Your Official ‘Back-to-School’ Campus Counter-Protest Cheat Sheet

It’s back-to-school season. While you’re staggering through Target, embarrassing your sixth grader in front of his friends by threatening to buy him the puppy dog lunch box, many of our nation’s elite college students are returning to campus fresh from anti-Israel training camps funded by Iran. Last year’s shocking lack of consequences will almost certainly result in even more vile anti-Jewish activism in the fall.

So, as a public service, I have created the following cheat sheet you can use if you want to engage with teenaged Jew haters who are trying to impress their Marxist professors by bellowing out chants they barely understand. Print it out and take it with you to Harvard Yard, Butler Library, or wherever you find entitled brats who think killing Jews will solve all the world’s problems.

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Suggested “Getting acquainted script”

Hey nice keffiyeh! Wearing it means you think that LGBTQ people should be beheaded, women should submit to beatings from their husbands, and raping women is an acceptable form of protest. Good on ya.

What am I doing here? Good question. I wanted to check out the rich white kids who want me dead.

Warm up questions

Question: Do me a favor and point to where Israel is on this map of the world.

[Bonus points if they can show where they currently are standing.]

Map by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/map-of-the-world-5725589/ 

Question: How big would you say Israel is? About the size of Texas? New Jersey? Germany?

[Correct answer: New Jersey.]

Question: How many Israelis live in Israel?

[Correct answer: 9 million.]

[If they don’t have these basics down, politely suggest they reconsider protesting against a country they obviously know nothing about.]

About “Resisting the occupation”

You’re protesting the occupation? Maybe you don’t know this, but around the time you were born, Yasir Arafat was offered a deal for a Palestinian nation in the West Bank and Gaza. He said no and started a war that’s killed thousands of Jews and many of his own people. As for Gaza, Israel pulled out of there almost 20 years ago.

About “stolen land”

Yes, thousands of Arabs living in the area of the Palestine Mandate were displaced by a war in 1948 that Israel didn’t want and didn’t start. Neighboring Arab countries told a lot of these people to leave their homes so they could come in and commit genocide against the Jews. (This is not an accusation, but rather a documented historical fact.) They lost, and some of the Arabs who had lived in the Mandate became refugees. The Arab world has done precisely nothing to help them, instead using them as pawns in their own geopolitical game playing.

So, to summarize, their land was not stolen. They supported the losing side in a war that Israel did not start. If anyone should be held responsible for their suffering, it would be the Arab states that started the war. Arabs living in the Mandate of Palestine in 1948 had the choice to become Israeli citizens, and 2 million of them actually did. A similar offer was made to Arab residents of East Jerusalem in 1967, but almost all declined. However, if you take sides in a war, be prepared to deal with the consequences of that decision. That may include being pushed out of where you live. Indeed, tens of millions of people have had this experience in the last century, including Jews from Europe and the Middle East. Speaking of which, were you aware that Arab countries violently expelled 800,000 Jews in 1948, stealing their land in the process. What would you propose be done to compensate them for that act of theft?

Also, while we’re on the subject of allegedly stolen land, look at this photo of East Jerusalem taken about a hundred years ago. As you can see, the Arabs who claim that Jews stole their historical places of residence weren’t even there. As everyone but you knows, most of the people calling themselves Palestinians came to Palestine in the 1930s, after the Jews had started developing a real economy in the area. Before that, it was mostly a wasteland of malarial swamps.

Photo of East Jerusalem, facing west toward the Temple Mount, ca. 1915 (Source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/61/b7/0661b7cd00a7adc535a53337831c3b57.jpg)  

About “white colonizers”

[Warning. Trick question.] I get it. You’re opposed to Israel because it’s a white-ruled former British colony like Rhodesia, right?

[If they say yes] Sorry! As everyone but you knows, Palestine was never a British colony. It was a district in the Ottoman Empire. The British governed the area after World War I under a temporary League of Nations Mandate with the stated goal of achieving self-determination for the Jews and Arabs who lived there. In 1947, the United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into two countries, one Jewish, the other Arab. The Arabs said no, launched a genocidal war, and lost. But, thanks for playing today.

[If they know the real history, compliment on using at least part of their brain.]

But, back to your malarkey about white colonizers. The Jews have lived continuously in the land of Israel for 3,600 years, the first 2,400 of which occurred before Mohammad was even born. The Palestinians speak Arabic, the language of the Arab invaders who colonized the area in the 8^th century.

As for the “whiteness” of Israel, did you know that only 23% of Israelis are of European ancestry? The rest are Middle Eastern, North African, Ethiopian Jews, or Muslim and Christian Arabs.

