To read progressive media, one would believe that the Trump administration is seeking to end “research and science” and “great debates” on the country’s campuses. That’s how papers like The New York Times understand the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia demanding change.
The New York Times article on March 20, 2025 misdirecting readers about the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia University
It could not be further from the truth.
The March 13 letter is just two pages long and covers nine points. Nowhere is “science” and “great debates” mentioned. “Research” is mentioned once, and the Trump administration’s letter is actively trying to protect it.
The first two points in the letter demand that the school must enforce consequences for the students that break university policies, including vandalism and harassment. It asks that the “Office of the President” handle such matters rather than the University Judicial Board, presumably because many members of the board are sympathetic to the student rioters.
The next three points build on this theme of discipline. It demands that the university adopt “time, place and manner rules,” – very common and ordinary measures – to prevent the disruption of “teaching, research and campus life” (emphasis added). It adds a mask ban so rioters can be held accountable and demanded a formalized university plan for groups that violate university policy.
The sixth point shifted from general disciplinary matters to define antisemitism, because that has been the crux of rioters’ conduct against Jews at Columbia. Presumably, it would help clearly define matters of free speech versus hate speech (to the extent that such thing exists).
The seventh bullet transitions back to discipline, empowering university security to arrest rioters.
The eighth point refers to a particular department within the school – the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department (MESAAS) – which is to be put under “academic receivership.” If there is a claim that Trump is coming after “research” and “great debates”, it must be in this discipline.
The ninth point seems to cover perhaps a related point to eighth – to make sure that admissions, including “international recruiting… conforms with federal law and policy.”
As seen above, the letter seeks to ensure the ability of students and faculty to do research (third bullet), albeit the MESAAS department has been marked as a problemed child.
The reality is that American universities have been trying to paper over their critical problems by importing students from the Global South, from those MESAAS countries. If there is a Trump target on academic research, it lies there, not in scientific matters, despite the Times claim that Trump is “imperiling the backbone of the nation’s research endeavors.”
America’s core problem lies in its PUBLIC K-12 schools which are FAILING TO TEACH MATH AND SCIENCE, with the US placing 25th among 37 OECD countries for 15 year olds. The country is relying more and more on international students – many deeply distrustful and anti-Western values – to fill the university’s STEM departments because America’s elementary and high schools have failed.
Progressive media will not place the blame squarely where it belongs – on the public school system – because it has long ago adopted the fiction that pouring billions of dollars into teacher unions will magically produce better educated students.
The Trump letter is an immediate call to make universities safe, not a call to dismantle research. The long-term fix is to remake America’s public schools, which have catered to teachers and administrators over students for far too long.
The British Foreign Minister David Lammy and the UK Ambassador to Israel Simon Walters took aim at the Jewish State for launching fresh attacks against Hamas in Gaza. Despite the political-terrorist group still controlling the region and continuing to hold dozens of Israeli hostages, Walters said “at some point the fighting has to stop and the diplomacy begin. That point is now.”
It is worth reminding the British about June 6, 1944, known as D-Day. The British declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland, even though Germany hadn’t killed a single Brit. Five years of war later, the British decided that it needed to take the war to Germany and invaded Europe. The British lost 350 soldiers on that day and about twice that number were wounded. The British would continue to battle the Nazis for almost another year, including firebombing campaigns on Dresden and Hamburg. It is estimated that 25,000 German civilians died in Dresden alone, a subset of over 2 million German civilians who were killed during the war.
Eventually, the Nazis surrendered and agreements with Great Britain were struck.
The British casualties from D-Day are in contrast to the toll of dead Israelis on October 7, who were mostly civilians. Gazans murdered 3.4 times the number of people in Israel than the Germans killed British soldiers on D-Day. The number of injured Israelis on that terrible day was over four times the number of British soldiers during their massive invasion of Europe.
When Lammy said “Diplomacy, not more bloodshed, is how we get security for Israelis and Palestinians,” he has seemingly forgotten that diplomacy will only come about once the genocidal jihadists are defeated and moderate leadership has assumed control, to ultimately forge a viable and sustainable relationship with Israel.
Lammy made that comment after he told the British House of Commons that Israel’s blockade on Gaza violates international law, even though a 2011 report stated that the Gaza blockade is “legal” and complies “with the requirements of international law.”
