MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough jumped in as two guest panelists sparred during a Thursday panel over whether pro-Palestinian protesters are blatantly antisemitic
Princeton University professor and MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude Jr. argued protesters on college campuses and other parts of the country are not blatantly antisemitic, but rather criticizing the country of Israel. Television personality Donny Deutsch pushed back, arguing the protesters’ messages were a clear image of hate.
“We need to be very, very clear. I think we need to be very, very clear here. To critique the execution of the war, to critique Israel, is not necessarily an antisemitic claim,” Glaude said. “And what we have to do is figure out how to disentangle what we already knew what was on the rise, and that was antisemitism, with the critique of the war.”
“A lot of it is antisemitism,” Deutsch interrupted.
“This is not — hold on,” Glaude said, putting his right hand on Deutsch’s arm. “This is not—
“A lot of it is antisemitism,” Deutsch continued.
“This is not Kent State in 1970,” Glaude said. “This is not Cornell in 1969. Universities and colleges are not hotbeds of illiberalism, right? These are places where young people are learning how to engage in the deliberative process, how to engage —”
“We’re gonna have to agree to disagree. I think a lot of it is antisemitism,” Deutsch began.
“What is the basis?” Glaude asked. (RELATED: GOP Reps Take Action To Halt Antisemitism On College Campuses)
“What is the basis of it? How do you start to applaud Hamas when the Jihadist mission that they did was to kill Jews?” Deutsch explained. “I listened to an audiotape of a young man, this was on that IDF released tape, of a young man saying, he wasn’t saying ‘Free Palestine.’ He was a young terrorist who had just killed a husband and his wife, and he was on the wife’s phone calling his parents and saying, ‘God is great. I killed ten Jews. I killed them —'”
“That is antisemitism,” Glaude interrupted.
“Okay —” Deutsch attempted to continue.
“That is clearly antisemitism,” Glaude said.
“Okay, well he was not saying free Palestine,” he said.
“That’s antisemitism,” Glaude repeated.
“Okay, so it exists in a big way, when somebody’s saying ‘I didn’t free Palestine. I killed ten Jews’ and people on college campuses are cheering for Hamas, that is antisemitism,” Deutsch argued.
Scarborough then chimed in to say antisemitism dates back thousands of years and pointed out Nazis killed six million Jews in the Holocaust before Israel became an independent country in 1948.
“There are only 15 million Jews alive today because of antisemitism, because of all the slaughters throughout time,” Scarborough said.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have cheered antisemitic slurs such as “Fuck the Jews,” “Fuck Israel” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Several student groups on elite college campuses, notably Harvard University, have united to support Palestinians, blame Israel for the war and demand a ceasefire.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered Nov. 4 in front of the White House to speak out against President Joe Biden’s support for Israel. Some vandalized White House property while cheering “Allahu Akbar.” Police arrested one person for “destruction of property.”
Protesters standing in front of the Sydney Opera House in Australia took their chants to extremes mid-October by calling to “gas the Jews.”