The Revolution Is Local. It Waves a Foreign Flag.

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On February 20, 1939, more than 20,000 Americans packed Madison Square Garden beneath enormous swastikas, American flags and a portrait of George Washington. The German American Bund called its rally “Free America,” while its leader, Fritz Kuhn (1896–1951), promoted Nazi ideology, denounced Jewish influence and envisioned a radically different American society.

The crowd looked admiringly toward Hitler’s Germany, but its ambitions were directed toward America.

A large crowd gathered in an arena for a formal event, with a stage at the front featuring a prominent figure and decorative banners.
Crowd at Madison Square Garden allied with Nazi Germany, February 1939

On October 17, 2026, France erupted in demonstrations over living costs, public services and economic inequality. Rioters burned vehicles, looted businesses and attacked public buildings. In Paris, protesters climbed the monument to Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, and raised the French tricolor alongside a Palestinian flag.

The grievances were French. The revolutionary symbolism was international.

A person holding a Palestinian flag while walking through a foggy protest scene.
Crowd of protesters holding Palestinian flags and other banners, gathered near a monument with 'FREE PALESTINE' graffitied on it.

A Palestinian flag at a demonstration about Gaza represents a foreign cause. At a demonstration about French economic policy, it suggests something more: a foreign struggle adopted as a symbol of domestic upheaval.

Across different eras and ideologies, foreign struggles have supplied the symbols for movements seeking to remake their own countries.

A Generation Looking for a Different Future

Revolutionary politics becomes attractive when people lose faith in their institutions and their prospects for a better life.

The Great Depression shattered economic security for millions of Americans. The German American Bund exploited the resulting insecurity, offering national renewal, authoritarian certainty and enemies to blame for the country’s troubles.

Nearly a century later, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign mobilized younger Americans disillusioned with an establishment they believed protected wealthy donors and political insiders. Revelations about Democratic National Committee favoritism toward Hillary Clinton reinforced those suspicions, while subsequent political upheaval deepened distrust of established leadership.

COVID disrupted education and livelihoods, inflation and housing costs eroded economic opportunity, and artificial intelligence raised fears about the future of employment. The concealment of Biden’s decline and Harris’s selection without a new nationwide primary reinforced perceptions of political decisions controlled by insiders. Harvard’s 2026 Youth Poll found that only 15% of young Americans trusted the federal government.

For people who believe established institutions protect the wealthy and powerful while their own opportunities diminish, promises to redistribute wealth, ownership and political authority become increasingly attractive. That dissatisfaction is producing electoral victories.

The Revolution Enters City Hall

The Democratic Socialists of America have translated economic frustration into electoral power, most visibly through Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 election as mayor of New York City.

A group of diverse protesters holding red signs and a banner that reads 'NEW YORK CITY DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS' during a rally advocating for socialism and against fascism.

Celebrating his victory, the DSA described a defeat for billionaires, corporations and the Democratic Party establishment. Its agenda connected housing, public transportation, childcare, policing and for some bizarre non-local reason, “Palestinian liberation,” within a campaign for what the organization explicitly called a “political revolution.”

The DSA advocates public ownership of major industries, higher taxes on wealth, stronger tenant protections and a larger government role in housing and essential services. These proposals would change who owns economic resources, who makes investment decisions and how much authority government exercises over everyday life.

The movement also reaches younger Americans through influential online broadcasters. Hasan Piker, one of the most prominent socialist commentators on the internet, combines criticism of American capitalism with outspoken support for Palestinian Arab violence. He promoted Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign, hosted him on his livestream and appeared at campaign events. In April 2026, Piker extended his electoral involvement to Michigan, campaigning alongside Abdul El-Sayed in his U.S. Senate race.

Four men posing together with smiles at an event, with a microphone held by one of them, brightly lit stage in the background.
Anti-Israel influencers of the alt-left Mehdi Hasan, Hasan Piker and Jamaal Bowman celebrate Zohran Mandani’s victory for NYC mayor in November 2025

The revolution has an economic program, a political organization, influential broadcasters and elected officials. It also has a flag.

Why Palestine Became the Revolutionary Symbol

Palestine offers a ready-made narrative for movements organized around the struggle between privilege and liberation. The popular revolutionary image casts wealthy, technologically advanced, Western-backed White Israelis against poorer, brown Palestinians fighting dispossession. That imagery translates readily into American arguments about racial inequality, colonialism, policing and economic power.

The narrative fictionalizes history and present. Jews are indigenous to Israel, and its “white” Ashkenazi population is less than one-third of the Israeli population. But Israel’s prosperity makes the image of privileged rulers and dispossessed subjects politically compelling.

Pie chart illustrating the demographic composition of Israel, showing percentages of different ethnic groups: Arabs (21.1%), Mizrahi Jews (33.2%), Ashkenazi Jews (32.7%), Mixed Jews (5.8%), Black Jews (2.2%), and Others (5.0%).

Representative Rashida Tlaib and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner made the domestic connection explicit in their 2024 essay Black Liberation and Palestinian Liberation Are Interconnected, linking Detroit, Cleveland and Gaza through a common struggle against injustice. Others have done the same like CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill back in 2015.

The anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime has combined “Globalize the Intifada” with slogans including “Land Back,” “Kill Capitalism” and “Defund the Police.” The vocabulary connects Palestinian nationalism with American disputes over property, policing and political authority.

On October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas massacred Israeli civilians, demonstrators gathered beneath Palestinian flags in Times Square. A speaker mocked the victims of the Nova music festival, while protesters chanted slogans including “Resistance is justified” and “Globalize the intifada.”

The latter slogan called for extending a Palestinian Arab slaughter beyond its original geography, invoking a violent history which included suicide bombings and attacks on civilians.

Across Western democracies, Palestine has become more than a foreign policy cause for many revolutionary activists. It offers a common identity for movements seeking substantial changes to established economic and political institutions.

Canary Mission video on the socialist-jihadi alliance coming for the United States

The Old Accusation Returns

Every revolutionary narrative needs an explanation for why some people possess wealth and power while others struggle. When that explanation turns into a search for a privileged group supposedly responsible for everyone else’s suffering, an ancient accusation becomes available: Jews control the system.

The German American Bund accused Jews of exercising illegitimate influence over American finance, politics and public opinion. Father Charles Coughlin (1891–1979) brought similar conspiracies into millions of American homes through radio, presenting Jewish power as an explanation for the economic suffering of ordinary Americans.

