Combatting Campus Antisemitism Requires Drastic Actions
The most recent Jewish heartbreak is the news that innocent baby Kfir Bibas was murdered. Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. Rather than let innocent babies live, Hamas terrorists strangled them to death. In normal times, horrors like this would have the entire civilized world empathizing with Jews. The virtue-signaling “I stand with” crowd would stand with Jews.
These are not normal times, and Jewish enemies are far from civilized. Columbia University offshoot Barnard College has exploded in anti-Jewish rage. Students and other agitators demanded an Intifada and explicitly chanted “We want war.”
War is what they deserve. It is long past time to crack down hard on campus riots. The way to stop a mob is to stop it. The first step is to declare the rioters domestic terrorists. The civil liberties crowd will explode, but people wrong about virtually everything can be ignored.
Federal prosecutors have the power to use RICO laws and the Patriot Act to break the terrorists. Under the 2002 Bush Doctrine, anyone who finances, shelters, harbors or aids terrorists in any way is as guilty of terrorism as the terrorists themselves.
Arresting and prosecuting students is insufficient. Even placing the worst actors in Guantanamo Bay is not dayenu. These agitators are plankton. New plankton can replace them until those entrenched at the top are dealt with. This means handling university boards and trustees who are at best too timid to stop the terrorists and at worst ideologically supporting them financially and emotionally.
These boards and trustees have become far too comfortable. Expelling students will not affect them. Conditions will change only when some rich white leftists are made to feel uncomfortable. This means using terrorism laws to seize and confiscate college endowments. This is routine when dealing with illegal drug profits and other organized crime monies. If the universities can show that zero percent of their endowments are used to finance campus terrorism, they can attempt to claw the money back. Until then, put the campuses on defense. Impound their endowments now.
Any trustees or board members caught funding campus terrorists must immediately be arrested. The level of involvement will determine if they get civilian trials under the U.S. Constitution or are sent to Gitmo for military trials. Some of the agitators are Jewish themselves, at least by birth. That must not be a valid defense.
Leftists will argue that white collar education elitists are hardly al Qaeda or ISIS. Let us have that debate. Terrorism is terrorism.
When rich white leftists start going to prison, the bad behavior will stop. Until every Jew on every campus is free and safe, not one anti-Jewish radical deserves freedom or safety.
While seizing university endowments might stop the mobs, more drastic action may be necessary. The nuclear option is to shut down campuses permanently. When any institution violates its own purpose and engages in terror, that institution loses its protected status. International law permits bombing mosques, schools and hospitals that hide terrorists. If universities aid and comfort terrorists, all options and sanctions are on the table.
Reducing universities to rubble like Gaza is not on the table, but declaring them illegal enterprises is an option. The federal government has broad latitude when dealing with property used in crimes. The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment only applies to illegal seizures. Federal prosecutors must make the case why seizures of university endowments and buildings are lawful.
Seize the endowments. Arrest all complicit board members and trustees. Subject them to civilian trials or military tribunals. Deport any of them who are non-citizens.
This is war. The rioters demanded war. This is one demand the federal government should honor. According to the rules of war, it is necessary to break the campuses until they surrender or are permanently crushed.
Kfir Bibas deserves nothing less. Jews everywhere deserve no less.