The current reality is that Hamas has said that they will not surrender and release the hostages. They continue to gather new recruits – all educated by UNRWA to despise Jews and that their future is in Israel – to attempt to repeat their barbarism in Israel again-and-again.
Israel has a genocidal war machine ON ITS BORDER which INITIATED A BARBARIC ATTACK and which refuses to surrender. It is quite a different dynamic than the British opting to fight the Nazis 80 years ago.
But time and place afford the British foreign minister to play armchair warrior and judge, neither one well.
As penned on these pages a decade ago after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket terrorism in Paris, “Today’s war on terrorism will continue to be waged when nations see their interests being threatened. The outpouring of emotion will also be rooted in selfish preservation.” Some of the leaders in Britain see their interests and self preservation advanced by throwing Israel under the bus, hoping to keep the jihadists in their midst at bay, sitting out the war on terror 3,600km away.
The British foreign minister would do well to remember that defeat is often a precondition for diplomacy and a path towards enduring security.
During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as you fast and pray and reflect on life, I would like to ask you to consider incorporating the Christian approach of Lent in the period before Easter, in which people give up on certain things they enjoy as a form of penance to grow spiritually.
While Christians normally give up on something that they enjoy physically, like alcohol, meat and candy, I request that you relinquish the dozens of hostages which you stole from their homes in Israel.
Ramadan is meant to be a time of increased charity and kindness towards others. It is a time for gathering together as a community for evening meals. All of this can be achieved by releasing all of the hostages. None of this can be achieved while holding them captive.
To date, the world has been shown by your actions that those who have a deep Islamic faith burn families alive, rape women and intentionally murder babies. Show the world a different face: hand over the Israeli hostages to their worried families. Help end the fighting which has decimated Gaza because of your stubbornness to keep Israeli civilians in tunnels for over 500 days.
Leaders do not always charge into battle; they can lead with humble faith that allows for peace and spiritual growth for all of their people.
Use this time to show an Islam of peace to the world, not one devoted to producing the maximum number of martyrs.
The world will not wait for you. You have to make the move.
The barbaric October 7 massacre was the largest slaughter of Jews in the Jewish holy land in almost 2,000 years. Gazans perpetrated the attack on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, when Jews celebrate finishing and restarting reading the Pentateuch each year. The pogrom was on Saturday, the Jewish holy day of rest. It was also on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, when Islamic Arab armies invaded Israel in 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
In covering the war in various articles on that dark day, The New York Times did not mention that thousands of Gazans decided to invade Israel during the joyful holiday of Simchat Torah. Whether deliberate or not, the large media company headquartered in the city with the largest number of Jews in the Jewish diaspora did not add color that the Palestinian jihadists murdered Jews while the Jewish State celebrated an important religious holiday.
Not so for the woke paper’s coverage of the Gazan-initiated war regarding Islamic holidays.
The Times made a point of telling its readers that the latest fighting in the War From Gaza happened during the month-long Islamic holiday of Ramadan. The insertion of the fact had nothing to do with recounting the military timeline in the sentence or paragraph. It had nothing to do with the entire article. Unless it was the Times’ intent to tell its readers that “the Israeli assault” happened while the parties were “negotiating the next steps in the truce” while Muslims in Gaza were celebrating a religious holiday, to make the Israelis out to be particularly heartless.
New York Times article on March 18, 2025
Perhaps it was just trying to inform its increasing Muslim readership that it the paper is halal.
The Times has long proved its anti-Israel and antisemitic bona fides. It is seemingly looking to promote its pro-Islamic credentials at this time.
Hamas, the political-terrorist group which rules Gaza, refused to release the remaining Israeli hostages and step down from power, after weeks of stalled negotiations with Israel. In the face of the impasse, Israel restarted its military campaign, killing at least five members of Hamas leadership.
In a statement about the death of the terrorists, Hamas offered a eulogy as reported in the Jerusalem Post, saying that its genocidal jihad against Israel was “fulfilling our national duty” and that it remains “committed to our religious obligation and our ethical and professional role… supporting their [Gazans] resilience.” The Hamas War, which it initiated amidst a long stretch of calm with Israel and refuse to abandon, has laid waste to Gaza. In the face of death and destruction, the last of Hamas leadership says that it is “standing firm.”
Hamas believes that it is serving a religious calling to destroy the Jewish State. It cannot compromise on its mission or face a deep reckoning with its religious beliefs. It refers to its antisemitic killing squad members as “martyrs” for a holy jihad, with many more to willingly follow. No compromise is possible with such party.
