Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism – but they’re part of a rightwing plan

Accusations of antisemitism are the tip of the spear in a frightening illiberal project serving an autocratic agenda

Since 7 October, commentators have been ringing the alarm that a growing protest movement in solidarity with Palestine signals not just the end of a golden age" for American Jews - as Franklin Foer recently put it in the Atlantic - but for American liberal democracy itself.

As Foer wrote, the surge of antisemitism is a symptom of the decay of democratic habits, a leading indicator of rising authoritarianism". Writing before the start of the encampments, he noted that Columbia was a graphic example of the collapse of the liberalism that had insulated American Jews: it is a microcosm of a society that has lost its capacity to express disagreements without resorting to animus". Meanwhile, on CNN, the anchor Dana Bash invoked 1930s Europe - and I do not say that lightly ... the fear among American Jews is palpable right now".