Randa Jarrar at MoorishGirl notes that Professor Joseph Massad of Columbia University, having been accused of anti-Semitism, has written an essay in Al Ahram on what anti-Semitism means as it is applied to both Jews and Arabs.
I am hesitant to wade into the debate over the Palestinian issue (about which I do not know very much, though I hope to know more). Professor Massad is right that there is a great deal of prejudice against Arabs and Muslims in Europe and North America. Where we part company, I think, is where he implies that it is possible to oppose the existence of Israel and not be anti-Jewish, and where he argues that Arab antipathy to Jews is "political" and not "racist." I doubt that he would see European or American hatred of Arabs in the wake of the oil crises and 9/11 as "political" and not "racist." I also think that it is too reductive to argue that Israel is simply the colonial and imperial creation of Eastern European Jews, or that the only reason proffered to justify Israel's existence is the Holocaust. I hope that someday there is a compromise solution that provides the Palestinians with a country and a decent life, but I am not sure that Professor Massad is interested in a compromise.
Nevertheless, while I believe that Professor Massad's ideas are fair game for criticism, I do not believe that he should be silenced or his job threatened. Free speech is only meaningful when it protects speech with which we disagree. Too often in this country, the Palestinian voice has been drowned out. If the Palestinians and their advocates are not heard, there will never be peace.