Dear members of the Chapman community,

As a campus community, our commitment to telling the truth in an open dialogue is critical to our survival as an institution and as a civilized people.  

The truth is that Hamas is a terrorist organization.  It proved that designation on October 7th by its horrific and barbaric attack on innocent civilians in Israel and there is no reason that they, and their allies, will not do so again, and not just in Israel.  It further reinforced their terrorist nature by using the innocent citizens of Gaza as human shields in what it knew would be an Israeli military response to Hamas‘ threat to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. To ensure that no one can be mistaken about Hamas, one of its leaders vowed to repeat their attacks on Israel “on and on.”

In the past few weeks, the administrations of all major universities in America, including Chapman’s, have condemned the Hamas actions as having transgressed the laws of human decency. Both Jewish and Muslim students have voiced their concerns as well about their own safety here in the United States, as legitimate protest has given way to violence and intimidation.

This is a second truth: No citizen, or resident, of the United States should be targetted for their religious or ethnic identity.  And yet, we have witnessed an abhorrent, but sadly foreseeable, sharp rise in antisemitism, particularly at universities and colleges --- foreseeable because we have witnessed it before. Although Jews comprise about 2.4% of the U.S. population, prior to Hamas‘ shameful attacks, they were already victims of approximately 60% of the religiously motivated crimes in the country. Today, that percent has risen (though firm data is not yet available). No one, certainly including Muslims, should be targeted for their religion. But we do not see justice in ignoring the special place of Jew hatred in the West’s political culture. It is not enough to reject racism “in all forms” mimicking the language of all lives matter. Antisemitism must be called out as a particular, and particularly persistent, problem.

This leads to a third truth: Our words matter. When we see a placard on our campus saying, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, Jewish members of our community correctly see a call for their elimination. This is not an over-reaction. After all, Hamas itself has stated clearly that this is what the slogan means. Members of our community who display such sentiments may believe they are calling for justice, but the slogan itself says something else. 

Sadly, academic attempts to provide context for the conflict all too often omit fuller historical perspective partly by ignoring the clear meaning of these hurtful and dangerous slogans. Words like genocide (referring to Israel, but somehow not Hamas) seem to be deployed for polemical reasons, while the use of the word colonialism neglects the fact that the region has been taken over the centuries by Romans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and British before the establishment of Israel. The term apartheid also does not help us understand vexing problems, since Arab citizens of Israel do not face anything like the discriminatory laws of the old South African regime. The use of these loaded terms both inflame antisemitism and evade a clearer picture of those problems. 

In the spirit of truth-telling, we call upon all members of the Chapman community to seek, and tell, the truth to their best ability. Teaching should not be about sloganeering, but a way to address complex issues in a free, fact-based manner. 

We call upon the whole Chapman community, faculty, administrators, staff, and students, to be adamant in our opposition to antisemitism, and to be just as adamant in our insistence on respectful discussion. Jews in our community should not be handed the responsibility of defending themselves. This responsibility belongs to each of us.