While the occupations and take-overs of campuses throughout the US and the world have made a great deal of noise and garnered media attention, they are carried out by a very small minority of extremist students. The more noise they make and the more excessive their actions the larger they seem. Most large Universities have student populations of 20-30,000. These encampments usually have a range of 200-1000 people, on average say 400. Of these approximately half are not students, but outside professional agitators, who organize and lead the protests. So they contain about say 200 students on average out of say 20,000 students, or 1% of the student population. Certainly not enough to take very seriously.
On the other hand, this kind of wide-spread pro-Hamas, anti-Israel movement generates a large upswell of anti-Semitism among the general population, where it is always present, both from the extreme right and left. Individuals will take knives and guns and explosives and try to kill Jews, particularly in synagogues, community centers and randomly on the streets. This naturally engenders fear in Jews, who will start leaving their home countries in the West and immigrate to Israel (aliyah).
Numbers released by the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel for Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut, which is next Tues), show that the population of Israel grew by 189,000 over the past year. This is made up of 196,000, babies born (Israel is a very young country) and 37,000 made aliyah (at the same time there were 60,000 deaths). Compare this with the statistics released by the IDF, that since Oct 7, the start of the Gaza war with Hamas, 711 were killed in combat (637 soldiers, 39 emergency responders, 68 police and 6 security personnel). Although these are large numbers for a small state, the fact is that the immigration far outweighs the loss of life due to the war. The population of Israel has now reached 9.7 million people, 7.2 million Jews (74%), 2 million Arabs (21%) and 564,000 other (5.7%). This is 12 times the population at the beginning of independence in 1948 (806,000) The population is expected to top 10 million next year.
During WWII Nazi Germany occupied some 20 European countries, only three of which protected their Jewish citizens, namely Denmark, Bulgaria, and Albania. In Denmark, the diplomat in charge of the German occupation, George Duckwitz, warned the resistance a day before that all Jews were to be arrested and deported. As a result a movement was organized overnight to channel the over 7,000 Danish Jews to the coast and transport them in fishing boats to Sweden. Over 90% of Danish Jews were saved. In Bulgaria and Albania, the local Christian denominations supported by high government officials opposed the deportation by train by hte German occupiers of the Jewish populations. This proves it could be done.
As long as the governments of the Western countries remain democratic, there is little danger of a similar Holocaust as happened in Europe during WWII. But, the treatment of Blacks in the US over centuries shows that a supposedly democratic country could also persecute a racial minority. My question in relation to the US, after months of these pro-Hamas encampments, where is the FBI and the other arms of the US Government in exposing the malign people and institutions behind this clearly organized movement? Why aren’t people being arrested and deported from the USA? Is there collusion, or is it simply incompetence?
IsBlog 
Q. Is it true that Iran and other Arab states are organizing, and funding some of the “student protests?” Q. Is there anything Israel can do to help, to organize for the other side?
James E. Art Pleasanton, Ca
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JC: “These encampments usually have a range of 200-1000 people, on average say 400. Of these approximately half are not students, but outside professional agitators, who organize and lead the protests.”
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Actually, Jack, are being very generous… At the recent protest camp at George Washington Univ., only 6 of the protesters were actually GWU students. The rest were “outside agitators” (my term). My guess is that this holds true for the other campus protests as well.
The truly sad parts of these stories that that the university funds are not directly invested in the Gaza War, they are invested in various mutual funds whose portfolios include small-percentage investments in companies that might do business with Israel… makes for a nice media spot, but very low on actual facts…
And in truth, there are probably “professional agitators” on both sides of these arguments.
I don’t know if Russia and Iran are directly funding these protests, but they are really enjoying them… and the shallow/stupid newscasts showing all the unrest on university campuses… As with all incidents like this, most students are just trying to finish the semester. Most are just trying to avoid the unrest and get their work done.
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