Alan Wald
Posted April 18, 2026
Q&A:
STUDENT ACTIVISM ON American campuses in response to the war in Gaza has become a national debate over where to draw the line between political dissent and antisemitism.
Even as many universities have moved to restrict, disperse or discipline protest activity, demonstrations — and the arguments about how to describe them — have continued, raising questions about free speech, campus safety and whether criticism of Israel is being conflated with anti-Jewish hatred.
Alan Wald, the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, is a historian of the 20th-century U.S. cultural Left. He discusses parallels to Cold War-era campus politics, Zionism and how debates over the meaning of antisemitism shape campus protests over Israel and Palestine.
What is Zionism — and why do you describe becoming a Zionist as a “choice” rather than an identity?
Understanding Zionism requires one to enter complex political terrain. The assertion that Zionism is essential to Jewish identity is misleading for several reasons. Judaism is a monotheistic religion at least 3,000 years old, whereas Zionism began as a secular-led political movement in the late 19th century. As an understandable response to Jew-hatred, Zionism was inspired by the rise of European nationalism. Like many other nationalist movements, it drew on religious rhetoric; in this case, reworking Old Testament themes about a Jewish return to the Holy Land, which was to follow the coming of a messiah.
The number of Jewish adherents to European Zionism’s colonization project was small until 20th century antisemitism limited Jewish immigration to the U.S. and emergent Nazi genocide drove Jews out of Europe. Today, however, half the world’s Jewish population lives outside Israel with little desire to emigrate and has no say in Israel’s political decisions. Due to political Zionism’s increasing narrowness and right-wing complexion, an increasing number of younger Jews are disassociating from and opposing it. Most Zionists in the U.S. and around the world are Christian Zionists.
What is “antisemitism” today — what kind of threat is it, and are the campus protesters/students really antisemitic?
The meaning of antisemitism (Jew-hatred) has evolved in interlocking stages since it emerged in the ancient world as hostility to cultural difference. First came Christian supersessionism, followed by conspiracy theories in Medieval Europe and then, after the Enlightenment, a pseudoscientific race prejudice that culminated in Nazi exterminationism. Following the 1948 founding of the state of Israel, a minority (and largely immigrant and refugee) Jewish population in Palestine increasingly conquered the majority (indigenous Arab) population of the former British mandate. While acknowledging that Israeli Jews certainly have a historic connection to the land and are there to stay, critics of the policies and practices of the Jewish-privileged state have been unfairly accused of “antisemitism.” This is especially if they object to Israel’s lack of democracy for the entire population under its rule, apartheid-like structures, and violent suppression of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Like all political movements, campus protests have certainly not been free of ambiguous chants and slogans, and some unnecessarily provocative behavior. But the prevailing argument of the protestors, many of whom are Jewish, is that Zionist policy and practice neither fully represents, nor is in the long-term interest of, Jews. At present, most actual Jew-hatred on campuses comes from conservative and right-wing elements who hold the opposite view; they promote conspiracy theories that equate Jews with Zionism and Israeli state policy.
What are the similarities between 1950s campus repression (McCarthyism) and what’s happening now?
The similarities are most striking in two areas: 1) Collaboration between universities and the government in various forms of political repression, sometimes carried out in the name of protecting “academic freedom”; 2) The use of hyperbolic and fearmongering pretexts, such as claims of “Communist infiltration” then and “rampant antisemitism” now, to engineer larger changes in academic culture. The reason for this fixation on the academy in both periods of repression is that universities have been potentially centers of critical thought, concentrating scholars and students who raise questions that challenge state narratives. Learning how and why the pre-capitulation of university administrations in the 1950s facilitated lasting damage to our culture can help us understand how to respond today.
How should universities respond to campus conflict over Israel/Palestine while protecting free speech and academic freedom?
The conflicts on the campuses are occurring in a much wider context. The political climate change in the U.S. is happening as part of a worldwide rise of right-wing nationalism. Protesting for Palestinian rights is a third rail political issue because it raises questions about the political history of that volatile region: disturbing ideas about the legacy of colonialism, U.S. foreign policy, antiracism, the need for a state to represent all its citizens, the accurate teaching of history, and much more. Only honest and open exchanges of all viewpoints, including the most controversial ones, will lead to clarification. But that is not what is currently happening in many places under misleading rubrics of “Institutional Neutrality” and “Viewpoint Diversity.”
These can be ill-defined new policies instituted top-down by administrations who selectively apply, interpret and reinforce them. The reality is that new laws in some states are limiting campus protests and political activity; faculty senates have been eliminated or replaced with weaker advisory bodies; legislatures are increasingly trying to shape curriculum, restrict courses or mandate content; and universities have cut programs, merged departments, and laid off faculty in the humanities — a primary area of critical and creative thought. Shared governance must be restored as a prerequisite to protecting free speech and genuine academic freedom.
Michigan News, April 13, 2026
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