The professor stood at the entrance to the university campus rattled by antisemitic protests. His employee entry pass, didn't work. He was shocked. He knew the university was hostile toward him. He knew the atmosphere was charged. He knew Jewish students were afraid. He heard the antisemitic chants, "Jews, go back to Poland." He heard calls for more and more acts of slaughter. And he was convinced that the university officials would deal with the hooligans and racists, not with those who were fighting against them. But he was wrong.
This didn't happen in Munich in the 1930s, nor in Berlin. It happened at New York’s Columbia University last weekend. The professor is Shai Davidai, an Israeli-American, a lecturer at the prestigious university’s business school affiliated with the Ivy League.
A few weeks ago, we sat in Manhattan after a lecture I myself delivered at the same university. The small protest that awaited me, with security standing at the entrance to the building and the lecture hall, turned into a massive demonstration last week. Students set up tents in the heart of the campus.
An imam also came to proselytize in the campus’s center. Interestingly, he was allowed entry, but Davidai's was denied. It didn't end there. Similar solidarity protests, with tent camps, were set up on other campuses. Mostly prestigious ones.
What on earth is happening there? Why did the university’s rabbi, Elie Buechler, have to send a letter to Jewish students telling them it's better not to arrive in the coming days. The atmosphere is hostile. The police can't help either.
I never understood what Jews in Germany felt in the 1930s, Davidai told me when we met. Now I understand. Was it really so overwhelming? I thought he was exaggerating. Weeks go by. What happened on Columbia University’s campus in recent days makes it clear that he was right. I was wrong.
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Prof. Shai Daviai at the entrance to Columbia University
(Photo: AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
The university's Chief Operating Officer (COO), Cass Holloway, stood at the campus’s entrance as Davidai attempted to enter. A group of students, brave and Zionists for a change, were there. Shame, they shouted. Holloway remained silent. He was asked to explain and retort. He didn't utter a word.
Davidai's struggle is important
You’re a great guy, Davidai wrote to him after the incident. "You were just doing your job. There are many like you. They’re afraid. They’re threatened by the supporters of terror who have taken over the campuses." But," Davidai added, "there were millions like you in Germany in the 1930s. They just followed orders. They were afraid. This is your opportunity to take a brave step. To oppose the supporters of terror."
Davidai's struggle is important. It's a struggle of the few and the weak against the many hooligans. But there's a difference between the University of Munich and Columbia University. Prof. Daniel Goldhagen wrote the book Hitler's "Willing Executioners," which describes Germans as those who willingly collaborated with the Nazis.
The book sparked intense debate. It's doubtful whether most professors at the University of Munich participated in the Nazi's antisemitic brainwashing in the years leading up to their rise to power. Today, things are different. A large portion of the professors at Columbia University are participating in pro-Hamas brainwashing. So, an intense debate won’t follow the next book, about Hamas’s willing supporters.
Hold on, "It's because of the ‘genocide’ Israel is carrying out against Palestinians." False. The "genocide" never existed. It's a fabrication. And anyway, there were academic publications in the service of the propaganda machine even before October 7. The President of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, said after 9/11 that "terrorism is a form of protest."
Years go by and it's getting worse. Most humanities and social sciences academics are on Hamas's side. They've been laying the groundwork for years. For years, they've been publishing biased statements against Israel. For years, they've been concealing fundamental facts from their students.
And on the same day of the most terrible massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, they accelerated. That's what happens when freedom fighters break from the world's largest prison, Hamas propagandists claimed. That’s false. It's Hamas who preferred the lock down, when it rejected all proposals of aid and the opening of the border, in exchange for Gaza’s demilitarization, of course.
And there's no bigger lie than the title "freedom fighters." This is because Hamas's ideology was and remains the elimination of Jews. And because Hamas is part of the global jihad that declares its goal as taking over the world to establish a dark Islamist imperialist vision.
Students on campuses don't support the weak, the oppressed, the occupied, or the Palestinians. That might be what some of them think they’re doing. The naive among them. Because they've been brainwashed. Those leading the protests support genocide. "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground," they shouted in recent days, adding, "Hamas, we love you, we support your missiles."
In these protests, they started burning Israeli and American flags and waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, while supporting the Houthis and Iran. The axis of evil led by Germany didn't have such great support in the West. The axis of evil led by Iran and jihad has wide support.
Columbia University called on the police, in an unprecedented step, to evacuate the protesters' tents. Students were arrested. Many others received a notice of their suspension, which can be assumed to be a primarily symbolic move. One of the detainees is Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
It's true that her mother came from Somalia, a country mostly destroyed because of jihadist terror. Between 350,000 and one million people were killed and slaughtered. Between two and three million became refugees.
But that doesn't interest the mother and her daughter. They, like the protests’ leaders, want to impose a similar fate on the U.S., Israel, and the whole world. This is the essence of radical Islam. It's true that 95% of its victims are Muslims. But let's not confuse Columbia’s progressive students with minor facts.
Hamas's useful idiots
Columbia University failed to take control of the protests. In an unprecedented step, it was decided classes would be held remotely. And it's expanding. The protest is turning into a national crisis. Tuesday’s headline in The Washington Post read, "120 antiwar protesters arrested at NYU; Calif. students form barricade.”
The headline in The New York Post tells of "Anti-Israel protesters carry flares to march on NYPD HQ after over 130 arrested at NYU.” This is the main story in most American newspapers. The protesters are making it work. They're in the headlines. They seem to think they want to stop the war. They're only fueling it.
It's possible a hostage deal could have been agreed on. But arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar looks at these students and enjoys every moment. Hamas may be beaten in the Strip. But it’s winning the battle of progress in the US and the West.
Never in history have so many turned themselves into useful idiots for an axis of evil and terrorism. They think they're enlightened. They're not. They’re causing more and more casualties. The protesters, naturally, want to return to the days of protests against the Vietnam War, which shook the U.S.
Ben-Dror YeminiPhoto: Avigail UziWe’re in the midst of a crisis, and it's doubtful Israeli leaders understand how dangerous it is. the alarm bells should be turned on in the U.S. and Israel and for anyone who wants peace and reconciliation, not war, jihad, and terror.
Because the free world was blind to the threat posed by the Nazi axis of evil once. Progressives in the free world may cause additional blindness. Tens of millions paid with their lives last time. It mustn’t happen again.