The raging antisemitism in the world, both on and off college campuses, is not a spontaneous response to Hamas’ October 7 massacre. Rather, it is what Jewish people have long known: The world needs no excuse to incite antisemitism intended to discriminate, intimidate and terrify Jewish people. For decades, radical religious groups have been planting the seeds for a sophisticated deception to breed discontent and hatred in our society with the goal of jihad, a sanctioned armed violence. The antisemitic rhetoric and demonstrations represent well-executed planning by Hamas to spread their anti-Zionist, antisemitic message by using college campuses, supported by allied college professors and student organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which have all been permitted to flourish in the name of free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies gone awry.
These “revisionist” professors intentionally rewrite history and distort information for their narrative, and also use Hamas’ messages, with their goal of annihilating the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Over the years, the teaching of this counterfactual version of history eventually becomes indoctrination, which influences the basis of our young adults’ belief systems. The result has now spilled over into mainstream society, as evidenced today through the almost daily anti-Jewish, yet loosely disguised “pro-Palestinian” protests, both on and off college campuses. These are not legitimate protests for peace or to stand up for the rights of any group. These are hate marches full of vitriolic antisemitism, violence, disruptions at national celebratory events, blockages of major bridges and highways, defacements of government property, vandalism of Jewish and other business and schools, boycotts of Jewish businesses, and calls for the genocide of the Jewish people.
If these protesters are in support of peace and humanity, any decent person needs to ask: Why are they violent or aggressive against Jews? Why are their heroes rapists and serial killers? Why are they not advocating for the return of hostages? These protests should scare us. Jew-baiting, the constant hate rhetoric directed at the Jewish people, is becoming normalized, and the Jewish people are becoming demonized and dehumanized. This is precisely what Hitler did to foster a climate of indifference, hate and fear that made it possible to exterminate 6 million Jews.
Ever since the October 7 attacks, these revisionist professors and their students have been permitted to openly express their hatred of Jews, without any repercussions. Less than a day after the attacks, Columbia Professor Joseph Massad described terrorists paragliding onto an Israeli beach to kill over 200 people at the Nova music festival as “innovative Palestinian resistance.” Despite intelligence reports, eyewitness accounts and real-time GoPro videos taken by Hamas during the massacres, Massad claimed that reports of Hamas’ violence were fake news. At an October 8 rally, UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian, the founder of SJP, explained the events that caused the events of October 7, stating how it is Israel’s fault that Gazans are impoverished. He claimed the October 7 attacks were about the borders between the colonized and the colonizer—Israel. The colonizer’s border is filled with greenery and has everything that anyone desires. Gaza, however, is where the people are hungry, the streets are not paved and children are “born anywhere you walk.” At an October 15 rally, Cornell Professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’ massacre “exhilarating” and “energizing.”
Despite praising and justifying the brutal rape, murder, beheading and kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, including babies and children, no action has been taken against any of these professors by their universities.
Common sense and decency require us to ask, regardless of whether you are Jewish: What type of teacher uses their influence to teach students that the mass murder, rape and mutilation of civilians is a joyous and celebratory occasion? What could be the motivation for such morally repugnant statements? The answer is that these revisionists are teaching our young adults to hate Israel and the Jewish people, and are trying to breed discontent throughout the world. A recent Harris Harvard survey shows that 67% of Americans between ages 18 and 24 believe that the Jewish people are oppressors; 51% believe Israel “should be ended” and the land given to Hamas as the solution to the current conflict. Additionally, 60% in the same age group believe Israel is committing genocide against Gazans.
Although antisemitism has been present on our college campuses for decades, ever since Hamas’ massacre, there has been an alarming spike in incidents. Jews represent about 2% of the U.S. population, yet in 2022, they experienced 9.6% of reported hate crimes. The ADL reported that antisemitism incidents spiked 388% in the three-week period following the October 7 attacks, and were up 33% overall last year. Even in 2022, antisemitism accounted for over half of all reported religion-based hate crimes and the ADL had the highest number of reported antisemitic incidents since they began tracking in 1979.
These professors teach in their own universities while also serving as guest speakers and appearing online. They appear to be the perfect intellectual spokespersons: charming, passionate, charismatic and articulate. However, they continuously and deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence for their own ideological reasons. They use terms such as “colonization,” “occupation,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide of Palestinians” to depict Arabs as the victims of Jews in an effort to legitimatize their false claims that Jews colonized Arabs’ homeland and now occupy it, echoing Hamas’ messages. In teaching this false narrative, these professors have omitted or manipulated facts necessary to provide students with the requisite information to reach an informed, independent conclusion. These omissions result in the only natural conclusion one could draw from their lectures: that Israel’s existence is an illegal occupation of Arab lands, that it practices apartheid, and that Israel and the Western world conduct ethnic cleansing. These narratives are not about offering a different perspective on historical evidence, but are another form of gaslighting.
