BUZZ
Activists ‘disturbed’ and ‘disappointed’ by the outspoken advocate against antisemitism
Israeli actress and former special envoy for combating antisemitism Noa Tishby spoke at Amherst College on Monday, but approximately 30 students weren’t happy about it.
In front of the venue at Johnson Chapel, keffiyeh and mask-garbed members of Amherst For Palestine and Five College Chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine held placards reading “From the river to the sea” and “Noa Tishby loves genocide,” The Amherst Student reports.
Tishby, who has had roles in various television series such as “Leverage,” “NCIS,” and “Star Trek: Enterprise” and is a “prominent pro-Israel figure on social media,” joined Amherst for Israel’s Cal Wider for a discussion titled “Israel and Antisemitism: Setting the Facts Straight.”
In her talk Tishby (pictured) said the Israeli Defense Forces are “more interested in Palestinian people’s lives than Hamas,” and that there is no “genocide” occurring in Gaza.
She also ripped the anti-Israel protests that have taken place on U.S. campuses since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack against Israel, saying there’s been “an uprising of ‘Jew hatred’” and that antisemitism has turned into “a shapeshifting conspiracy theory.”
“It’s like, the Jews are the vermin of the earth … they’re so disgusting. But also, the Jews control America … the banks … entertainment … the media,” Tishby said.
Tishby’s talk did not include a question and answer session, leading to the “disappointment” of student Avi Helft, who wrote an op-ed in the Student back in April blasting President Trump’s invocation of antisemitism “as an excuse for an authoritarian assault on academic freedom.”
Outside, activists chanted “Noa Tishby, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” and “Amherst, Amherst, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
The protest’s (anonymous) “main organizer” said Tishby “misidentifies” pro-Palestinian campus activists as “terrorists,” and complained that pro-Israel voices are “much larger in scale” at Amherst than pro-Palestinian.
Ian Behrstock, who “aspires to work at the intersection of music, history, racial justice, and community development,” was “disturbed” that Tishby gets paid to visit college campuses “to talk about Jewish hatred.”
“It really just feels like a distraction,” Behrstock said. “It distracts us all from the genocide. It distracts us all from the real political questions at hand, and it makes it very hard to have any sort of a real discourse about these things.
“It was very clear that just our presence, just the words ‘Free Palestine,’ were incredibly triggering to a whole lot of the people there … that is very disturbing and sad.”
In addition to the Tishby protest, an “unnamed” school alumnus “not affiliated” with Amherst For Palestine sent an email to professors and other staff “across all departments […] encouraging them to join the protest and to support students and community members.”
The email referred to Tishby as an IDF “propagandist” and compared her “rhetoric” to that of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
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