"The Encampments:" An anti-Israel film so dishonest that even the Washington Post's critic sees through it.

Yet few other critics seem to have.

“The Encampments” is documentary that pays homage to last year’s anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. It’s produced and directed by Michael Workman and Kei Pritzker. The latter is far-leftist and persistent critic of Israel.

The movie has received unequivocal praise from the usual suspects, with one exception. Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post.

He writes:

The Encampments” aims, among other things, to counter [the] narrative about spiking campus antisemitism in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. To do so, the directors of “The Encampments” focus on the organizers of Columbia’s protest, including student spokesperson Sueda Polat and Grant Miner, a Columbia grad student and president of the Student Workers of Columbia union.

As they characterize it, the initial 14-day protest — a kind of sit-in or tent city centering on demands that Columbia divest from weapons manufacturers and defense contractors with ties to Israel — was more about kumbaya moments than bomb-throwing. Although it eventually devolved into some violent clashes with pro-Israel counterprotesters, the encampment, organizers say, was a mostly peaceful gathering of people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds, with hardly a rude word spoken.

“Mostly peaceful.” Where have I heard that before?

“Where are the sound bites of people saying antisemitic things?” asks one of the film’s subjects, a worker in Columbia’s communications office who appears on camera with his face obscured and voice altered, presumably because he disagreed with the university’s handling of the protests.

O’Sullivan isn’t fooled. He cites “ample evidence that there were anti-Semitic encounters” and adds:

The film’s vibe of harmony — at least inside the encampment, where leaders claim antisemitism had no home — seems more than a little stage-managed, if not whitewashed.

The documentary’s line on Jewish students who complained about anti-Semitism at Columbia shows the film to be propaganda of the worst kind:

Miner [the protest leader] offers a provocative explanation of why some Jews may say they felt unsafe, and how their voices have been amplified. “There’s a certain minority of students who feel threatened by the very presence of people who are advocating for stopping a genocide,” he says. “And those people are listened to much, much more than the majority of the people who are advocating for cutting ties with a genocidal regime.”

O’Sullivan says this argument “comes dangerously close to the trope of undue Jewish influence.” Indeed, it’s the same trope that flowed back and forth in emails written by several Columbia administrators last year.

But Jewish students did not complain about the anti-Semitic nature of the anti-Israel protests because they “come from a place of privilege,” as on administrator put it. They didn’t feel threatened because they can’t abide criticism of Israel. They complained because the rabid anti-Semitism of the anti-Israel protesters and their support for those who murder Jews is real — as O’Sullivan documented (see his link collecting the “ample evidence”). And they felt threatened because they were.

Consider these examples:

• A masked protester shouting, “we are Hamas. We’re all Hamas.”

• Masked protesters shouted, “never forget the 7^th of October…that will happen not one more time…not one thousand more times, but ten thousand more times.”

• According to Chabad at Columbia, protesters have directly targeted and verbally harassed Jewish students. They’ve said things like, “go back to Europe,” “all you do is colonize,” and “stop killing children.”

• A Columbia student was reportedly assaulted for wearing a kippah.

Jewish students reported being spat at. In addition, incidents of swastika vandalism, physical assaults, and the posting of stickers reading “Zionist Donors and Trustees Hands Off Our University,” and “Zionism is Terrorism” were reported on campus.

In October 2023, an Israeli student reportedly was beaten on his hand with a stick outside of the University library after confronting a perpetrator for ripping down flyers of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Yet, a Columbia law professor declared that it’s Jewish students who have served in the IDF that are dangerous and shouldn't be allowed on campus.

According to O’Sullivan, the whitewashing of anti-Semitism at Columbia isn’t the documentary’s only flaw:

Labels are bandied about, without definition: Zionist, anti-Zionist, genocide, terrorism, resistance, colonialism. Too often, in a film about an ostensibly peaceful form of dissent, it feels like adversaries are being targeted, albeit subtly.

“Subtly”? A film that lionizes the Columbia protest movement and accuses Jewish students of feeling threatened only because they’re okay with genocide doesn’t sound subtle to me.

To me, it sounds like blatant propaganda on behalf of those who hate Israel and would like to see Hamas destroy it, along with the Jews who live there. (“Palestine from the river to the sea,’ and all that). Yet, you will have a hard time finding anything but praise for “The Encampments” on the internet.

It’s telling, and a bit sad, that the closest thing I could find to pushback was in the Washington Post.