On Wednesday the 25^th of October, a group of students walked out of classes at Washington University in St. Louis to protest Israel’s response to the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas. The students claim that Israel is currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s calls to evacuate the area are tantamount to ethnic cleansing. The protestors demanded that the WashU administration capitulate to three demands: That the university condemn the Israel counteroffensive, they rebuke pro-Israel statements made by two faculty members, and WashU sever ties with Boeing, a company which supplies the Israeli armed forces.

The students who participated in this protest no doubt think of themselves as champions of the beleaguered. They imagine that they are on the right side of history and that by standing up to the evil colonialist power that is Israel, they will be remembered for their righteousness. Unfortunately for these misguided children, these beliefs are an inversion of the truth. While the Palestinian people cannot be blamed for the brutal attacks that took place on October 7^th, they are certainly supportive of the destruction of the only Jewish state in existence. The students of WashU walked out of class on the side of anti-Semitism, and there is no way to dispute that fact.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. In their founding charter it explicitly states that they wish for the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. While the supporters of Palestine are quick to point out that Palestinians and Hamas are not interchangeable entities, it is worth mentioning that a survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in 2021 showed that 53% of Palestinians believed that Hamas was the best representation of Palestinian beliefs. Supporters of Palestine cannot full-throatedly condemn Hamas as the brutal relic of 15^th-century barbarism that it is because the Palestinians themselves support Hamas. Instead, demonstrators are more likely to say that the situation is complicated. That the history of the region is one of conquest and apartheid. That Palestinians are justified in their actions as a response to the oppressive conditions implemented by the Israeli regime.

This moral relativism not only displays an ignorance of history but is also immoral. There are no two sides to the last three weeks of fighting. Hamas perpetrated an act of terrorism against Israel that should not be downplayed. 1,300 Jews were killed. -- the largest mass killing against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas shot teenagers attending an EDM dance for peace. They draped people with tires which they lit on fire. They cut the heads off babies, raped women, and kidnapped 200 people to execute and torture at their leisure. Hamas filmed their crimes on the cell phones of the victims and sent the videos of their murders to parents, spouses, and children. There is no rationale that explains away this kind of evil.

When Israel storms the city, civilians in Gaza will undoubtedly be killed in the process. Collateral damage of this kind is an unfortunate byproduct of every armed encounter. The difference between Israel and Hamas is that Israel will go out of its way to ensure that unintended casualties are minimized, while Hamas will attempt to maximize them. Hamas routinely targets Jewish noncombatants, and it will be Hamas that is responsible for most civilians killed in Gaza as well. Hamas builds its missile sites on top of schools and apartment buildings, using Palestinians as cannon fodder against Israeli retaliation. Hamas commits war crimes in the open, knowing that the media and useful idiots on college campuses around the world will jump to their defense when their human shields are killed.

Israel unilaterally left Gaza to the control of the Palestinians in 2005. Since that time, instead of building their own Palestinian state, Hamas has used Gaza as a launching ground for thousands of terrorist attacks. The humanitarian aid supplied by the West does not go to providing better healthcare, food, or water for the Palestinians. The money goes to building miles of tunnels under the border to Israel so that Hamas fanatics can sneak into the country to kill and kidnap Jews. The Palestinians have been offered all of Gaza, 94% of the West Bank, and half of Jerusalem to use as their capital, and rejected the deal on five separate occasions. There is no two-state solution when one of the states is not interested in peace or governance, but only in driving the Jews out of the land from the river to the sea. 

Image: Washington Univ.