Several years ago I worked with a Jewish professor at a Texas university. I recall he had a sign on his office door that said: “ Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”
At the time, I disagreed with my colleague. I thought it possible for Americans to be sympathetic to the Palestinians and critical of Israel’s policies toward them without being anti Semitic. Now I am not so sure.
I am shocked by the. anti-Israel demonstrations taking place on college campuses all over the nation--protests supporting terroristic thugs. And I am apalled by the cowardly stance of university administrators, who refuse to denounce these demonstrations.
The Hamas raid out of Gaza on October 7 killed 1400 Israeli citizens, including children, women, and the elderly. Reliable reports have established that Hamas terrorists raped women, slaughtered babies, and kidnapped over 200 people. Some Israelis were burned alive in their homes.
As incredible as it seems, the Hamas terrorists committed acts of savagery against the Jewish people that are equal to the Nazi barbarism of the Holocaust.
It may be true that most Palestinians do not support Hamas and are helpless bystanders to Hamas atrocities. It is certainly true that innocent Palestinians have suffered and died during the latest round of fighting in Gaza.
Nevertheless, Israel holds the moral high ground in its long- running conflict with the Arab world. The United Nations made an eternal commitment when it recognized Israel as a sovereign state in 1948. The world’s obligation to Israel can never be canceled or annulled.
The college students who are demonstrating against Israel are either antisemitic or ignorantly dismissive of the unspeakable atrocities that have been committed against European Jews. I suggest they do a little research. There are hundreds of books about the suffering of the Jewish people during the twentieth century.
They might begin by reading two books of fiction by Leon Uris: Exodus about the founding of modern Israel, and Mila 18, which is a tale about the Warsaw uprising during World War II.
University leaders must denounce the anti-Israel protests on their campuses. Harvard University, arguably the most prestigious education institution in the United States, is a hotbed of antisemitic rants. Yet its motto is Veritas, the Latin word for truth. Unless Harvard firmly and unequivocally rebukes the idiots who are celebrating or defending anti-Jewish terrorism, it needs to change its motto to “Cowardly Appeasement.” I believe the Latin translation is Inertia Placatio.
