Jewish donors have given generously to universities – perhaps it is time to rethink that.

By Rolene Marks

The title of this article grabbed your attention, didn’t it? Some of you may have thought I was meaning divest from Israel. Perish the thought! Phtew phtew! The threat of divestment has been held like a sword of Damocles over Israel and companies that invest in Israeli interests in anyway. A whole movement has sprung up around it and nowhere has this been more evident in its true intentions than what we are witnessing on campuses across the USA. Not to be alarmist, but what starts in the US often spreads across the world.

Looking at images of the matching tents and how well organized and planned these protests and “encampments” are, one has to wonder, who is sponsoring them? How many of these protesters are even students? A large percentage of protesters are also faculty, which proves the point that many of us have been warning about for years. The university education systems has been financed and infiltrated by bad agents, seeking to spread their ideology to future policy makers.

Watch and read more about it here:

For decades, many of us in the public diplomacy space have been warning that university campuses, especially the elite, Ivy League have become hotbeds of intimidation, harassment and at times, violence. The annual festival of hate known as Israel Apartheid Week, which makes its way across global campuses every March, has rendered campuses “no go” zones for Jews for over a decade. Universities did little if anything to protect Jewish students, hiding once again behind free speech. Jewish faculty who are Zionist have also been threatened and intimidated by anti-Israel students. This has exacerbated since the war between Israel and Hamas, which followed the invasion by Hamas terrorists, resulting in the murder, torture, rape, burning and kidnapping of civilians. In the last few weeks, this has spiraled into a serious of protests and encampments on universities across the United States.

It is not just students engaged in protests on campus. Faculty members are also supporting or participating in these protests.

Free speech is sacrosanct. Free speech is imperative in a democracy and the rights of anyone to exercise that freedom must be protected, no matter how obnoxious it is or how much we disagree with it. A line has been crossed. Protesters have not been criticizing Israeli policies or how the country is prosecuting its war against terror organisation, Hamas, following the atrocities of 7/10.

Protesters and their supporters are trying to hide behind free speech but the bile spewing from the mouths of the mob has crossed the line way into hate speech territory.

Hamas’s useful idiots on campus, employing rhetoric straight out of the Hamas Charter or Goebbels book of propaganda, have included comments and actions such as:

• Chants of “We are Hamas” and “bomb Tel Aviv“
• “October 7th will happen to American Jewish students 10,000 times over“

 “American Jews are Al-Qassam’s (Hamas military wing) next target“

• Jewish student stabbed in the eye.
• Israeli Arab activist, Yosef Hadad beaten up.
• Chants of “There is only one solution, Intifada, revolution”
• Chants of “Ya Hamas, give them hell”
• Liquid thrown at Jewish students to prevent them from getting to their dormitories.
• Human chain created to block one Jewish student from reaching her dormitory.
• Jews told to “go back to Europe!”; “Goodbye Nazis go back to Poland!”
• University Rabbi asking students to go home, as they are not safe on campus.
• School canceled and classes moved to zoom to protect Jewish students.
• Israeli flag burned.
• Chants of “Ya, Hamas we love you, we love your rockets too”
• Students encouraged to become martyrs for Palestine.
• Jewish Israeli Professor, Shai Davidai barred from campus because the university cannot ensure his safety.
• Chants of “NYPD, KKK, OIF (Occupying Israeli Forces) they are all the same”
• Calls to “globalize the Intifada”. Many will remember the intifada’s of 1987 and 2001 that resulted in a significant increase in terror attacks on Israeli citizens. In the early 2000’s, suicide bombings on buses and in restaurants and more were the grotesque signatures of terror.
• Khymani James, leader of the protests saying, “Zionists must die”. Likening Zionists to white supremacists and Nazis he claimed they are “all the same people”, adding: “The existence of them and the projects they have built, i.e. Israel, it’s all antithetical to peace. It’s all antithetical to peace. And so, yes, I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die.” James also said, “I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser, I fight to kill.” James has been suspended from campus.

Israeli satire show “Eretz Nehederet” pretty much nailed it in the early weeks of the war with this biting satire:

All this and more is being screeched while parading and setting up encampments outside of buildings that bear the names of notable Jewish philanthropists. Jews have poured money into universities, hospitals and other institutions in order to largely benefit those less fortunate or to give back

Most students could not tell you which river or which sea they are chanting about. When future leaders use TikTok as a news source, takes their geopolitical analysis from a Hadid sister or wears that watermelon t-shirt promising a free Palestine at the expense of sovereign Israel, we can see that not only has the education system failed them – but we are seeing the collapse of western society in real time. The Ivy League universities are now looked upon as “poisoned ivies”.

The problem that these protesters have is that Israel is demonstrating the audacity of self-defence against an enemy they are shilling for – but many have absolutely no idea just how brutal and oppressive those they are supporting are. When asked about the atrocities of 7/10 or how they feel about Jewish students fearing for their safety, the usual default response is “that is a false narrative”. Sigh.

It is clear that universities, many who receive vast amounts of cash from countries like Qatar, and whose faculty and students are being increasingly radicalized, have failed to educate the next generation. Students are ignorant of the facts and are virtually incapable of critical thinking.

If universities cannot and will not protect Jewish students and ensure their safety – perhaps it is time for generous Jewish donors to divest from them.

One has to wonder, if any other minority group were treated like this, what would the universities do? We all know the answer. They would not tolerate any of this. It is different for Jews – and that is rank antisemitism.

Many are asking: What “the day after” looks like for Gaza?

I think the other discussion we need to have is what does the day after look like for Jewish communities, Jewish students and faculty. How do Jewish students go back to classes, knowing that some of their professors engaged in protests that called for their extermination? How will they feel safe amongst their peers again?

Students attend classes with names of generous Jewish donors emblazoned on their buildings. If these universities are NOT going to protect Jewish students and faculty, perhaps it is time for donors to divest – and contribute to universities that WILL protect their human rights.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).