Jewish NYU professor sounds off on double standard for anti-Israel protesters
Jewish New York University professor Scott Galloway criticized anti-Israel protesters and antisemitism on college campuses, arguing there was a double standard when it came to hate speech directed at Jewish people.
"If I went into the NYU square with a white hood on and said, ‘lynch the Blacks' or ‘burn the gays,’ my ID would be shut off by that night," Galloway said Tuesday on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe." "I would never work in academia again. There would be no need for the words ‘context’ or ‘nuance,’ I wouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment or free speech."
Anti-Israel demonstrations have taken hold at several elite colleges and universities across the U.S., including at Columbia, Yale, NYU and the University of California, Berkley, as students protest the Israel-Hamas war and America's involvement. Some protests have resulted in arrests and student suspensions.
Galloway said the double standard was complicated, but part of it was because Israel hasn't "draped itself in glory over the last 20 years."
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"I also think that, incorrectly, students on campus conflate the civil rights movement with what is going on in Palestine," he said, adding that students have also shifted towards this pro-Palestinian movement because of an "orthodox" promoted by some college professors, that there are "oppressors" and the "oppressed."
"The easiest way to identify oppressors is how White and how rich they are," Galloway said. "Fairly or unfairly, Israel is seen as ground zero for Whiteness and how wealthy they are."
He also said younger people were being manipulated by TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media app.
"What might sound paranoid, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I think we're being manipulated, specifically youth, who, their frame for the world is TikTok," he said. "If you look at TikTok, there are 52 videos that are pro-Hamas or pro-Palestine for every one served on Israel."
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Galloway noted that, by comparison, the U.S. wasn't accused of genocide for killing "400,000 people in Afghanistan and Iraq" or after the U.S. killed "3.5 million Japanese" following the attack on Pearl Harbor, which left nearly 2,400 Americans dead.
"Jews are not allowed and Israel is not allowed to prosecute a war, and they are prosecuting a war more humanely than we have done. The ratio of … civilian death to combatant mortality is lower than Japan, lower than in Germany. There’s just a different standard for Jews and Israel when it comes to prosecuting a war. They’re allowed to fight back to a truce, but unlike America or any other Western nation that has attacked as viciously, they’re not allowed to win a war. It’s a double standard," he said.
Anti-Israel protests at New York University's campus turned violent Monday night when demonstrators hurled bottles at police officers who were sent to the scene to disperse a large unruly crowd, officials said.
New York City police sources confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that law enforcement arrested 133 demonstrators using zip ties and flex cuffs to remove them from campus. They were taken on a bus to police headquarters and were charged with trespassing, the sources added.
Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.