By Steve BermanJesus said “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” But Columbia University and other elite colleges are doing their level best.
The “youth rebellion” aspect of the protests on campus are really inevitable. Caught up in the moment, and high on their ability to make news and stick it to the “establishment,” the kids are doing what motivated young activists do when they find a cause. But what made them susceptible to this particular cause? Well, like in most things, you follow the money.
The money leads back to the same place that harbors Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who haunts the Four Seasons Hotel there like Republicans bent on a VP slot haunt Mar-a-Lago. Haniyeh faces no real danger in Qatar, despite there being around 11,000 U.S. troops within a day’s drive, and Israeli Mossad agents drinking at the same bars he favors. He is protected by Qatari billions. It’s blood money.
Dr. Yaron Friedman did some spelunking into the caves of terror finance and educational chairs, writing in the Jerusalem Post.
The disgraceful success of the despicable protests against Israel and in support of Hamas on US campuses stems from the fact that they are anything but spontaneous. They are meticulously organized and generously funded. To uncover the entities behind this organization, one should revisit the Middle East of 2019, when a coalition of Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt – levied a boycott against Qatar for its support of terrorism.
You should really read the whole article, because it paints the yellow on the brick road leading from terrorists in the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas’ parent organization) to the liberal suppression of dissent “under the guise of ‘political correctness’ and ostensibly ‘racist thought’” on campus. Follow the money: “alarming figures from the US Department of Education, indicating that in 2019, American educational institutions received funding exceeding a billion and 30 million dollars from external sources, predominantly Qatar.”
According to a soure cited by Friedman, Qatar has invested $5.7 billion in U.S. universities since 2007. While Qatar seeks to upgrade its image in the free world, it funds terrorists and Islamic indoctrination on American campuses under the tent of “Islamic studies.”
Claim all you want that the protests have their origin in the ultra-sensitive social justice meters of elite college students, who are appalled at the number of Palestinian deaths. I am also appalled—34,000 have died. But I am also appalled at the murdering, barbarous rapists and sexual predators unleashed all over southern Israel last October 7th. The U.S. reacted to the worst terrorist attack on our soil by killing around 400,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan over 17 years. By comparison, the attack on Israel was a dozen times worse, and Israel’s enemy is not 10,000 kilometers away; it’s right next door. I’d say the Israelis have shown a tremendous amount of restraint in not slaughtering every living thing in Gaza—which human nature screams to do in revenge.
I also believe Israeli should do everything it can to get its citizens who are being held hostage back. The Israeli government has dropped its demand for 40 hostages, probably because they now believe that there are not 40 living hostages that Hamas could deliver. The number is now 33, and it’s up to Hamas to respond, in exchange for 40 days of cease-fire. I am going out on a limb here to say that I think Hamas will reject the trade, because 40 days isn’t enough for them.
The Qataris are no longer brokering these deals—the Egyptians are (and rightly so, because Egypt has to bear the joint responsibility for Gaza with the IDF). Instead, Qatar has shifted their focus to campus insurrection, to force Israel’s hand, and to accomplish one of the chief purposes of October 7th (besides slaughtering Jews, that is): derailing the timeline for normalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It seems Qatar is desperate now, because Secretary of State Antony Blinken says this is going to happen.
So the Qatari billionaires and their Muslim Brotherhood-aligned professors on campus got the kids funded, organized and wound up to occupy campuses. Administrators, who like Qatari money just like they like Jewish money, played the same game now-fired Claudine Gay played at Harvard: it’s free speech, man!
They’ve muddied the line between “pro-Palestine” and “antisemitism” to the point where it can’t even be discerned from space. The New York Times asked: “At what point does pro-Palestinian political speech in a time of war cross the line into the type of antisemitism colleges have vowed to combat?” I’ll tell you: at the point where these schools accepted terrorist money and set themselves up as indoctrination sites for radical Islam. Jews also fund these schools, in many cases quite lavishly, but mostly Jews want to be left alone, not spread Jewish indoctrination around the world.
Most Americans still side with Israel, and against terrorists. It’s notable that only among the young is there any kind of break toward the Palestinians. Part of that is due to the social justice meters. But it’s also because on many campuses, the alignment of anti-Israel causes and leftist thought is taught by rote. It’s the same reason Jewish groups were filtered out of women’s marches in 2018. The cause must not be polluted, because the cause has always been anti-Jew.
We are witnessing an arranged, planned, funded, and long-hoped for uprising, one with a dark, political purpose. And it leads right back to the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, Qatar. It leads back to Hamas.
Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman.
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