In recent months, Congress, driven mainly by Republicans, has been holding witch-hunt hearings to go after university administrators for not cracking down hard enough on campus opposition to the genocide Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people, with the full backing of the U.S. Even when these university administrators do crack down on the protests, that is often not enough—they are still pressured, and sometimes forced, to resign, to make very clear that there must be nothing less than consistent hard-line repression of these protests and in general an atmosphere of enforced loyalty to the American empire and its crucial interests, with the suppression of actions, and ideas, which pose (or even seem to pose) a serious challenge to this.

Here is another big irony: This repression calls to mind how the Hitlerite Nazis carried out witch-hunts in universities in Germany in the 1930s—driving out Jews, and others who stood up for the Jews or in any way opposed the genocidal Nazi juggernaut.

Democratic Party politicians have definitely been part of these witch-hunts now, in this country, even as this is largely being driven by the fascists of the Republican Party. In previous messages (especially numbers Seventeen and Twenty-Seven), I have spoken to why this repression is being directed against protesters, on college campuses and in the country overall, who are opposing the U.S.-backed genocidal slaughter of Palestinians:

Why is this happening? Because fundamental interests of U.S. capitalism-imperialism are at stake. Because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.

This explains the basic reasons for this repression. With the Republicans, there is this additional, particular reason: The driving force in the Republican Party is a particular kind of fascists—Christian fundamentalist fanatics. For these Christian fascists the state of Israel must now be supported at all costs—even as this means supporting massive slaughter of the Palestinian people—because, according to the doctrine of these crazed Christian fascists, the state of Israel, as a Jewish state, must be restored to its full power in order for the “second coming” of Jesus to happen. Of course, there is another big irony here: When this supposed “second coming” does happen, according to these Christian fascists, Jews will be condemned to hell for all eternity, along with all others who “have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior”!

For the most part, the Christian fascists do not openly declare that the protests must be viciously repressed because they are in violation of the deranged ideas and depraved objectives of these Christian fascists. Instead, they claim that the protests are characterized by anti-Semitism, including supposed threats, or acts, of physical violence against Jews, and calls for genocide against Jewish people. This is another big lie—which is also propagated by Democratic Party politicians, for the basic reasons I have indicated. The truth is that expression of hatred against Jews, physical attacks, or threats of such attacks, against Jews, or actual calls for genocide against Jews, are in no way the essential content and character of these protests. Claims of anti-Semitic statements and actions have been fabricated or greatly exaggerated by the powers-that-be and their propaganda machinery, in order to distract attention from the real genocide, against the Palestinian people, and to “justify” the vicious repression of people opposing this genocide.

Actually, many Jewish people and a number of Jewish organizations are playing an important role in the protest against the real genocide. It is the exposure of, and righteous opposition to, the genocidal atrocities being committed by Israel that is making some Jews “uncomfortable”—in particular Jews who openly, or in effect, support this genocidal slaughter by Israel of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including huge numbers of children.

If exposure of and opposition to Israel’s genocidal atrocities makes some Jews “uncomfortable”—then they need to seriously examine why this makes them “uncomfortable,” instead of falsely labeling this exposure and opposition “anti-Semitic.” Especially now, “standing with Israel” means “standing with” the genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people—and how could any decent person be “comfortable” with that stance?!

But there is yet another big irony in all this (which some others have noted as well): The whole “woke” thing—what I have very rightly called “woke lunacy”—has actually contributed to creating the atmosphere, particularly on college campuses, where opposition to Israel’s genocidal slaughter can be more easily repressed. How so? Because a big feature of “wokedom” is the notion of “triggering,” which includes the insistence that the expression of ideas that make some people “uncomfortable” should be repressed. And, as we have seen, even as many Jewish people and Jewish organizations have played a significant role in the protests, the fact that these protests make some Jews “uncomfortable” has been repeatedly used to “justify” repression of protests, and even speeches and programs, that involve opposition to Israel’s oppressive and outright genocidal actions against the Palestinian people.

Here I feel the need to repeat what I said in “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating” (which is available at revcom.us):

Enough of “woke folk” who act as if it is actually oppressed people (or, as they like to say, the “marginalized”) who are fragile beings constantly in need of the protection of “safe spaces,” lest they fall apart at the mere appearance of a “triggering” phenomenon. And since when are universities and other institutions supposed to be places where you are “safe”—not just from physical violence of one kind or another, and from overtly threatening or clearly degrading verbal assaults, but from ideas, statements, etc., that simply make you uncomfortable?! How are you going to “change the world” if you are in danger of falling apart at things like that?

That is exactly the point: We need to change the world—in a really big, fundamental way. That means making even more powerful the opposition to outrages like the genocide against the Palestinian people, and the attempts to suppress this opposition, on college campuses and in the country as a whole. And, most importantly, it means sweeping away this whole system of capitalism-imperialism, which is the fundamental source and cause of all these outrages.

This will require a revolution to overthrow this system—and, as I have repeatedly called attention to, and analyzed, in these messages (particularly numbers One through Eleven), this revolution is not only urgently necessary but is possible in this time we are living in, now.

In all this (both the immediate need for massive protest and rebellion against horrendous slaughter, oppression, and repression, and the fundamental need for revolution) some people will definitely need to be made “uncomfortable”—most of all those seeking to suppress righteous protest and enforce the rule of their murderously oppressive system through completely unjust violence.