One of 2024’s seminal “you are here” moments, was the reaction, especially on college campuses, to the attacks by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023. In what seemed like a throwback to some distant, barbaric past of human history, the Islamic terror group targeted civilians with horrific acts, including beheading children, sexually assaulting women, and kidnapping the elderly. The attack sparked a regional war in the Middle East in which the nation of Israel has, once again, displayed restraint, strength, and an incredible capacity for efficient but effective strikes.  

And yet, in the wake of this terror, a new wave of antisemitism, often violent, was unleashed in this country and around the world. In fact, according to University of Massachusetts professor of criminology Arlie Perliger, “The U.S. is currently experiencing one of the most significant waves of antisemitism that it has ever seen.” Much of this is happening on college campuses.  

With a display of a profound ignorance of history and a propensity for conspiracy theories, pro-Hamas protesters claim that Jews are not indigenous to the land or even to the Middle East, and thus must be colonizers. Some know that the chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” is a terrorist mantra, but many, according to Berkeley professor Ron Hassner, lack even basic knowledge about what this genocidal cry means. In other words, they don’t know which river, which sea, or what the cry implies for Jews who live between them.  

Still, as First Things’ Rusty Reno wrote, ignorance does not always alleviate guilt:  

“[these] words come to mind: ‘Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.’ All the more so when the ignorant take up chants that call for the annihilation of a nation.”  

As was made clear in the Breakpoint Forum “Should Christians Support Israel,” held earlier this year, these protests not only reveal an inexcusable ignorance, but they also reveal a fundamental problem with higher education in the West. Clearly, the purpose of many of our elite universities is no longer to educate young people, but rather, to make them protesters and activists. So many institutions of higher learning have embraced Rousseau’s view that the young are innocent and only corrupted by society.  

However, the root of the word “education” means to lead out of. For most of human history, education was understood as the task of leading someone out of ignorance and into truth. Having abandoned the idea of objective moral truth, universities instead believe it is their job to lead students inside their own fallen hearts and minds, as if the degree of their passion somehow overcomes ignorance. 

Of course, Israel is responsible for retaliating in a just way, and they should be held responsible for their actions. Once again, the Christian tradition’s Just War Theory is the best set of criteria for binding the conscience of the state in carrying out warfare, for just reasons and in just ways. During the Breakpoint Forum, Dr. Eric Patterson, author of A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition, helpfully described these criteria as well as Isreal’s response.  

And yet, the attacks by Hamas were followed by anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, Russia, Africa, and America. The contemporary crisis is just the latest chapter of a hatred that goes back centuries, even millennia. In fact, in America, what’s often called the world’s “oldest hatred” is found at both ends of the political spectrum. Still, the campus protests revealed that the antisemitic element that exists on the American Left is considerably more than people assumed. 

Christians should be first in line to condemn antisemitism in all forms. If for no other reason, we should keep in mind, as Francis Schaeffer wrote, “that our Lord Himself was a Jew—born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew.” This is another way that the church must not move with the world, but rather, has the vital opportunity to move the world closer to truth. This will require engaging in hard conversations, pushing back against the shifting sand of public opinion and the distorted lens of Critical Theory, from the solid ground of a Christian worldview. 

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