By: Shale Horowitz, Professor, Political Science – University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee leadership, on May 12, negotiated an end to an illegal protest encampment by endorsing the lie that Israel is likely guilty of genocide. The leadership’s statement openly supports the content and methods of the longstanding Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to destroy Israel. Thus, using the false claim of genocide, UWM’s leadership supports an effort that can only succeed by killing and expelling Israel’s Jews. It supports genocide under the cover of opposing it.
This leadership must go.
UWM claims: “…the UN had reported more than 34,000 innocent Palestinians…killed…. A United Nations (UN) expert and the International Criminal Court have now called this war a ‘plausible genocide.’” This is false and intentionally misleading. The 34,000 deaths figure includes Hamas combatants, not just innocents. Nor are UN bodies and “experts” with long records of scapegoating Israel reliable guides. Genocide involves targeting civilians as part of an intentional effort to destroy an ethnic, racial, national, or religious group. Yet, in the Gaza fighting, the civilian-to-combatant death ratio is estimated at between 1-to-1 and 1.5-to-1—better than that achieved by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties far exceed those of almost all other countries—including all of Israel’s enemies in wars stretching across large parts of Asia and Africa. Yet UWM accuses Israel alone of committing genocide.
Since the war began on October 7, 2023, UWM leadership has consistently violated university rules. Following pro-Palestinian vandalism at Golda Meir Library on March 16, the leadership stated that “UWM will not tolerate vandalism or other illegal acts.” Yet the university did nothing to stop an illegal encampment from being set up on April 29. Chancellor Mark Mone, on May 8, stated that “UWM, as a public university, cannot take political stances.” Yet Mone ended the illegal encampment, not by enforcing university rules, but by endorsing a blood libel that demonizes Israel as part of the larger effort to destroy it.
Mone has effectively outsourced the university to advance the goals of extremist protestors. He has allowed university property to be used in an information warfare campaign. And he has made repeated statements in support of the protestors, culminating in the endorsement of their false, genocidal propaganda. Going forward, he promises to further incorporate the protestors’ agenda into the life of the university.
UWM is a public university. Our elected representatives must act immediately to end this betrayal of the university’s standards, values, and rules by firing the responsible leadership.
Shale Horowitz, who is Jewish, is a professor in the UW-Milwaukee Department of Political Science.
