by HUGH MURRAY
Since October 7, many liberal academics and others have been surprised by the reaction of many of the young in the West to events in the Middle East. Indeed, some have been shocked. At Cooper Union, where Pres. Lincoln had spoken after being elected to national office, Jewish students now had to hide as crowds of students and others were demanding both anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish policies. And the slogan - From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free, is really a call to abolish Israel, and in some minds either expel all the Israelis, or kill all the Jews. genocide. The university presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and U. of Pennsylvania were questioned about such similar demos on their campuses, and their answers so dissatisfied Congressional representatives, and even more wealthy donors to the universities, that there were demands that all 3 resign.
But it was not only in academia. On the streets of many large cities, pro-Palestinian demos stopped traffic, engaged in fights with Jews, demanded a change in US and Western foreign policies, beginning with a cease fire in Gaza.
What happened? One noted, that Jews have just discovered that the Left Wing now considers them to be whites. And according to the post-civil rights era doctrines, all whites are racists and oppressors. People of color, by definition, cannot be racists, while only a few collaborator's with the conservatives can be oppressors. Confusing the debates, the word anti-Semitism, which might refer to a people and a language group. Various Middle Eastern people spoke a similar language, like Arabic, Hebrew, Coptic, ancient Egyptian, and others. During the 1930s, when it became an issue, Persian changed its name to Iran to indicate that it was not Semitic but Aryan. Since both the Muslim and Jewish people of the Middle East speak Semitic languages, it makes little sense to speak of a Palestinian calling a Jew a bad name and labeling the one shouting as anti-Semitic. He may be anti-Israeli, and/or anti-Jewish, but he is not anti-Semitic as he himself is a Semite.
It is a surprise to see the spread of the intense hostility to Israel, but it follows years of political correctness taught in schools. Now called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the new formula openly rejects the old civil rights call for equality. They reject equality and demand equity, which means, favoritism to help the oppressed and harm the oppressor. And in this scheme all whites are oppressors, and lately many Asians are also now part of the oppressor groups, while most people of color (you are not allowed to say colored people, that is a term of the distant past). So Jews, like some Asians, have been moved by the new ideologues from the category of the oppressed to that of the oppressor. And the oppressors must be silenced first, and later, other measures. Free speech on campus means the Left can say anything, including talk of genoside for the oppressors. Suddenly Jews and some Asians have fallen out of grace, out of the category of the oppressed. They are now to be chastised like the other oppressors, like the whites. The new reality is that even in Australia a major carol sing can be interrupted by Palestinian activists. And a month prior, signs appeared by the famous operal house, "Gas the Jews."
We should be shocked by the horrors of this ideology, as it now applies to Jews and some Asians. And especially how it has been used against white people for decades. But the Palestinian cause is not new, and it has already changed American history.
On a summer day a few decades ago a well-dressed gentleman exited a California hotel, somewhat agitated, as he spoke to a tv newsman, "I don't understand, he said he did it for his country! How could he say such a thing?" The man nodding his head in disbelief at what he had just heard. He had just listened to what the young man said who had shot and killed Democratic Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. The man being interviewed, clearly a Democratic activist, could not believe what he heard, that the assassin killed Kennedy for his country. What the man did not understand was that Sirhan Sirhan was not born in the US. He was born in Palestine. And he did it for his country, by his own thinking. He was not Muslim, but Christian. Sirhan was Palestinian.
If Sirhan were released from jail, he would be a great hero in the Middle East, And he dud change the US, When Kennedy defeated Sen. McCarthy in the California primary, he might have won the Democratic nomination, and then the presidency. Think of how that might have changed America and the world!
And with our open borders today, how many more Sirhans is Biden encouraging to come to America? Will any of them change America the way Sirhan did??
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