Perhaps more importantly, let’s talk about you. The place where you are standing was violently stolen from native Americans three centuries ago. If you want to see a white colonizer, I happen to have a mirror handy right here.

About “genocide”

Genocide seems to be your biggest gripe, am I right? Can you please define genocide for me?

[If they can’t explain that genocide involves the deliberate killing of an entire people, suggest they get a dictionary before they start marching around with flags containing lies.]

But anyway, you’re accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people? Uh huh, you mean the “genocide” that has turned an original population of 500,000 in 1948 to over 5,000,000 today? That’s some “genocide.”

But, if genocide troubles you, perhaps read the Hamas charter, which explicitly calls for the killing of every Jew in Israel. That would be actual genocide, if it were to occur.

About “the famine”

You’re troubled by the mass starvation taking place in Gaza? If so, can you explain why we see all these videos of fat people on the beach in Gaza? Are they starving?

Did you know that the photos that purport to show starving Gazan kids were actually taken in Syria, an Arab country whose leaders have killed 400,000 fellow Muslims? Funny that you’re not protesting against those war crimes.

Were you aware that Israel has sent thousands of tons of food into Gaza? Some of it has been stolen by Hamas and sold to Gazans.

And, why is that everyone expects Israel to feed its enemies? Would you make a similar demand on any other country that was under attack? If not, why not?

About the death toll

You’re upset about the death toll in Gaza? Yeah, wars are bad. Maybe don’t start one. But, a coupla things you need to know about the death toll:

• No one knows how many people have been killed. Even the UN has retracted its estimates.
• The death figures come from Hamas, which has a long history of lying. Yes, I know, the New York Times says, “According to Hamas, 38,000 people have been killed.” Well, according to me, I used to play in the NBA, but do you believe me? Not sure why the Times thinks it can get away with such sloppiness, but it’s useful to call it when you see it.
• As for “civilian deaths,” anyone over the age of 10 in Gaza cannot be assumed to be an innocent civilian. As the hostage rescues have shown, everyday Gazan families have been actively participating in the war. They’re combatants.
• Hamas deliberately puts civilians in harm’s way while they hide in underground tunnels they built with money and concrete they stole from the EU.
• Hamas could have avoided all of these deaths by a) not starting a war and b) returning the hostages they took. Hostage taking is a war crime, if you didn’t know.
• It’s impossible to know how many of the dead were either Hamas fighters or their active supporters, so the civilian death toll may actually turn out to be extremely low for an urban war like this.

About “apartheid”

You seem to have a big beef about the alleged apartheid going on in Israel. Can you do me a favor and define apartheid for me?

[Apartheid is a system of laws that establishes official discrimination and loss of legal equality for a specific group of people in a country, e.g., Black South Africans prior to 1994.]

[If they get it wrong, perhaps suggest stop using lies to justify acts of antisemitic intimidation.]

Just so you know, Israel is not an apartheid state. Its citizens all have the same rights and freedoms. But, don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Mosiuoa Lekota, one of the leaders  of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He said, “In Israel, you won’t find… segregated buses for different ethnic groups, like Jews and Arabs. In Israel, everyone boards the same bus, travels wherever they need to, and disembarks as they wish. There is no apartheid in Israel, not even within their schools.”

If Israel were an apartheid state, how is it that it has Arab and Muslim members of parliament, Supreme Court Justices, military officers, doctors, lawyers, mayors, and ambassadors?

However, if apartheid bothers you, take a minute to think about Yasir Arafat’s “generous” offer to allow Jews to live as “dhimmies,” or second-class citizens in his single Palestinian state. That’s real apartheid. 

About the “indigenous” Palestinian people

Help me here. When was the first time that the Arab residents of the Israel/Palestine are referred to themselves as “Palestinians”?  977 AD, 1422, 1848, 1948, 1964?

The correct answer is 1964, just 60 years ago, right when Kamala Harris was born. But, I know you believe that the Palestinians are an ancient, indigenous people to the area. If that is so, can you name any of the great Palestinian kings of the past? Can you cite even one reference to the Palestinian people prior to 1964? Spoiler alert—you can’t. What is the indigenous language of the Palestinians. Oh, right, it’s Arabic, the language of the Arab invaders who colonized the area in the 8^th century.

And, by the way, if Palestinians are indigenous to the area, why did the Romans call the place Judea, the land of the Jews centuries prior to the birth of Mohamed? Asking for a friend.

And, you know, the Koran mentions Jerusalem/Al Quds a total of zero times. So, it’s obviously super important to Muslims. Not like the Tanakh, which mentions Jerusalem over 800 times.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. Enjoy your protesting. Your commitment to this “great cause” is admirable.