Recently this country’s Ivy League schools have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Their students have been protesting the war in the Middle East and condemning Israel for battling Hamas. And they do this willingly accepting the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization that just recently openly attacked Israel and killed over 1400 civilians and kidnapped 100’s of others. And now that Israel is going after Hamas, who are using the Palestinian population as human shields by hiding in tunnels under schools and hospitals, these Ivy League students are attempting to protect them from retribution without any concern for the Israeli civilians lost. This action is making a huge portion of this country’s population asking the question, “Are Ivy League schools in Decline”?
Why is the question of are the Ivy League schools declining so important is the fact the so many of our future business leaders, politicians and diplomats will come from the graduates of these schools. Can this country afford to be led by graduates of these schools who have very low moral values and are so biased that they refuse to look at the entire picture. Since the founding of this country, the value of schools like Harvard and Yale has always been their unbiased debate of the vexing issues this country was facing which encompassed a vigorous defense of both sides of the issues. The Harvard debate team was considered unparalleled in its defense of both sides of issues. Today, it seems these schools have become so enamored by the political left that even considering the other side of any issue is deemed heresy.
To add some context to this discussion, a look at the Palestinian people is necessary. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis make claims on the ownership of the land based on historical evidence. For the most part, both sides coexisted until the end of WW2. After the end of WW2, Jews from all around Europe viewed the Middle East as their homeland. And due to the suffering they endured at the hands of the Nazi’s during the war, they felt the need to move to a place they could call their own. This resulted in a huge migration of Jews. Due to the huge numbers of Jews, the Palestinians soon felt as outsiders in what they too considered as their homeland. And so, our modern day conflict was born.
What has allowed this issue to exist for so long without any hope of resolution is the conviction by the Palestinians that the only solution was that the Israeli have to be removed entirely form their lands. This belief has allowed the creation of violent factions within the ranks of the Palestinian people such as the PLO and Hamas. This is not to say that the Palestinians accept all that these groups espouse, but rather view them as useful in order to achieve their goals. Inadvertently, their willingness to allow these groups to exist within their ranks has made them unwillingly partners and have allowed themselves to be manipulated even to the point of becoming human shields for these terrorists.
So this leads us to our Ivy League students and their protests and support for the Palestinian people. Their simplistic view of the conflict and their calls for Israel to stop fighting, gives credence to the barbaric actions and killings of Israeli civilians as though the Jews aren’t as worthy to live in peace. And while the Palestinian deaths cannot be discounted, there are no television news reports showing the Palestinian people rising up in order to rid themselves of the terrorists. Their intransient view that killing Jews is the only way for them to settle this conflict leaves them in the unenviable position of dying in order to protect the very people who have brought about the deaths of their own people. War is hell and in a war, innocent people die. Until Hamas is destroyed, Israel has to continue to fight in order to protect their civilians and those of the Palestinians.