The jihad-supporting protests at Columbia University rightfully stood out in the news this week, both in Israel and around the world. Such blatant and free expression of jihadist antisemitism, including explicit support for Hamas, endorsed by leading academic institutions, hasn't been seen in the West for some time.
Such violence hasn't been seen for a long time in the Western world either. Ganging up against every Jew, or anyone who supports Jews, was a harsh sight to behold. Are we in Germany in 1933? For shame. Or perhaps one should write, like the chants that are burning in the ears of Israelis: "Shame, shame, shame."
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Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University are threatening to Jews on campus
(Photo: Reuters)
Such scenes are not really foreign to Israelis. Those who experienced the year of protest against judicial reform remember that the Rosh Yehudi CEO Israel Zeira and Rabbi Yigal Levinstein were harassed at a Tel Aviv protest, and of course the siege on the Tel Aviv rabbinate, including shutting off water to its offices. Israeli citizens also blocked major roads, led us to five election cycles, went after a conservative think tank and, worst of all, desecrated the Kol Nidre Yom Kippur prayer in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv.
The protests took place outside of Israel as well. Representatives of the anti-government protesters across the sea made sure to sour the lives of Kohelet Policy Forum donors and the Israeli elected officials who came to visit Jewish communities abroad, who did not know if they would be able to maintain the relationship with Israel if it turned into a dictatorship, according to the picture painted for them by the leaders of the protest and its members.
Even the traditional support rally in New York for Israel became a protest against the reform and no expense was spared for the cause. Those who supported the anti-government protests over the years now feel what it feels like to be on the other side of a violent protest.
However, there is one big difference between the protests: Hamas' image was damaged by the antisemitic wave of protests in American universities, but profits from Israeli protests against the government. The erupting antisemitism is bad for the terror organization, it reminds us that we share the same history and fate. On the other hand, it knows that the remnants of the anti-government protest, which again gather every week for a demonstration, serve Hamas' ultimate goal, the disintegration of Israeli society from within.
Someone needs to tell those anti-government protesters who remian that there is no difference between them and Yigal Levinstein. For Sinwar and for the Columbia University jihadists, we're all the same, one DNA.