There has been a new issue on our college campuses, as if rampant indoctrination wasn’t enough to begin with. Students are now protesting for Palestinian liberation by staging massive days-long temper tantrums on the college commons, occupying buildings, and denying entry to Jewish students. And surprisingly (not), they have been getting arrested, cited, and detained for practicing their so-called “right” to peaceful expression in support of an oppressed Middle Eastern colony by standing against a radical far-right Apartheid state.
The “peaceful protesting” has gotten so extreme that a considerable number of Jewish students have been denied entry by pro-Hamas protesters and feel unsafe on campus. According to the testimony of one student at Columbia University, an elite private Ivy League university in New York City, his “ …only crime was the Star of David hanging around [his] neck,” (Woldenberg).
As the far-left continues to spread Pro-Hamas rhetoric including “ … messages [involving] Nazi and Holocaust comparisons, [such as], ‘Israel is the New Nazi Germany,’ ‘Zionism = fascism’ and ‘Israel is committing a Holocaust in Gaza’" to promote blatant anti-semitism, protests across college campuses have only ramped up and may now interfere with the college graduations scheduled for this year’s soon-to-be graduates (Anti-Defamation League). If this brief description of the current situation is enough to make you shake your head in dismay, it is not difficult to imagine how our Jewish youth are feeling in this day and hour.
But not all hope is lost. Just now, as I am writing, “...police officers carrying zip ties and riot shields [are storming] a Columbia University building being occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters, streaming in through a window…and arresting dozens of [protesters],” (Offenhartz). Yet the far-left loves to declare this as the price to pay for the righteous struggle against modern “white-on-brown oppression”. So I challenge the far-left to answer our questions: how can a war be settled peacefully when you create an anti-semitic, intolerant, and discriminatory image for your movement? Your extremist rioting on college campuses and your brainwashing of our youth cannot succeed in advancing your cause. Rather, it is backfiring as an invigorated unified Jewish community, along with a massive army of non-Jewish Israeli supporters, are taking a stand against your idolization of a group that miserably attempted and failed miserably to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people. Surely this has to be the extent of the anti-semitism on our college campuses.
But the extremism isn’t even close to being over. On April 29, “...anti-Israeli protesters hoisted a Palestinian flag at Harvard University at a spot which is generally reserved for flying the national flag of the United States as demonstrations continued to go out of control on the campus,” (“Watch: Harvard Protests Take an Ugly Turn as Students Fly Palestinian Flag in Place Reserved for US Flag”). Yes. You read that right. Anti-Israeli radicals tore down the flag of our wonderful republic to replace it with the banner of a hostile foreign state. Why? Because according to them, America is pro-Israel, and so America is just as much of an oppressor as Israel in the fight against Palestine. Ladies and gentlemen, this fight is no longer about Israel and Palestine, Jews and Muslims, the Arab League and the West. It is about a radical sector of the American far-left that has seeped into the fabric of our educational institutions, brainwashing our youth, and setting fire to our Constitutional Republic. They have convinced our countrymen that Palestine is the cause of resistance and struggle, when it is in fact the opposite. Israel is the tolerant state while Palestine is the backwards hermit state operating on a medieval legal system. But all of this talk about Israel and Gaza and the West Bank negates the unfortunate reality that we don’t need to go far beyond the American classroom to understand the gravity of the situation.
As an Asian-American Buddhist, I have always stood in support of Israel. In every classroom that I have entered, I have been baffled, but not surprised, by the brazen anti-semitism I have witnessed. To resist this force, I have made it a mission to contribute an Israeli flag to the whiteboard of every Palestinian flag-bearing classroom that I encounter every day, only for it to be erased immediately and replaced with a Palestinian banner and the words “Free Palestine”. Take note that I do not erase these Palestinian flags. As reasonable individuals, we should seek to respect current national flags, whether or not we agree with them. But these anarchists have taught our youth to disrespect and trample upon the ideas of the opposition.
Liberal arts institutions, whose jobs are to ensure the free exchange of opposing ideas and perspectives, are now home to some of the most hostile environments for Jews in America. To them, the Israeli flag is not a proud banner representing millions of unified Jewish citizens under a protective and free state. To them, the flag of Israel is the modern equivalent of the swastika of Hitler. To fit this narrative, they broadcast the idea that Israel is, “advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians,” despite the fact that every war that Israel has participated in since 1948 has been instigated by the Arab League, (B’Tselem). The baseless and brazen anti-semitism that has developed in our schools and universities is beyond unacceptable. How can the far-left chant for freedom when they are the reason why Jewish students are afraid to enter their own campuses? How can the they chant for freedom when freedom itself is a hostage of the regressive Hamas regime? We need not understand why, but only that they will never be powerful enough to spread their hateful reign as long as we stand together to support Israel.
Although not every leftist is pro-Palestinian, those on the pro-Palestinian side of the far-left have their nefarious motives. But until the day that things change for the better, I will continue to walk in every day and pick up that blue marker to draw the Star of David. Because good fights are worth fighting, and these recent college riots only highlight the surface of our systemically anti-semitic country.
Sources
Woldenberg, By Noam. “Jewish Student in Columbia University Faces Antisemitism and Hostility.” The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com, 29 Apr. 2024, www.jpost.com/opinion/article-798999.
Offenhartz, Jake, et al. “Police Clear Protestors From Columbia’s Hamilton Hall After College Seeks Help | AP News.” AP News, 1 May 2024, apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-student-protests-war-8b0d3a0cedb17f5e892c6ca43bbdf628.
“Watch: Harvard Protests Take an Ugly Turn as Students Fly Palestinian Flag in Place Reserved for US Flag.” WION, 29 Apr. 2024, www.wionews.com/world/watch-harvard-protests-take-an-ugly-turn-as-students-fly-palestinian-flag-in-place-of-us-flag-716064.
B’Tselem. “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea:
This Is Apartheid.” btselem.org, 12 Jan. 2021, www.btselem.org/apartheid . Accessed 2 May 2024.
Center on Extremism and Anti-Defamation League. “Blood Libel on Wheels: Anti-Israel Activists Using Digital Billboard Trucks to Share Antisemitic Messages.” adl.org, 14 Feb. 2024, www.adl.org/resources/blog/blood-libel-wheels-anti-israel-activists-using-digital-billboard-trucks-share . Accessed 2 May 2024.
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