“Does calling for the genocide of Jews,” asked Rep. Elise Stefanik at a hearing last week held by the House Education and the Workforce Committee, “violate [the University of Pennsylvania’s] rules or code of conduct. Yes or no?”
By now, we all know that the school’s president, Liz Magill, struggled mightily to answer this question. So much so that she is no longer the president of the University of Pennsylvania. On Saturday she resigned, as result of the backlash to her remarks (Magill will remain at the school as a tenured faculty member).
How did Stefanik — a person who has trafficked in white nationalist ideologies — somehow seize the moral high ground in defense of Jews?
Taking her victory lap, Stefanik, R-N.Y., tweeted, “One down. Two to go.” The two in question are Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, both of whom responded to Stefanik’s interrogation in similarly perplexing ways. Soon after the hearing, Gay issued her own apology.
After watching the entire five-hour hearing I am left with countless questions. Questions like: How did Stefanik — an election denier and Jan. 6 apologist and, most relevantly, a person who has trafficked in white nationalist ideologies — somehow seize the moral high ground in defense of Jews? How did she trip up the talented and polished leaders of America’s premier universities?
Part of her attack consisted of framing concepts in ways that the presidents — with the possible exception of Kornbluth — did not seem to notice. Throughout the hearing, Stefanik equated “intifada” with the “genocide [of Jews].” A video shown at the beginning of the hearing established that student protesters chanted this Arabic word. Most literally, the word means “uprising,” but it has a long history and a wide range of context-dependent connotations. To most Jews, however, its meaning is unambiguous: sustained violent activities against…
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