MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS MAY 08 2024
“Hamas U.” “Terror on Campus.” “Jihadi Student Body.” “The Columbia Caliphate.” All of these headlines and more dominated the news over Pesach, where most Jews would have happily had a media blackout. Instead, they were forced to wonder how this could possibly happen in America? How could the generation that witnessed 9/11 raise a generation of students that would cheer another 9/11?
“When men stop believing in G-d, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” This quote, attributed to G.K. Chesterton, nearly a century ago, can begin to explain what is being seen. The United States is a nation that has been embracing secularism at an alarmingly high rate. With the exception of the Muslim students, it would be shocking if any of the students or faculty that have spent weeks in tents were regular attendees in a church or a synagogue (although they would call it “temple”). Religious attendance has dropped like a stone in the past decades, more in liberal cities than anywhere else, where these campuses are located.
The reverence these kids have for Muslim students praying shows that these kids are desperate to believe in anything. The parents of these students have failed them wildly. They never took them to church. They never waved an American flag outside their homes. Then they wonder why kids are converting en masse to Islam (as seen in UCLA) and are waving Palestinian flags. If a survey is done of the high schools these students went to, it would be a good bet that the Pride flags outnumber the American flags by a wide margin.
This ethical vacuum was created by a simple philosophical trap: tolerance. The millennial generation was taught that “tolerance” was required for a thriving society. Regardless of the actions or behavior of an individual, tolerance was paramount. After tolerance came acceptance, then celebration. This has been applied to every walk of life that is considered “abnormal” or “transgressive.” This is the philosophy that the current 18-22-year-olds were raised on.
So, when a few extremists shout and scream and have passion, those with a vacuous mind are ready to believe them – especially when it mirrors what their teachers have been saying in the classroom. Then they join in, celebrate this, and mirror the hate and violence that these happen. This is how revolutions have occurred throughout history.
Unfortunately, this is working. Universities are caving in to the demands of their students and faculty in a remarkably pathetic fashion. Rutgers University will be establishing an Arab Cultural Center and ensuring no retaliation against involved students. Meanwhile, Brown University in Rhode Island agreed to consider divesting its endowment from companies linked to the Gaza conflict, with President Christina Paxson initiating a review process. Northwestern University in Illinois brokered a deal that reestablished an advisory committee on university investments. Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, struck a deal vowing to call for a cease-fire and weigh divestment from Israeli-linked companies. University of Minnesota in Minneapolis settled terms including weekly addresses to the Board of Regents and advocating for lenient remedies for previous campus protest arrests.
The Democrats are also ecstatic about these pseudo-revolutionaries. These are the same people who burned down cities in 2020, and Joe Biden won that election. They are hoping that the same violence will yield the same results. After weeks of silence, Biden’s statement on these protests must include the standard claim that “islamophobia” is the same as the Jew hatred we’ve been seeing. He doesn’t have one word of contempt for the people chanting “Death to America” or burning the American flag. The hatred these kids have for the country that Biden purportedly leads does not matter, because he wants them to vote for him and his Party.
What is so infuriating about these students – in some ways more infuriating than the Hamas terrorists they support – is that they will receive no repercussions for their actions. In fact, the opposite is true: They will receive accolades. There are future elected members of legislatures, both state and federal, that were at these protests. There are future members of the bureaucracy that makes life-altering rules on Americans, or members of the State Department that determine procedure for international relations. There are future Human Resource directors and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion directors for Fortune 500 companies that will determine how those companies deal with employees at those protests. Of course, there are future professors and teachers who will mold minds of the next generations that were wearing kaffiyehs, waving Palestinian flags, and shouting “long live the Intifada.”
There is a major problem in this country, and there is no way to sugarcoat it. The adults who are remaining need to be adults and tell these children that what they are doing is morally abhorrent. They are actively siding with murderers and rapists. They are condemning the West that gave more to humanity than any culture in history. They are being lied to and manipulated and causing the decimation of the culture that they are the products of. When they finally see the error of their ways, it will be too late.
