Focus at Four: Historian speaks on rise in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Last month, the Anti-Defamation League published new data calling the current rise in antisemitism in the nation “unprecedented”.
The data includes 400 incidents on college and university campuses in November and October, compared to 33 incidents in the same period in 2022.
Adam Seipp, Professor of History at Texas A&M University, joined First News at Four on Tuesday to break down some of the historical context behind hate.
“These are related phenomena. If you care about stopping anti-black racism, anti-Latino racism, homophobia, all of the different sorts of bigotry that we see in our society, we have to confront antisemitism. It’s not like we can separate one from the other and put each one into its own bucket. These are closely related. It should not be a shock at all that these track each other, in a deeply depressing way,” he says.
Seipp also mentioned criticism is not hate.
“Something I really want to stress here. It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the government of Israel for its policy in Gaza. If you want to criticize the government of Israeli policy in Gaza, go ahead. There are plenty of Israelis who criticize the Israeli government policy, there are plenty of Jewish Americans who criticize Israel’s policy. The key is to criticize Israel’s policy as Israeli policy, don’t criticize Israel as Jews,” he said.
Seipp stressed that diversity is a strength.
“We have to be able to separate what is a legitimate policy argument from attitudes towards people who are our neighbors,” he said.
To watch the full interview, click on the video player above.
