The latest grotesque displays of antisemitism wreaking havoc on university campuses across the United States are more coordinated and organized than ever before. These apologists and supporters of Hamas-ISIS, Hezbollah (which alone has killed hundreds of Americans and other Westerners besides Israelis), and other genocidal jihadist groups, have also been attempting to spread this mayhem to other institutions of higher learning across different parts of the Western world.
Reading the protest signs and listening to the messaging and rhetoric of the students and faculty involved in these campus occupations causes one to ponder whether these are in fact institutions of higher learning, or more institutions filled with incitement, and subpar educational standards and practices.
Beyond the fact that these universities have incubated and tolerated the oldest hatred of a collective known to man – the hatred of the nation of Israel – many of the institutions’ students and faculty who partake in these campus carnivals of bigotry, openly condone, deny, and sometimes even support the murder, mutilation, rape, and torture of Israeli men, women, children, and infants, that occurred on October 7.
These same students and faculty members have displayed a glaring ignorance of the subject matter they claim to be taking a stand on, i.e. Israel and the Middle East. Basic facts are totally unknown to them. Perhaps most infamously, which river and to what sea are they referring while repetitively chanting about them like mindless automatons?
Or, for some of the more naïve and manipulated participants in these campus hijackings, what sadistic acts of barbarism were committed against Israelis that were also recorded in real-time by Hamas-ISIS on October 7?
For these activist-agitators, comprehending the nature and nuances of the ethno-national-theological composition of the Middle East is way beyond their knowledge base, and their go-to, two-minute TikTok tutorials.
Let us not even get started on how these students, the Ivy Leaguers among them, have almost no familiarity with, or understanding of, the history of the Middle East, modern or ancient.
Confronting the crisis
SO HOW best to confront this crisis on US and other Western nations’ university campuses? A crisis, which is part and parcel of the wider growth and mainstreaming of antisemitism as has not been witnessed since World War II.
Supporters and friends of Zion, Evangelical Christians, chief among them, should see this as a calling to mobilize and get engaged in the most direct of ways. They have the numbers, influence, and resources to confront this hate and bigotry, especially in the United States.
They can do so on a large scale and in a way that would create lasting results. The same is true in other Western, particularly Anglo-Saxon countries, where there are also vibrant Evangelical and Christian Zionist communities.
South America too has growing, and increasingly organized Evangelical communities, as well as other sectors of society that traditionally support Israel – both from strong Christian and ideologically conservative secular backgrounds.
Friends and supporters of Israel of all types have the opportunity now to do even more than they have done as communities and individuals in the past. They can do so very directly and in their native lands by counter-protesting, and academically and economically boycotting universities riddled with antisemitism, anti-Americanism, and radical progressivism.
By demanding more of their local and national leaders, and making it very clear that support and facilitation, moral or otherwise, of jihadist hate speech and antisemitism, regardless of the setting, will not be tolerated.
They can call for concrete accountability for the leaders of the academic institutions whose mismanagement, or worse coddling, of agitators and their acolytes, have allowed for their campuses to be hijacked and vandalized.
Pastors, mega-church congregations, youth groups, and local and national organizations of Israel supporting Evangelicals specifically, can confront this mayhem and push hate back into its dark corners at least for a time.
It is now better understood by many that what is happening on these campuses has, predictably, also gone beyond antisemitism and hatred for Israel. In the US, American flags have been torn down and burned. US law enforcement members have been verbally abused and derided in the basest of ways at these protests and disturbances; the United States itself has been denounced.
Jihadist, anti-American, and anti-Western hate speech continues to grow and feature prominently at these campus hijackings. If not confronted, it will only become more extreme, and the potential for wider-scale violence will increase.
Friends and lovers of Zion can stand up and say: Enough – not in my country, not out of my pocket [public universities receive funding from taxpayers], not at the price of my personal safety and national security.
This is indeed your struggle as much as it is our Diaspora’s – a struggle for your children’s and your future generations’ education, for your academic systems, your morals, and your values, and what your countries stand for.
Israel’s Diaspora is too small, too geographically concentrated, and facing too many varied threats, to be able to launch impactful countrywide responses to the virulent and increasingly violent antisemitism leveled against it.
Aliyah rates from Western countries have been robust for several years now, and they should continue to increase. The symbolism of this campus crisis peaking during the period of Passover, the commemoration of the nation of Israel’s first exodus from exile and return to its homeland – and this week, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, is deep. It should serve to sharpen the understanding, historical and practical, of how natural choosing aliyah should be for our Diaspora.
Short of aliyah, instead of spending small fortunes on institutions that have traded meritocracy and hard work for equity and wokeism; our Diaspora youth should avoid these hotbeds of hate, and either attend schools in places where the problem is less prevalent, such as the US’s more rural and southern states, or come and study in Israel.
Israeli universities are consistently ranked among the best in the world, and spending time in their native land will strengthen and invigorate during these unstable and dangerous times.
As for supporters of Israel in the West – you who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us, you who have cleaved yourselves to the nation of Israel, you who are concerned for your own countries and cultures’ future:
Arise and beat back those who poison the minds of your young people and ultimately seek to undermine the very foundations of your countries and societies.
The writer is an Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur and a member of the Israel Leadership Forum. He is involved with various Israel advocacy causes including working with Christian Zionist and pro-Israel Noahide groups.