A Palestinian’s brutal murder in Gaza will prompt no campus protests in America. Why? Because Hamas committed the murder. America’s pro-Hamas heroes will, therefore, ignore it because it doesn’t fit their anti-Israel agenda.
Though you would not know from the establishment media’s comparative lack of coverage, there have been recent anti-Hamas protests by Palestinians in Gaza. Of course, despite exemplifying resistance to oppressive rule and repressive force, these do not fit the one-sided narrative on the situation there.
Among the unreported heroes of this true Palestinian resistance was Oday Nasser Al Rabay. He was just 22 years old, roughly the same age as those who populate the so-called pro-Palestinian protests on America’s elite college campuses.
Al Rabay’s offense was attending one of the growing numbers of an anti-Hamas rallies in Gaza. For it, he was tortured for four hours, beaten to death, and then, with a rope around his body’s neck, his corpse was dragged back to the door of his family’s house. Said an officer of Gaza’s opposition Fatah party; his family was told, “This is the punishment for those who complain about Hamas.”
There are stark contrasts between this sickening event in Gaza and what will be a nonevent on America’s elite college campuses.
Dozens attended Al Rabay’s funeral. They shouted, “Hamas out!” Don’t expect similar protests on elite college campuses like Columbia or Harvard (where the administration is reviewing billions in federal funding over anti-Semitism claims). America will do the same. In Gaza, Hamas is losing support, just as it is losing the war it brought on Gaza with its terrorism. On America’s elite college campuses, support for Hamas is seemingly as strong as ever. There, Hamas tortures a young man to death to intimidate others, not to oppose its oppression. Here, protestors tear up their college diplomas in a courage-less, costless display. There, a real martyr died; here, protestors fight the extradition of anti-Semites that they would make into martyrs.
America should force itself to look at the death of this young Palestinian man at the bloody hands of Hamas; it should also reexamine what it sees all too often on its elite college campuses.
America should see Hamas for what it is, what it was, and what it ever will be: Terrorists.
Hamas subjects to terror all unfortunate enough to come into contact with it—Palestinians, Israelis, Al Rabay. For now, approaching two years, it still holds Israeli hostages. It parades the bodies of dead hostages. It embeds its terrorists among Palestinian civilians. In indiscriminate terrorist attacks, it fires homemade rockets into Israel, rockets that often fall equally indiscriminately among Palestinians. It is willing to fight to the last Palestinian in hopes of killing another Israeli.
America should see the anti-Israeli protests on elite college campuses for what they are. Naked anti-Semitism. To call these protestors who will ignore Al Rabay’s death “hypocrites” is too generous. They are ideologues of the Left. Warped by an ideology of hate, they ignore what doesn’t fit their framework of oppression. They do because they are not opposed to oppression; they are only opposed to those they deem to be oppressors. Suppose the action does not come from those they deem oppressors. In that case, it is not oppression—despite it being perpetrated against the same group (a Palestinian man) under horrific circumstances (torture).
It is also worth noting who else will remain silent in America. Where are the Democrats who so quickly seek microphones and cameras against Israel? Where is the establishment media’s coverage?
This sickening episode should also be illustrative for America.
Why do we listen to our Left anymore? About anything? Our Left uses people and causes the way Hamas uses its captive Palestinians. All are no more than human shields—pawns to be expended on the chessboard.
Among our Left, there is no sense of justice—or even basic right and wrong. There are not even causes. They only desire to obtain power by whatever means and for whatever ends they see fit.
Among our Left, there is no depth or morality. Yet all are justified in their minds—that includes the way they treated Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, the way they are still treating their hostages, and the way they are increasingly treating Gazans—including Al Rabay.
The Left’s are lies told in such succession that we ignore them, that the untruths wash over us until they are tacitly accepted. We now talk of Hamas, hostages as though this was somehow normal, instead of what it once was: the lowest of low, the personification of cowardice. And we allow the hostage takers, Hamas terrorists, to be somehow exalted into freedom fighters—the very opposite of what they are.
So, observe carefully the nonevents on America’s elite college campuses. Watch closely what does not transpire. Let their silence sing out in a sycophantic symphony of soulless hypocrisy—a more eloquent dirge to Al Rabay than all their meaningless words.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.