By Condemning Israel, Academics Direct Hostility at Their Fellow American Jews

A statement has recently been circulating online, purporting to bear the signatures of over 1,000 individuals—most of whom are professors of Jewish studies—under the title “The Elephant in the Room.” Although it begins with a complaint about “Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary,” it deviates quickly from the agenda of the Israeli protest movement to assert that the real problem (hence the title) is the “illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” which it thrice describes with the term “apartheid.” Jarrod Tanny zeroes in on some of the document’s “falsehoods and dangerous claims.”