty much any comment of mine mentioning Netanyahu, like this one where I say that Netanyahu was more or less fine having Hamas as a bogeyman to scare people into accepting Jewish nationalism.

@TedWrigley - Or the ones where I said that Netanyahu and his bath are ethnonationalists who are fine with ethnic cleansing and oppression. That one was on your answer, actually, so not much excuse there!

@TedWrigley - Then, you would have to also ignore several of my answers, like this one, which while taking a more objective tone, I think can pretty clear be seen to be against Trump's policy of supporting Israel unquestioningly, as well as against the "annexations and expulsion" advocated by his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

@TedWrigley - But most of all, you are going to have ignore this explicit statement of my position: Israel is a nation that is currently committing widespread war crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of whom have no affiliation with Hamas, is unconscionable.

This is largely the fault of Netanyahu and his government, who promote a sort of Jewish ethnonationalism, and many of whom have made statements in favor of ethnic cleansing, but unfortunately is also due to ideas that are common in Israeli society. Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian beliefs are widespread among Israelis...

...and many people seem to be willing to accept the deaths of any number of Palestinians in order to defeat Hamas/bring back the hostages/just get revenge for the October 7 attacks.

Now, hopefully that will dispel the strange assertion that 'literally never heard you say anything against Israel or in anyway suggest any Jewish person might have said or done something offensive."

With that done, let's move on to the reset of your statement. I do not want you to "criticize pro-Palestinian people for their positions." I do not want you to criticize pro-Palestinian people for not mentioning anti-Semitism. I do not want you to criticize people for criticizing Israel in harsh terms (e.g. genocide or apartheid).

I just want you to criticize anti-Semitism (and Islamophobia and any other kind of bigotry) where you see it, whether from pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli people or wherever. To live up to the bit where you said "I'd prefer we don't tolerate any."

Because while we are talking about hypocrisy, here is what I think. If you criticize only anti-Semitism but never criticize Israel, you are a hypocrite. You might be incorrect to believe that about me, but I agree with that framing. The same is true of someone who only criticizes Israel and lets anti-Semitism pass.

If you let anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and all kinds of bigotry pass in the pursuit of some notion of fairness, then you are not a hypocrite, just a universal defender of bigotry, which is probably worse. If you let none of them pass, then you are doing the right thing. Which is all I am advocating here.

@TedWrigley I just want to say, it's absolutely incredible to see that a user like littleadv can think that I am so obviously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel that they will not even respond to my comments, while a user like you can think that I obviously have never said anything against Israel, simultaneously, and neither of you thinks that maybe your evaluation is wrong.

Truly an exhibition of the subjectivity of our perceptions of the same reality.