Much like DEI and other race-essentialist competitions, no one was ever in danger from “Zionists” (read: Jews) on campus. The whole production had one specific goal, which anti-Zionist groups are finally elucidating in clear terms. Last week, an imam headlining a Zoom teach-in hosted by Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine said this about Jewish professor Shai Davidai, who has been hounded for his criticism of genocidal anti-Semitism:

“If there’s one professor, like that Shai Davidai guy, how do we get him in trouble? What are the ways in which his professorship is sort of tenuous, or maybe in jeopardy, or at what point will it be in jeopardy? How do we create a situation in which he’s in jeopardy? In a particular situation that might have more impact and it might silence—this is what the Zionists do—that might silence 100 other professors. If you’re able to take out somebody like that, and make an example of them, it might shut up 100 more…. What’s our biggest threat here? What’s our biggest opportunity? Which domino, if we knock it over, is going to knock 20 dominoes over?”

What too many administrators, journalists, and even groups like FIRE never understood (or never wanted to admit) was that if the anti-Israel movement on campus had one single ethos, it was: “How do we create a situation in which he’s in jeopardy?”