Did World War III Start on October 7, 2023?

On October 7, 2023, the moment several citizens from Gaza illegally entered the State of Israel, marked the precise second that WWIII began.

. . . And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did we get here?”

Ten to fifteen years ago I was one of a few professionals who volunteered to mentor a teenage girl who came from an abusive home. I’ll call her “Chana”.

The group of us were so proud of this brilliant young woman for every accomplishment she made, especially when she graduated from high school with honors and was accepted into the University of California at Berkeley. This was quite a feat for a foster child. 

As many of us know, foster kids, along with those who have been abused and or neglected as children have a higher likelihood of getting inducted into street gangs and cults.  Adolescents and young adults from these populations are easy marks, since they are desperate to feel loved, along with having a strong desire to belong. Cult and gang leaders know this and target these types of individuals.

A few short months after Chana started college, I noticed her changing. Looking back I now realize Chana was in the early stages of being radicalized by a manipulative cult.

It felt like overnight Chana began to spout out her newly found hatred for Israel and anyone connected to “Zionists”.  This is something she never did before. Prior to going to Berkeley, Chana had a connection to Judaism, which was being lost. 

The first few weeks at Berkeley, Chana was struggling to fit in. She felt different than other students due to her own socio-economic status.  Chana did not grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth. She grew up with parents who were both neglectful and abusive.

Chana became interested in International Studies as a teen. She always dreamt of a working in politics. Sadly the International studies program at Berkeley, appeared to have been turned into a recruiting ground for Hamas, instead of teaching students to critically think, they were just fed hate filled .propaganda.

Quickly Chana became a Palestinian sympathizer, which I understood, because at one time in my life I was too — until I spent time in Israel and saw the realities first hand. 

The group of professionals who were attempting to mentor Chana, were working as a team — trying to provide her with factual information regarding Israel and Hamas.  Chana automatically rejected this information, stating she believed her Muslim professor’s and stated here classmates knew better then us.  She believed the information we provided her was all “fake Zionist propaganda” and stopped listening to us.

It was around this time Chana became frustrated with me, and started distancing herself. Chana was an adult and I couldn’t force her to continue communicating with me, even though I wanted too. 

At the time I didn’t understand how and why Chana change her beliefs.  I wish I would have dug deeper, and realized she was being indoctrinated into a deadly cult — which was connected to Islamic jihadists. 

So many parents and professionals missed the clues that our universities were allowing our youth to be brainwashed and radicalized.  Many of us heard the views of our youth and just let it slide.

So many parents believed their children would outgrow this “phase” their children were going through, and eventually start thinking rationally.

Often when our young people get involved with cults, they are usually going through some sort of existential crisis in their lives, and are looking for answers.  Once an individual gets involved in a cult it is nearly impossible to get them to utilize their ability to critically think.

When I was in both college and graduate school I was taught the importance of thinking for myself, and that my opinion mattered. For at least the last ten to fifteen years our universities taught our children not to think and just believe the rhetoric they were being fed.  Because of this our children got deeper enmeshed with various hate filled cults. 

What’s happening today is reminiscent to the 1970s, when the Moonies (Unification Church) were trying to take over college campuses. The difference today is there have been no cult deprogrammers to call to deprogram university students from jihadist and or other dangerous, hate filled movements.    

American’s have been swept up by other movements such as MAGA Republicans, White Christian Nationalists, Proud Boys, Street Gangs, etc. 

The solution of breaking this cycle is for each and everyone of us to start using our abilities to critically think. 

Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write. The term critical comes from the Greek word kritikos meaning “able to judge or discern”.

Without looking deep inside ourselves to discover or rediscover what each of us as individual’s actually believe, we will continue to blindly follow the masses. 

If we don’t break this cycle of cult like thinking, World War III will destroy our planet. This war is really a battle of our minds. We need to think like individuals and value our ability to make decisions on our own. It’s important NOT to be enmeshed in what a political leader or party tells us what’s right or wrong.  We need to start paying attention to our inner voices. I personally believe it is the only way to stop WWIII

The old Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in the Wall” keeps playing in my head  

“We don’t need no education.

We don’t need no thought controL

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teacher, leave them kids alone