The unmitigated vitriol we are seeing at Harvard, Columbia, and over 500 other campuses world-wide since the unprovoked HAMAS October 7, 2023, massacre and subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza draws attention to these institution’s failures to provide historical context, protect Jewish students, or provide the education for which they were established.
Let’s start at the beginning. Semitic, Semitism, anti-Semitic. In today’s vernacular, these terms are synonymous with Jewish/Israeli people. Yet all the Arabs are also a Semitic people. They share the same blood.
In the Bible (Genesis 9:18-19), the story of Noah’s three sons is recounted. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These sons with their wives were tasked with the repopulation of the world. Shem (hence the word Semitic) and his sons used the Semitic languages of Hebrew, later replaced by Aramaic (the language of Jesus), and closely related to the languages of the Arabian tribes. Even today, there is a similarity in the spoken languages of Hebrew and Arabic. The result is a multi-generational family war for many reasons ranging from the advent of Islam, where the Quran itself is a source of hostility toward Jews, to real estate as dictated by the Ottoman Empire which originally designated parts of Damascus and the Vilayets of Beirut as “Mandatory Palestine” then transformed in 1921 to the eastern flank of what is today’s Jordan.
Arab nations control 99.4 percent of the land in the Middle East. Israel occupies .06 percent, yet it is this small percentage that is expected to be sacrificed for a free Palestine. So, the question begs, “Since Zakat (Charity) is a Pillar of Islam, why do the Muslims not allow Palestinians to occupy the eastern flank of Jordan as originally designated?”
In 1990, I was deployed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on an EA-3B detachment in support of Desert Shield, which became Desert Storm. I was the Aircrew supervisor and, of course, an Arabic linguist (NEC 9216 & 8295). We had a lot of downtime during the buildup, and I was often out and about. The people of Jeddah were welcoming, friendly, and encouraging, especially for those speaking (or trying hard) Arabic.
I’m in a magnificent mall wearing traditional clothes. White thawb (robe) and black and white Keffiyeh (head scarf). I did not know the black and white keffiyeh was directly associated with Palestine. In a music store, I picked out some cassette tapes (yes, that long ago) and walked to the register to pay. The nice gentleman complimented me for wearing the local garb, but firmly commented to remove (or at least no longer wear) the Palestinian keffiyeh. I asked, “Is there a problem?” He simply shook his head from side to side.
As I went throughout Jeddah, shops, restaurants, gyms, etc., all the displayed maps showed Palestine prominently encompassing all the area of Jerusalem. After a few days, I asked a local man from the gym (women were/are not allowed), “What is the issue with Palestinians?” He replied “ sfah….qatae tariq…” thugs, bandits, etc. This limited exchange enforced the idea that support for Palestine was more anti-Israel than pro-Palestine. At that time, I did not have a complete grasp of HAMAS or its sociopolitical and military structure inside the Palestinian territory. Clearly, today, these student activists are also unaware that the issue is not Palestine, it’s the terrorist organization HAMAS.
The unmitigated vitriol we are seeing at Harvard, Columbia, and over 500 other campuses world-wide since the unprovoked HAMAS October 7, 2023, massacre and subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza draws attention to these institution’s failures to provide historical context, protect Jewish students, or provide the education for which they were established.
Let’s start at the beginning. Semitic, Semitism, anti-Semitic. In today’s vernacular, these terms are synonymous with Jewish/Israeli people. Yet all the Arabs are also a Semitic people. They share the same blood.
In the Bible (Genesis 9:18-19), the story of Noah’s three sons is recounted. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These sons with their wives were tasked with the repopulation of the world. Shem (hence the word Semitic) and his sons used the Semitic languages of Hebrew, later replaced by Aramaic (the language of Jesus), and closely related to the languages of the Arabian tribes. Even today, there is a similarity in the spoken languages of Hebrew and Arabic. The result is a multi-generational family war for many reasons ranging from the advent of Islam, where the Quran itself is a source of hostility toward Jews, to real estate as dictated by the Ottoman Empire which originally designated parts of Damascus and the Vilayets of Beirut as “Mandatory Palestine” then transformed in 1921 to the eastern flank of what is today’s Jordan.
Arab nations control 99.4 percent of the land in the Middle East. Israel occupies .06 percent, yet it is this small percentage that is expected to be sacrificed for a free Palestine. So, the question begs, “Since Zakat (Charity) is a Pillar of Islam, why do the Muslims not allow Palestinians to occupy the eastern flank of Jordan as originally designated?”
In 1990, I was deployed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on an EA-3B detachment in support of Desert Shield, which became Desert Storm. I was the Aircrew supervisor and, of course, an Arabic linguist (NEC 9216 & 8295). We had a lot of downtime during the buildup, and I was often out and about. The people of Jeddah were welcoming, friendly, and encouraging, especially for those speaking (or trying hard) Arabic.
I’m in a magnificent mall wearing traditional clothes. White thawb (robe) and black and white Keffiyeh (head scarf). I did not know the black and white keffiyeh was directly associated with Palestine. In a music store, I picked out some cassette tapes (yes, that long ago) and walked to the register to pay. The nice gentleman complimented me for wearing the local garb, but firmly commented to remove (or at least no longer wear) the Palestinian keffiyeh. I asked, “Is there a problem?” He simply shook his head from side to side.
As I went throughout Jeddah, shops, restaurants, gyms, etc., all the displayed maps showed Palestine prominently encompassing all the area of Jerusalem. After a few days, I asked a local man from the gym (women were/are not allowed), “What is the issue with Palestinians?” He replied “ sfah….qatae tariq…” thugs, bandits, etc. This limited exchange enforced the idea that support for Palestine was more anti-Israel than pro-Palestine. At that time, I did not have a complete grasp of HAMAS or its sociopolitical and military structure inside the Palestinian territory. Clearly, today, these student activists are also unaware that the issue is not Palestine, it’s the terrorist organization HAMAS.
HAMAS was created in 1987, and the history of violence (FATAH and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations) in this region is too extensive for this article, and I doubt the student activists understand what they are protesting. It is not a “free speech” issue, but a matter of supporting violence and genocide.
The Arabic word Hamas means courage or zeal (I never heard this word used in this context), but this HAMAS is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya or the Islamic Resistance Movement, with its roots established within the Muslim Brotherhood. They support the eradication of the Israeli state and the Jewish population. The activist popular saying “From the River to the Sea” reflects not only the idea of genocide of the Jewish people, but a lack of knowledge among students and a complete lack of providing an education from the academic institutions.
From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestine will be free would mean the annihilation of the Jewish state and people. For an educational institution to openly support this and not provide its students (that somehow are paying enormous sums of money) the opportunity for historical understanding, informed discussion and debate, and the freedom to research and consider solutions to this human crisis is to abdicate its responsibility to our youth and result in their forfeiture of taxpayer contributions.
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