Is it anti-Semitic to say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza? Is it “hurtful and insensitive” for someone to acknowledge the suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people? In recent weeks, actions by two institutions of higher learning brought these questions to the forefront.

On April 15, faculty and student organizations at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mosab Abu Toha to speak on campus. To set the stage for his poetry reading, Abu Toha shared his experiences living in Gaza during the Israeli assault and spoke of family members who’d been killed in Israel’s bombing campaigns. Entire families erased, neighborhoods laid waste, memories eradicated. It was, he stated, a genocide.

Days later, Le Moyne’s president issued an apology for the discomfort that Abu Toha’s remarks may have created for some in the college community. The letter noted that using the word genocide in connection with Israel caused “real hurt” and made some “feel unwelcome.” The president concluded by affirming that “anti-Semitism, along with all forms of bigotry and hate, has no place at Le Moyne.”

Abu Toha responded to the president’s letter with his own “open letter”, rejecting the implication that using the word genocide to describe Israel’s actions was anti-Semitic.

“Seriously?” he asked. “Are the crimes of the Israeli state representative of all Jewish people? I personally refuse to believe that is the case… I never used the word ‘Jewish’ during the entire event; I refuse to conflate the faith of Judaism with the actions of Israel.”

He concluded, “If anyone told you they felt ‘hurt’ because I used the word genocide, then I ask you: How should I feel? How should my wife feel after losing her father? How should my three children feel after losing their grandfather?”

Last weekend, at the University of Michigan commencement ceremonies the faculty senate president began his remarks by noting that the university’s celebration of athletes and their accomplishments should extend to heroes who’ve challenged the university’s status quo by opening the doors to inclusion and understanding.

He mentioned a young woman who in 1858 challenged the school’s opposition to enrolling women as students. He noted the first Jewish faculty member and the Black Action Movement that pushed to expand the curriculum to honor the black experience, and closed by recognizing “student activists… who sacrificed much to open our hearts to the injustices happening in Gaza.”

His beautifully constructed remarks elicited a roar of approval from the audience. Video of the event on the university’s website shows his colleagues and administrators applauding the speech.

Within a few days, the same university president seen applauding issued a letter denouncing the speech as “hurtful”, “insensitive” and “inappropriate.”

(To avoid “further controversy” the university removed the video showing the president’s applause.)

What’s the logic behind the claims that Abu Toha and the faculty senate president’s remarks were hurtful to the point of being anti-Semitic?

The first question is: “What is anti-Semitism?” The clearest definition is that anti-Semitism is hatred of, stereotyping of or discrimination against Jewish people because they are Jews. It claims that all Jews, because they are Jewish, share inherent characteristics or behaviors.

Thus, the only way that criticism of Israeli actions can constitute anti-Semitism is if the critic implies that Israel does what it does because it is Jewish and “that’s the way Jews are” or if the person making the claim of anti-Semitism maintains that as a Jewish state whatever Israel does represents all Jews, making criticism of Israeli policies equivalent to criticism of the Jewish people.

Pro-Israel organizations have long promoted this position which, until recently, was mostly rejected. It’s dangerous precisely because asserting that Israel represents all Jews makes criticism of Israel criticism of the Jewish people. It’s worth noting that this assertion rests on the same assumption as the claim of real anti-Semites who argue that consequences for Israel’s bad behaviors can legitimately be visited on all Jews.

The other consequence is that it denies the victims of Israel’s behaviors their right to speak of their pain and call out, with specificity, the agent who caused it — or students the right to empathize with and demand that Palestinian victims be heard — because acknowledging Palestinian pain might cause hurt feelings.

– Dr. James Zogby is the president and founder of the Washington based Arab American Institute (AAI)