A Question for Jewish College Students in America Who Side With Israel's Enemies

Douglas Altabef, Algemeiner

Image from article, with caption: Israeli Apartheid Week, which takes place on campuses across the world.

Here’s a question for those fearless Jewish college students, in groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, who have made common cause with Palestinian crusaders, given to the incessant chant of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.”

Do you know what you are chanting? Have you figured what it is actually between the river and the sea? And what happens when Palestine is free?

We live in a world where knowledge is being dumbed down immensely, and the lethal combination of unswerving commitment and unpenetrated ignorance, is running wild. So, it might not actually occur to the Jewish progressive youth of America that their taking up the banner for the afflicted Palestinians makes them complicit in the Final Solution.

Strong stuff? Yes, but the logic is unassailable. The Palestinian “river to the sea” mantra is not a call for equality, for a negotiated end to hostilities, for a two-state solution. This is not the cry of a Nelson Mandela or of a Martin Luther King. It is the cry of supersession, of banishment, and, if need be, of genocide.

The Palestinian Authority, like most of the Muslim countries surrounding Israel, have no interest in peace; their interest is in piece(s); specifically all of the pieces that constitute the current state of Israel.

So why aren’t we asking our Jewish youth who profess to be pro-Israel, though they have never uttered a pro-Israel position or sentiment: how do you handle that chant?

Here’s another one, the excuse for anything and everything: “It’s the occupation.”

Do our progressive Jewish youth know that the occupation includes all those hot night clubs in Tel Aviv they have read about? Do they know that “the occupation” is code for “the existence?” The existence of what? The existence of the state of Israel.

Frankly, I am sick of the effort to find the secret sauce to appeal to spoiled, entitled and morally bloated young Jews with the faint hope of getting them out of their perma-snit about Israel.

Here is the hasbara (public diplomacy) I favor: Let me ask you, young Ryan, Brett or Ashley, how does it feel to be finishing Hitler’s work? How does it feel to be dishonoring the memory of your ancestors by making common cause with those who would have been killing them if they had had the chance, and who will be killing your remaining distant relatives, if given the chance?

How is it that you are so certain in your conviction that Israel is evil that you are embracing those who seek its destruction? How does this fit into your moral universe?

It is high time we call the question, that we demand a reality check, that we hold those who, in their self-righteousness, seek to punish Israel, to be accountable for their own convictions.

Progressive American Jewish youth do not realize the fire that they are playing with. First there is the fire of the damage that they could cause to Israel, deliberately or otherwise. But the stronger fire is the one that might consume themselves, for in their ignorance Jewish progressive youth are empowering those who will happily destroy them.

Do these young people really think it all stops with the end of the “occupation?”