Different groups have different interests. I see nothing diabolical in being pro or anti-Israel, pro or anti Islam, pro or anti-Jewish, black, gay, etc.
American college campuses are not moral sewers because they are more anti-Israel than other parts of the country.
I would expect blacks on campus to be more anti-Jewish and anti-Israel than blacks in general because campuses are dominated by Jews and blacks will naturally side with people of color who are underdogs.
Robert Gardner rarely heard anything about Israel growing up in South Los Angeles. But at UCLA, he started learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and seeing parallels with conflicts close to home.
The African American senior likened Israeli crackdowns on Palestinian protesters to police violence against black Americans. So he joined Students for Justice in Palestine and an international movement known as BDS, which advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against companies deemed players in Israeli human rights violations.
Earlier this year, though, he was shocked to see — on a poster outside a Westwood market — his name listed as one of 16 UCLA “Jew haters” and terrorist allies.
Since then, he says, “I’ve received death threats online, and people have followed me.”
The poster was part of a multimillion-dollar effort to combat the BDS movement, led by Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. While this kind of attack campaign is one tactic, a key aim is to win back hearts and minds for Israel via social media pushes, cultural fairs and subsidized trips to the Jewish state.
The effort kicked off this last semester at six California campuses, including UCLA, UC Irvine and San Jose State University, and will expand to 20 more college campuses this fall.
The Adelsons and other supporters of Israel are alarmed by the precipitous growth in young Americans’ support for Palestinians. A Pew Research Center poll in May found that 27% of millennials now sympathize more with Palestinians, up from 9% in 2006 — while their generation’s support for Israel has declined in the same period from 51% to 43%.
A main cause, Israel supporters say, is the mushrooming BDS campus movement. In the last four years, student governments at eight of nine UC undergraduate campuses have voted to support the campaign.
BDS is a non-violent movement of opposition to the Jewish state.
No state, no people, have the right to exist. They must fight to establish and preserve themselves and if they are not fit enough to do that, they will get wiped out, along with other forms of life that don’t adapt.
“Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state” is a powerful argument to some people just as “American has the right to exist as a white Christian state” is a powerful argument to other people.