The accusation survives across otherwise opposing political camps. On the far right, Nick Fuentes promotes conspiracies about Jewish control of American institutions. In entertainment, Ye has accused Jewish executives of controlling and exploiting Black performers. In a different context, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten described American Jews in 2021 as part of the “ownership class,” arguing that Jews were keeping minorities down.

The danger intensifies when the language of liberation is used to excuse violence against people assigned to the category of oppressor.

Protesters march on a city street holding a large banner that depicts a masked figure with the word 'Revolution' written on it, alongside Palestinian flags and other protest signs.
“No Kings Rally and March” in Chicago on June 14, 2025 featured Palestinian flags and call for “Revolution” (Photo by The TRiiBE)

Following October 7, Cornell professor Russell Rickford described Hamas’s breach of the Gaza barrier as “exhilarating.” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation about riots on the morning of the massacre and later expressed happiness that Palestinians had broken through the barrier.

Quote from Martin Luther King Jr. stating 'A riot is the language of the unheard,' alongside a profile image of King.

The consequences of importing a foreign conflict into American life became terrifyingly tangible in March 2026, when an attacker drove a vehicle carrying incendiary materials into Temple Israel in suburban Detroit while children and adults were inside. Abdul El-Sayed, then campaigning for the United States Senate, condemned the attack but also discussed the attacker’s family losses in Lebanon, explaining that “hurt people hurt people.”

Abdul El-Sayed speaking with a microphone at an event, discussing the impact of trauma and violence.

The attacker brought a foreign war to an American synagogue. The political explanation brought the grievances of that war into the response. The victims were Americans, including children gathered in a place of worship who had nothing to do with a war thousands of miles away, yet the socialist-revolutionary lens pivoted longingly to the attacker.

The Stakes Extend Beyond Jews

The German American Bund’s vision in 1939 threatened far more than America’s Jews. Its members admired an authoritarian foreign power and sought to transform the political and social character of their own country.

Today’s movements pursue different visions through different means, including democratic elections. Their ambitions to change ownership, wealth distribution, policing, education and government authority will shape the lives of Americans far beyond those attending demonstrations.

“there’s plenty of money in the world… it’s just in the wrong hands” – NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio address in 2019

Jews have particular reason to recognize the danger when political movements portray them as privileged beneficiaries of an unjust system. History has shown how readily that accusation becomes collective blame. But the consequences of sweeping transformations of political and economic power extend far beyond the Jewish community. Jews will suffer twice – first as Jews and then as Americans – regardless of whether they refer to themselves as American Jews or Jewish Americans.

The revolution is local. It waves a foreign flag. And the country it seeks to remake is our own.

Judaism Is an Ancient Folk Religion

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Understanding Judaism as the ancestral religion of a people changes the entire debate over Zionism, indigeneity and colonialism.

Everyone wants to define antisemitism and Zionism. Jewish organizations, politicians and academics spend enormous energy debating these terms, convinced that better definitions will produce greater understanding.

Yet they overlook a more fundamental question: What is Judaism?

The conventional answer, that Judaism is one of the world’s three great monotheistic religions, is technically correct but profoundly misleading.

Christianity and Islam are universal religions, with messages directed toward humanity and traditions of bringing the world into their faiths. Their religious communities transcend ancestry and geography, helping explain why each has spread across continents and attracted more than two billion adherents.

Judaism, meanwhile, has approximately 15 million people after more than three thousand years. It has survived empires, expulsions, massacres, forced conversions and genocide, yet remains extraordinarily small.

The three religions are grouped together because of their historical and theological connections. Jesus was Jewish, forever connecting Christianity to the Jewish people. Islam incorporates Abraham, Moses and other biblical figures into its tradition. Both transformed elements of Judaism’s religious inheritance into universal faiths. The historical irony is that the world subsequently began interpreting Judaism through the framework of its successors, making the original religion appear to be the peculiar exception.

Jewish religious leaders often explain the difference by describing Judaism as a particularist rather than universalist form of monotheism. Jews have a special covenant with God, while humanity can live righteously without becoming Jewish. Judaism generally does not seek converts.

But particularism merely modifies the conventional classification. There is a more fundamental distinction: Judaism is an ancient tribal folk religion, or more precisely, an indigenous ethnoreligious tradition.

Jonah is thrown Overboard by Fishermen, by Dirck Barendsz (1534-1592). The people on the boat were much like Jonah, each praying to their respective deity.

Consider the Yazidis, a small ethnoreligious community whose ancestral homeland lies in northern Mesopotamia and whose sacred sanctuary at Lalish remains central to their identity despite centuries of persecution. Or the roughly one million Māori of New Zealand, whose understanding of ancestry, tribal identity and sacred geography binds people to the land of their forebears. The world readily recognizes that these peoples’ relationships with their ancestral lands are embedded in their identities.

Judaism belongs in this same family of land-rooted traditions.

The Torah itself reveals the difference. It begins with the creation of humanity but quickly narrows to the story of one family, its descendants, its covenant, its laws and its promised land. Genesis traces a family. Exodus describes the formation of a nation. Numbers organizes that nation into tribes. Deuteronomy prepares it to reenter its ancestral homeland.

The Torah is sacred scripture, but it is also the founding history and constitution of a people. Jews call themselves Am Yisrael, the People of Israel, carrying the name given to Jacob, ancestor of the twelve tribes, thousands of years before the establishment of the modern state.

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs is over 3,000 years old, located in Hebron. It is the only burial site of any religion to have six of its founders at a single location, mostly because they are of a single family. The other founding mother, Rachel, is buried roughly 14 miles away in Bethlehem.

Even conversion reflects this understanding. A person converting to Judaism joins the Jewish people, assuming the obligations and identity of the community. Ruth’s famous declaration captures the union: “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” The people come first in the sentence.

Most revealing is how thoroughly Judaism is rooted in the physical land of Israel.

Jewish law governs the cultivation, harvesting and distribution of produce grown there. The sabbatical year requires the land itself to rest, shmita. The Temple in Jerusalem was the center of national worship. And the Torah commands Jewish males to appear before God at the designated sanctuary three times annually, for Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot.

Sign in field in Israel – “here we observe shmita (resting the field every seventh year” (photo: First One Through)

Consider the extraordinary geographic assumption: Three times every year, Jewish men were commanded to journey to the national sanctuary, eventually established in Jerusalem. These commandments were written for a world of footpaths, centuries before mechanized transportation. The Torah envisioned a people living within reach of a common sacred center, cultivating the same land and celebrating its agricultural seasons.

