In Fall 2025, I received a Title IX notice of investigation from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for alleged antisemitism. For pro-Palestine student organizers, this is not an uncommon occurrence.

As part of the investigation, I was subject to an hours-long interview, in which a university-hired lawyer asked me the standard questions about my support for terrorism and hatred for Jews.

“Did you protest the Isenberg School of Business because it has a Jewish name?”

“No,” I respond, a bit shocked. It didn’t even register to me that Isenberg was a Jewish name.

This charge came from a demonstration at UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Business, in which pro-Palestine students and community members demanded that RTX be disinvited from the upcoming career fair.

RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, is a key engineer of Israel’s occupation and genocide. RTX manages the Iron Dome, israel’s so-called “defensive” missile system, and manufactures Paveway Bombs and F-35 fighter jets, which have been used to level homes, hospitals, and universities in Gaza.

For years, UMass students have been protesting RTX’s presence at career fairs. However, since the rebirth of the Student Intifada in 2023, the shifting terrain has made this much more difficult. One of the greatest obstacles has been the retaliation from Zionist students.

As the depravity of Israel is exposed through its ongoing genocide in Gaza, Zionist students’ claims of feeling unsafe are getting more and more ridiculous. Nonetheless, universities still utilize “Jewish safety” as one of their main reasons for squashing pro-Palestine dissent.

Accusations of antisemitism, which the Palestine solidarity movement has faced since its inception, serve to distract from the primary struggle at hand. For decades, Palestinians have been forced to be subservient to Jewish feelings, having to prove that they are not antisemitic, all while their people have been massacred by Israeli soldiers and their homes stolen by Jewish settlers.

In the words of Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd,

Not only do we live in fear of displacement at the hands of a colonialism that professes itself as Jewish, not only are our people bombarded by an army that marches under what it claims is the Jewish flag, and not only do Israeli politicians over enunciate the Jewishness of their operations, we are told to disregard the Star of David soaring on their flag

Reality speaks for itself. Israel is a Jewish state, and Isenberg is a Jewish name. And a Jewish state is committing a genocide, and a Jewish-named business school is graduating students into the war machine.

Sure, we can rally around the absurdity of these accusations. We can continuously put a footnote that says Zionism =/= Judaism. However, Zionists will continue to use their Jewish identity as a shield, and debating that shield has become an unnecessary uphill battle.

In the face of imperial violence, the liberal premise of civility is more than irrelevant. It is a trap that disorients the movement.

US-Israeli imperialism is in its death throws, and an empire on its last legs will have a violent death.

Over the past 3 years, Israel has killed over 625,000 people in Gaza, of which 300,000 are children. Since March 2026, the US-Israeli alliance has killed over 3,000 Iranians and 4,000 Lebanese.

Elsewhere, the United States has exerted its power through its blockade on Cuba, kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and conducting of military exercises in the Pacific.

Domestically, the Trump administration has waged a legal battle against dissent. Through the designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization, anyone against fascism can be charged with material support for terrorism.

Simultaneously, it becomes harder to counteract Palestine-solidarity with accusations of antisemitism and terrorism as the realities of imperialism are revealed. Al-Aqsa flood revealed that Israel was not invincible, the expansion of the war into Iran revealed the fragility of the US-Israeli alliance, all while showing the violence that imperialism enacts domestically to maintain itself.

When resistance escalates, the ruling class must overcompensate in their repression. What we are witnessing should not be characterized as unprecedented. Rather, it is an acceleration.

Modern counterinsurgency started with the War on Terror. While the US was murdering people across the Middle East in the name of counterterrorism, they were also stifling dissent domestically, also in the name of counterterrorism.

One of the most notable cases from this time period was the Holy Land 5.

The Holy Land Foundation was once the largest Muslim charity in the US. In December 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration designated the HLF as a domestic terrorist organization. In 2008, five Palestinian men were charged with material support for terrorism. Allegedly, they sent $12 million to Hamas, which had been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US. Hamas was, and still is, the governing body of Gaza.

The money raised by the HL5 was going to food, healthcare, and education for orphans in Palestine.

