Ever since the massacre of Israelis on October 7th, 2023, there has been a significant increase in antisemitism on my college campus. Since last spring, when the police cleared a nearly 100-day anti-Israel encampment at Indiana University’s Dunn Meadow, there has been nonstop anti-Israel graffiti and activism on campus.
Two key issues: there is a widespread denial that these activists are expressing antisemitism when they mischaracterize Israel’s defensive actions against the genocidal terrorist regime in Gaza as being purely malicious. This narrative arbitrarily disregards the extensive measures the IDF takes to limit civilian casualties and falsely implies that Israeli citizens are not entitled to protection from extreme violence.
The more troubling issue is the misguided belief that these anti-Israel activists on campus are simply peaceful protestors advocating for anti-war goals. This ignores the actions and rhetoric of these individuals.
It is important to note that advocating for the advancement of Palestinian rights and the improvement to their quality of life is not inherently antisemitic, only that those at IU who currently claim to do so engage in antisemitism.
For example, statements like “Free Palestine” and “IU Divest from Israel Now” have been found scrawled across campus. To outsiders, these slogans might seem harmless, as advocating for an end to Palestinian suffering appears to be a reasonable cause. However, when placed into context, both carry morally dubious meanings.
Historically, “Free Palestine” indicates a desire to dismantle the Israeli state or cede land deemed “occupied” (both implicitly calling for a genocide of Jews) rather than advocating for peaceful coexistence. When this graffiti is sprayed on public buildings, Jewish students rightly interpret this as an act of intimidation or justification for violence.
Calls for the university to “divest from Israel” are equally problematic, as they irrationally imply that Israel is so morally reprehensible that cutting economic ties is necessary, even during an existential war on multiple fronts, weakening its ability to defend its citizens from constant attacks. This ignores Israel’s repeated efforts to achieve peace and its ongoing support for Palestinian quality of life, despite the ongoing conflict.
Further, on September 5th, graffiti reading “PALESTINE LIVES” accompanied by three red inverted triangles was discovered on Ballantine Hall’s entrance. Two weeks later, a local pro-Palestine student group posted footage of an activist brandishing the same symbol on their chest.
For those unaware, those triangles were first popularized by Hamas during the current conflict to mark Israeli targets for attack and has become a popular anti-Israel symbol in the Palestinian territories and abroad to express support for Hamas.
It’s entirely reasonable to interpret this as proof that there are Hamas supporters here. Hamas has been using the triangles in their propaganda repeatedly for the past year and college students have access to the internet.
Even if the perpetrators claim to be ignorant of this, the symbol indicates, at a minimum, a troubling lack of awareness about its meaning. This reckless usage normalizes extremist rhetoric and risks aligning the entire pro-Palestinian movement with violent terrorist groups.
Remember that Hamas, the Palestinian “Islamic Resistance Movement,” wants to murder all Jewish people and strives to oppress the entire world under their extremist interpretation of Sharia law.
These brutal extremists have been killing both Arabs and Jews since they formed out of the Nazi-affiliated Muslim Brotherhood forty years ago.
The atrocities committed on October 7th, 2023 were merely their latest act of violence, which their supporters in Gaza echoed. On that day, those monsters went into Israel to murder, kidnap, and torture anyone that they thought was Jewish or Israeli. They used rape as a weapon.
Seeing pro-Hamas propaganda openly displayed is both gut-wrenching and terrifying.
What’s more, this imagery is a clear escalation from last spring, and my administration’s various attempts to de-escalate have done little to curb threatening behavior.
What is currently preventing these fanatics from following through with their threats?
I hope my friends stay safe.
This article was originally published in The Herald Times.