Hamas is not simply eulogizing five slain leaders of its death cult; it is eulogizing the future of Gazans.
Columbia University had a horrific record of antisemitism on campus in the years preceding the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel that ramped up even more Jew-hatred on campus. In 2019, Alums For Campus Fairness produced a 33-page report documenting dozens of incidents including swastikas drawn on walls, mezuzahs ripped from doors and Jewish history denial from Columbia professors.
Office of Jewish professor at Columbia University covered with swastikas in November 2018
After the October 7 Gazan massacre of Israelis, it became open season on Jews at the formerly esteemed school grounds.
The Jew hatred was so intense that a rabbi at the school advised Jewish students to leave campus because the administration had abandoned them. The school president was forced to resign as anti-Israel agitators broke into buildings and blocked access for Jewish students repeatedly, and the school took little to no action to protect Jewish students despite government warnings.
In light of the school administration’s inaction, the US government began to step in. It sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong on February 13, 2025 listing many of the antisemitic activities at the school, writing it was distressed that “Columbia has allowed these activities to continue.” It demanded that the school produce files related to eleven incidents which took place on campus from April 2024 through January 2025, within two weeks.
In March, the Trump administration began taking action, including suspending grants to the university and taking a leader of the anti-Israel horde into custody. The Trump Administration sent another letter to Columbia on March 13, 2025 demanding action because the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment.” (emphasis added)
These are all plain facts. Yet in news article after article, and opinion article after opinion over the weekend of March 15, the New York Times would not refer to antisemitism at Columbia. The preferred – and only – narrative was that President Trump was waging war on free speech and opinions he didn’t like.
Somehow, there was no anti-Jewish conduct anywhere at Columbia and Barnard, just a suppression of “pro-Palestinian” speech that created a “volatile and dangerous” atmosphere FOR THE PROTESTORS.
This was clearly deliberate. The Times was seeking to both inflame the public against the Trump Administration as well as to lay a foundational defense for foreign students on American campuses. Framing the situation as free speech versus systemic anti-Jewish conduct is a get-out-of-jail card that Hamas Defenders hope to play.
Jew hatred on college campuses is not just prevalent but systemic and buttressed by a progressive media. It is part of a socialist-jihadi alliance which aims to remove the beleaguered minority-minority from positions of power and influence and replace them with people from the Global South.
Those positions include the physical presence on college campuses as well as in their Jewish homeland.
To whitewash the blatant antisemitism at universities, the socialist-jihadi media avoids mentioning the Jew hatred and attempts to rally the world to save higher education.
The New York Times has attempted to reframe the antisemitic actions at Columbia as a confrontation between an authoritarian Trump Administration and free speech and higher education. In such worldview, the Jewish victims are omitted from the narrative, a nuisance in the progressives’ war for their victims of preference.
The United Nations has 193 countries in the General Assembly, and 134, roughly 70%, are located in what is generally called the “Global South”, a term that has emerged to replace “third world” and “developing economies.” The region accounts for about 80% of the global population, with the difference in figures mostly due to the two largest populations – India and China – being located in the region.
The UN has many committees and agencies. Of all of them, the UN Security Council is the most significant, being the sole entity that can pass international laws. It has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and ten non-permanent members which serve two year terms. More than 50 members of the UN have never served on the UNSC, including Israel.
The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, thinks that the current UNSC needs to be refashioned for the modern world. He bemoans the fact that no African country has a permanent seat on the council, and the ability for the five permanent members to veto resolutions has allowed some wars – like in Ukraine and Gaza – to continue for too long. He also believes that capitalism as dictated by the Global North has kept the Global South in poverty by charging higher rates of interest and not forgiving debt.
US President Joe Biden favored allowing two African countries to become permanent members of the UNSC but objected to their obtaining veto powers. He thought that the current system of veto rights already made the committee unproductive and adding more members with such rights would impede it further. Others countered that it was time to remove all veto rights. Still others like India, the world’s most populous country, demanded a seat on the committee as well. Arab countries took the opportunity to demand the same.
Negotiations will play out over 2025, with a new US administration under Donald Trump who is much more weary of multilateralism and the United Nations generally. The discussions will mainly focus on Africa, where most of the global growth in population is occurring.
