The basis of pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests is faulty and wrong

May 14, 2024

The anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests on college and university campuses continue, complete with law-breaking and violence. The protesters attempt to defend their illegal and violent behavior by claiming their actions are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But like so much else that these confused young people believe, while the First Amendment protects free speech, free speech does not include vandalism, trespassing, violence, and illegal harassment of individuals and groups. Actions such as blocking people from entering campus buildings, or taking control of school facilities, or interfering with school activities are not speech. 

They are crimes. And those crimes turn what could and should have been peaceful protests into riots.

Such activities are what finally moved the administrations of some institutions to say, “enough is enough,” and bring in police to break up the protests, and even to arrest some of the protesters. Whether those charged with improper behavior will actually suffer the consequences of their behavior remains to be seen.

Once the authorities became involved, moving people out of the encampments and arresting them, what so often was suspected was proven to be true: many of the protesters/rioters are not students or in any way connected with the school where they gathered.

They quite frequently were members of activist groups that sponsored the encampments, and even in some cases were being paid to condemn Israel.

While they may have earned monetary fines, suspension or expulsion from school, notations in their school records, or even jail time, with the soft-on -crime attitude of so many incompetent prosecutors, they may only get a slap on the wrist.

Much of the emotion behind this criminal behavior results from ignorance and misinformation about Israel’s history and the action it took following the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas that took some 1,200 innocent lives.

An authoritative look into this situation by Victor Davis Hanson, who is an historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and was published by The Daily Signal, focuses on “10 Most Common Pro-Hamas Lies About Israel.”

One lie is the claim by the protesters that Israelis are “settlers” and “colonists.” Jewish students are even sometimes told to “go back to Poland.”

But it is no secret to anyone wanting to know the truth that the general region that is now the state of Israel has been occupied by the Jewish people for more than 3,000 years.

Of the charge that the Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel, Hanson wrote, “The Gaza Strip, adjacent Israel, was autonomous. The Israeli border is closed, but so is the Egyptian border. There have not been any Jews in Gaza for nearly two decades.

“So on Oct. 7, Gaza was not occupied by Israel. It was under the control of Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

“After being elected to power in 2006, Hamas canceled all subsequent elections and ruled as a dictatorship. Gaza forbids Jews from entering Gaza and has driven out most Christians.”

Israel is also accused of targeting civilians. But Hanson points out that after the October 7 attack the Hamas terrorists ran back to Gaza and “hid in tunnels and bases beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques,” using Palestinians as screens against Israel’s counter-attacks, insuring that some of them would be killed.

“Outside assessors have concluded that Israel has not inadvertently killed a greater ratio of civilians to terrorists compared to most other urban fighting conflicts elsewhere,” Hanson wrote, “and perhaps even fewer than American engagements in Mosul and Fallujah.”

On the charge that Israel produced a response that was “disproportionate” to the Hamas slaughter, Hanson provides some numbers.

“Iran tried to send 320 missiles and rockets into Israel. Israel replied with three. Hamas launched 7,000 rockets into Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis before the Israel Defense Forces responded in Gaza, often dropping leaflets and sending texts to forewarn [Palestinian] citizens.”

The only disproportionate aspect of this is the much higher effectiveness of Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorism.

The clearly incorrect suggestion that Israel is attempting genocide, to wipe out the Palestinian people, like the other lies Hanson lists, falls with a loud thump when faced with reality and the history of the Jewish people with Palestinians.

Hanson: “Before Oct. 7, some 20,000 Gazans a day requested to work in Israel — on the correct expectation of much higher wages and humane treatment.

“If Hamas had come out of its tunnels, separated from its impressed civilian shields, released its surviving Israeli hostages, and either openly fought the Israel Defense Forces or surrendered the organizers of the Oct. 7 massacre, no Gaza civilians would have died.

“According to Hamas’ questionable ‘genocide’ figures, roughly 4 percent of the Gazan population died during the Israeli military response to Oct. 7. At least a third to almost half of those deaths, according to various international observers, were Hamas terrorists.”

If the lies and distortions of Israel’s obligatory response to Hamas’ terrorism isn’t bad enough, President Joe Biden gross failure to fully support Israel in its time of need is unforgiveable. This decision is one more item added to Biden’s long list of sometimes deadly catastrophes and failures of leadership.

