“There are no accidents, only encounters in history,” wrote Elie Wiesel. The outbreak of antisemitism that has swept across US college campuses is not a spontaneous reaction to Hamas’s massacre of over 1200 men, women, and children – a day during which the Gaza-based terrorist group kidnapped over two hundred people.

Hamas’s invasion of the Jewish state, as well as the organization’s fans at Ivy League American universities, are both being funded by Qatar, according to a 2022 study published by the US National Association of Scholars. Doha is in fact the largest foreign donor to American educational institutions.

Like the way it financed Hamas’s growth into a formidable and technologically sophisticated foe, Qatar has used its largesse to nurture anti-Israel groups on US college campuses until these cells were ready to spring into action when the time was right.

October 7, 2023, was that time.

The events of that day not only shocked the conscience, but they have also forced Israelis across the political spectrum to reevaluate certain assumptions about the nature of the Hamas threat.

One of the most discredited ideas, at least in Israel, is the notion that a ceasefire between a free, democratic country that puts a premium on individual freedoms and a death cult whose raison d’etre is to murder Jews everywhere can ever succeed.

After all, the planning, training for, and execution of Hamas’s attack on Israel took place during a negotiated ceasefire. Indeed, every cessation of hostilities between Jerusalem and Gaza City has been violated by Hamas. Two hours after the terrorist group had agreed to a UN- and US-brokered ceasefire during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, Hamas fighters ambushed three Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The terrorists killed two of the soldiers, and shot Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, dragging him into a tunnel. Hamas holds Goldin’s body until the present day.

Back in the United States, the notion that Jewish students will only stop being targeted if university administrators commit to implementing an effective ceasefire of on-campus antisemitic activity is also doomed to fail.

Moreover, a White House statement asserting US Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Education have begun working with campus law-enforcement officials to track hateful rhetoric online and provide additional resources is small solace to young Jewish men and women being intimidated.

These steps are insufficient because similar utterances and responses were tried before, with negligible effect. The carnage inflicted by Hamas against Israel on October 7 is the latest, albeit bloodiest, chapter of a decade long conflict that has been marked by periods of violence followed by relative quiet. And despite the best of intentions of and measures enacted by university administrators and law-enforcement, the harassment of Jewish students whenever Israel was forced to take military action against Hamas has only gotten worse.

Why? In the Middle East, what we are seeing play out is a clash of cultures. Israel is a modern country whose people and traditions value life, human flourishing, and the rule of law. Hamas is an aggressive warrior society whose medieval mindset is fueled by a murderous and chauvinist Islamist ideology.

This cultural rift is reflected on US college campuses. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, often aided by Qatar, display signs and chant slogans calling for the end of Israel, as well as hurl antisemitic slurs. The response of American Jewish groups has been to rely on the rule of law and the promises of politicians and college administrators to ensure the safety of students.

The hope that this time the bullying tactics of Hamas supporters at American universities can be blunted by the same declarations and pledges to act brings to mind the quote: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Israelis learned a hard lesson on October 7: Hamas will never act in good faith, never abide by the terms of a ceasefire, and never respond to steps taken by the government in Jerusalem to improve the lives of Gazans by seeking a diplomatic resolution with Israel.

Hamas understands one language: force. Israel will only vanquish the terrorist group, and keep its citizens safe, by allowing the country’s military to act decisively in Gaza. As history has shown, anything less than a sustained, expansive operation will be viewed by Hamas as surrender, which will embolden Gaza’s rulers and its benefactors in Qatar and Iran.

The implementation of a robust self-defense program is also an effective way to protect Jewish students on American campuses. Teaching Jews to fight back at Oberlin College, Brandeis University, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, and many other schools, is an immediate solution to the soaring number of hate crimes American Jews are facing.

Realistically, college administrators and professors besotted with the idea of Palestine needing to be free from the river to the sea, and of Israel as a brutal, colonizing power, will probably not react favorably to the sight of Jewish self-defense groups popping up on campuses across the United States. They will likely dismiss the move as a disproportionate response to pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ right to freedom of speech. Taking a page from Hamas apologists, the colleges may well express concern that innocent people could be hurt because Jewish people, after having been constantly taunted and threatened, learned to throw a left hook. And then there is the nuclear option: a baseless charge of Islamophobia.

As such, this initiative would be greatly enhanced if prominent American Jewish organizations commit to investing a portion of their budgets to train Jewish men and women to defend themselves. These groups are currently focused on educating lawmakers, pushing for policies that have stronger protections, and monitoring antisemitism online as well as on campus. But while these goals are noble, they do not provide immediate relief to Jewish students being targeted today.

With their ability to communicate with, educate, and provide programming for centers of Jewish life across the United States, these nationwide organizations are uniquely suited to implement such a plan of action.

The embrace and increasingly violent perpetuation of the Palestinian victimhood narrative on American college campuses, as bankrolled by Qatari cash, proves that sometimes – even at centers of higher learning – fists matter more than facts.

Never Again Fight Club has a nice ring to it, no?

A version of this piece was published in the Jewish News Syndicate on November 19, 2023

Main image: A pro-Israel rally at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: Suiren2022 via Wikimedia Commons.