China has invested heavily in Africa, accounting for roughly one-third of the infrastructure projects, and now has global trade of $282 billion with the continent. Its actions helped it surpass the United States in terms of popularity (58% to 56%). The US must consider how it interacts with the African continent directly and what steps it takes at the UN as it fights its shadow war with China.
Those who spend their lives focused on the UN and global politics have been debating which two countries should join the UNSC. If the seats go to the countries with the largest economies, it would favor South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion). If it is awarded based on population, it would go to Nigeria (232 million) and Ethiopia (132 million). Others consider the Democratic Republic of Congo (109 million and one of the fastest growing population at +3.3% in 2024) which has been decimated by ongoing violence. Including a country which has longed for peace might make sense at the Security Council.
For people who focus on another country which has dreamed of calm – the Jewish State of Israel – the changes to the UNSC are extremely important.
Overall, the Global South is much more anti-Israel than the Global North. All 28 countries that refuse to recognize the State of Israel are located there. Almost every country in the Global South recognizes Palestine while a minority of the Global North recognizes such entity.
Since the Iranian Proxies War on Israel, South Africa has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, claiming Israel’s defensive war was a “genocide.” Those joining South Africa were almost all from the Global South, with the exceptions of Belgium, Ireland and Spain from Europe.
The dynamic of a change at the UNSC will not only impact Israel but possibly Jews around the world as witnessed by the spike of global antisemitic attacks since the October 7 massacre. In the United States, the majority of international students at universities come from the Global South, and an empowerment of their voices at the Security Council may exacerbate Jew hatred everywhere.
While people are focused on the genocidal jihad that brought violence against Jews in Israel and the United States watching movies like October 8, attention must include the impending harm that may come to Jews everywhere with changes at the United Nations Security Council.
ACTION ITEM
Write the White House to share your concerns of changes to the United Nations Security Council
Hamas Defenders (like the Arab world and universities) and their defenders (politicians and progressive Jews) – HDDs – have tried to reeducate the West about both the English and Arabic languages.
At congressional hearings, HDDs told senators that “Intifada” just means “shaking off” and did not mean the slaughter of Jews, despite the Second Intifada killing 1,000 Jews – almost all civilians – and resulting in more restrictions on Palestinians, like the Security Barrier which ended that intifada.
Those hearings had the head of the Arab American Institute also share that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” is not a call for killing Jews but just the liberation of local Arabs.
That same speaker said that “Glory to our martyrs” plastered on buildings might only be interpreted as antisemitic if the buildings were synagogues or Jewish centers, but simply free speech if it was in public where Jews would see it going to school.
WESPAC-backed Palestine Youth Movement masked members plastering “Glory To Our Martyrs” on top of the map of Israel, at train stations in New York
HDDs said there was no hate crime when professors said the massive slaughter of Jews on October 7 was “exhilarating” to a crowd, or when students held signs pointing at Jews that read “al Qassam next targets.” Not just not a crime, but not even hate.
Masked Columbia student calling for Hamas missile strike on Jewish students
They accuse Jews of being too sensitive.
When HDDs accuse Israel of committing “genocide” and behaving like “Nazis” committing “ethnic cleansing” while engaged in “apartheid,” they attempt to strip the victims of European and Arab countries’ atrocities of their history and memory and desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews.
As HDDs refer to the raping of Jewish women, burning families alive and kidnapping Holocaust survivors a form of “justified resistance,” they seek to insult the memories of the Jewish dead and have the world condemn the innocent as evil “occupiers.”
NYC mob waving flags of Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chanting for “Intifada revolution” in front of exhibit about the Gazan slaughter of innocents at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023
It is an attempted institutional gaslighting of Jews.
When HDDs testify that chants like “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” require “context” and must be “targeted and pervasive” in order for school administrations to even consider taking action, they don’t pause to consider Jews being locked in rooms for their safety or fleeing campus because schools won’t protect them. FOR MONTHS.
Jewish students in downtown NYC barricade themselves in a library from a horde
The Democratic Socialists have declared every White person and Israeli part of the colonialist regime and are therefore all guilty and thereby legitimate targets for violence. Even babies.
Democratic Socialists of America siding with Hamas arguing that all forms of violence are legitimate in an effort of “liberation”
Jewish HDDs (they are mostly in the second ‘D’ in HDD) accuse their fellow Jews of being tools of antisemitic Republicans who are using them to dismantle the education system and suppress free speech. They add that those Jews who complain about antisemitism are right-wing racists who are putting international and minority groups at risk by complaining to authorities.
