As far as the student protesters at Columbia University and other universities are concerned, they’re making a strong and principled stand for justice. Yet events at Columbia and elsewhere have taken an ugly turn, with the protesters sounding more like the National Socialists (remember, that’s what “Nazi” means) of 1930s Germany than any actual crusader for human rights.
When this latest social contagion has run its course and the hysteria has died down, these students would do well to consider carefully what they’re actually supporting. It’s clear that they haven’t done so as of yet.
The New York Post on Thursday published video of a man wearing a kippah and with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders passing by a crowd of protesters at Columbia. One young man shouted at him, “Keep it moving, you Zionist pig!” A few moments later, the man with the Israeli flag, responding to something that was said to him, asks, “Hamas is okay?” To that, a woman with a keffiyeh over her head and covering her mouth bangs on a metal crowd-control barrier and shouts furiously, “We are Hamas!”
Another supporter of Israel asks her, “You’re what? You’re Hamas?” as she keeps banging on the barrier. She responds while continuing to bang on the barrier, “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” Another protester adds, “Long live Hamas!”
Shocking video captures moment protester near Columbia University yells, ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’ https://t.co/hWlgY9GnZN pic.twitter.com/FVoTH9KY78
— New York Post (@nypost) April 18, 2024
Yet the chances that these Columbia students (if that is what they really are, rather than professional protesters brought in from elsewhere) really know what they’re endorsing when they so enthusiastically embrace Hamas is about nil. How many Columbia student protesters know that Hamas is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is the actual name of the organization? How many know that the Hamas Charter of 1988 quotes Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, saying, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it"? How many understand the implications of the statement that “Islam” is what will ultimately destroy Israel?
Islam is the elephant in the room of this entire conflict: not only do the Columbia students ignore it but also the establishment media and even the Western politicians and policymakers who have attempted for decades now to negotiate an agreement that will end the conflict and bring peace to the region. The only force that is involved in the Israeli/Arab conflict that doesn’t ignore Islam’s key role in it is the Arab side: Muslim Arab and non-Arab leaders routinely speak of their hatred of Israel and desire to destroy it in Islamic terms, which is why it is so short-sighted and foolish of Western leaders and analysts to ignore this aspect of the whole problem.
Even in mid-April, when Iran sent drones and missiles into Israel, members of the Iranian parliament shouted, “Congratulations to the warriors of Islam!” Yet as far as the “experts” in the State Department and Pentagon are concerned, that is a meaningless statement or a perfunctory nod to the dominant religion of the region.
It is actually neither meaningless nor perfunctory; it is the key to the entire conflict. All over the world, there have been territorial disputes from time immemorial. Some have been settled by negotiations; others have only been ended by war.
There have been both wars and negotiations between Israel and the neighboring Muslim Arab states, and yet this dispute is never solved. In Washington, they remain sure that the “two-state solution” will solve it, despite the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have rejected numerous offers to establish a state.
What makes all this clear is Islam. A “two-state solution” resulting in the establishment of a Palestinian state will not bring peace; that state will just become a launching ground for new attacks against what remains of Israel.
This is because the Qur’an says “Drive them out from where they drove you out” (2:191), which statement has become the basis of the doctrine that any land that belonged to Islam at any time belongs by right to Islam forever. If others now control it, Muslims have a divine command to drive them out and restore that land to Islam.
Related: It's Out in the Open at the University of Michigan: ‘Freedom for Palestine Means Death to America’
That is what Hamas means when it says that “Islam” will destroy Israel. That is why a “two-state solution” will never work. That is why the student protesters at Columbia are so unwise to embrace Hamas. Because if Hamas ever does succeed in destroying Israel, the Islamic imperative will not end.
The Qur’an also commands Muslims to fight non-Muslims until “religion is all for Allah” (8:39). If a Columbia student’s religion is not for Allah, even if he or she manned the barricades and stood for Hamas, that student will eventually be in the sights of the same jihadis who are now determined to bring about the demise of the Jewish state. Their loyalty to the Palestinian cause will avail them nothing.
As the global jihad advances, it is likely that at least some of these protesters who are now proudly proclaiming their solidarity and identification with Hamas will look back with bitter regret on these days and wish they had known enough to stand on the other side instead. But by then it will very likely be too late.
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