Campus DEI responses to October 7 systematically obscure Israel’s role in anti-Palestinian violence

Evidence

This article argues that DEI initiatives on US university campuses in response to October 7 and its aftermath display at least four kinds of obfuscation of the issues related to Israel’s genocidal, apartheid occupation of Palestine. First, most descriptions of Islamophobia and antisemitism workshops and task forces do not mention Israel, Palestine, or Zionism, thus disconnecting the rising incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitism from their context: Israeli settler colonialism, military occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Second, the term “Islamophobia” deliberately obscures the fact that Palestinians, who are not all Muslim, are the most impacted community, not Muslims. Third, antisemitism and Islamophobia are presented as equivalent forms of discrimination, clouding the vast asymmetries in US campus and governmental support of Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian communities. Fourth, university and government officials present antisemitism and Islamophobia as forms of hate, as if the problem could be resolved at the level of individual feelings, perceptions, and understanding, disconnecting them from US and Israeli state violence. This series of obfuscations props up and normalizes the Zionist position that is used to justify the atrocities against Palestinians being enacted in its name: that Palestinians are violent, antisemitic terrorists from whom Jewish people must protect themselves at all costs. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 11

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader critiques of ‘both-sidesism’ and false-equivalence framing in institutional DEI discourse. — connects to: DEI responses to October 7 conceal the Israel-Gaza context and normalize Zionist justifications. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 4; The term Islamophobia obscures the specificity of anti-Palestinian racism. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 20; Anti-Arab racism in the US is rooted in the Palestinian struggle. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 20 (+11 more)
• SEED: Article angle: examine how institutional equity frameworks structurally misname the perpetrator in settler-colonial violence.

Broader Connections

• Campus DEI framing treats Jews and Muslims as equally marginalized, erasing power asymmetries. #expands (0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 15
• University DEI responses frame antisemitism and Islamophobia symmetrically while omitting the Israeli-Palestinian context. #expands (0.80) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 12