Judaism was conceived as the religion of a people living in the land of Israel. Its commandments were embedded in the soil, seasons, cities and sacred places of that homeland. Its God was universal, but its religious civilization was profoundly local.

The destruction of Jewish sovereignty and the dispersal of much of the population forced that land-based religion to adapt. Jewish communities developed religious institutions and practices that could survive thousands of miles from Jerusalem, and without a Temple. Yet the homeland remained central to their prayers, calendar, holidays and collective memory.

Jews continued living in Israel under successive foreign rulers, while communities in Poland, Yemen, Ethiopia and Iraq preserved the same ancestral orientation. A Jew could speak another language, adopt different customs or even reject belief in God and remain part of Am Yisrael.

For Christianity and Islam, the faithful carry their religion wherever they go. For Jews, wherever they went, their religion carried them back to Israel.

Thousands of Jews at the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem on Passover, unable to ascend to the Temple Mount

The consequences of misunderstanding this relationship are visible today on the Temple Mount.

Imagine the United Nations defending a prohibition on Lakota Sioux praying in the Black Hills because American ultranationalists threatened violence if they approached Mount Rushmore. The world would be outraged. The Black Hills are sacred ancestral territory, and Mount Rushmore was carved into that landscape following the conquest and dispossession of indigenous peoples.

Yet UN bodies have defended the Temple Mount “status quo,” under which Jewish prayer is forbidden, and have labeled Jewish religious activity there as “provocative.” The First and Second Temples stood on that mountain, the center of ancient Jewish national and religious life. Jews have prayed toward Jerusalem for two thousand years. It is the holiest location to only one religion: Judaism.

But the threat of jihadi violence has become a justification for limiting the religious rights of an indigenous people rather than confronting those threatening them. Political sovereignty and religious structures have changed repeatedly, but the Jewish ancestral attachment endures.

This same failure to understand Jewish indigeneity distorts the contemporary debate over Zionism and colonialism.

Modern political Zionism emerged in the nineteenth century, but the Jewish relationship to Zion began thousands of years earlier. Zionism gave modern political expression to the aspiration of an ancient people to restore national life in its ancestral homeland.

Colonialism generally describes the expansion of power by outsiders who establish control over another territory and its inhabitants. European colonial enterprises extended the authority of distant imperial capitals into foreign lands.

But how can a people be considered foreign colonizers in the very land at the center of their religion? How can their return be understood through the framework of European imperial expansion when their prayers, festivals, laws and sacred geography have been tied to that land for thousands of years? If the Māori were expelled from New Zealand for hundreds of years, would their return be labeled imperialism or colonialism?

To call Jews foreign colonizers in the center of their own ancient folk religion is to misunderstand the very nature Judaism.

When Jews Turn Against Their Own

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Jewish law still sanctions Jews who deliberately harm other Jews. Why has the community become so reluctant to consider that authority when the harm threatens thousands or millions?

In 1656, the Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated a 23-year-old philosopher named Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). Its leaders pronounced a devastating herem, a religious ban that severed him from communal Jewish life. Members were forbidden to associate with him, speak with him or read his writings. The condemnation became one of the most famous excommunications in Jewish history.

For centuries, Jewish communities disciplined members whose conduct threatened religious obligations or communal life. Jewish law developed several levels of sanctions, most notably nidui and herem.

Nidui was the lesser punishment, a form of temporary religious and social ostracism, traditionally lasting 30 days in diaspora (non-Israel) communities. It restricted ordinary social interaction, sometimes requiring others to maintain a distance of four cubits, roughly six feet. Its purpose was to induce repentance and correction of the offending behavior.

Herem was more severe, imposing deeper and potentially indefinite exclusion from communal life. Depending on the circumstances, it could restrict social relationships, commercial dealings and religious participation. In tightly integrated Jewish communities, exclusion could devastate a person’s livelihood and standing in society.

Maimonides, the Rambam (1138–1204), enumerated 24 grounds for nidui in his Mishneh Torah. They included maintaining dangerous conditions, such as a vicious dog or unstable ladder; refusing to obey a religious court; and preventing the public from performing a commandment.

That last provision is particularly important. Jewish law recognized that obstructing a community’s religious obligations could warrant religious discipline.

These sanctions remain part of modern Jewish life. Orthodox communities still employ religious and social pressure against husbands who refuse to grant their wives a get, the Jewish divorce document required for remarriage under Jewish law. When a rabbinical court determines that a husband must grant a get and he refuses, communal measures may include exclusion from synagogue honors, religious gatherings and other forms of participation. Depending on the circumstances, formal nidui or herem may also be considered.

The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) organizes communal pressure against recalcitrant spouses, including public demonstrations and campaigns encouraging synagogues to impose restrictions, with appropriate rabbinic authorization.

Jewish communities recognize that one Jew’s deliberate conduct can cause another such serious harm that communal intervention becomes necessary. Yet these sanctions are rarely discussed when the threatened harm extends beyond an individual to an entire Jewish community.

A husband who refuses a get may face public ostracism for trapping one woman in a marriage. What of a Jew who deliberately works to prohibit circumcision, obstruct synagogue security or prevent entire communities from fulfilling religious commandments?

Three fundamental obligations provide a framework: protecting Jewish lives, preserving religious observance and sustaining Jewish communal continuity.

Protecting Jewish Lives

Jewish law places the preservation of human life, pikuach nefesh, above almost every other religious obligation. Leviticus commands, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” The Talmud extends this principle into an affirmative obligation to rescue someone facing danger.

The clearest case involves a Jew knowingly facilitating violence against other Jews or deliberately obstructing their rescue from an immediate threat. Such conduct directly violates the obligation to protect human life and demands serious religious and communal accountability.

Consider a person deliberately sabotaging essential security at a synagogue or yeshiva facing credible threats. Jewish institutions increasingly depend on trained guards, controlled entrances and protective infrastructure. Knowingly interfering with necessary safeguards could expose worshippers and children to foreseeable danger.

A related question arises when someone campaigns to eliminate protective buffer zones around synagogue or school entrances. Where violent intimidation or obstruction threatens access, removing necessary security measures could endanger the community.

