On Campus: The Pro-Palestinian’s Real Agenda
by Khaled Abu Toameh, Hudson NY
During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah.
Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.
I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities.
I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was “Zionist propaganda” and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities.
The good news is that these remarks were made only by a minority of people on the campuses who describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian,” although the overwhelming majority of them are not Palestinians or even Arabs or Muslims.
The bad news is that these groups of hard-line activists/thugs are trying to intimidate anyone who dares to say something that they don’t like to hear.
When the self-designated “pro-Palestinian” lobbyists are unable to challenge the facts presented by a speaker, they resort to verbal abuse.
On one campus, for example, I was condemned as an “idiot” because I said that a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas in the January 2006 election because they were fed up with financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority.
On another campus, I was dubbed as a “mouthpiece for the Zionists” because I said that Israel has a free media. There was another campus where someone told me that I was a ‘liar” because I said that Barghouti was sentenced to five life terms because of his role in terrorism.
And then there was the campus (in Chicago) where I was “greeted” with swastikas that were painted over posters promoting my talk. The perpetrators, of course, never showed up at my event because they would not be able to challenge someone who has been working in the field for nearly 30 years.
What struck me more than anything else was the fact that many of the people I met on the campuses supported Hamas and believed that it had the right to “resist the occupation” even if that meant blowing up children and women on a bus in downtown Jerusalem.
I never imagined that I would need police protection while speaking at a university in the U.S. I have been on many Palestinian campuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and I cannot recall one case where I felt intimidated or where someone shouted abuse at me.
Ironically, many of the Arabs and Muslims I met on the campuses were much more understanding and even welcomed my “even-handed analysis” of the Israeli-Arab conflict. After all, the views I voiced were not much different than those made by the leaderships both in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. These views include support for the two-state solution and the idea of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in this part of the world.
The so-called pro-Palestinian “junta” on the campuses has nothing to offer other than hatred and de-legitimization of Israel. If these folks really cared about the Palestinians, they would be campaigning for good government and for the promotion of values of democracy and freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Their hatred for Israel and what it stands for has blinded them to a point where they no longer care about the real interests of the Palestinians, namely the need to end the anarchy and lawlessness, and to dismantle all the armed gangs that are responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent Palestinians over the past few years.
The majority of these activists openly admit that they have never visited Israel or the Palestinian territories. They don’t know -and don’t want to know – that Jews and Arabs here are still doing business together and studying together and meeting with each other on a daily basis because they are destined to live together in this part of the world. They don’t want to hear that despite all the problems life continues and that ordinary Arab and Jewish parents who wake up in the morning just want to send their children to school and go to work before returning home safely and happily.
What is happening on the U.S. campuses is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the “occupation” as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel.
Many of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas officials I talk to in the context of my work as a journalist sound much more pragmatic than most of the anti-Israel, “pro-Palestinian” folks on the campuses.
Over the past 15 years, much has been written and said about the fact that Palestinian school textbooks don’t promote peace and coexistence and that the Palestinian media often publishes anti-Israel material.
While this may be true, there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel campaign on U.S. campuses is not less dangerous. What is happening on these campuses is not in the frame of freedom of speech. Instead, it is the freedom to disseminate hatred and violence. As such, we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.
My friend, what you are seeing on the campus is what is happening to the whole of the USA. All of the Muslims, all of their followers who are not Arab, all of the left wing, idiotic Jews and Gentiles, all of the Democratic party with some exceptions, are destroying this once wonderful couontry. I am sickened by the lack of fortitude by the Conservatives in defending America. There should be a million person gathering in Washington DC, demanding that we take our country back. It would not hurt if we took a baseball bat and bashed some of the idiots heads. We need larger crowds, we need to yell louder than they, and above all, we need to throw those damned Arabs the hell out of the USA.
Many if not most of the Arabs on Campuses in The US are not citizens but are financed and endowed by Arab oil money and left wing including some Christian denominational support through scholarships and endowments. Most academic standards have been lowered to accept these affirmative action types. Couple the Arab and Muslim anti Americanism and anti Israel/anti Jewish radicalism on campuses with over 30 million illegal Spanish Speakers from South of the Border (10% of Americas population) costing California alone some 30 billion she doesn’t have one gets the sense that all the underlying positive strengths that once made America a shinning beacon to the world is being brought down like the Roman Empire from within then from without. What took the Roman Empire hundreds of years to fall apart will take only decades for America.
Yes! End the Occupation – Arabs and Muslims Out!
Ed d:
Ed. Please, may we ask you to refrain from sitting too close to the computer when you type- foaming from the mouth can very easily cause a shorting of our computers. We are having enough trouble coping with viruses.
On behalf of all of our commentators, I wish to state,, much obliged for your cooperation.
JonnyGee
Please note, such inflammatory statements are no longer welcome on this site. There is now a general consensus that racist, hate inciting statements have no place on Israpundit. Anti- black, homophobic and anti-minority remarks may be blocked at any time.
Peskin, not funny or cute, try it on your girly friends with a 2 day growth. Lets make a deal if you have nothing constructive to contribute on any specific thread then don’T, like Suchhhhhh.
JonnyGee,
Just ignore peskin; he kind of occupies Israpundit. Likes to think he’s superior to us all in all ways. Lacks common sense (seems to lack any sense, common or otherwise).
It’s people like peskin who will ultimately be responsible for many, many deaths; a kind of Jewish Measheimer.
Ed D, you got part of it right. Listen, our colleges and universities are full of lazy, never had a real job brain washed professors that are socialist, liberal and lean to the left. Time for contributors to take notice and be sure the trustees are doing their job.
I didn’t know that, Chaim
If Khaled is reading this, he can rest easy. The activists he’s encountering are a small minority on campus. I began my Chemistry studies in 1968, during the height of the Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. There was no political activity whatever at the west end of the campus, where the Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering schools were located. What activity there was, involved occasional small protests in the Liberal Arts end of things. I went to an urban Midwestern campus, with few Jewish students. Maybe that’s what made the difference. Just a couple of years ago, I went back to Graduate School, and found even less political activity on campus. I imagine there are some real ratholes in the US and Canada, and I suppose you’ve found them; but they do not represent the bulk of Americans. For the most part, students in this country go to school to study (and for many young freshmen, to drink); Once they get into their major fields, they’re not about to throw away their expensive college years on fad causes.
I fear it won’t take to long for America to fall, maybe a year once the fires start. This country started well, founded on Judeo/Christian principles. The rebellion has occured, however, and the majority have turned away from all that. The wrath of God is here folks and its not going to be pretty.
Peskin, you are a tumor of mankind and someone should cut you out.