To date, two of the five men remain imprisoned in Texas.

The Holy Land 5 case is used as a legal precedent in targeting Muslim activists and fundraising efforts for Palestine, through so-called Material Support for Terrorism laws.

In 2022, the Boston-based Mapping Project was attacked by several Zionist organizations for supposedly making anantisemitic call to “dismantle” and “disrupt” most of Boston’s Jewish community. 37 members of Congress urged a federal investigation into the mapping project, claiming that it “could be used as a roadmap for violent attacks by BDS supporters”.

The ADL claimed that “of the 38 non-profit organizations named, 30 are Jewish organizations – no other community is similarly targeted.”

Upon observation, these Jewish organizations are actively supporting the colonization of Palestine.

At a minimum, these organizations normalize the existence of Israel as a settler-colonial state. Beyond that, they raise millions for Zionist lobbies, recruit young people to join the IDF, and fund the continued land-left in Palestine. For example, Jewish National Fund controls about 13% of the Palestinian land stolen during 1948, and the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts promotes “mission trips to Israel”.

The Mapping Project draws connections between the Israel, policing, and systemic white supremacy. And it reveals that many local institutions upholding Zionism are, in fact, Jewish.

The premises for suppressing the Student Intifada have been long in place: a culture of islamophobia, the weaponization of antisemitism, and accusations of terrorism.

In April 2019, at UMass Amherst, a group of anonymous pro-Israel students sued UMass in an attempt to cancel a panel titled “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech and the Battle for Palestinian Human Rights”.

Their reasoning was that it would cause “irreparable harm” for Jewish students on campus. In June 2019 judge ruled that the pro-Israel students could not hide under the veil of anonymity, and in December 2019, those students, refusing to reveal themselves, dropped the lawsuit.

In May 2024, ADL filed a Title VI complaint against UMass Amherst for “antisemitic harassment and discrimination”, The Department of Education followed up in March 2025, sending letters to 60 universities facing a Title VI complaint.

Each time, UMass administration was quick to condemn these allegations.

In June 2025, the Council for Arabic and Islamic Relations (CAIR) determined UMass Amherst as a “Hostile Campus” for “violent crackdowns on peaceful anti-genocide protesters, discriminatory sanctions, and a pattern of neglect in addressing anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian harassment.”

UMass responded to the complaints of antisemitism and the DOE letter, but remained silent on the CAIR designation.

This discrepancy is not merely a result of internal prejudices within UMass admin. While there may be individual biases within the bureaucracy of the university, these biases exist within a broader culture crafted by modern counterinsurgency in order to manufacture consent for Zionism and the silencing of dissent.

We saw the forceful show of university repression through the crackdown on the encampments. Complementary to this force is the calls for dialogue to combat both antisemitism and islamophobia through university provided pathways, which are ultimately designed to divert our energy and resources.

Antisemitism and islamophobia are more than interpersonal interactions; they are deeply woven into the fabrics of Zionism. To confront them is to know their history, to reject the university-provided definitions, and to dismantle the imperialist structures that lie underneath them.

When genocide-supporting institutions write the definition of antisemitism, it is not the definition that must be contested, but the institution itself.

What the Student Intifada has on its side is reality. We see clearly Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and we see clearly the ways our universities are upholding Zionism.

Universities are facing a crisis brought upon by mass clarity. The revelation that universities do not live up to their proclaimed values is a threat to their business, and they will use both forceful tactics and liberal counterinsurgency to destabilize dissent.

When considering the history of the Palestine solidarity movement, the repression of the Student Intifada over the past years was to be expected. It is a sign that the conditions are escalating, and we must accept this change whole-heartedly. And as the Trump administration accelerates this repression, we must clarify our resistance.

To be designated as an outside agitator or a terrorist or a disturber of the peace by a society that commits genocide is to be on the side of humanity.

When demanded with the question of whether or not it is antisemitic to protest the business school, there is no correct answer, except to question the false reality presented. Are perceived threats to Jewish safety relevant in the face of genocide? And why does the business school recruit students to work for war-manufacturing corporations?

---