OPINION:
More than 100 students at Columbia University have been arrested in the past week for their antisemitic campus protests, but the fact is, more are still gathering; the displays of Jew-hatred are still spreading; college administrators are still pretending they can’t stop the madness — they’re actually trying to diplomatically talk down these haters from their perches of hate.
You can’t cure antisemitism. It’s a cancer, and you have to cut it out and carve it away before it spreads and causes even more harm.
A simple order to the National Guard would do the trick.
But in lieu: Negotiating with evil won’t work.
“After a tense night of negotiations and protests at Columbia University, leaders on campus have agreed to extend talks with pro-Palestinian student protester encampments for another 48 hours,” The Independent wrote Wednesday.
Why?
First off, these aren’t pro-Palestinian protesters. They’re anti-Israel, anti-Jew, antisemitic, pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist protesters. And they’re violent; they’ve intimidated the Jewish student body to the point the Jewish students were advised by a local rabbi to leave, leave immediately, and do not return if they value their safety.
Second off, these pro-terrorist antisemites have already shown they have no intention of softening their antisemitism for those with diplomatic dreams.
The students were supposed to have removed all their tents and taken down their makeshift camp by midnight but failed to do so. Columbia’s administrators then, in all their air-quote, wisdom, end air-quote, rewarded their disobedience with a 48-hour extension.
It’s like Barack Obama’s infamous red line over Syria — you know, when the mighty BHO warned President Bashar Assad in 2012 that the use of chemical weapons on the Syrian people was a “red line” that would have “enormous consequences” if crossed, and then when Assad months later unleashed sarin gas that killed 1,400, Obama responded with a really mean memo.
Yeah. It’s like that.
All that’s needed is for Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to issue a really mean memo, maybe with frowny faces along the border, and Obama’s red-line comparison would be complete. As it is, she’s issued a statement saying she’s “deeply saddened” by what she’s seeing on campus.
Meanwhile, the cancer is spreading far and wide.
Dozens of student agitators have been arrested at Yale. The University of California Berkeley is roiling; so, too, the University of Minnesota, New York University and others.
“Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters have played a key role in organizing many of these encampments,” the ADL wrote. “National SJP, the umbrella organization of these local chapters, put out a call to action on April 20, 2024, urging college students, staff and faculty to ‘join the Popular University’ and ‘take back our institutions,’ adding ‘we will seize our universities and force the administration to divest [its economic dealings from Israel].”
These are agitators.
These are not First Amendment freedom fighters.
Interestingly — though not surprisingly — SJP is tied to George Soros money, as siphoned through the Tides Foundation. Other groups involved in this antisemitic ripple through America’s college campuses include the American Muslims for Palestine; Jewish Voice for Peace; Palestinian Youth Movement; Palestine Action; Party for Socialism and Liberation; and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
Train the next generation in the way to go and they will not depart from it.
Teach the emerging leaders in America that antisemitism is really a fight for freedom for an oppressed group and they will become the generation that turns its back on Israel.
Some issues can be argued; some matters can be won by the art of persuasion; some problems can be solved with logic discourse and discussion. This is not antisemitism.
Antisemitism is an evil rot, an evil cancer, that will spread and expand and infect all in its path. The only way to stop it is by force.
The only way to halt it is by cutting off the members who are carrying its narrative forth.
If college administrators can’t do the job, then police must. If police can’t do the job, then the National Guard must. If the National Guard can’t do the job — then America’s facing an even greater situation than these college uprisings indicate. Those who side with terror will never abandon their terrorist ways unless they’re met with a force that makes them. This is a difficult lesson for those of kindly and gentle natures to learn — but it’s a necessary one: Evil does exist, antisemitism is an evil, and evil never, ever abandons its evil path without being forced. You cannot argue with evil and expect to win.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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