Hamas will never die because it is an idea. If the Middle East disappeared tomorrow, Hamas would still be alive on American soil. Saying that Hamas could die is akin to saying that evil can disappear — evil relies on subordination and the manipulation of good people misguided by false prophets. There are very few truly evil people, just plenty of puppets to finish the job unknowingly. The silver lining is that Jewish people will always exist as long as humans exist. But as University of California, Santa Barbara graduate and former student body president Tessa Vekslersays, “Is existing enough? Not for me.”
The anti-Israel protests don’t represent the majority of our country; no matter how much those Hamas-loving Iran-enablers shout, nothing they do can take away the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Zionist. In MLK’s own words: “The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has the right to exist, and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”
A movement can still have a lot of influence, even if it does not represent the majority. For example, nearly all national polling shows that support for the BLM movement has dropped dramatically since 2020, but few would say that the movement had no influence. The foundation of a righteous idea isn’t enough to make a righteous movement — Breonna Taylor’s own mom called the BLM organization “a fraud” and wrote, “They’ve never done a damn thing for us.”
The issue has been rhetorically corrupted such that one side of the issue is considered “pro-Palestine” when I believe that the debate is really about what is best for both peoples. Supporting a permanent ceasefire doesn’t make you special; we all want the war to end. A minority becomes a fake majority when the silent majority does not speak up. Evil is as evil does, but especial shame should fall on those who assume evil will surrender on its own.
Jewish people are assaulted and falsely called colonizers for supporting the state that inhabits the land that they are named after, Judah. The college campus Hamasniks are the first to talk about how we’re all on native “stolen land,” but don’t apply the same logic to Jewish people. Note that there are countless Native American zionists. If you want to understand colonialism, you have to ask why the Arabic language is in Morocco, and why the majority of Kazakhs can speak Russian.
Hamas deliberately fires rockets from safe zones and then uses Israeli military responses as propaganda. After Hamas was elected in 2006, opponents from the rival party were thrown off buildings. Hamas hates Palestinians! They are trying to escape accountability for turning the lives of innocent Palestinians into hell. Watch the countless videos of Gazans speaking out against Hamas, risking their lives in doing so, do it before it’s too late and artificial intelligence becomes impossible to detect. I support a “Free Palestine from Hamas” agenda.
The United Nations International Court of Justice has filed more than one hundred court cases against Israel; even Iran and North Korea do not have that many cases against them, please stop and think about that. The students who protest against Israel fail to recognize that Hamas leadership lives comfortably in Qatar, and are easily convinced by biased international organizations that are falsely perceived as flawless.
The Handmaid's Tale may be real in Afghanistan. Women are forbidden from showing any part of themselves except their eyes, and cannot even speak in public; they sing as a form of protest. Just imagine the level of hatred needed for the voice of a woman to pervert you. It’s not just Central Asia; violence against women is especially concentrated in the Middle East. Where is the outcry? Many of the college students who see themselves as righteous fail to perceive Israel in the global context.
The Cornell students who shout about ethnic cleansing are an insult to the 2.1 million Arab citizens of Israel and an insult to our institution. You won’t ever find a Jewish member of parliament in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman or Qatar today.
The only thing Jewish people ever did was love their family, and that's always been provoking the devil. Do people understand that nearly half of all Jewish people live in Israel? Israel’s survival is of existential importance. History has already taught us that no amount of Jewish success completely ensures safety if there is no Jewish nation. When Cornell Prof. Russell Rickford, history, called the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel “exhilarating,” he continued the 2,000-year-old global tradition of antisemitism and spat right on the face of trauma. Someone is always looking to hurt Israel, even in the Bible.
There is only one Jewish nation, but it exists in a world we all have to share. The first day of the semester beginning with activists vandalizing Cornell’s first president shows that this topic isn’t going anywhere. American Hamas supporters haven’t backed down and global antisemitism is still on the rise. The 89-year-old leader of the Palestinian West Bank can't rule forever; changes are inevitable. The picture should be very clear: Even a golden ceasefire deal won’t guarantee peace in the region forever.
As we look towards the future, disappointment should be concentrated around the inaction of righteous people and should not be focused on the wicked or those who unknowingly feed it. If you’ve read this far, it already means you aren’t completely lost. Do, say and act as you know is right.
Leo Glasgow is a third year student in the College of Arts and Sciences. His fortnightly column Can We Talk focuses on student life, domestic and international politics and social issues. He can be reached at lig36@cornell.edu.
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