Hillel International, a Jewish campus organization, is a partner in the “Campus for All” project that tracks alleged antisemitism on American college campuses. For the academic year 2024-25, the report shows the figure of 2,334 “antisemitic incidents” on campuses, the most the organization has ever reported since it began tracking in 2019.
If that figure is true, it would be a terrible spike in anti-Jewish prejudice on college campuses that should alarm everyone. But the data is partisan propaganda designed to falsely present an antisemitism crisis on college campuses, which can then serve as justification for the suppression of free speech, academic freedom, and even the deportation of college students.
In other words, Hillel and its partners are using the alleged specter of anti-Jewish hate to foment their own hatred toward Arab and Muslim students and anyone, including Jews on campus, who is critical of Israel and supportive of the basic dignity of Palestinians, their rights, and self-determination. It’s a mendacious and cynical game that needs to be exposed.
Consider the breakdown of the putative 2,334 “antisemitic incidents” for 2024-25. Hillel reports an overall 26% increase in antisemitism from the prior year. Still, as they note, “there was also some good news, as the number of violent incidents (assaults and vandalism) decreased from the prior year.” That’s great news for all concerned. But if violent attacks and vandalism are down, what makes up for the 26% increase?
The largest category of so-called antisemitism reported by Hillel is “social media/email,” accounting for 37.4% of the reported 2024-25 antisemitism incidents. Hillel does not provide any examples of what email or social media content is antisemitic. We are expected to take at face value their claim that there were 874 antisemitic emails and social media posts on campus — but we know that Zionists often consider anonydyn political rhetoric to be antisemitism, whether it is supportive of Palestinians (ex. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”) or accusatory toward Israel (ex. “Israel is an apartheid state.”).
The same goes for the second largest category: “hate speech” accounts for 27.7% of “antisemitic incidents,” but the category is undefined, to say nothing of the lack of any examples of what that hate speech looks like.
Hillel does not even bother with a thorough definition, such as relating, for instance, that they abide by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition is a bogus attempt to redefine antisemitism in the most nebulous way possible so that every criticism of Israel can be treated as a civil rights violation and, in effect, silenced. But, if Hillel let us know what thorough definition of a hate crime they operate under, it would at least give us a baseline to judge their claims — the vagueness is probably the point.
The website does state under the heading “What’s not antisemitism”:
Criticizing the state of Israel or its policies, similar to how one might critique any other government, isn’t necessarily antisemitism. Disagreement with Israeli policies doesn’t mean someone is stereotyping or discriminating against Jews. Supporting Palestinian rights or advocating for a Palestinian state is also not inherently antisemitic. Many Jews, both in the U.S. and globally, are critical of Israeli policies. [Italics mine]
This definition does not state, however, when Hillel considers critique or support to cross the line into antisemitism — when it is not inherently antisemitic or necessarily antisemitic?
It is a disclaimer that is deliberately vague enough to leave room for bad-faith accusations. It is also an old tactic: Zionists consistently remark that “of course, Israel, like any other country, can be criticized,” but have yet to find a single criticism that they do not claim is antisemitic. They seek to shield their bad faith by feigning reasonableness, but the end goal remains the same: silencing all criticism of Israel.
Hillel does get more specific in its two-page “Antisemitism 101” pdf. Its three examples under “learn to spot it” include two indisputable forms of antisemitism: attacking Jews and blaming all Jews for Israel’s conduct.
Ironically, the latter is something Hillel is guilty of when it conflates Jews with Israel by collapsing the difference between antisemitism and opposition to the nation-state of Israel.
But the third option is deeply myopic and a legitimate terrain of political contestation and morality: “Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination — such as claiming that the state of Israel should not exist.”
Opposition to Israel’s existence as an ethnostate is not the same thing as denying Jewish people the right to individual or collective self-determination. Israel does not have an absolute right to be a Jewish state if the exercise of that privilege comes at the expense of Palestinian rights, including the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
If Israel aspires to continue to be a Jewish state, that state must be structured in a way compatible with the Palestinian right to self-determination. If we accept that Israel’s prerogative as a Jewish state trumps Palestinian rights — and that it would justify whatever action is needed to serve Israel’s self-definition, including ethnic cleansing and genocide — this is not a legitimate rights claim, but a demand for supremacy rooted in brute power.
