Zombies on Campus – How to Shift Flawed Ideas to Informed Views!

There have always been people who believed in far-fetched ideas: UFO’s, conspiracy theories, and other such quackery, but they have usually been limited to the margins of society. Yet it appears that madness is all around us with apparently ordinary people exhibiting increasingly extreme opinions and progressively bolder personal biases.

We all have passions reflecting our personal background and commitments, whether driven by one’s religion, gender, skin color, or political affiliation, and we follow stories that are in sync with our affinities. But in listening to people today, I often ask myself if we’re inhabiting the same world?

Seeing militant, often violent students demonstrating on college campuses today feels disorienting; as if the world has gone mad! People who protested George Floyd’s murder by overly aggressive policemen, seem to be ignoring the brutality of Hamas whose barbaric madmen murdered 1,400 Israeli civilians, decapitated babies, kidnaped children, women and the elderly, raped girls and paraded them through Gaza as trophies. Why are they willing to overlook Hamas’ brutal killing of young people celebrating at music festival? Or burning entire families, ripping fetuses out of mothers’ wombs and then celebrating by riding through the Gaza streets with bodies strapped to their vehicles, while supporters flash them ‘high-fives’. Where have we seen such depraved images other than in horror films, too gruesome to be realistic?

Hamas’ actions are appalling, a reality beyond our comprehension. Yet, on some college campuses at top universities such as Cornell, Harvard and Yale, students who are the cream of our society are rioting in protest against Israel! They shout: “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!” most of them ignorant of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and the horrific role Hamas has played in stoking unwarranted violence in the region. Without realizing it, their chants assign seven million Israeli Jews to annihilation and death, continuing the violence that was perpetrated on ordinary civilians celebrating a quiet Sabbath in their homes near Gaza on October 7^th.

Mobs of raucous and violent students have attacked Jews on these campuses, where security has had to lock the Jewish students in the library for their own protection. Some Pro-Palestinian students have threatened to kill any Jews they see on campus. Chapters of Women for Palestine are becoming more outspoken while their members remain ignorant of the fact that Palestinians still treat their female citizens as second-class citizens. LGBTQ student clubs are supporting Palestine, unaware that Palestinians refuse to acknowledge the rights of the LGBTQ at best, or murder them at will. These same students continuously ignore Iran’s attacks on their own female population, Syria’s exiling of over 10 million refugees and other atrocities committed in countries around the world. In short, we see a double standard regarding violent behavior towards Israel and behaviors that are ignored in other countries.

True, this madness is not exclusive to anti-Semitic expressions. Critical race theory created a new jargon where African Americans protest against their fellow colleagues, accusing them of being privileged whites.

Some suggest that the source of this double standard among the younger generation is a profound distrust of politics and media, exposing falsehood as the bullhorn of big business. They point to the Iraq War as the outcome of the government’s lies, which dragged the world into an unnecessary conflict, whose consequences still reverberate around us. Others point to a new age of journalism that trades facts for sensationalism, juicy stories, and personal agendas. Others highlight social media platforms as a venue for every madman wanting to create a following—a pandemic of Twitter Poisoning, bringing us deeper into never-never land.

One may wonder how colleges can allow such behavior on their campus. If you follow the money you will begin to see a link between the billions of dollars gifted to these colleges by Arab countries ($8.5 Billion, with Cornell alone getting $1.5 Billion), and it’s easier to understand.

Many wish to distance themselves from this appalling behavior, but the problem is not going away, especially as corrupt politicians, college faculty and foreign adversaries who want to bring chaos to western society, inflame the media and take advantage of our young people’s naïveté.

Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist, and founder of the Origins of Web media is no longer a fan of how our digital utopia is progressing. He warns about the dangers of web ideologies that could lead to “social catastrophe”: “People survive by passing information between themselves. We’re putting that fundamental quality of humanness through a process with an inherent incentive for corruption and degradation. The fundamental drama of this period is whether we can figure out how to survive properly with those elements.”

We have a problem that is growing larger by the year, and the question is what to do next. Lanier predicted that every good-will organization will fall prey to the hands of evil; Black Lives Matter is a perfect example. While it started out for a good cause, it’s been taken over by Antifa manipulators. A compounding factor is the media, which has diverted the message by reporting distorted facts.

So, what can be done? Ignoring the problem is not the solution as it’s grown larger each year. Many people have come out against the academic institutions responsible for these rioting students. University donors have threatened to withhold funding, and some celebrities have warned parents against sending their kids to colleges that allow such riots. Just this week, Republican Senator Tim Scott proposed the ‘Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses’ legislation, which would withdraw funding for colleges that peddle antisemitic acts. The Supreme Court has ruled that universities are responsible for all activity that takes place within their campuses, which may bolster the lawsuits brought by Jewish students’ against these institutions, eventually impacting their funding.

All these steps may help but I doubt they will eradicate the problem that hides in plain sight. ‘Woke’ movements of so-called ‘progressives’ challenge norms and moral behavior. In Congress, the ‘squad’ members have harassed Jews for years and comfortably justify Hamas’ actions. Just today 23 Republicans refused to sign on a petition to sanction Rashida Tlaib in congress. Incitement is celebrated each Friday and Sunday in houses of prayer, and the media broadcasts imaginary tales of Jewish conspiracy, modern time blood libels, spreading like wildfire on worldwide web pages.

The responsibility for change is in our hands—the silent majority of Americans!

If we don’t stand united against these activities and condemn their perpetrators, casting them out to the fringes of society where they belong, we will be complicit in the calamity facing our country. Our dilemma is no different from the Germans who allowed their society to be hijacked by madmen, and so Americans must stand against the barbaric viewpoint infesting our college students, led by fanatic ideologs at the fringes of our society.

The situation is reckless and dire – what we do now is in our hands!