OPINION:
A story that should scare the tar out of every sane American comes from a recent Free Press article about antisemitism and its corollary anti-Westernism, both being on the rise in Europe, Canada, and the United States. In her article, Madeleine Rowley quotes five ex-Muslims who share the details of a childhood where, from their earliest years, they were taught to hate Israel and loathe the West.
Here’s a summary of Ms. Rowley’s five examples.
Darya Safai was born in Tehran before the fall of the Shaw of Iran. Ms. Safai recounts that “after the Islamic Revolution… at my school in Tehran…we [were taught every day] to repeat sayings like, ’Down with the USA, down with Israel.’” She goes on to provide proof of decades-old antisemitic and anti-American propaganda in that “there are still universities [even now] in Iran that have painted American and Israeli flags on the ground [for students to walk on].” Ms. Safai concludes: [This worldview] has “ruined Iran and destroyed the Middle East. Do we want to wait until this atrocity ruins everything in our Western countries, too?”
Yasmine Mohammed grew up in London. Even though she was reared in the West, she shares how antisemitism “was infused” into her through her culture and her education. “How often did I encounter antisemitism? It’s like asking me how often I drink water.” Ms. Mohammed has written a book called Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam.
Armin Navabi is also an author. He was born in Tehran. He shares how “anti-Israel propaganda was a constant” throughout his entire education. “When I was growing up, it was part of our school curriculum. For example, if a person was being stingy, someone might say, ’You’re such a Jew.’ We were told to chant ’Death to Israel’ many times in school.” Recognizing Islam’s many endemic moral contradictions, Mr. Navabi fled Iran during his college years so that he could “be free to express” his own opinions.
Rana Mallah was born in Mosul, Iraq. “Growing up,” she says, “I heard only negative things when it came to Jewish people and Judaism. The word Jew was an insult. A person might call someone a Jew if they did something wrong or were being cruel and uncaring.” Ms. Mallah escaped to the Kurdistan region of Iraq three months after ISIS took control and then boarded a plane to London, where she now speaks out against the racism, division, and hatred of this balkanizing ideology.
Sohail Ahmed is a student at Cambridge University. Here’s his testimony: “I was radicalized at age six. My parents practiced Wahhabism. They taught me that Britain was the enemy, even though I was born in London.” He goes on to recall how he was told from the youngest age that Jews were an evil race of people” who needed to be exterminated. After he started to plan a terrorist attack in East London, he tells how he “abandoned the idea” because of the haunting thought that “innocent people who might get caught in the attack and die.”
Now, if you live in the heartland of America, why should you care about these five testimonies? Why should they frighten you? Stated quite simply, it’s because the same exact garbage that was taught to these five people is now being taught to your own children in your local public schools and universities.
Antisemitism, anti-Americanism, anti-colonialism, and anti-Westernism are now so commonplace in your local curriculum that it is virtually impossible for any student to escape unscathed. From the divisive rhetoric of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the shameless racism of the Critical Theory to the anti-human pantheism of Climate Change, your children are constantly being told that everything that is wrong with the world is those pesky Jewish and European colonizers who exported their Bible-believing ways around the world.
Consider just one example from the University of Minnesota, where liberal arts Professor Melanie Yazzie recently told her students that they must “go as hard as possible to decolonize [America]” and overthrow the “occupation[al] government” of the United States as well as that of Israel. After all, she intoned, “They’re one and the same, really.” And lest there be any doubt what she meant, Dr. Yazzie concluded by affirming the butchery of Hamas on Oct. 7 by saying, “[Our] goal is to dismantle the settler project that is the United States for the future of the planet… [The way of] Palestine is the alternative path for native nations.”
Decolonization. Down with Israel. Death to America. Us against them. Calling others an evil race. Dismantling all of Western civilization for the good of the planet. Does it all sound familiar?
Ideas always have consequences, and as Darya Safai says above. “[This worldview] has “ruined Iran and destroyed the Middle East. Do we want to wait until this atrocity ruins everything in our Western countries, too?”
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.
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