The issue becomes more complicated when the discussion moves to Israel’s national defense. Israeli missile-defense systems, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow, protect civilians against incoming rockets and missiles. Campaigning to eliminate essential defensive capabilities without adequate alternatives could foreseeably increase the danger to millions of people.

Broader opposition to American military assistance to Israel presents a less direct case. Military assistance encompasses different weapons, defensive systems and strategic objectives. A Jew who advocates eliminating defensive funding despite a demonstrated threat raises different questions from someone disputing a particular military appropriation.

Jewish law has long required Jews to address threats to human life. Religious authorities should be prepared to examine whether deliberately undermining essential security, whether at a synagogue or across Israel, violates that obligation.

Protecting Jewish Religious Observance

A Jewish community can endure poverty, exile and political upheaval while preserving its identity through religious practice. The covenant of circumcision, the laws of kashrut, prayer, Torah study and communal institutions have sustained Jewish life across generations.

Maimonides explicitly includes preventing the public from fulfilling a commandment among the grounds for nidui. This provides a classical foundation for examining deliberate interference with Jewish observance.

Consider a Jew actively working to outlaw brit milah, the covenant established with Abraham. A successful prohibition would directly prevent Jews from performing one of their foundational commandments. A campaign specifically intended to achieve that result should invite serious halachic examination.

A campaign to prohibit kosher slaughter, shechita, presents a similar concern. Such a law would prevent traditional ritual slaughter within the jurisdiction and could make religious observance substantially more difficult.

The same questions arise when Jews advocate prohibitions on synagogue worship, Torah education or the construction of religious facilities such as mikvaot. Restrictions on kippot and other religious clothing can also interfere with Jewish practice, depending on their scope.

These are precisely the kinds of conflicts in which religious authorities should examine whether conduct constitutes the deliberate obstruction of commandments. Where a recognized court determines that a violation warrants nidui, continued defiance may raise the question of stronger sanctions under Jewish law.

Further along the spectrum lies the controversy over government funding for yeshivas. Some advocates want public funding conditioned on students meeting secular educational standards in English and mathematics. Such requirements may create financial pressure on religious schools, while educational oversight also serves legitimate public purposes.

Jewish law must distinguish legitimate public oversight from deliberate obstruction of religious commandments. Where that boundary is crossed, religious authorities should be prepared to act.

Protecting Jewish Communal Continuity

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is integral to Judaism. Jerusalem occupies a central place in Jewish prayer, religious memory and law. Nachmanides, the Ramban (1194–1270), regarded settling the Land of Israel as a positive biblical commandment, although later authorities have debated its precise scope and application.

Consider a Jew advocating a prohibition on Jewish immigration to Israel. Such a restriction would interfere with the ability of Jews to settle in their ancestral homeland, an act that major halachic authorities regard as religiously significant.

Preventing Jews from visiting or praying at their holy sites raises related questions about religious access and worship. Restrictions on Jewish homeownership introduce another dimension, particularly where they specifically target Jewish purchasers.

These concerns are already entering American legislation. In October 2026, Representative Joaquin Castro introduced the Stop the Settlements Act, backed by dozens of Democratic lawmakers. The bill would impose sanctions on certain foreign persons involved in “settlement” activities and prohibit imports from covered settlements. Its reference to the West Bank raises a disturbing question: Would eastern Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, fall within its reach?

If so, Jewish organizations involved in purchasing and renovating homes, restoring historic synagogues such as Tiferet Yisrael, or supporting archaeological projects at the City of David could face sanctions-related consequences. The bill leaves critical questions about its application to these activities unresolved. Its sponsors should be required to explain whether Jewish religious and communal institutions in Jerusalem could become targets.

The possibility that American Jewish lawmakers would support legislation reaching Jewish religious institutions in Jerusalem is extraordinary. If Jews knowingly work to obstruct other Jews from maintaining synagogues, owning homes or fulfilling religious obligations in Jerusalem, why should their conduct escape the scrutiny of Jewish law?

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) co-sponsored the Stop the Settlement Act

Further along the spectrum are efforts to boycott Israeli universities, exclude Israeli rabbis or educators, or discourage purchases of Israeli goods. Such actions may weaken educational, economic and communal relationships, although their connection to established grounds for nidui is less direct.

The case for religious sanctions is strongest where conduct directly obstructs an identifiable commandment or violates another established halachic obligation.

From Nidui to Herem

Jewish communities have historically imposed sanctions on individuals and movements. In 1772, rabbinic authorities associated with the Vilna Gaon (1720–1797) supported bans against the emerging Hasidic movement, a precedent that also illustrates the danger of communal authorities misjudging religious differences. Today, institutions such as Hillel restrict partnerships with organizations supporting BDS such as Jewish Voice for Peace, while the Conference of Presidents rejected J Street’s membership application in 2014. Between silence and herem lies a range of communal measures, from public censure to restrictions on institutional membership and leadership. These measures require clear standards and responsible authority.

The Jewish community is fraying. Its religious institutions, security and connection to Israel face growing internal conflict. Jewish law already recognizes that deliberate harm to another Jew can warrant communal sanctions. Qualified religious leaders should be prepared to examine serious violations, distinguish them from political disagreement and apply appropriate measures where justified.

If Jewish law can sanction a man for trapping one Jewish woman in a marriage, how can Jewish leadership refuse even to consider sanctions against those who deliberately endanger Jewish communities or obstruct their commandments?

Cornell’s Socialist Revolution and Its Jewish Students

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There is something rotten in Ithaca.

In October 2023, Cornell professor Russell Rickford described Hamas’s massacre of Israelis as “exhilarating” and “energizing.” Weeks later, a Cornell student threatened to shoot Jewish students, rape Jewish women and murder Jewish babies. Three years later, Rickford remains on the faculty, socialist organizations have gained political influence across campus, and anti-Israel activists have transformed Cornell’s student government and political culture.

A speaker addresses a crowd at a protest, with a banner in the background reading 'ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISM'.
Cornell Professor celebrated the October 7 massacre of 1,200 in Israel

Cornell’s socialist revolution has unfolded alongside a disturbing deterioration in the environment for Jewish students. Organizations promoting socialism and campaigning against Israel have become political partners, winning elections, organizing demonstrations and challenging the university’s institutional relationships with Israel.

Rickford’s October 2023 remarks were captured on video just days after Hamas terrorists murdered, raped and kidnapped Israelis. Jewish students questioned whether they could safely express opposing views in his classroom. Cornellians for Israel president Zoe Bernstein and Hillel executive vice president Simone Shteingart publicly challenged his remarks. Rickford apologized, took a leave of absence and eventually returned to teaching, including a course titled Socialism in America.

