Dr. Dan Diker is the president of the JCPA (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) and an expert in hybrid warfare and in combating anti-semitism. He wrote an op-ed this week entitled Hamas’ Education of the Ivy League that appeared in Israel Hayom. It should be required reading for anyone trying to understand, let alone make nominal sense, of the seemingly sudden outcropping on college campuses throughout North America, of brazen hatred towards the only State of the Jews and towards Jews too.
Except, after reading the Diker essay, one learns that there has been nothing sudden at all about the jarring malevolence of the campus-centred hate. Rather, it has been in the making for quite some time. October 7 was merely the tripwire. But as Diker points out, the seeds of the demonstrations were sown decades ago in the poisoned intellectual fields of the advocacy instruction that was peddled then as teaching in the halls of esteemed academia.
Diker writes that the campaign of the vilification of Israel, calling insistently for its erasure, is more than 50 years old. He traces its malign history in the United States.
He refuses to refer to the demonstrations and the demonstrators as “pro-Palestine”. That is a misnomer. They are pro-Hamas. Indeed, the rallying cry “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free”, derives from Hamas’ 1988 charter. To the charter’s author(s) and to their followers, it is an unambiguous call to take up arms and destroy Israel. The catchy, rhyming, call for the wholesale elimination of an entire country and for the slaughter of its people are robustly chanted by demonstrators on the streets and campuses as if they were cheering on their team to victory against an arch rival’s team. It does not bother their consciences. Moreover, most of the demonstrators do not know that the English translation of the last word “free” is an expedient, not accurate, translation of the original. The original word in the charter announces that Palestine will be Arab. (i.e., without room for any Jews, nor likely Christians, Baha’i and Kurds.)
Diker notes that the demonstrators make no mention of Palestinian statehood. They do not urge the creation of two states for two peoples. Nor do they demand a return to the peace process. Rather, they have simply and entirely adopted the Hamas – (read: radically Islamic) – program for the Middle East. The real meaning of that program is captured in Hamas’ concise, heartfelt messages of purpose and inspiration, now adopted as unifying songbook entries among the campus “social justice activists”. “Israel is a settler colonial occupying state”, “Gas the Jews”, “Rape is resistance”, “Burn down Tel Aviv”, and “Death to Zionism”.
“October 7,” Diker writes, “provides the context and the evidence for the convergence of this discourse of Israel’s destruction together with the eradication of Israelis and Jews wherever they live.”
It is undoubtedly true that many, perhaps most, of the campus protesters are sincerely trying to improve the world as they see it. But the organizers, planners, trainers and funders of the protests know well the true purpose of their exertions. They exploit the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. They have conscripted them to their own evil ends – the genocide of the people of Israel and the politicide of the State of Israel.
Alas, to the extent that the some of the campus conscriptees are Jewish – our children and grandchildren – they are, in the main, living reminders of the inadequacy of their Jewish education. A meaningful education might have helped them better understand “who and why they are” and might have protected them from being exploited by enemies intent on “wiping Israel off the map.”
But rather than point a finger back, we must extend a hand forward. Despair has never been the Jewish response to horrible events. On the eve of Yom Hashoah V’hagvurah it is important that we drive this message ever deeper into our hearts. It is the appropriate occasion for steeling our resolve against the murderous call, once again, to “Gas the Jews”.
For the sake of safeguarding our children and grandchildren and for the sake too of honouring our ancestors, we must never despair. And let us recall the first stanza of the Partisans’ Song, the anthem of resolve, strength and courage, which some of our ancestors may have sung. For they are the very words we too must sing today. The generations of Jews after 1948 no longer hides in the forests in order to fight. We no longer hide. We are here.
“Never say this is the final road for you,
Though darkened skies may even hide the days of blue.
As the hour that we longed for is so near,
Our march shouts out the message – We are here! (Our translation from Yiddish to English)
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Dr. Diker’s op-ed can be found at:
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/hamas-education-of-the-ivy-league
Diker’s essay confirms the brilliance of the seminal work by Paul Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals (Melville House Publishing, 2010) in which Berman essentially predicted the moral inversion through which we must now find our way and which we must – and will – set aright.
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June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.
For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.
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Shabbat shalom.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
May 3, 2024