Anti-Israel protests are out of control and badly misguided

April 30, 2024

What is going on in this country regarding Israel’s response to the terrorist attack last October is truly disgraceful. The fanatical protests on several American college and university campuses, which have been virtually ignored and allowed to continue by the administrations of those institutions, are fueled by misinformation and ignorance. 

The protesters chant “death to Israel” and threaten the safety of their fellow students who are Jewish, although they are not often Israelis. And in response to the pro-Israel sentiments expressed in the country, the protesters also now chant “death to America.”

In taking the anti-Israel position, the protesters claim to be pro-Palestine, but that increasingly has meant pro-Hamas, the terrorists who unleashed that horrible attack on innocent Israelis and others in October. Hamas is an Islamic terrorist organization that the Palestinians voted into power some years ago.

Israel has been and is the target of many of its Middle East neighbors where Islam is the religion. Islamic countries have tried over and over to eliminate Israel and its people, and have been soundly defeated each time.

Leaving behind for the moment the hatred of Israel held by these protesters and Muslims, not everyone is so blind to reality.

Israel is a special place for reasons other than just its role as a target of its neighbors. It is a beacon of democracy in an area where democracies are in short supply.

It is a country that despite its history of being targeted has demonstrated religious tolerance, and has made technological and other valuable innovations. It has made important contributions in mathematics, science, medicine, computing, defense, aviation and energy, to name just some areas to which it has contributed. 

And, it is home to those of other religions. The U.S. government estimates the total population of Israel in 2022 at 8.9 million. And according to the Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2021 approximately 73.8 percent of the population was Jewish, 18 percent Muslim, 1.9 percent Christian, and 1.6 percent Druze. So, if Israel is such a terrible nation, why do so many non-Jewish people willingly live and work there?

The anti-Israel protesters want people to believe, and perhaps themselves believe, that Israel started all of this. It did not. Hamas started it with a violent raid killing more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including at least 35 U.S. citizens who were in Israel.

Among the slaughtered were elderly people. Children were killed in front of their parents, parents were killed in front of their children, babies were beheaded and burned to death in ovens, and other atrocities also committed. Hostages were taken. Some have been released, some have died or been killed, and more than 100 remain in captivity.

So, the military actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are not unwarranted attacks on innocent Palestinians. They are appropriate and justified responses to yet another attempt by an Iranian terrorist proxy group to eliminate completely the nation of Israel and every Jewish citizen in Israel. And the innocent Palestinian people voluntarily chose Hamas to lead them. 

The IDF works very hard to avoid injuring or killing non-combatants. However, the Israeli military killed seven aid workers, including three British veterans, of World Central Kitchen when it bombed a clearly marked vehicle belonging to the food charity, as reported by the Daily Mail.

“Israel Defence Forces chief Herzi Halevi … called the killings a 'grave mistake,' which he blamed on night-time ‘misidentification,’ and launched an independent investigation into the attack,” the Daily Mail reported.

The story continued, saying, “Israel is expected to pay compensation to the families of the aid workers killed in the airstrike on a food convoy in Gaza, military sources have claimed.”

In war, things do not always go as intended, as exemplified by this incident. The Israeli forces made a serious mistake, and innocent people died. However, had Hamas not unleashed that appalling, vicious attack last October, this mistake would not have occurred, and other Palestinians would also not have died.

Reuters reported that “protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across the United States.” These protests have recently grown to encampments, or tent cities, filled with tents that look alike, leading to the idea that these protests are sponsored and coordinated.

“Jewish Left-leaning billionaire and philanthropist George Soros and associations funded by him are reportedly funding the anti-Israel protests at college campuses across the US,” Business Today reported. “The protests, which started at Columbia University last week, have spread to universities and colleges across over 8 states in the US, The New York Post reported.” 

“A large Brooklyn street protest reached a standoff on Tuesday when New York police began to arrest people over disorderly conduct, restraining those who refused to move with zip ties,” the Reuters story added.

Protesters and others are calling for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. The innocent hostages must be released. But a ceasefire by Israel will only delay the effort to destroy Israel, and kill all the Jews.

