Ilan Sinelnikov, founder and President of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), said in an interview that those students who express anti-Zionist views at campus protests are in reality expressing and spreading antisemitic sentiment.
Tamar Uriel-Beeri, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post, spoke with Ilan Sinelnikov, founder and president of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), the pro-Israel international campus movement that is registered and active on over 200 college campuses throughout North America and three countries.
Sinelnikov founded the organization twelve years ago while studying at the University of Minnesota, when he experienced Israel Apartheid Week on campus.
Sinelnikov explained in the interview that students who claim to be anti-Zionist are, in reality, expressing antisemitic sentiments. “They traffic antisemitism under every word they say and under every action they practice.”
Sinelnikov explained that one of the biggest challenges is to ensure that those who hate Israel cannot be allowed to define what Zionism means. “They try to take the word Zionism, smear it, and define it for Jewish students, not knowing that the majority of the Jewish students at the university level are Zionists. Even if they’re not the most vocal or the most visible Zionists, they do have a connection to the State of Israel. It’s part of their identity.”
Sinelnikov says the progression of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism on college campuses did not happen overnight but rather is a process that has been happening for decades. Moreover, it is not only due to misinformation: many Middle Eastern countries have invested significant funds in academic departments on American college campuses, and their influence has been felt in the re-education of American college students.
Nevertheless, misinformation is spread through social media, where most college students learn about world events. “If I’m eighteen or nineteen years old, and that is what I see for two or three hours a day, of course, I will be misinformed about Israel.”
Sinelnikov explained that while SSI cannot solve the issue of antisemitism, which has been present in the world since Jewish people have been in existence, the organization can empower students – both Jewish and non-Jewish – to get together as a group and promote Israel.
Sinelnikov suggests that pro-Israel Zionist students should run for student governments to overthrow the largely anti-Israel slant of student governments, both to counter anti-Israel student resolutions and to propose pro-Israel ones instead.
The War On Campus
Uploaded by Student Supporting Israel (SSI) on 2024-03-08.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Photo credit: Students Supporting Israel (SSI)
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