The Antisemitic Cartoon Is Everything Wrong With Discourse on Campus

This Monday, two pro-Palestine campus groups released a post on Instagram containing a cartoon that was unequivocally and reprehensibly antisemitic.

That the naked antisemitism of that graphic almost certainly passed through multiple hands without setting off alarms boggles the mind. With temperatures on campus as high as they are, this post demonstrates serious, condemnable recklessness by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African and African American Resistance Organization.

Still, the Instagram post was just that: an Instagram post. A few people drafted it; perhaps a few more reviewed it; someone, in the end, pressed post.

This one post does not tell us what the dozens of other members of these two organizations believe. It does not tell us what the pro-Palestine coalition at Harvard believes. It most assuredly does not tell us what the national pro-Palestine movement believes, nor does it invalidate their essential aims.

All this Instagram post tells us is that Monday afternoon a handful of activists failed to exercise even the most basic sensitivity.

Still, there’s something more general to be taken from this brief, alarming episode: Even if the vast majority of our peers do not harbor hate toward the Jewish people — and we sincerely believe they do not — they most certainly do engage in the garden-variety ignorance and callousness that falls short of outright antisemitism.

Hatred against Jews gets noticed because it is loud; prejudice, more common by far, often passes in silence.

That the blatant antisemitism of the cartoon in the AFRO-PSC Instagram post wasn’t caught suggests that — like many of us — people in the pro-Palestine coalition have learning to do: about Jewish people, their culture, and the violent, millennia-long history of their persecution.

For all people and in all places, discussion across difference is of the utmost importance. These issues are hard. Discussing them is hard. But they only become harder if we don’t understand the people on the other side, much less trust them or see their perspective.

In this sense, engaging in dialogue is one of the most progressive things we can do. Through it, we lay the foundations for a better world, even as the path by which it might become real remains hazy.

Since the violence of Oct. 7, discussion has taken a backseat to protest; chants have drowned out conversation. With the stakes so personal and the lights so bright, it should come as no surprise that we have spent so much time shouting past one another.

Campus discourse has gone toxic, and this ugly, thoughtless Instagram post is the worst of it.

So, to the Harvard community: It’s time to talk to each other; to be mindful of what we say and how we say it; to engage with the best intentions and see the best intentions in others; to seek out uncomfortable conversations with courage and humility.

It’s time to replace this pain, anger, and unease with empathy and a willingness to learn.

Discourse alone is no silver bullet. Sometimes, hate is just hate — not ignorance waiting to be vanquished by dialogue.

Still, imperfect, frustrating, and slippery as it is, discourse is often all we have. After five long months at each other’s throats, let’s let this antisemitic post kickstart the conversations that could stop us from reaching a sixth.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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