Within weeks, Cornell student Patrick Dai threatened to attack the university’s kosher dining hall, shoot Jewish students, rape Jewish women and murder Jewish babies. The threats terrified Cornell’s Jewish community, prompting a police investigation. Dai was arrested, pleaded guilty and sentenced to federal prison.

Mugshot of a young man with glasses, wearing a plain white t-shirt, looking directly at the camera.
Cornell student Patrick Dai

Cornell’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter lists more than 300 members in the university’s student organization directory. One Cornell organizer advanced to national YDSA leadership, while another won election to Ithaca’s Common Council.

YDSA increasingly works alongside Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Cornell Progressives. Their joint campaigns seek divestment from weapons manufacturers, opposition to Israeli institutions and an end to Cornell’s relationship with Israel’s Technion. The broader Coalition for Mutual Liberation has claimed participation by more than 40 campus and community organizations.

The transformation is particularly striking when measured against Cornell’s recent history.

In 2014, Cornell’s Student Assembly voted 15–8–1 to table an Israel divestment resolution. A decade later, nearly 70% of participating undergraduates supported a divestment referendum. Graduate students approved another referendum in 2025. By 2026, every Student Assembly candidate jointly endorsed by SJP, YDSA and Cornell Progressives had won.

That political ascent was accompanied by increasingly confrontational activism. Protesters established encampments, disrupted a career fair involving defense contractors and interrupted an appearance by former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Cornell imposed disciplinary sanctions and temporarily suspended SJP before reinstating it under conditions.

The Anti-Defamation League assigned Cornell a C in its 2026 campus antisemitism report card.

The relationship between socialism and anti-Zionism became especially visible in September 2026, when Hasan Piker addressed approximately 450 students inside Cornell’s Sage Chapel at an event involving YDSA and other anti-Israel organizations.

Piker had previously declared that Hamas was a thousand times better than Israel. When challenged about that comparison on Pod Save America, he responded, “I stand by that.”

At Cornell, Piker celebrated socialist electoral victories, including the rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and joined a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Event poster announcing Hasan's talk at Cornell on September 24, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at Sage Chapel, sponsored by student organizations.

Governor Hochul sits on Cornell’s Board of Trustees by virtue of her office. Together, the university’s leadership and trustees bear responsibility for protecting the freedom of political expression while ensuring that Jewish students can participate in university life without intimidation.

Cornell has spent three years demonstrating how much ideological extremism its academic culture can accommodate. A professor celebrated the slaughter of Israelis. A student threatened to murder Jews. Socialist and anti-Israel organizations expanded their political influence, and a speaker who publicly stood by his favorable comparison of Hamas to Israel was welcomed into Sage Chapel.

Cornell’s Jewish students have watched this transformation from the receiving end of threats and intimidation.

Cornell has decided to shut down fraternity events and parties for the rest of the year after a suit alleging gang rape at a fraternity in 2024 came to public attention. Will the school take similar action against the socialism and anti-Israel clubs?

Sign reading 'FRAT CULTURE IS RAPE CULTURE' held up during a protest.

Why Latin America’s Conservatives Are Choosing Jerusalem

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Four Latin American countries have moved their embassies to Jerusalem, all headed by conservative presidents. Argentina’s Javier Milei wants to be next, and Brazil’s conservative opposition has promised to follow. A new political map of Latin America is emerging, and Jerusalem sits at its center.

Colombia became the latest country to join this movement in October 2026, following Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay. The pattern is unmistakable: conservative governments are embracing Israel and recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, while much of the Latin American left increasingly identifies with the Palestinian cause and opposition to the Jewish state.

Colombia offers the clearest illustration of this ideological divide. Left-wing President Gustavo Petro severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 2024, halted coal exports and embraced international efforts to isolate the Jewish state. His conservative successor, Abelardo de la Espriella, reversed course, restored relations and opened an embassy in Jerusalem.

The same country, the same Israel, the same Jerusalem. A different president and an entirely different worldview.

For Latin America’s conservatives, Israel represents national sovereignty, religious heritage, technological achievement, military strength and partnership with the United States. For much of the Latin American left, Israel is viewed through the language of colonialism, Palestinian dispossession and opposition to American influence.

Religion reinforces this divide. Guatemala and Honduras have substantial evangelical Christian populations whose attachment to Israel is rooted in biblical belief. Conservative movements throughout Latin America increasingly draw support from these communities, for whom Jerusalem is central to Jewish history and Christian faith.

Christian pilgrims enter the Old City of Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate during Easter, 2017 (photo: First One Through)

Argentina’s Javier Milei has become its most enthusiastic champion. In April 2026, Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the Isaac Accords, a framework intended to strengthen Israel’s political, economic and security relationships across Latin America.

The name carries deliberate biblical symbolism. The Abraham Accords brought Israel together with Arab nations through the shared heritage of Abraham. Isaac, Abraham’s son, represents the continuation of God’s covenant through Jacob, whose name became Israel. Where the Abraham Accords emphasize common ancestry between Jews and Arabs, the Isaac Accords invoke the particular biblical heritage of Israel and its connection to nations identifying with Judeo-Christian civilization.

Milei has committed more than speeches to this vision, directing his $1 million Genesis Prize award toward establishing an organization to advance the initiative. Legislators from across Latin America have already gathered to promote stronger relations with Israel, combat antisemitism and encourage additional embassy relocations.

The movement also has a powerful strategic adversary: Iran.

Iranian-backed terrorism has already devastated Jewish communities in Latin America. Argentina suffered the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, which killed 85 people. Argentine authorities have attributed both attacks to Hezbollah and Iran.

The Isaac Accords seek cooperation against Iranian terrorist networks, antisemitism, drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations. Israel offers intelligence capabilities, cybersecurity expertise, military technology and experience confronting Iranian proxies. Latin American governments offer regional partnerships capable of disrupting hostile networks operating across the Western Hemisphere.

Jerusalem thus becomes both a declaration of political identity and the gateway to a broader security alliance.

The next major test comes in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been among Israel’s harshest regional critics, while his conservative challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, has promised to relocate Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem. Their October 25 presidential runoff could determine whether the region’s largest economy joins this emerging alignment.

