Americans have recently witnessed an unprecedented level of protest on university campuses regarding the Israeli response to a terrorist attack in October of last year. While the freedom of speech and the right to protest are fundamental to our American way of life, the students protesting the State of Israel should have been taught the history of Hamas, and its refusal to cease and desist from suicide bombings, or politically recognize Israel as a state. If the students had been properly educated, they may have made very different choices regarding these radical and angry protests.

The history these protestors have problematically ignored are the Oslo Accords of 1993, in which the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Yassar Arafat, made peace with Israel in a formal signing ceremony with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The war between Jews and Palestinians finally ended, and open political dialog finally began in earnest, to provide for a recognized Palestinian state under a democratically elected government. Unfortunately, this peace deal was not to be, since parties on both sides felt fundamentally disempowered by the Accords.

While former members of the PLO founded the political party Fatah, and worked proactively with Israeli security forces to ensure peace in the streets and keep lines of communication open, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead by a fellow Jew, an angry law student who felt Rabin had made a peace deal with the devil. Unfortunately, Hamas refused to recognize the State of Israel, or the Oslo Accords, and in response began a series of suicide bombings on Israeli buses, in pizza shops, and just about anywhere they could sneak bombers illegally over the Israeli border.

Hamas also supports a radical Islamic agenda, and prays for a second Holocaust that will permit them to enjoy a slaughterhouse shooting spree like the one the world witnessed in October of 2023.

What Hamas does not support is free speech, the rights of women, western-style democracy, or a rules-based world championed by the United States and Israel. Hamas is, in fact, partner to groups like Islamic Jihad and the Iranian backed Shiite militia Hezbollah, all of whom insist that Israel has no right to exist, regardless of the Holocaust, and the fundamental human right to self-defense!

These suicide bombings often killed more than thirty people at a time, and maimed many more for life. In response, Israel built a militarized border wall, which worked brilliantly to put an end to Hamas suicide bombings. Israel also authorized Jewish civilians to own assault rifles and carry high-capacity handguns to protect themselves from violent extremist radicals on their streets. Leftist college kids protesting Israel should keep in mind that Hamas supports none of the political values these same college kids seem to hold so dear, such as LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights.

The ignorance of our students, and their support of a people who share none of our most cherished Western values, has less to do with the students, and a lot more to do with the values of left-wing educators whose political views are philosophical non-sequiturs. These are the same people who deny a border wall would enhance security on our southern border, but advocate de-funding the police, or banning guns, as millions of men come across that border! Or who vote to issue illegal immigrants a driver’s license, then advocate laws making that license a voting credential! Really.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry is correct in concluding that someone is behind these protests, and it’s not a clandestine agent of Hamas operating on American soil. It is the left-wing liberal educators who convinced our kids that every oppressed minority deserves sympathy and support, no matter how murderous that minority is to our political unity or stability.

People who destroy works of art, who stone women that go unveiled, or constantly kill one another to promote their own kin-group and violent suicidal policies, are not the people you protest to save.

Liberals forget that America bombed Germany during World War II, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians who voted for the Nazi Party. Likewise, Israel is now bombing Palestine, and killing civilians who voted for Hamas.

The difference is that while America and Israel traditionally only go after military targets, Hamas has historically targeted civilians at every opportunity. If Israel now feels the time has come to respond in kind, just as America did in World War II, why is that a surprise? How else do you convince Palestinians to make better political choices for public office?

For liberals who don’t believe in the rights of a Jew to live in an ethnic state with secure borders, or the rights of a Jewish settler to own a handgun or an assault rifle and shoot back, maybe it’s because liberals don’t believe in the Constitutional rights of Americans to have those things either! Perhaps the real problem with the protestors is the people we entrusted to educate them, who have betrayed the very principles that put them in positions as professors and educators to begin with.

Joseph M. Mazgaj of Wheeling is a professional educator, a former West Virginia Homeland Security operations officer (2002-07) and the son of a Holocaust survivor.