A better way to fight Jew hatred on college campuses

Rather than focusing on new hate crimes legislation to combat the campus intifada, Republicans would be wise to address the source of the problem: the supply of money and students from hostile nations.

During World War II, we didn’t open our doors to immigrants from Germany and Japan. But after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, our political leaders allowed us to be inundated with immigrants, refugees, and foreign students — and now, border crashers — from Islamic countries and parts of the world steeped in barbarism. The society of tolerance we worked so hard to build based on the enlightened views of our founders was destroyed in one generation by importing people from parts of the world that missed the Enlightenment entirely.

The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee the rights of foreigners to attend our colleges or fund our educational programs.

All our prominent universities today are saturated with foreigners, particularly from anti-Semitic parts of the world. They are now mixing with native-born leftists and communists, buttressed by both Muslim Brotherhood and leftist nonprofits, to promote vile Jew hatred reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s on campuses.

Now, the Republicans — many of whom have promoted endless visas from abroad — come along and pass an overly broad hate crimes bill with a broad definition of anti-Semitism to root out Jew hatred on college campuses.

While undoubtedly well-intentioned, H.R. 6090 follows the tradition of GOP fecklessness — avoiding the issue in the way that matters and then dealing with it in an overly broad way that could potentially curtail free speech to the delight of the left.

The bill would ensure that anti-Jewish discrimination is included in Title VI prohibitions. It would thus enable Jewish students to sue colleges for allowing pro-Hamas harassment and assaults.

Many of these colleges need to be sued for blatantly allowing Islamo-Nazis to violate rules of conduct — behavior administrators would never tolerate from white nationalists. The problem with H.R. 6090 is that it pegs the definition of anti-Semitism to the whims of a private organization named the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Tethering a legal definition to the agenda of a private ethnic or religious group is a bad idea that could easily backfire. The IHRA’s definition is overly broad and potentially infinite, with references to “accusing,” “denying,” “using” and “drawing” potential anti-Jewish tropes.

When it comes to any hateful activity, we should swiftly deter and punish criminal behavior but avoid policing the thoughts and speech behind the behavior. No good ever comes from hate crime legislation. We don’t need to regulate speech.

If these students engage in criminal or disruptive behavior, such as occupying grounds and blocking paths, then enforce existing rules and laws. If it’s just hateful speech without breaking the rules, then like everything else covered under the First Amendment, it must be tolerated.

What we shouldn’t tolerate, however, is the importation of people and money into this country fueling this poisonous hatred. The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee the rights of foreigners to attend our colleges or fund our educational programs. Republicans would be wiser to advance legislation banning Qatar and Turkey from funding education on our soil.

According to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Middle Eastern countries donated more than $6.6 billion to U.S. universities between 1986 and 2018. Many of those gifts lacked proper disclosure. Qatar, which harbors Hamas, is by far the greatest foreign funder of U.S. universities. Most of the funding comes from the Qatar Foundation, a group with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, with theologians who believe Muslims must finish the work Adolf Hitler started.

Even if Republicans can’t persuade the Senate to pass a companion bill, states can and should instruct their public universities to reject foreign funds.

The single biggest threat to Jews in America is the importation of Islamic radicals from overseas. In the irony of all ironies, House Speaker Mike Johnson slipped in $3.5 billion for open border NGOs in, of all places, the Israel aid bill! These refugee resettlement groups have been responsible for seeding our communities with anti-Israel radicals for years.

It should not be considered a hate crime to criticize Israel. But we should not be letting anti-Semites into the country. Because they don’t just hate Israel. They hate us.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) delivered a speech several months ago decrying the rise in anti-Semitism. But he declined to divulge the source of much of that anti-Semitism. Schumer was one of the drafters of the 1990 immigration bill, which created the diversity visa lottery — the single greatest factor in bringing the Middle East and its Jew hatred to our shores over the past three decades.

Now, Schumer and his party want to bring in the biggest Jew-haters of all — Gaza refugees. According to polling data, three-quarters of Gaza residents supported the October 7 slaughter, 89% view the “Qassam Brigades” terrorists favorably, and of course, not one of them views America favorably.

It’s also no coincidence that some of the universities with the largest share of foreign students are the ones boiling with anti-Semitic activity. Columbia University, New York University, Northeastern University, and the University of Southern California are consistently among the top-five recipients of students from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. In fact, more than 50% of students at NYU and Northeastern are foreign born.

Perhaps just this one time, rather than focusing on unconstitutional means of policing hateful speech, we could stop letting the haters into the country.