That has become the American landscape into which Jews step out of their front doors every day. Walking the streets, quietly wearing a yellow ribbon for the hostages held by Gazans and members of the United Nations, they are accosted with accusations that Jews and Zionists are evil and deserve neither dignity nor empathy. Even more, that Jews must relinquish their history and rights or face the firing squad before a cheering crowd.
Diaspora Jews are being groomed for slaughter. The operators of the slaughterhouses are in the awkward early days of learning how to keep the human cattle from acting up as they get processed. For the moment, they are playing with language and attempting to invert victim and assailant to enlist sympathy from the masses to join in the massacre.
Watching their growing ranks including progressive and anti-Zionist Jews as well as politicians, empowers the HDD movement that it is on the right track.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace take over Trump Tower on March 13, 2025
The context of the Global Intifada is that Jews and the Jewish State are considered part of the White Imperialist and Capitalist world. All are inherently guilty and therefore should not be allowed to defend themselves. HDDs are telling you that to be on the right side of history, everyone has to take up the cause and confront Zionists and White people wherever they are.
The pathetic joke is that the mantra is being stoked principally by foreign actors of the Global South on American soil under our own noses.
The Book of Esther has several primary and secondary characters. One of the seemingly minor players is Hatach, the eunuch who appears in four sentences in chapter 4:4-11:
When Esther’s maidens and eunuchs came and informed her, the queen was greatly agitated. She sent clothing for Mordecai to wear, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he refused.
Thereupon Esther summoned Hathach, one of the eunuchs whom the king had appointed to serve her, and sent him to Mordecai to learn the why and wherefore of it all.
and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and all about the money that Haman had offered to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
He also gave him the written text of the law that had been proclaimed in Shushan for their destruction. [He bade him] show it to Esther and inform her, and charge her to go to the king and to appeal to him and to plead with him for her people.
“All the king’s courtiers and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any person, man or woman, enters the king’s presence in the inner court without having been summoned, there is but one law for him—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the golden scepter to him may he live. Now I have not been summoned to visit the king for the last thirty days.”
The Ishtar Gate from Babylon, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
In the plain reading of the text, we see that Hatach is one of several eunuchs and attendants that the king had assigned to Queen Esther. Esther uses Hatach as a messenger to find out what so distressed Mordecai that he sits in mourning at the city gate. Mordecai must have recognized Hatach as one of Esther’s attendants, as he not only shares everything that he knows about Haman’s plan, but hands Hatach the written order to show Esther. He further tells Hatach to direct Esther to intervene for the Jewish people. Esther sends Hatach back with a reply to Mordecai that she cannot intervene, lest she be put to death.
The text then stops using Hatach’s name. Perhaps he continues to be the trusted messenger between Esther and Mordecai or perhaps another messenger takes his place. See Esther 4:12-17:
On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.”
“Go, assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan, and fast in my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!”
So Mordecai went about [the city] and did just as Esther had commanded him.
The back-and-forth language switches to a passive verb. Hatach no longer delivers the messages but messages were somehow delivered. What is the text trying to teach the reader?
Hatach was fine following Esther’s order to find out what was troubling Mordecai and return with such information. He also accepted the queen’s order to respond back to Mordecai with a message that she couldn’t go against the king’s rules to simply show up at the palace.
And that is when Hatach disappears.
Perhaps Hatach felt that his role had ended. He was not Mordecai’s servant and only brought back his initial message because Esther specifically asked to find out what was happening with Mordecai. Without the expressed order to hear what Mordecai had to say, he was done at delivering Esther’s message.
Or maybe he never delivered the message.
Sentence 12 reads that Mordecai “was told” the message from Esther. It is possible that when Hatach heard about the possible penalty of death for showing up at the palace unannounced, he became frightened. Perhaps he felt that a plot was unfolding of which he wanted no part.
There may be more. The assumption that eunuchs are safe to have around the queen typically relates to the inability to have sex. But the point is deeper.
Voluntary castration is a sign of profound loyalty to the king. To give up so much to be in the king’s graces must mean that the eunuchs have completely aligned with everything the king desires. Eunuchs are safe to have around the queen not only because they cannot have sex but because they have proven that they will do anything for the king and never harm the king.
When Hatach heard the back-and-forth between Mordecai and Esther, his loyalty to the king came into play. While he was a trusted messenger between Esther and Mordecai, his true allegiance was with King Acheshverus.
While sentences 11 and 12 are in sequence, it is possible that there is a significant gap in the story. Did Hatach just not deliver the message and Esther found a new messenger? Did Hatach find another way to get the message to Mordecai without delivering it personally?
Sentences 12 to 17 are the start of the plan which put either Esther or all Jews in the kingdom at risk of death. It is possible that Esther and Mordecai used multiple messengers and did everything in writing to make the scheme difficult to comprehend if a messenger only had one part of the story and thereby not risk the plan with people loyal first and foremost to the king.
Queen Esther likely viewed Hatach as HER trusted messenger when this communication began but came to realize that “the king had appointed” him and his loyalty was actually with king. It likely made her feel even more isolated and vulnerable in the palace, questioning even those attendants whom surrounded her.
A deeper review of the text and minor characters adds more color to the terrifying story of 2,500 years ago that we continue to celebrate today.
Fewer people are going to college and graduate schools. Some of the drop-off relates to people having fewer children so the absolute number of people going to school has been declining. But the percentage of students going from high school to advanced degrees has also fallen considerably. Even in the years before the pandemic, the decline in high schoolers going to college dropped from 70% in 2016 to 63% in 2020. The figure dropped to 61.4% in 2023, with men being the most likely to skip college with only 57.6% opting for that education. The rates for Whites and Blacks were roughly the same at 59.9% and 59.6%, respectively, with Hispanics being lower at 51.8% and Asians surpassing every group at 84.7%. The overall impact can be seen in 2010 college enrollment of 10.2 million women and 7.8 million men, dropping to 8.9 million (-12.7%) and 6.5 million (-16.7%), respectively in 2021.
The reasons that most Americans are skipping college include a strong job market paying good wages, the desire to avoid college debt, people pursuing jobs that don’t require advanced degrees, and the ability to learn many skills online.
To address the declining enrollment, universities are taking many more international students. In the 2023/24 academic year, U.S. universities had over 1.1 million foreign students, a record. These students mostly came from the “Global South,” the emerging, principally non-White economies. The majority of students came from southeast Asia including India (331k), China (277k), Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Taiwan. No European country was in the top ten. The only countries in the top ten which are part of the Global North were South Korea and Canada. The countries with the largest spike in students over the past year were all from the Global South including Ghana (+45%), Bangladesh (+26%), India (+23%), Iran (+15%) and Nigeria (+13%).
Global North in blue and Global South in red
The student exchange is not reciprocal. Only 280,000 Americans studied abroad and the majority (64%) went to Europe, with Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France dominating the destinations. Two-thirds of those students identified as White.
The Americans abroad tended to go during their undergraduate years, spending just a few months away (only 2.4% went for a year). They tended to be women (67%), and studied business and management (20%) and social sciences (18%). This is in sharp contrast to international students coming to the United States who were typically graduate students pursuing a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at 56%.
The international students are older and come for longer periods of time. They often marry and have kids while pursuing their degrees, establishing a foothold in America, while Americans-in-Europe simply have a quick experience away from home.
The universities are very happy to have these paying students fill their classrooms which are being abandoned by Americans. In 2019 and 2020, 49% of all STEM master’s degrees and 57% of all STEM doctorate degrees were conferred to international students. The economics of running courses and an institution without half the students would have required eliminating courses and teachers, and perhaps shutting whole departments.
Technology companies want and need these skilled students as future employees. Google, Apple and Microsoft count on new STEM graduates to fill their ranks each year and lobby the government accordingly. Open Doors estimates that these international students contribute roughly $50 billion to the U.S. economy, or about $5,000 per student.
The U.S. government plays a heavy hand in all of this, not only seeking to salvage American university programs and building feeders to the American technology landscape, but on a political level as well.
Two situations highlight U.S. politics driving international students to these shores: Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As the United States ramped up pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its nuclear program from 2007 to 2015, the U.S. sought to reassure its ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is a foe of Iran. During those years, the number of Saudi students in American universities climbed from just a few thousand to over 61,000. The Saudi students learned courses like petroleum engineering to better extract and process oil, as well as nuclear physics to be able to build nuclear power on their own. Just after the nuclear agreement was signed, the number of Saudi students dropped significantly, down to under 15,000 in the 2023/24 academic year.
American politics playing out for international students from Israel is more explicit, and targets high school students, as long as they are Arabs.
