On Friday, Pro-Palestine University protests took place across the country, most notably at Columbia University. Columbia is an Ivy League school, one of the most prestigious in the country. Yet as with most Colleges in America and the West, they have devolved into places of argument and offence.

The purpose of Universities for the politically minded is to have critical discussions and leave your time in College with an understanding of others’ ideas and perspectives. Currently, students’ ideas are not being criticized, leading to LGBT students supporting and marching with Pro-Palestinian and Hamas protests. LGBT people would be tortured and killed in Gaza by Sharia law.

Will Hamas treat these students well?

In the English version of the Quran, it says “Drive them out of your town, these are indeed men who want to be pure (from sins).[] And We rained down on them a rain of stones.[al-A’raf 7:80-84]

Homosexuality is a grave sin in Islam, these students who claim to be proud “LGBT supporters of Palestine” and staunch opposers to the “Palestinian Genocide” would be killed under Hamas and Fatah governments in Gaza and the West Bank.

There has been a growing radical sect of Islam and Pro-Palestine Protesters, who have been chanting “Death to America”. As a result, it is leading to the further breakdown of American Society. People who do not want to live in America are free to leave, but they do not.

The First Amendment protects everybody’s right to freedom of speech and enables people to have genuine discussions about their beliefs. Anti-Semitism has been rampant in colleges across America. The House Education and Workforce Committee has been investigating campus anti-Semitism since late February. The Committee has been checking to see if colleges are doing enough to protect their Jewish students, as they should protect all of their students. They heard from students attending Stanford, M.I.T., and Columbia

What do Columbia University’s Protesters want?

Columbia University is known for its pupil political activism, with protests against the University’s financial involvement in the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, University Expansion in 2008, and divestment of fossil fuel companies.

Currently, Columbia’s Palestinian Protesters’ main demand is that the University withdraws its investment funds assets from companies profiting from Israel’s military intervention in Gaza and “Israel’s Genocide in Gaza”.

Columbia Endowment firm is worth $13.6 Billion and has a wide range of international investments managed by a university-owned investment firm. Protesters demand shares in defense manufacturers and technology companies be sold.

Columbia University will not invest in five sectors: Private Prison Operations, Tobacco, Thermal Coal, fossil fuels, and Sudan. Read here for more information: Columbia Finance

Is there a genocide in Gaza?

A genocide is the mass murder of a specific group of people. Examples of past Genocides are:

Mass murder of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1920. The death toll ranges from 600,000 to 1.5 million.

Khmer Rouge killed 1.5 to 2 million of their Cambodian people to make Cambodia a Communist agrarian state.

Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis and some Hutus during the Rwandan Civil War killed 500,000 to 800,000 people.

So far, 34,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. The figure is not large enough to constitute a genocide. People die during war and this is a reality we must accept. It is sad that 30,000 people have died but Hamas needs to be eradicated from Gaza and the Gazans need to be freed from Hamas’s rule of terror. Israel left Gaza completely in 2005, with 21 Israeli settlements destroyed and removed from the Gaza Strip.

Israel withdrew all of its troops from Gaza in 2005. In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and had full control over it until October 2023. After Hamas killed 1,139 Israelis on October 7th, the Israeli Defence Force has been killing and arresting all those involved, as well as the Hamas leadership hiding in tunnels beneath Gaza.

How does the IDF preserve life in Gaza?

20% of Israel’s population is Arab, and they have all the same rights as an Israeli citizen, except they are not obligated to serve in the military. Arabs can have a seat in the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament).

The IDF goes to great lengths to avoid killing civilians. They will drop thousands of leaflets on the area 15 to 30 minutes before a bombing will occur. The leaflets tell the civilians where the designated safe area is. 2 minutes before the strike, a small non-lethal bomb will land on the roof of the building and shake the entire building. This is a final warning for people to immediately leave the building.

Israel goes to great lengths to protect their citizens and the innocent citizens of Palestine and Gaza. As a result, there is not a genocide in Gaza, but an attempt to eradicate Hamas terrorists.

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