These institutions and law enforcement need to get moving and apply appropriate punishment to these students who are over-stepping the free speech boundaries and threatening innocent Jewish students.

Where does the hate for Jewish people on college campuses come from?

November 14, 2023

NOTE: Updated version of column that should have run last week.

What is happening on a lot of the country’s college and university campuses these days is quite troubling. Back in the “good old days” young people went to college to study a subject with which they could get a job that would provide them with enough income to live a decent life. They went there to get educated, and the school faculty and administration were heavily focused on that mission.

In far too many schools these days, there are majors that do not prepare students to get a decent paying job, if they can even get a job in their major.

Many colleges are more focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion; everyone being identified by their chosen pronouns; making sure students are not offended in their classes, or elsewhere; presenting history lessons that are politically oriented; and being instructed on what to think, rather than how to think.

A new problem has taken over the news since the October 7 evil massacre of 1,400 innocent Israel and American civilians by Hamas terrorists from Palestine. 

Somehow, an existing anti-Israel sentiment on many campuses has resulted in the advocates of this mindset blaming Israel for retaliating for the Hamas savagery, instead of condemning the barbarians for murdering civilian men, women and children. Some of the children were babies and some of the men and women were elderly. 

The subsequent protests of hundreds or thousands of misguided students on several campuses has produced dangerous threats of violence against Jewish students, whether they are from Israel, or even America. 

College administrations have inexplicably been less than responsive to these threats and vile protests. Yes, allowing expressions of thoughts and feelings is permissible, even encouraged, particularly on college campuses where students are learning about adult life and their chosen major. Such speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. 

But sometimes violent expressions of hatred toward a particular group of persons is not permissible, and supporting terrorism is unacceptable. Those activities should have been stopped immediately.

How did such a huge and violent hatred of Israel come to exist on so many campuses? A hatred so strong that the haters do not condemn savage terrorism, but condemn Israel for responding to it, as every nation has the right and duty to do.

Perhaps the following examples will help explain how this hatred came about.

A Cornell professor publicly expressed his opinion of Hamas terrorists committing these savage acts against civilians. It was “exhilarating” and “energizing,” he said. Unfortunately, some of his fellow faculty members then went public with condemnation of Israel for things it didn’t do. Truth plays second fiddle to political and ideological positions among many college faculty members.

People at other institutions, like Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale, Georgetown, and Columbia, also jumped on the propaganda band wagon, blaming Israel for bombing a Palestinian hospital. Investigations found that the hospital was not bombed by Israel, but was hit by an off-course rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad, a terrorist partner of Hamas, both funded by Iran. 

At a rally at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, an adjunct professor accused Israel of carrying out 75 years of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” against Palestinians. Later, New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a graduate of the school, claimed that Israelis had no claim over the land they have lived in since 1,000 BC.

Many people do not know what happened, or do not care, and continue to blame Israel, not Hamas.

Do these radical professors keep their political and ideological preferences out of their classroom activities, even though they are happy to publicly express them in ways students may have access to them? Are they part of the indoctrination of college students that has proliferated over recent years?

Deliberate efforts to influence students’ thinking processes by pushing their personal ideas onto students is not only a breach of professional integrity and a showing of low character, but is subversive when it includes un-American and anti-American ideas.

While college administrations have refused to respond, other people in positions of responsibility are critical of what is going on.

Last month, a bipartisan group of six U.S. Senators sponsored a resolution calling on higher education leaders to engage with Jewish students and to condemn speech that incites or celebrates violence against any people based on their religious beliefs, national origin or ancestry. 

Later, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued this statement on Fox News Channel: “While we always want to protect our constitutional rights, I absolutely condemn what’s being chanted at these rallies, and I think we need leadership from our college campuses.” 

This ignorance of what happened on October 7, and the strong anti-Semitism are clear evidence that America’s values and traditions are under attack on many campuses.

Now, some colleges have finally begun to act. Columbia University has suspended two pro-Palestinian student groups from campus for repeatedly breaking rules on holding campus events.

Meanwhile, the tone-deaf Biden administration has been promoting a project to counter Islamophobia which, if it is a problem, it is a tiny one when compared to the huge problem of anti-Semitism. Last week, the White House finally added anti-Semitism to the program.