It’s not much fun being a Jewish student on many campuses today. Pro-Hamas students, who want the only Jewish state to disappear and be replaced by a twenty-third Arab State, may snatch away your Israeli flag and spit on it. They may surround you, preventing you from walking away as they scream “Shame, Shame, Shame” or “apartheid” or “genocide.” They may punch you in the face. They may send you menacing emails threatening to “kill all the Jews.” They may punch you so hard that they break your nose. They may hit you with a stick if you dare to object to their ripping down posters of Israeli hostages. More on this unbelievable state of affairs can be found here: “University of Massachusetts Student Arrested for Allegedly Punching Jewish Student, Spitting on Israeli Flag,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, November 6, 2023:
A University of Massachusetts-Amherst student has been arrested for allegedly punching a Jewish student who was carrying an Israeli flag during a gathering held to call for the release of the over 240 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7 and taken to Gaza.
After the alleged punch, the assailant snatched the Israeli flag held by the Jewish student and spat on it, according to details of the incident reported by the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, the campus newspaper for UMass-Amherst….
“Toward the end of the event [which was sponsored by Hillel], a student approached the gathering and walked through the crowd, aggressively giving people the middle finger,” the statement read. “After the event had concluded and event security had left, the same student returned to the site of the event and punched a Jewish student holding an Israeli flag, then took the flag and spit on it.”
UMass staff witnessed the incident, according to the school’s Hillel, which noted that a police report was filed and that UMass police arrested the individual….
The perpetrator was later released on bail, “with conditions prohibiting them from returning to campus,” according to a statement put out on Monday by university officials, who said the student will be subject to the legal consequences of their actions….
Let us hope that once the university is done with this student, by permanently expelling him, the local DA will step in and charge this now ex-student with battery, which was also clearly a “hate crime,” committed against a Jewish student precisely because he was Jewish.
Last month, for example, an Israeli student at Columbia University was beaten with a stick by another student who had been ripping off flyers with names and photos of Israelis that Hamas had taken as hostages.
What happened to the student who beat the Israeli with a stick? Has Columbia done the right thing and expelled that student, or is it going to submit to the pressure of its antisemitic faculty — one hundred of whom just signed a letter condemning Israel for defending itself — and let the student off with a warning? Whether Columbia does the right thing or not, the Manhattan DA has the ability, and the obligation, to press criminal charges against this student, as in a similar case at UMass/Amherst, for battery.
Two weeks later, a melee ensued at Tulane University in New Orleans in which an anti-Israel activist broke a Jewish student’s nose.
In the Tulane case, the two aggressors were not students but were in a truck that was driven by the pro-Israel demonstrators when they stopped, got out, and started attacking the Jewish students. One of those students was set upon by two pro-Hamas demonstrators, one of whom rained punches on his head and body while the other struck him over the head with a megaphone, breaking his nose.
One hopes, and expects, that both malefactors will be charged by the DA with aggravated battery, given the severity of the injury.
Intimidation and death threats have increased as well. At Harvard University, a mob — some clad in Palestinian keffiyeh scarves — jostled and harassed a Jewish student as he walked across the campus. Among the mob was Ibrahim Bharmal, the editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review — a publication whose past editors include former US President Barack Obama.
You can see here the pro-Hamas students surrounding a Jewish student and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him as he tries to break free. Harvard has not yet done anything to discipline those students, much less expel any of them. One expects little from President Gay, who was so belated and Laodicean in her condemnation of the October 7 massacre. And what will local law enforcement do about this angry mob of students who prevented the Jewish student from leaving? Anything? Nothing?
At Cornell University, someone threatened on a social media forum to commit acts of murder, rape, and mass shooting against Jewish students and a kosher dining ball on campus. Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old engineering student at Cornell, was arrested on a federal complaint for allegedly making the threats. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine….
Patrick Dai has now been expelled from Cornell and faces several years in prison. That’s the right result. Those students who are tempted to make murderous threats against Jews on campus will no doubt be reconsidering.
Pro-Israel groups, and pro-Israel donors who lately have been withholding donations to schools they deem insufficient in their lukewarm condemnations of Hamas’ brutality, can keep the pressure on colleges to expel students who engage in antisemitic behavior. And whatever the colleges do or fail to, the local DAs should do their job, and unhesitatingly prosecute antisemitic behavior wherever it appears. Even at Harvard, Columbia, Tulane, Cornell, and now, UMass/Amherst.