Their false narrative, at its core, is a failure to acknowledge the legal establishment of the State of Israel and the Jews as the indigenous people. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was legally created under international law when Great Britain terminated its mandate and the U.N. adopted Great Britain’s partition plan to create a Jewish state and an Arab state. Under international law, the land was previously owned by Great Britain and was given to the Jewish people to create the State of Israel.
The revisionist claims that Israel is an apartheid state are easily refuted with a simple analysis of Israel’s citizens, which are 25% Arabic, with the same full rights as every Jewish citizen. Since 1949, Arab Israeli citizens have been elected to the Knesset. They play prominent roles in all aspects of Israeli society; work as judges, journalists and professors; and fight in the IDF. Further, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and allows full religious freedom.
Despite billions of dollars given to Gaza to develop its infrastructure and for basic needs such as food, water and fuel, more than 80% of Gazans live in poverty. As reported by the U.N., more than 96% of the Gaza water supply is “unfit for human consumption.” Hamas leaders steal the aid for their own personal use and to build weapons and terror tunnels, instead of building infrastructure and creating a strong economy and a safe society. Three senior Hamas leaders are billionaires worth $11 billion collectively, while their people live in squalor.
As proved by biblical texts and archaeology, the Jewish people cannot be occupiers, colonizers or settlers, as the Jewish people are the original natives to the land and predate Muslims by over 2,400 years. Evidence proves Judaism began in 1,800 BCE with the biblical patriarch Abraham. Five hundred years later, around the 13th century BCE, Moses delivered our people from Egypt and received the oral Torah, the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and created the Jewish people, the Israelites. After wandering in the desert for 40 years, the Israelites settled in the land of Israel, also known as the Levant, the ancient lands along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea which included modern Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Transjordan, Lebanon and coastal Syria. Around 1,000 BCE, King David conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital of the Jewish kingdom; his son Solomon built the first Temple. Archaeological evidence includes the remains from the Roman destruction of the First Temple around 957 BCE. The oldest Hebrew text ever found, written in biblical script, was discovered at the ancient Israelite settlement Elah Fortress, which dates to between 1050 and 970 BCE. Further evidence of indigeneity is through DNA, which shows that 90% of Jewish people can directly trace their genes to the Levant.
As documented archaeological and historical evidence show, including by highly regarded Muslim historians, the Arab Muslims can only trace back their genetics to 2,400 years after the arrival of Jews in the Levant, to Hejaz, an area in present day Saudi Arabia, the city where Prophet Mohammed was born in the seventh century. The first archaeological evidence of Muslims in Israel was in 636 AD, when the Muslim army conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantine Romans. Prior to that conquest, 100,000 Jews, but no Muslims, lived in Israel. It is also noteworthy that the content of the Torah expressly mentions “Jerusalem” 669 times and “Zion” 154 times, yet the Quran does not mention either of these words at all, indicating the land’s significance in the Jewish religion.
No university professor or institute of higher education could have any reason to dispute or doubt this evidence. Yet, these revisionist professors intentionally omit it, and the universities continue to allow these professors to teach their false narratives without any repercussions.
For instance, despite the recent spike in antisemitism and the administration’s receipt of 12,000 emails protesting two upcoming programs with well-known antisemitic professors, Rutgers University allowed them to proceed. At the December 4 “The West, Israel and Settler Colonization of Palestine” virtual program, Massad lectured about “Zionist colonization,” Jewish settler colonization, Jewish supremacy and Israel’s “genocidal” killings. He told students that he was speaking to them “as a teacher” who knows that the truth is being hidden by their university and government. The title of the lecture, which denies historical evidence of the legal founding of Israel and the Jews as its indigenous people, should have raised a red flag in an institution of higher learning, but apparently did not. There is currently a petition with 80,000 signatures demanding the termination of Massad’s employment.
A December 7 program on Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus, “Race, Liberation and Palestine,” included two well-known antisemitic revisionist professors, Noura Erakat of Rutgers and Marc Lamont Hill of CUNY. Erakat recently led a large pro-Palestinian student rally calling students to join in the chant “From the river to the sea.” In her usual rhetoric, she stated “this is a war on all Palestinians. … [the IDF] is attacking all Palestinians … they have knocked on their doors to tear [them] down, thirsty for Palestinian blood. This is a genocidal campaign.” At a recent Cornell SJP program, Erakat lectured that the West ignores the ongoing crisis of occupation, apartheid, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. She, of course, failed to mention the official 2005 “disengagement plan” when IDF personnel and all Jewish communities were removed from Gaza. There have been no Israelis living in Gaza, or any Israeli military presence, since 2005. So how can it be occupied?