Flávio Bolsonaro, candidate for President of Brazil

There are vulnerabilities. Paraguay moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, reversed the decision months later under a new president, and restored it in 2024. Diplomatic commitments can change with elections. The Isaac Accords seek to build deeper economic, security and institutional relationships capable of surviving those political shifts.

The Abraham Accords brought Israel closer to the Arab world. The Isaac Accords seek to bring Latin America closer to Israel. Conservative presidents are leading that transformation, turning recognition of Jerusalem into a declaration of political identity, shared heritage and strategic allegiance.

Jerusalem has become a dividing line in Latin America’s ideological struggle, and its conservatives are choosing sides.

Democratic Politicians Readying for Jerusalem’s Jews To Get 20 Years in Prison

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Imagine three American Jews participating in their cultural heritage: one American Jew buys an apartment in Jerusalem’s Old City, and hires an Israeli contractor to repair the roof and renovate the kitchen. Another American contributes to archaeological excavations uncovering ancient Jewish Jerusalem, say in Ir David. A third donates to rebuilding a synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948.

Rebuilding the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Jordanian army when it illegally seized the city in 1949 (photo: First One Through 2023)

Under legislation sponsored by 54 congressional Democrats, each may face federal prosecution, a million-dollar fine or even 20 years in prison.

Congressman Joaquin Castro’s Stop the Settlements Act, H.R. 10642, reaches far beyond stopping new Israeli housing construction in disputed territories. It authorizes sanctions against foreign persons involved in the financing, planning, construction, expansion or maintenance of Israeli settlements or outposts, subject to certain determinations.

This is not legislation targeting building a new neighborhood in the middle of the West Bank. It targets even maintaining what already exists, even in cities with thousands of years of Jewish history and presence. Democrats in Congress have chosen language broad enough to raise questions about the ordinary upkeep of Jewish communities.

The bill repeatedly refers to “settlements” in the “West Bank and Gaza.” It never explicitly states whether eastern Jerusalem including the Old City is included.

Palestinians claim “East Jerusalem,” part of a divided city that existed as a result of the 1948-9 war, which lasted for 18 years until 1967, as part of their future state. Israel considers united Jerusalem its capital, including the Old City.

Congress knows these competing positions. Congress knows that the Jewish Quarter contains homes and synagogues predating Israel’s establishment in 1948. Yet 54 Democrats have attached their names to legislation without clarifying whether these historic Jewish neighborhoods fall within its reach. Deliberately.

Consider the consequences. A future Democratic president may decide to state that “East Jerusalem” actually exists and that it is part of the West Bank. The activities described above become a crime.

An American buys an apartment in the Jewish Quarter, where Jews lived for centuries before Jordan expelled its Jewish residents in 1948. He hires an Israeli company to restore the property. If an American administration classifies the Old City as a settlement (at least, any location where a Jew buys land) and sanctions that company for its broader construction or maintenance activities, paying the contractor could become a federal offense.

Now consider Ir David, the City of David, where archaeological excavations uncover the streets, structures and artifacts of ancient Jerusalem. An American donor might contribute money to uncover archaeological remains. But if the recipient organization were sanctioned, that donation could become prohibited.

Ir David excavations unearthing Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple. (photo: First One Through July 2024)

The ramification would be to halt Jews from connecting to their past and only enable Arabs to excavate or destroy Jewish history.

Then there is Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue. Built in 1877 in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, the synagogue was destroyed during Jordan’s conquest of the Old City in 1948. Its reconstruction restores a Jewish house of worship that existed generations before Israel recaptured the Old City in 1967.

Could the organization rebuilding it be sanctioned for construction or maintenance in territory an administration considers a settlement? In addition to being obtuse about Jerusalem, the bill contains no express exemption for historic synagogues, religious restoration or Jewish institutions predating 1948.

Domes of the Tiferet Yisrael (top center) and Hurva Synagogues (above right) return to the Old City skyline (photo: First One Through November 2025)

The legislation invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Willful violations of applicable prohibitions can carry criminal fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to 20 years. Civil penalties may apply even without criminal intent.

If an administration designates locations in Jerusalem’s Old City, an American could potentially be barred from ordering a handmade menorah or other merchandise produced there for shipment to the United States.

Castro says his legislation is intended to stop settlement expansion and Palestinian dispossession. Yet its language raises questions about the Old City of Jerusalem, the maintenance of existing homes, archaeological preservation, religious reconstruction and ordinary commercial activity.

Despite the language, the self-declared “pro-Israel” group J Street has endorsed it.

Fifty-four Democrats have attached their names to legislation that could reach into the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. And the list of Democratic co-sponsors and anti-Israel alt-left Jewish groups supporting it continues to grow.

Turning Deep Blue New York, Purple

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The Democratic Socialists of America have discovered that the shortest path to socialist political power runs through the Democratic Party’s safest districts. Their ambitions extend beyond winning elections. They seek to transform American capitalism, foreign policy and the Democratic Party itself.

DSA’s National Political Committee celebrated Chris Rabb‘s congressional primary victory in Philadelphia as a win in “the deepest blue Democratic district in the country.” In districts where the Democratic primary effectively determines the general election, a disciplined socialist organization can acquire political power using electoral majorities built by generations of traditional Democrats. Rabb said of his win ““that the era of establishment politics is coming to an end.”

DSA is remarkably candid about its objectives. Its National Electoral Commission advocates building an independent mass socialist party with a program that will allow the working class to “end capitalism.” Nationally endorsed candidates must support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. DSA leader Sydney Carlson-White celebrated Rabb’s victory as “bringing an anti-Zionist, anti-AIPAC, anti-capitalist voice into Congress in the bluest district in the United States.”

Rabb’s backers included:

  • Democratic Socialists of America
  • Working Families Party
  • Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
  • Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker, the influential socialist commentator who campaigns alongside many DSA candidates, is explicit about the political strategy. Describing the Democratic Party, he declared, “That’s a weak party. That’s a party that you can seize. That’s a party that you can take advantage of.“

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani demonstrates how far that movement has advanced. His victory brought a democratic socialist into one of America’s most prominent political offices, while DSA-backed candidates subsequently defeated established Democrats in congressional primaries.

DSA-backed Zohran Mamdani went on to win deep blue New York City’s mayoral race

The Democratic Party provides the ballot line and historically loyal electorate. DSA supplies the candidates, volunteers and ideological discipline.

