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UNC Encampments and Demonstrations
A perspective from Amy Rosenthal
Student demonstrations are not all created equal. Despite your comparison to anti-war activities during Vietnam or protests against South African apartheid, the recent student encampment activities are not noble. They glorify terrorism and call for more. They have nothing to do with justice.
Please remember that on October 7th, 2023, the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas— with their Gazan accomplices— invaded Israel on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. They broke into homes, cut babies out of pregnant women, gang-raped women, shot nails into their often broken pelvises, beheaded babies, kidnapped Holocaust survivors, cut off breasts and threw them around laughing. They tied up children and burned them alive in front of their parents. They called family members, bragging about how many Jews they killed. They dragged kidnap victims through the streets while Gazans spit on them, they cut the Achilles tendon of victims so they couldn’t run.
Sadly, many of the students demonstrating on campus have no idea what they are standing for. Do they favor the brutality described above? Do they understand that terrorist organizations like Hamas and Al-Queda are applauding them? That the Ayatollah of Iran is one of their biggest fans?
The students on campus don’t remember 9/11. They clearly don’t know anything about the history of Israel or the Middle East in general. If you ask them where “Palestine” is, you will get blank looks or different answers. Why? Because such a place does not exist. The word is used to erase Israel. The Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels understood that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. So it is with “Palestine.”
Anti-Israel propaganda is standard fare for UNC faculty. In 2021, the last time Hamas attacked Israel, 110 UNC faculty signed a document siding with the terrorists. The encampment movement is deeply antisemitic, dehumanizing Jews and de-legitimizing Israel.
If the student encampments demonstrate anything, it’s hypocrisy. They can’t be bothered to demonstrate against the wars in Syria, Yemen or Russia/Ukraine, or on behalf of women’s rights in Iran for example. They show no compassion for the Israeli hostages held in deplorable conditions by their Hamas heroes.
The student demonstrations and encampments for Hamas reflect poorly on UNC’s attempt at education. These students show a lack of decency, judgement and morality, in addition to outright Jew hatred. Why would NC taxpayers want to fund the university? Why would employers hire ignorant antisemitic UNC graduates?
I appreciate that you interviewed Lee Roberts in an effort to speak to both sides. Nevertheless, he is speaking from a perspective in support of security rather than the substance of the demonstrators. He is trying to run the university for all, not any select group.
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