Unsafe Spaces

In recent years, whenever I have had an opportunity to speak to an American audience concerned about anti-Israel activism and rising anti-Semitism, I point out that in these matters the U.S. is only a few years behind Britain and Europe. Look what is happening on the old continent, I say, and you can see your future. Reading Ruth Wisse’s important essay, “Anti-Semitism Goes to School,” is a reminder that the years change faster than my speeches—so much faster that I feel I can finally say, “Commiserations, America: you have caught up with us.”

It is fascinating how closely our situations resemble each other. Throughout my adult life I have spoken repeatedly on British campuses, and the patterns described by Wisse, though still shocking, are deeply familiar. I have been ushered out of back doors, had things thrown at me, and on one occasion—during an Israeli engagement in Gaza—asked not to come to a London campus because certain students were threatening violence against any visitor known to be pro-Israel.

In this respect, the subject of Israel on campus does indeed, as Wisse shows, constitute an issue apart. As in the U.S., British seats of learning have turned from being hothouses of ideas to places where students are meant to expect a “safe space.” Ideas unusual or discomfiting to them are designated as not just challenging or even dangerous but undesirable. At several of Britain’s leading universities, “trigger warnings” now appear at the head of articles in student newspapers, allowing the reader to avoid encountering any potentially upsetting issue or idea.