In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul faces Republican Bruce Blakeman. Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one, and Hochul entered October with a substantial polling advantage. Mamdani has endorsed her, as have various far-left politicians including Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Can the Democratic Party continue accommodating an organized socialist movement committed to ending capitalism and advancing anti-Zionism while assuming that traditional Democrats will continue delivering overwhelming electoral majorities?

NY Governor Kathy Hochul with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani

A narrowing Democratic margin could send a powerful signal that the party’s safest territory is becoming more competitive. The political consequences could extend beyond one election, influencing candidate recruitment, party alliances and the willingness of Democratic leaders to accommodate DSA’s agenda.

DSA has made its intentions unmistakable. Piker has described a party ripe for seizure. The movement has demonstrated that it can defeat Democratic incumbents and turn those victories into growing political power.

Jews in New York have historically voted Democrat by wide numbers are turning to Republicans due to the al-left seizure of the party

Moderate Democratic politician will tell you in confidence in private: New York Democrats should vote for moderate politicians in the primaries and for Republicans in the general election to turn New York purple, to create a wall against the tide of vile hatred stemming from the far-left flank taking over the party.

Related:

The DSA Is Systematically Coming For Zionist Jews (August 2023)

It’s Time to Study Jihadi Hate

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Universities have spent decades developing sophisticated tools for understanding hatred.

Researchers study antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism. They examine how people come to view another group as inferior or threatening, how prejudice spreads through institutions and communities, how propaganda turns stereotypes into dehumanization, and when hatred crosses into violence.

Other scholars have spent decades studying terrorism. START at the University of Maryland, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, RAND, CSIS and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism have examined jihadist organizations, recruitment, radicalization, propaganda and violence in extraordinary detail.

Cover of CTC Sentinel, July 2020, featuring an article on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in West Africa, with an image of armed individuals in a desert landscape.
West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC)

Put the two disciplines in the same room.

Give them ISIS propaganda and ask the questions hate scholars routinely ask about neo-Nazis: Who is inferior? Who is dangerous? Who belongs? Who must submit or leave? Who may be killed? What ideology makes those conclusions seem morally permissible?

“under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.” – Hamas foundational charter, Article 6

“Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam.” – Hamas foundational charter, Article 31

The resulting field would not study Islam. It would study jihadi hate.

The Missing Research Question

Consider what researchers already know.

ISIS classified Yazidis as polytheists, Shiites as apostates and Christians as a subordinate religious population. Al-Qaeda invoked “Jews and Crusaders.” ISIS murdered Coptic Christians while explicitly identifying them by religion. Boko Haram has attacked churches and Christian communities while also slaughtering Muslims who reject its ideology.

Infographic detailing mass-casualty terrorist attacks since 2001, ordered by number of victims, with statistics on various attacks globally.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded that ISIS committed atrocities “in accordance with its extremist religious ideology,” deliberately targeting groups according to identity.

That is terrorism. But it is also something else.

When neo-Nazis create a hierarchy of human beings, researchers study supremacism. When Jews are characterized collectively as dangerous, researchers study antisemitism. When Muslims are demonized because they are Muslim, researchers study Islamophobia.

So study the jihadist hierarchy with the same intellectual tools.

What Would Jihadi Hate Studies Examine?

The field should begin with primary sources rather than assumptions about Islam.

A group of children sitting in a line on the ground, focused on reading books. One child in the foreground holds an open book, reciting, while others around him are also engaged in reading.
Somalia has few children attending school. Those that do often attend jihadi schools of hatred until age 15 when they are sent to military training to combat “infidels”

Researchers could build a database of jihadist sermons, manifestos, videos, school materials, recruitment literature and governing documents from ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and other organizations. CTC has begun to compile jihadi materials against “the Jewish-Crusaders alliance” regarding “Palestine.” Each could be coded for how it describes Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Hindus, Shiites, secular Muslims, atheists and alleged apostates.

Then ask measurable questions.

How frequently are particular populations portrayed as enemies? When does theological disagreement become dehumanization? How is takfir used to turn another Muslim into a legitimate target? Which doctrines justify unequal treatment rather than violence? Which arguments make the leap from discrimination to expulsion, enslavement or murder?

Most importantly: Which ideas actually predict violence?

Two Islamists slit the throat of an 86-year old priest in France in 2016

Compare Supremacisms Without Equating Them

Researchers should also compare jihadist propaganda with other supremacist ideologies—not because neo-Nazism and jihadism are identical, but because comparison is how scholarship discovers recurring mechanisms.

Take a neo-Nazi manifesto and an ISIS publication and ask identical questions.

Who supposedly corrupted society? Who caused the community’s humiliation? Who is portrayed as secretly powerful? Who contaminates the ideal society? What glorious past must be restored? What future order is promised? When does collective blame become permission for violence?

Jihadists kill people around Spain

The answers will differ enormously. The mechanisms may not. That could tell us something important about hatred itself.

What This Field Must Not Become

This study should not be about Islam but a particular strain of Islamic extremism. It should study an identifiable phenomenon: the process by which particular extremist interpretations construct religious hierarchies, turn out-groups into enemies and authorize violence against them.

And Muslims should be central to the research because jihadist hatred is frequently directed at Muslims themselves. Fondapol found that almost 89 percent of Islamist-terrorism deaths occurred in Muslim-majority countries. Shiites, alleged apostates, insufficiently observant Muslims and Muslims who resist jihadist organizations have all been targets.

A group of people performing in a dramatic reenactment, with one individual on the ground appearing to be in distress, while others express emotions of sorrow and anger in a public setting.
Muslim woman killed by fellow Muslims in Afghanistan after people claimed she had torn a Koran

Studying jihadi hate would therefore not be a project against Muslims. Much of it would be a project about understanding the ideologies killing them.

Where Should This Research Live?

The logical home is a university, jointly situated between existing terrorism and hate-studies programs.

START already possesses terrorism data and expertise. George Washington studies global jihadism and antisemitism. UCLA has built an Initiative to Study Hate. Other universities maintain centers studying genocide, religious persecution and radicalization.

“86 events (12.3%) in the school-based violence T2V data were also categorized as terrorism or premeditated hate crime, indicating they were
ideologically motivated.” – START Plots Targeting Schools

The expertise already exists. What is missing is the bridge.

Bring together terrorism researchers, historians, psychologists, quantitative social scientists, genocide scholars and specialists in Islamic theology and languages. Muslim scholars could be indispensable – not as political cover, but because distinguishing mainstream Islamic traditions from jihadist interpretations requires serious theological and linguistic expertise.

