Last Wednesday, WESA dropped a story entitled Allegheny County D.A.’s office offers ‘Combating Antisemitism’ training for universities, authored by one Matt Eidson. The story is about a seemingly inocuous training recently given by a seemingly benevolent nonprofit to local university officials on identifying and fighting antisemitism. The nonprofit, StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism, is described as ‘an international organization founded in 2001 that seeks to address “the continued rise of antisemitism within the culture and around the globe” through education and collaboration.’
Sounds perfectly worthy and unobjectional, doesn’t it? Who could possibly complain about education and collaboration in the service of addressing the continued rise of antisemitism? Unfortunately, StandWithUs’ Wikipedia page tells a very different story. There the group is revealed as a “right-wing, pro-Israel advocacy organization” that “actively works to counter Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns on campuses and beyond.” Elsewhere in the page we learn that SWU “does not believe the West Bank is occupied” and is ‘opposed to J Street, a self-declared “dovish” pro-Israel lobby.”‘
None of these positions is remotely hinted at in the WESA article. We are told however, that the training was specific to law enforcement, and that it was spearheaded by the deputy district attorney with the Violent Crimes, Firearms, and Narcotics Unit in the Allegheny County DA’s Office.
In addition to the misleading information the piece included, it is noteworthy for the context it left out. Let’s fill in some gaps. On the international level, the “continued rise of antisemitism” is in large part not antisemitism at all, but protests against Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and beyond. Here in Pittsburgh, the author makes no mention of the nearly two dozen people being prosecuted in connection with a Palestinian solidarity encampment at Pitt last June. Nor is there anything in the story about the two local white supremacists recently unmasked by Idavox. The pair are members of Patriot Front and White Lives Matter, two deeply antisemitic organizations.
Taking the above into account, it is clear that the SWU training was not simply a generic this-what-antisemitism-looks-like affair. Its purpose was obviously to mobilize university cops to repress pro-Palestinian speech on campus even more harshly that they do already, with the able assistance of the district attorney. That WESA, an ostensibly liberal outlet, is behind the piece is not too surprising in a time when many news organizations are caving in to Trump. That doesn’t mean we need to fall for such obvious deception.