The Fruit of the Poisonous Propaganda

By: Lisa Van Houten

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been chanted by thousands in American cities and on college campuses at pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian protests in the weeks following the heinous terrorist attack upon Israel by Hamas.  What lies between “the river and the sea?”  The nation of Israel. (Joshua 1:4) This Palestinian chant, which has been picked up by American leftists, has long been a call to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the face off the map. At one such student protest on a Seattle campus, a video went viral of Jewish girls pleading with campus staff, crying: “They want us dead, how are you allowing this?” – as her fellow students called for the extermination of Israel.  In Sydney, Australia a mob chanted, “Gas the Jews!”

Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif declared on the day of the attack: “I say to the masses of the people and our nation, and to the free people of the world: Today, the wrath of Al-Aqsa has exploded – the rage of our people, our nation, and the free people of the world. I say to our pure mujahideen: This is the day that you make this criminal enemy [Israel] understand that its time is up. ‘Kill them wherever you may find them.’” That also was a quotation from the Qur’an (2:191, 4:89, cf. 9:5).

Even before this deadly attack, there’s been a growing anti-Semitism in the U.S. as hate crimes against Jews have risen to their highest point in nearly 30 years.  In 2022, there were 1,124 anti-Jewish crimes in America, up 36% from the previous year.  Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment are also common in the more radical elements of the Democratic Party and among some of the leftist faculty members of our nation’s colleges and universities.  As just one example, Cornell University Professor Russell Rickford, speaking at a pro-Palestinian protest, called the Hamas attack upon Israel “exhilarating,” stating: “It was exhilarating!  It was energizing!  … I was exhilarated!”

There is absolutely no moral justification for Hamas’ atrocities.  Yet over 30 Harvard student groups issued this statement:  “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

To these protestors, Hamas was justified in massacring over 1,200 civilians – raping women, slaughtering babies, burning people alive – because in their eyes Israel is the “oppressor.”  They’ve been steeped in Marxist ideology that divides people into two groups – the “oppressor” and the “oppressed.”  Those with whiter skin are always the oppressor; those with darker skin are always the oppressed in their warped ideology.  It doesn’t matter what the facts are or the historical context.  They derogatorily label Israelis as “colonizers” who stole the land from Palestinians, ignorant of or ignoring the fact that Jews preceded Arabs and have lived continuously in the land they allegedly “stole” since the time of Abraham.  Instead, the radical left pushes their narrative about imperialism and colonization as justification for Hamas’ depraved attacks.  Israel makes up only 8% of the Middle East and is surrounded by extremists who do not want to co-exist, but rather threaten the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.  Yet in the minds of our own extremists on America’s campuses, Israel “had it coming.”  As NYU Law Student Bar Association stated: “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life. This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary.”

Many of these will be the future lawyers, judges, politicians, educators, and corporate leaders of America. The venom they spew is the fruit of the poisonous propaganda they’ve been fed in our institutes of higher learning.  They rant about “justice” while justifying mass murder.  They claim “words are violence,” but condone actual violence.  They’re in favor of suppressing the free speech of those with whom they disagree, but are happy to take advantage of the freedom of speech to promote hatred.  They extol the ideas of diversity, open-mindedness, intellectualism, but exhibit none of them.  It shouldn’t surprise us that those who advocate for the slaughter of the unborn would also disregard the slaughter of Jewish babies.  Their moral compass points south; their darkened hearts do not differentiate between good and evil. (Romans 1)

The moral and intellectual rot coming from our universities and colleges is directly caused by the Marxist march through the institutions that has been occurring under our noses.  For decades Marxist revolutionaries have been hired to teach America’s college students.  It’s no wonder, then, that the current generation espouses Marxist ideology and denies objective truth.  Add to that, many of them have been raised in godless homes.  As C.S. Lewis wrote: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”  If/when our nation falls, I don’t think it will be from military conquest, but rather because we’ve failed to train up this generation “in the way that they should go.” (Proverbs 22:6)

John Daniel Davidson writing for the Federalist, states: “They are, like Islam itself, post-Christian, and their morality, like the morality of Hamas, is decidedly pagan. That means they do not believe in universal human rights or inherent human dignity. They do not believe in the Christian doctrine of imago Dei and the moral imperatives that flow from it. They do not believe in objective morality or truth. They reject the Christian precepts that constitute the basis for Western civilization.  These are the barbarians who reside beyond the gates of the Christian West. They believe only in power, and they will do whatever they can to gain it. …”

Another quote from C.S. Lewis reminds us: “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other than reason, because bad philosophy must be answered.”   We must be Truth-tellers to those who have fallen prey to falsehoods and godless ideology – that includes secular college students, Palestinians worshipping a false god, and Jews who have denied the Messiah. 

For each of them, their greatest need is Jesus.  Only in Him will they find peace.

 

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