Funding should likewise be diversified and transparent, avoiding dependence upon any government, religious community or advocacy constituency with an obvious stake in the findings.

Then publish data rather than slogans.

Phone call from Gazan to parents gleefully telling them how he killed Jews with his bare hands

The Test for Hate Studies

If scholars have developed tools that explain how white supremacists turn racial hierarchy into violence, those tools should at least be tested against a movement that turns religious hierarchy into violence.

Perhaps they will reveal profound differences. Perhaps they will uncover common mechanisms: humiliation, collective guilt, conspiracy, purity, dehumanization and dreams of restoring a lost social order.

Either result would advance knowledge, and with it, possible remedies.

We do not need another institution to tell us that jihadists kill people. We need scholarship explaining how an evil ideology teaches people whom they are obligated to hate – and when that hatred becomes permission to kill.

Seeing Good and Taking It: From Eden to the Flood

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God, Eve, and the corrupt rulers of Noah’s generation all do the same thing. They see something good and take it. One act establishes paradise. Another brings expulsion. The third precedes the destruction of humanity. How can the same sequence of actions produce such different judgments?

The Hebrew repeats a striking pattern: va’yar (saw), tov (good), and va’yikach (took). The words recur across the opening chapters of Genesis, but the morality of taking changes dramatically.

God surveys His creation and sees that it is tov me’od, very good (Genesis 1:31). He then takes Adam and places him in the Garden of Eden (2:15), providing him with a home, sustenance, and responsibility. Rashi (1040-1105), citing the Midrash, explains that God took Adam with pleasant words, persuading him to enter. The Creator uses His authority over what He made to benefit another.

Eve follows the same linguistic pattern, this time within a single verse. She sees that the tree is tov, good for food, and takes its fruit (3:6). Eve did not create the tree but was a beneficiary of God’s extraordinary generosity, permitted to eat from virtually every tree in Eden. The one she chose was expressly forbidden.

The third instance appears just before the Flood. The Bnei HaElohim see that the daughters of man are tovot, beautiful, and take wives from whomever they choose (6:2). Rashi identifies these men as rulers and judges, while Ramban (1194-1270) describes their taking as coercive. Men entrusted with authority use their power to seize women they neither created nor had any inherent right to possess.

The progression is from creator to recipient to appropriator. God sees goodness in what He created. Eve sees goodness in what she was given to enjoy, subject to a boundary. The rulers see goodness in other human beings and treat their desires as sufficient authority to possess them.

The contrast between God’s taking and that of the rulers is especially revealing. God, while possessing ultimate authority, persuades Adam with pleasant words. Men with limited authority, compel. They exercise the prerogatives of a creator over people they did not create.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) understood that desire is natural, while virtue requires knowing when and how to satisfy it. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) insisted that human beings must never be treated merely as instruments for another’s desires. Wanting something good is neither inherently virtuous nor sinful. The moral question is whether we have the right to take it, whether permission has been granted or withheld, and what our taking means for others.

God grants humanity dominion over creation in Genesis 1:28. By Genesis 6, powerful men have effectively extended that dominion to other human beings. What began as stewardship of creation has become domination of people. The earth is filled with hamas, violence and injustice, and the Flood follows.

A white marble sculpture depicting a male figure with wings embracing a female figure, both in a dynamic pose suggesting movement and passion.
The Sons of God Saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair, by Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), modeled by 1918, carved 1923

God sees goodness in what He created and takes to give. Eve sees goodness in what she was given and takes what was forbidden. The rulers see goodness in other human beings and take whomever they please.

Va’yar. Tov. Va’yikach. Saw. Good. Took.

The Hebrew remains nearly identical. The morality changes completely.

The road from Eden to the Flood begins when people confuse the goodness of what they see with their entitlement to take it for themselves.

The Countries Paying for Palestinian Children Aren’t Having Their Own

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For decades, the world has been told that Palestinians live under conditions of extraordinary deprivation. Yet before October 7, 2023, several important demographic and social indicators told a very different story.

In 2022, the West Bank and Gaza had a fertility rate of approximately 3.4 children per woman. Among countries with fertility rates above three, the Palestinian territories also reported relatively high life expectancy, low infant mortality and exceptionally high adult literacy.

Uniquely among its Arab peers. Only Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (neither Arab) among high fertility countries, have quality of life statistics remotely close to Palestinian Arabs.

A colorful table ranking high-fertility countries by life expectancy in 2022, displaying columns for country name, fertility rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, adult literacy rate, and highlighting values with color coding.

Palestinian Arab adult literacy was 98%. Infant mortality was far below that of many other high-fertility populations. Reported life expectancy was in the mid-70s, although estimates vary by source.

These were meaningful achievements, particularly in a region marked by conflict, poverty and political instability. They reflected billions of dollars of investment in education, extensive public health and educational services.

These incredible quality of life statistics came principally from the charity of western countries. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Norway, Ireland and other countries have provided extensive financial assistance to Palestinian Arabs, both directly and through international institutions such as UNRWA.

Yet these charitable countries face an entirely different demographic reality.

In 2022, fertility in Norway was approximately 1.4 children per woman. Ireland and Germany were around 1.5. Japan approximately 1.3, and the United States around 1.7. All were below the roughly 2.1 births per woman associated with long-term population replacement in low-mortality societies.

The Palestinian territories, meanwhile, averaged approximately 3.4.

So the countries financing Palestinian schools, hospitals and social services were experiencing declining birth rates and aging populations at home. And their taxpayers were helping support a population having roughly twice as many children per woman as their own societies.

And despite the western generosity and much better quality of life than surrounding Arabs, these same Palestinians decided to launch a genocidal war against Israel and destroy the world that Europeans and Americans financed.

A person in military attire holding a firearm while walking on a path surrounded by trees and buildings.
Member of Gazan terrorist group during massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023

The uncomfortable question for international donors is whether charity to a people who prioritize destroying their neighbor over building a society is logical. Or moral.

Norway, Ireland, Germany and Japan cannot purchase peace simply by financing another generation’s schools and hospitals.

A society’s children deserve more than the opportunity to survive infancy, learn to read and live long lives. They deserve leaders who will not gamble away those achievements in war, and an ideology that values coexistence with a Jewish State.

Related:

“Deformity in Palestinian Culture” Is A Permanent Feature (August 2023)