Why Are Our Campuses Seething with Antisemitism?

Skip to comments.

Posted on 01/10/2025 4:57:19 AM PST by karpov

The scale of support on college campuses for militant antisemitism and even for Hamas barbarism has alarmed most Americans, but there’s something else here that ought to trouble us, too: a startling ignorance of the most basic facts of Middle Eastern history. These are college students being educated on renowned campuses—yet they know virtually nothing about the matter they are protesting.

How can that be?

Let’s begin by asking what a serious education about the conflict in the Middle East would look like. At a minimum, we would expect students to have a basic grasp of the case made by each of the two sides. They should be able to evaluate both sets of claims, but that would require knowledge of the major historical events that each side appeals to when justifying its position.

A grasp of both sides is education; exposure to only one is propaganda.

Unfortunately, propaganda regarding Israel is now routine on our campuses. College teachers are withholding from their students anything that might interfere with their radical ideology, which really means keeping their students ignorant of what they’re supposed to be teaching.

Consider a few examples of the huge gap between the slogans that students have been taught to chant and the facts of Middle Eastern history.

A constant refrain of the students is that Israelis are “settler colonialists,” that is, people without any intrinsic connection to the area. But Hebrew and Arabic are closely related languages that both originated in roughly the same area. Hebrew probably arose in what is now Israel, Arabic in what is now Syria. Of the two, Hebrew actually has a much longer recorded history in the area.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.

1 posted on 01/10/2025 4:57:19 AM PST by karpov

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson