Whereas considering the horror of two younger and shortly to be engaged Israeli Embassy staff who have been gunned down by a person shouting “free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza,” outdoors the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., final week, I recalled the opening line to a track from the outdated off-Broadway musical “The Fantasticks” – “You marvel how this stuff start.” That track speaks to the love between a boy and a lady. Utilized to the Washington shootings it makes you marvel how hate begins.
Theologically it goes again to the Backyard of Eden, however in fashionable occasions it begins at sure universities and bigoted social media websites.
The hatred of Jews is not new. It extends again a number of millennia. That so many universities tolerate and a few professors promote Jewish hatred just isn’t free speech. It’s incitement which, taken on the excessive because it was final week, results in homicide. The folks accountable for this can’t wash their arms of the blood of these innocents, any greater than Pontius Pilate might exonerate himself from Christ’s crucifixion by Roman troopers by symbolically washing his arms and claiming, “I’m harmless of this man’s blood.”
I’ve raised this query earlier than, however it’s price repeating. Why do the media by no means ask who’s underwriting these demonstrations, together with paying for tents, printed indicators and any journey, lodging and meals for many who come from out of city? How most of the demonstrators aren’t college students? Chants of “from the river to the ocean,” particularly when the few who’re interviewed can’t determine the river or the ocean is code for destroying Israel and justifying the killing of Jews. Think about the reluctance of some who refused – or slowly waited to touch upon final week’s shootings, together with some Democrats in Congress.
Till President Trump started depriving Harvard and different elite colleges of federal grants, these establishments have been getting away with successfully being equipment to homicide. Would these college presidents, who’ve executed little or nothing to curtail the hateful demonstrations, have tolerated KKK rallies on their campuses? Unlikely. Some alumni have stopped giving to their alma maters. Extra ought to. Dad and mom ought to pull their children out of those dear colleges or not ship them there. It’s wonderful that some dad and mom are shocked to see their youngsters undertake concepts that contradict their elementary values. What did they anticipate?
Some historians date the beginning of persecution, violence, makes an attempt at genocide and deportations of Jews to the Neo-Babylonian Empire (605 BC). There are ongoing debates and discussions why this small group of individuals have been singled out over the centuries as the reason for all the pieces unhealthy, particularly after they have contributed a lot to the world that’s objectively good.
The Jewish lyricist Oscar Hammerstein could have gotten to the guts of it when he wrote “You’ve Bought to Be Rigorously Taught” for the musical “South Pacific.” Right here is a part of the lyric, which readers ought to Google and skim in its entirety:
“You’ve bought to be taught to hate and worry,
You’ve bought to be taught from 12 months to 12 months,
It’s bought to be drummed in your pricey little ear—
You’ve bought to be rigorously taught!”
The alleged killer of these two embassy staff (if convicted, he ought to get the federal dying penalty), the terrorist murders of Jews in Israel by Hamas and Iran’s Houthi proxies, the vilification of Jews by professors at sure universities, are instructing a brand new era to hate. The colleges that tolerate hate needs to be punished extra than simply depriving their colleges of grants. The professors who poison younger minds needs to be fired, hate teams banished from campuses and the nation, and the demonstrators held accountable.
Readers could e mail Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Search for Cal Thomas’ newest ebook “A Watchman within the Night time: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).
