Who in North America endorses the mass slaughter of Jews? Appallingly, a lot of people. This became crystal clear following Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7, during which more than 1,400 Israelis—mostly Jewish civilians—were butchered by the Palestinian Arab terrorist group.
In almost no time, tens of thousands were hailing the massacre as a major victory for the Palestinian “resistance.” Students and faculty at colleges and universities—as well as in public squares—gleefully celebrated the cold-blooded murder of Jews at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.
Make no mistake: Those who approve of Hamas or oppose its being brought to justice express the same perverse values as those who applauded Hitler and disapproved of the war to stop him.
The groundswell of support for a group that openly calls for Jewish genocide—and practices what it preaches—has understandably frightened Jews everywhere. This fear is well-founded: The last time a group advocating genocide against Jews gained widespread support, Jews were brutally and systematically massacred.
No wonder that following the Holocaust, Jews vowed “Never again.” Nor is it any wonder that Israel is so determined to extirpate—root and branch—Gaza’s evil masters once and for all.
Nonetheless, students at colleges and universities throughout North America support Hamas. At Harvard University, 35 student organizations issued a joint statement saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence … The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”
A similar statement was issued by three student unions at York University in Toronto, Canada, calling Hamas’s murderous acts “resistance efforts” that were “a direct response to the ongoing and violent occupation of Palestine.”
At George Mason University, pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted, “They’ve got tanks, we’ve got hang gliders. Glory to the resistance fighters.” Hamas used hang gliders to infiltrate into Israel on Oct. 7, descending on a music festival and ruthlessly murdering 260 people.
On Oct. 12, the notoriously antisemitic student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a “National Day of Resistance” throughout the United States, calling Hamas’s attack on Israel “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”
Some university and college faculty also expressed their support for Hamas. Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, for example, wrote an article in which he described the Hamas attack as “awesome” and referred to “the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these colonies.” He was referring to Hamas’s siege of Israeli communities like Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Be’eri, where the terrorist group methodically murdered men, women and children, even burning and decapitating babies.
Cornell University’s professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s attack on Israel “energizing” and “exhilarating.” At the University of North Carolina, doctoral candidate Kylie Broderick absurdly claimed the Hamas massacre was “a right enshrined under international law.”
In numerous cases, college and university administrations refused to condemn Hamas’s massacre. Harvard’s executives have not condemned the Palestinian Arab terrorist group, despite the urging of notable donors to do so. At the University of California at Berkeley, students who appealed to the institution’s administrators to condemn the pogrom were met with hostility, with one being told by an administrator, “Jewish students [at Berkeley] are far too privileged.”
Radical civil society groups also expressed support for Hamas. The Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter, for example, posted on X (formerly Twitter) a picture of a person on a hang-glider with a Palestinian flag attached to it and the words, “I stand with Palestine.” The group later deleted the post and “apologized” with a post that read, “Anything is possible! Never did we think we’d be apologizing to Zionists … Free Palestine. Free Us All.”
Labor unions are on the Hamas bandwagon, too. SB Workers United, which represents American Starbucks employees, wrote “Solidarity with Palestine!” over a picture of a Hamas bulldozer breaking through the security fence on the first day of its murderous rampage. The union also advocated for pro-Hamas demonstrations across the United States.
A spontaneous demonstration of support for Hamas recently took place at a WNBA game. Before the game, a minute of silence was held in memory of the victims of the Hamas massacre, only to be disrupted by booing, jeers and catcalls from large sections of the crowd, some chanting, “Free Palestine!”
Nor is support for Hamas limited to the left. Jon Minadeo, the head of the virulently antisemitic Goyim Defense League, reacted to the Hamas atrocities by saying, “This is awesome, man! I’m so stoked!” He called on Lebanon and Iran to join the war and “wipe Israel off the map.”
As with the Nazis and their cheering section in the 1930s, today’s Hamas celebrants base their support on abject lies.
Here are some irrefutable facts:
• Israel has no policies or laws that separate or deny civil rights to anyone because of race or ethnicity. Zero apartheid.
• Israel does not occupy any Palestinian land. All Israeli presence in Gaza disappeared 18 years ago. Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) have never had sovereignty over any land anywhere—Israel won the disputed territories from Jordan in 1967.
• The demand that Palestine be set free is ironic, since the Palestinians have refused generous offers of land for peace five times in the last 75 years and the Gazans have had complete independence since 2005.
• When Hamas and its supporters chant “end the occupation,” they are talking about destruction of the entire state of Israel—“from the river to the sea”—not just Gaza or Judea and Samaria.
Those who support Hamas are as morally depraved as those who supported the Nazis in the 1930s. The Palestinian terrorist group has the same objective as the Nazis: Destruction of the Jewish people (and with it, their state). Hamas also employs many of the brutal, bloody methods of the Nazis, as demonstrated by their murderous, bestial rampage on Oct. 7.
No surprise Jews worldwide are frightened. As one commentator noted, “it smells like 1930s Germany.”
It’s also no wonder that Israelis—who live by the motto “Never again”—are determined to resolve this existential threat definitively… on their own. Those who oppose Hamas’s extermination by definition support the group’s goals.