The third largest category of “antisemitic incidents” is “other,” accounting for nearly 14% of incidents.
That is a remarkable omission by Hillel that gives the game away: If antisemitism is a readily definable prejudice, and its manifestation is tangible, then there’s no reason why more than 1 in 10 alleged incidents lack a category. Hillel has additional categories for “articles/publications,” “vandalism/graffiti,” “harassment,” and “assault.” What exactly could be antisemitism that goes beyond these categories — a pro-Palestinian fundraiser campus party? It certainly looks like Hillel and its partners are engaged in a misrepresentation of antisemitism to serve a political agenda of shutting down criticism of Israel.
Let us consider that under its “Also occurring during the 2024-2025 academic year” section, Hillel lists “BDS Votes,” “Anti-Israel Legislation,” “Commencement Disruptions,” and “Encampments.”
Since Hillel’s methodology is vague, it is not clear if these reported incidents are part of the 2,334, but it is also irrelevant since Hillel is clearly tracking pro-Palestinian political activism, which makes it clear that the mission here is not solely about combating alleged antisemitism, but going after the Palestinian rights movement.
Finally, Hillel further tips its hand as an anti-Palestinian outfit in its “related resources” section. The first recommended reading is a mendacious hit piece on the late Edward Said published by the neo-conservative, ultra-Zionist Commentary Magazine back in 1999(!!!).
Why would a long-dated, and thoroughly discredited article, be a primary resource for anyone interested in today’s alleged antisemitism problem — unless the goal was to indoctrinate people into extreme right-wing Zionism? That is definitely Hillel’s ethos. The organization has suppressed any criticism of Israel on its campus branches, so much so that many Jewish students have ditched Hillel and started Open Hillel chapters:
In December 2013, Swarthmore’s Hillel declared itself an “open Hillel,” following an initiative by Harvard University students in 2012. That year, when Harvard’s Progressive Jewish Alliance (which is affiliated with Harvard Hillel) scheduled an event titled “Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Occupation” with the university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Hillel director informed the students that the panel could not proceed. “He told us that Harvard’s Hillel chapter would lose $1 million [withdrawn by the Boston Jewish Federation and angry donors] if we went ahead with the event,” says Rachel Sandalow-Ash, a board member of Harvard’s Progressive Jewish Alliance at the time and now the national organizer for Open Hillel.
A few more points bear mentioning. First, let us take into account that back in 2021, the misnamed Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “announced that it had partnered for the first time with certain Jewish groups—including Hillel International, the Union of Reform Judaism, and several organizations focused on Jewish communal security.” The ADL’s numbers, not surprisingly, are notoriously cooked, especially after October 7th:
The ADL says that antisemitic incidents revolving around Israel or Zionism accounted for 3,162 incidents—about 36% of the total—and that 1,352 of these (about 15% of the total) involve the use of specific slogans that the ADL considers inherently antisemitic. The audit mentions the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea”—usually as part of the protest slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—as an example of antisemitism more than 600 times. “Respect existence or expect resistance” is listed as a form of antisemitic harassment in 21 separate incidents, and the slogan “when people are occupied, resistance is justified” is flagged 35 times.
In all previous years, the ADL did not include pro-Palestine protests in its audits, but the group says in the audit that it has employed “new methodology” since October 7th that identifies language that expresses “opposition to Zionism” or is “perceived as supporting terrorism or attacks on Jews, Israelis or Zionists” as antisemitism. If signs or slogans using such language appear at a rally, the ADL includes the rally in its audit. This characterization assumes that all references to an occupied people’s resistance against their occupiers can only be motivated by ethnic hatred.
(People may disagree about what constitutes legitimate ”resistance,” particularly in the context of armed militancy, but such debates have surfaced across history in varied political contexts. Militancy does not inherently reflect antisemitism.) In doing so, it inflates both the total number of antisemitic incidents and the share of them attributed to the Palestine movement.