Erakat has also presented at an Israel-related panel discussion which included Hamas senior official Ghazi Hamad, who recently threatened, on Lebanese television, that Hamas will repeat its brutal attacks again and again until Israel is completely annihilated. It is baffling that Rutgers still employs Erakat after appearing on a panel with a top Hamas leader, let alone her revisionist narratives.
Another speaker, Hill, was fired from his job as a contributor at CNN in 2018, after he spoke to the U.N. about the Israel – Gaza conflict, where he offered the UN the opportunity to “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” the call for extermination of the state of Israel, at the U.N. Hill is also the host of “Upfront” on Al Jazeera, an antisemitic news organization and supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a recognized terrorist organization. It is curious why CUNY hired him with his anti-Semitic background especially after CNN fired him for that reason.
There is no question that people who call for the violent removal of the Jewish state and the annihilation of the Jewish people have no place on a college campus or in places of mass influence. Additionally, universities cannot absolve themselves of liability from their own professors who speak off campus, because it is this very status that gives them the opportunities.
Rutgers has been experiencing rampant antisemitism. Students and sometimes professors protest almost daily, across campus, but most frequently outside the Chabad House, dining halls, and in the Commons. In these protests, Jewish students have been assaulted by other students spitting on them and shouting for Jews to be killed. In another incident, a Rutgers student posted threats to kill a Jewish student from a Jewish fraternity on social media and was later charged with bias intimidation and terroristic threats.
The detrimental result of the revisionists’ narrative over time can be seen in Rutgers’ policies promoting antisemitism. Yoel Ackerman, a Jewish law student on the Newark campus, was part of a law school online chat in which another student posted a video that denied the atrocities of October 7. After trying to correct the facts, he was harassed by these students. Ackerman reported the incidents to the school’s Jewish law students’ association. In retaliation, the two antisemitic students filed a complaint with Rutgers, and now Rutgers is investigating Ackerman. Ackerman then filed a complaint with Rutgers, which it was rejected by Assistant Dean Katherine Perez. It is astonishing that Rutgers has chosen to ignore proof of antisemitism and then even punishes those who speak up.
Jewish students are scared on campus, and with ample reason. These antisemites spread the message that being Jewish and/or a Zionist is a dirty word because Jews are evil oppressors To Jews, however, being a Zionist is the proud expression of love for the State of Israel and our community throughout the world. However, now, we no longer feel safe to show it. Jewish students have removed their Hamsa symbols, mezuzahs, Star of David necklaces and kipot, and no longer wear any Jewish-identifying articles out of fear of being physically or verbally attacked. Some students are not going to classes and are afraid, outside of safe Jewish circles, to speak up about their Jewish identity and the war. This is distressing for all Jews.
These college professors spreading hate and misinformation have a moral obligation, including under academic policies, to foster discussion by presenting all sides of the issues. They should encourage critical thinking in an environment where each student feels safe as they reach their own conclusions.
The First Amendment is designed to further the pursuit of truth through the marketplace of ideas, which assumes that over time, people will be able to sort out truth from falsehood. Many believe the First Amendment supports the right of these professors to speak freely, whether inside or outside the classroom, even if they are spreading falsehoods and antisemitism. However, the Constitution does not protect these professors, not because of their antisemitic views but because they deliberately publish false information intended to lead to discrimination and incite violence and illegal activity.
Reminiscent of the Holocaust, today’s antisemitism has become accepted and normal for ordinary people, and is permeated full-throttle in the K-12 education curriculum. The book “A Little Piece of Ground,” required reading for sixth graders in the Newark public schools, tells Hamas’ narrative through the eyes of an Arabic boy under “Israeli occupation.” The author, like the college professors, intentionally rewrites history and distorts facts while demonizing Israeli soldiers by referring to them as mutant, green, scaly monsters that crouch, crawl and pin Arabs down in their homes. Again, the only logical conclusion for these sixth graders is that Israelis and Jews are evil. Fortunately, the Jewish Federation has been successful only recently, and the book has now been removed from the curriculum.
The result of years of indoctrination of false, antisemitic narratives in colleges has now spilled into mainstream society, as evidenced by the worldwide eruption of antisemitism, the vitriolic movement calling for genocide of the Jewish people, and uncivilized protests, and into our K-12 curriculum. These have become a threat to the soul of humanity, the civilized world and our democratic values. The current efforts to resolve this threat are focused on terminating university administrators, temporarily suspending antisemitic student organizations for breaking technical rules, and reviewing school codes of conduct and free-speech policies.
This is a first step that unfortunately will not ultimately rid our campuses and society of the decades of planning and infrastructure-building that supports this radical movement. As the U.S. Supreme Court recognized 100 years ago, false information, continuously given to those who rely almost exclusively on these sources for information, cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.
These college professors need to be identified, exposed and permanently removed from all college campuses, and we need to work to establish policies against antisemitism in schools at all levels.
