Columbia Professor Accuses Right-Wing Jews of ‘Infesting’ American Politics
Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi is bemoaning that right-wing Jews are “infesting” the American government and influencing policy toward Israel.
“There are a group of people, a lot of them in Israel, some of them in the United States, who live in a world of their own,” he told WBEZ’s Jerome McDonnell, criticizing President-elect Donald Trump for a possible move of the American embassy to Jerusalem and appearing to be more favorable to settlements and occupation than his predecessor.
He added, “These people in fact infest the Trump transition team, these people are going to infest our government as of January 20, and they are hand in glove with a similar group within the Israeli government.”
Eugene Kontorovich, a right-leaning Israel advocate and Northwestern University law professor, appeared on the program after Khalidi and criticized him for his remarks. “That’s a very manifestly Semitic rhetoric — Jews as vermin — for a supposedly refined albeit pro-Palestinian Columbia prof and Pres. Obama’s former mentor. This kind of statement deserves attention,” he wrote in an e-mailed statement to the Forward.
Born to a father of Palestinian descent, Khalidi is a prominent intellectual backer of their national cause, writing a number of works as a post-colonial historian that reflect those sympathies. His beliefs have sometimes ignited controversy both on campus and in the wider world, as when his relationship to President Barack Obama surfaced in the latter’s first run for the White House.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO