“Oct. 7 modified the world,” stated Charlotte Kates in a March 24 assembly of the Columbia College Apartheid Divest. Kates, a member of the Israeli-designated terror group Samidoun, was invited by Apartheid Divest to talk on “the combat for liberation” as part of the coed group’s “Palestine Solidarity Month” occasion collection.
Kates continued, “On Oct. 7, we witnessed the potential for a future Palestine liberated from Zionism by the forces of resistance,” earlier than turning the ground over to Khaled Barakat, a Common Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine activist, who expressed his assist for airline hijackings as a key tactic for the Palestinian resistance motion.
Apartheid Divest is just not a fringe group. They’ve been instrumental in main the weeks-long protest at Columbia whereas encouraging protests at different faculties in New York.
Throughout the nation, at the least 22 of America’s prime universities, together with Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Yale, noticed anti-Israel protests within the final week. From “Al-Qassam you make us proud! Take one other soldier out!” and “Hamas we love you. We assist your rockets too!” to “We are saying justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the bottom!” These aren’t protests in favor of peace or a ceasefire; they’re direct requires the destruction of the state of Israel and the dying of Jewish individuals all over the world.
How did assist for a terrorist group take root on school campuses? Why have antisemitic protests damaged out at these identical universities? Most significantly, why have campus leaders not acted?
These questions have been on the minds of respectable Individuals in every single place as horrific and hateful anti-Jewish rallies have damaged out at universities throughout the nation. Particularly since these scenes are occurring on the exact same campuses the place college students and college have spent years decrying free speech as “microaggressive violence,” canceling mainstream conservative audio system like Riley Gaines and shouting down viewpoints that fall outdoors of their left-wing orthodoxy.
The reply lies in that exact same orthodoxy, the place ideological groupthink has shaped in our universities round Marxist concepts of energy, id and fairness, that are inherently incompatible with the values of free expression and open discourse that used to outline the American college expertise.
This doctrine is outlined by a “essential” strategy to historical past and society, viewing group dynamics as a wrestle between the “oppressed” and the “oppressor” in a zero-sum recreation the place fairness — to not be mistaken for equality — is the one resolution. To those school college students, Israel is the “oppressor,” and Palestine is the “oppressed.” This worldview is childish and discriminatory, and but, it’s develop into the dominant view on U.S. school campuses as we speak.
Two weeks in the past, Columbia President Minouche Shafik agreed that Columbia’s response was inadequate, promising extra motion to guard Jewish college students. However since that listening to, pro-Hamas protests have exploded, and Shafik’s solely response has been to maneuver lessons on-line, at the same time as some school members walked out to affix the antisemitic crowd.
Identical to the presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT, Shafik has finished nothing as a result of she appears to be pushed by the identical Marxist rules which are behind the nationwide antisemitic motion. These rules have utterly captured our educational establishments, the place range, fairness and inclusion (DEI) workplaces mandate discrimination towards college students and college. The inmates are working the asylum, and there’s no one left to cease them.
The rot runs so deep on our school campuses that drastic modifications will likely be required to guard Jewish college students and restore excessive requirements of educational and ethical excellence to many U.S. universities. The Home holds the ability of the purse, and we should always not hesitate to halt funding from these universities if they’re unable to revive order to their campus, expel college students engaged in antisemitic exercise and fireplace school who promote hatred and ostracize Jewish college students.
The time for speaking is over. All choices are on the desk as we watch whether or not these universities step up or proceed down the street of cowardice and appeasement.
Burgess Owens represents Utah’s 4th District and is a member of the Home Schooling and the Workforce Committee.
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