On September 12, 2023, the U.S. embassy in Israel posted an advertisement that the U.S. State Department “is seeking a group of Arab citizens of Israel secondary school students to participate in a Study- in-the-USA initiative for high school students during the 2024-2025 school year.” (bold in original) It is backed by the YES Program Scholarship which gives “many countries with significant Muslim population an opportunity to study at American high schools and live with American host families for one academic year,” funding “all expenses in connection with the study tour including airfare, room and board, pocket money and most other costs.” It is part of the broad U.S. policy to make amends for the “War on Terror,” and selected only non-Jews from the Jewish State to learn in America.
The cherry-picking of certain types of international students demands a deeper exploration of the segments of the Global South that are in American schools.
The Global South has two principal regions as it relates to American immigrants: Latin America and everywhere else.
The United States was primarily populated by European migration from 1840 to 1920. World War I, the Great Depression and World War II stemmed immigration for several decades before it picked up with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Since that time, 49% of immigrants have come from Latin America and 27% from Asia. These groups are very different. The typical immigrant from Latin America had little formalized education (only 9% of Mexicans in the US in 2022 had a college degree). That compared to those from South Asia where 72% had a college degree, 55% from Central Asia and 49% from East and Southeast Asia.
Those coming from Latin America typically came for jobs not requiring a college degree while those coming from Asia came with degrees or obtained them at American universities.
The demographics between Latin America and Asia are also very different regarding religion.
About 50 million Muslims live in the Global North which has a population of roughly 1.6 billion, or about 3% of the population. It is even lower in Latin America which has roughly 4 million Muslims out of a population of 665 million, or about 0.6%. That is is sharp contrast to roughly 1.8 billion Muslims living in the Global South with a population of 6.4 billion, or roughly 28%, or 31% x-Latin America. If one were to exclude China as well which has around 25 million Muslims, the Global South is over 41% Muslim (x-China and x-Latin America).
While China does not resemble much of the Global South in both religious demographics and not having a history of European countries on its soil, it is now in an aggressive competitive battle against the Global North for power. As such, China is leveraging its regional position alongside the Global South to wage a cultural and economic war against the West.
China and the Global South have advanced efforts to promote anarchy in the United States alongside far-left non-White movements like Justice Democrats. The calls to Defund the Police and Abolish ICE were designed to tear down walls of protection and flood the United States with people from the Global South. The chants to “Globalize the Intifada” on American campuses and streets are calls to dismantle Western civilization’s capitalism and support for the Jewish State, with a broad redistribution of wealth and power to the preferred people in the Global South.
“Intifada” protest at Columbia University streets
When people in the Global North hear the chants of “Intifada,” they recognize the vile terrorism of Palestinian Arabs blowing up buses and pizza stores in the Second Intifada. However, the Global South considers it an Arabic term meaning “shaking off” the colonialism and imperialism of the West. The South’s overriding desire of taking on western civilization overwhelms the facts that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel and that the Intifada is a premeditated violent attack on civilians. The Islamist Global South rallies to its coreligionists.
Banner with “Intifada” hung outside Columbia University
The population on America’s campuses does not resemble the rest of America. The disproportionate number of Asians and Muslims enrolled at America’s universities come from regions which are in active competition with the West, and embrace the Stateless Arabs from Palestine’s (SAPs) jihadi war against the Jews. The universities which enroll the international students of the Global South, attempt to tie them with American minority groups whose ancestors originated from those regions. Remarkably, a cause like Black Lives Matter which has nothing to do with the Global South, becomes hitched to the Israeli Defense Forces.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on hearing about antisemitism at universities showcasing “Intifada”
The declining enrollment at American universities has led to them being taken over by international students from Asia and Africa. This has led directly to antisemitism on campuses and in the streets. It was true before the October 7 massacre and has only accelerated since then.
New York City march to “Globalize the Intifada” in September 2021, two years before the October 7 massacre by Gazans
Americans and the Global North are watching the initial battles of the Global South on the beachheads of American universities and are dumbstruck. The West would be well served to reevaluate those international students admitted to study here, and use this time to prepare for the battles to come.
ACTION ITEM
Contact the White House to vet international students coming to study at American universities, trimming the numbers coming from the Global South and making their visas conditional to peaceful behavior.
The Global South in downtown New York City taunting Jews and Israelis attending an exhibition about music lovers slaughtered by Gazans on October 7, 2023
First One Through 