Image Credits: Chenyu Guan/Unsplash/https://tinyurl.com/y3kbdjst
This article was originally written for and published by Good Faith Media on May 7th, 2024.
It is downright lazy to say that calling for the end of the senseless killing of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip is “anti-semitic.” For it to be considered anti-semitic, the killings would have to be only of those in Hamas who, according to an April 30th NPR article, carried out the mass rape, senseless killing, and torture and who are currently holding hostage about 133 people.
Any good military plan should include contingencies to prepare for and deal with innocent civilians standing in the line of fire. A former IDF soldier stated in a YouTube interview that Hamas made it nearly impossible not to kill civilians. If it is impossible not to kill civilians while carrying out your mission, then you need to rethink your plan.
That said, protesters at Columbia University and universities all across the U.S. have gone too far. It is their constitutional right to peacefully assemble to petition the government for a redress of grievances, but in doing so, these protesters have exposed the biggest spectacle of hypocrisy from the American Left yet.
They are simultaneously calling for an end to violence in Gaza, yet are smashing windows, yelling and screaming, fighting the police and “liberating” buildings like Hamilton Hall on Columbia’s campus. Not only are their actions violent but their rhetoric is increasingly concerning.
One Columbia student accused university president Minouche Shafik of “licking the boots of university benefactors.” A different student accused the university of “abetting genocide.”
Three university students stood in front of the doors of Hamilton Hall as protestors attempted to storm the building. They suffered physical violence at the hands of these protestors, who claimed they wanted an end to the violence. One student recalled that one man attempted to grab his leg and knock him down.
These student protestors say they wish for a two-state solution in which all groups involved in this conflict get at least a piece of the land they claim to be holy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
But in calling for Columbia University to completely divest itself from Israel, another point of this hypocritical spectacle comes to bear: students are willing to forget about their Israeli peers, who may be, directly or indirectly, affected by the October 7th Hamas attacks or the ensuing military campaign.
They may know someone who was killed.
They may know someone who was raped.
They may know someone who was taken hostage.
No one knows someone else’s full story, and it is precisely in forgetting that others exist, each with their own story, in pursuit of your cause, that your cause becomes unworthy. All I’m saying is, don’t get violent when you want to end violence.