Mr. Knight’s supposed speech crime occurred during ASSU Senate debate of the Resolution to Recognize and to Reaffirm the Fight Against Anti-Semitism. The proposed resolution recites a purported U.S. Department of State (“State Department”) definition of anti-Semitism and State Department examples of such bigotry. The resolution’s authors lifted this definition and these examples from a 2010 Fact Sheet from the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. They also misrepresented the source of the definition, which was not the State Department but the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia.
The resolution recapitulated the special envoy’s assertion that “allegations about … Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” are contemporary examples of anti-Semitism. Mr. Knight debated the appropriateness of including that assertion in the resolution. “Questioning these potential power dynamics … is not anti-Semitism,” he observed. “I think it’s a very valid discussion.”
Many bigots harbor irrational beliefs about Jews as a group, and among these for some bigots are fantastic suspicions concerning Jewish political and economic power. Throughout history, Jews have suffered horrendously from such bigotry, and still suffer from it. The questioning that Mr. Knight endorsed is the antidote for this ignorance, not an instance of it.
Yet Jews are not the only victims of bigotry, and may themselves be bigots. Countless times I have witnessed Jews express disapprobation or even disgust for individual Arabs or Muslims, not because of their individual actions or characters but solely because they are Arab or Muslim. Bigotry is wrong, no matter its perpetrator or object, a fact the resolution obscured.
The notion that only Jews may be victims of anti-Semitism is itself bigotry. Arabic-speaking Muslims outnumber Hebrew-speaking Jews among the Semitic peoples. Arabs, too, may be victims of anti-Semitism, yet the resolution ignores them.
Since 1987, only Jews have chaired the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Is this particular pattern in the leadership of the world’s most powerful central bank an outcome of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy, as some believe? Does it stem from pro-Jewish bias? I seriously doubt it. To the best of my knowledge, informed by 25 years on Wall Street, meetings I have attended at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and multiple interactions with Fed and Treasury officials, the common Jewish heritage of Greenspan, Bernanke and Yellen played no role in their nominations.
But to Mr. Knight’s point, if what I deem to be a coincidental, inconsequential feature of central-bank control over the past three decades, another deemed worthy of investigation as possible evidence of favoritism or worse, would I consider such inquiry to be ipso facto proof of bigotry? Of course not, just as I would not assume that investigations of the phenomenon of white male domination of venture capital allocations are borne of bigotry. Bigotry and favoritism are real phenomena with real manifestations, and as such, investigating their effects is legitimate. Just because bigots may jump to conclusions and confuse effects with causes brings no discredit to non-bigots who see curious patterns in data and choose to form and test hypotheses.
The resolution is repugnant for proposing the equivalent of re-education camps for innocent student senators, advancing a bigoted definition of anti-Semitism, focusing solely on bigotry suffered by Jews and for reciting “examples” of anti-Semitism that are no such thing. Mr. Knight was right to question the recital that troubled him. Shame should be felt only by the narrow minds that endorsed this resolution and deliberately misrepresented his words.
– John Harris ’79
Contact John Harris at [email protected]