A Conversation with Howard Stern on the Antisemitism, Terrorism and Discrimination of Free Speech in the State of Israel and Palestine
Stern occupies a unique position in this profoundly polarizing debate. He’s a liberal Zionist and an expert on antisemitism, as well as a committed civil libertarian who critiques the way mainstream Jewish groups wield institutional power to try to silence pro-Palestinian voices.
There’s plenty of blame to go around with the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a libertarian-leaning free speech organization, shared data with me showing that, since 2002, there have been more attempts made to de-platform pro-Palestinian campus speakers than pro-Israel ones. But attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers, by disinviting or disrupting them, are more likely to be successful.
As he describes in his book, in 1982, he resigned from the left-wing National Lawyers Guild rather than face what felt like a purge for refusing to sign onto a strictly pro-Palestinian line. He was the in-house expert on antisemitism at the American Jewish Committee when he left because he was concerned about the group abandoning its commitment to academic freedom. The definition of antisemitism that he helped put together includes anti-Zionism. He’s also inveighed, in opinion essays, congressional testimony and in his 2020 book, against the use of that definition, put out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016, to traduce the free speech of Israel’s critics.
Both sides, then, have credible stories to tell about being censored and intimidated. The difference is where that intimidation is coming from. Some of the supporters of Israel come from peers and professors. For supporters of Palestine, it comes from powerful outside institutions, including the state.
Under the direction of governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has ordered state universities to close Students for Justice in Palestine chapters. Citing the same tool kit, DeSantis said, “That is material support to terrorism, and that is not going to be tolerated in the state of Florida, and it should not be tolerated in these United States of America.” Virginia’s Republican attorney general has opened an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine, a national group that, according to the ADL, helps coordinate the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, “for potentially violating Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws, including benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations.” Trump is one of several Republicans calling for revocation of the visas of pro-Palestinian student activists.
The authorities have opened a hate crime investigation into the report of a hit-and-run on Friday that left an Arab Muslim student injured at Stanford University.
According to an advisory shared with university officials by the public safety department, a student at the university has claimed that a white man in a Toyota 4Runner hit and killed him after making eye contact with him. The student told officials that the man yelled at them and then drove away.
Preliminary information from the California Highway Patrol has led to the opening of a hate crime investigation in Santa Clara County. Neither the Sheriff’s Office nor the Highway Patrol commented further on the investigation. The driver’s name was not released by the authorities.
In a statement shared by a student group that has been organizing sit-ins on campus to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza amid its war with Hamas, the student who reported being struck said that he recognized the driver as someone “who had previously shown animosity” toward his community and that he was disappointed in what he described as a slow and inadequate response by the university.
A spokeswoman for Stanford University said in an email that campus authorities issued information to the campus community as soon as they had enough details to do so.
In a statement shared with the Stanford community on Friday, the university’s president, Richard Saller, and its provost, Jenny Martinez, said that they were “profoundly disturbed to hear this report of potentially hate-based physical violence on our campus.” Such violence, they added, is “morally reprehensible, and we condemn it in the strongest terms.”
The hit-and-run report led to the deployment of more security at some of the key locations on the campus.