The liberal dogma has created a morally corrupt society that marches shoulder to shoulder with the savages of Islam's holy war, writes British publicist Melanie Phillips.
There is increasing evidence that the West is undergoing a profound moral collapse.
Since the Hamas pogrom in Israel on October 7, it is hunting season for the Jews of the Diaspora, and the number of anti-Semitic attacks has increased enormously.
Students at American universities gave impassioned testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee this week about anti-Semitism on campus. The problem is not only that the Jews are singled out; what is even worse is that this is encouraged by people from whom we would expect otherwise, yet they are complicit.
The students claimed that university administrators and faculty either turned a blind eye to the bullying of Jewish students or actively participated in it.
Congress heard of physical attacks on Jewish students, calls to "gas the Jews" on campus, and taunts that "Hitler was right."
Eyal Yakoby, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, told how he and other students were forced to flee to their rooms when their classmates and professors chanted the extermination of the Jews. They talked about "the glorious 7th of October" and said things like:
"You are a dirty little Jew, you deserve to die".
MIT student Talia Khan, the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Afghan Muslim father, said 70 percent of Jewish students at the university feel compelled to hide their Jewishness.
One postdoctoral student claimed that Jews wanted to subjugate the world through a global apartheid system, lied that Israel trades in the organs of Palestinians, and stated that the average Israeli is a Nazi. The "diversity officer" of his department declared, Khan said,
that all this is not "hate speech" and that the theory of organ trading has been "confirmed".
Other "diversity" staff at MIT claimed that Israel had no right to exist, and faculty members told Jewish students to "go back to Israel" if they were afraid. The presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT—Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Sally Kornblut—also appeared before the committee. Their answers made many people's jaws drop.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, asked them if genocidal chants on campus, such as "Long live the intifada" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," violate those universities' own anti-bullying policies. or anti-bullying policies?
Stefanik noted with increasing disbelief and disgust that none of them were willing to give a straight answer:
they said it all depends on "context".
In what conceivable context can any call for the extermination of the Jews be found acceptable?
When Rep. John James, Republican of Michigan, asked the three presidents what they were doing about anti-Jewish hatred, the response was silence as they looked at each other to make sure they were on the same page — doing nothing.
The behavior of the leaders of the three Amber League schools is shocking to the extreme. But how could anyone really be surprised, given what has happened to education in recent decades?
In many cases, educators and leaders do not take action against anti-Semitism not only out of cowardice. After all, they themselves partially or fully claim to own that distorted and morally bankrupt world of thought, which is the core of everything. They have allowed identity politics, "intersectionality" and a culture of victimhood to infect Western universities, refusing to do enough to address harassment and intimidation based on ethnicity, sexuality and gender.
These dogmas involve a complete collapse of the norms of morality and rationality.
They believe that certain groups of people—such as men, straight people, and Israelis—should not be victims because they believe they have political and economic power over women, gays, and Palestinians, who, in turn, are not responsible for the crimes they commit.
What is even more destructive is identity politics: it is rooted in the Marxist doctrine that the world is divided between the powerful and the oppressed. He sees the Jews as holding supreme power over the entire Western world, through a capitalist system that they believe is being used for their own benefit and to the detriment of others.
University leaders, like the three presidents, may believe they are protecting neutrality and free speech. In effect, a double standard is being applied by not affording Jews the protections afforded to groups presented as "oppressed" by "intersectional" dogma.
All of this helps explain the shocking silence of women's groups and other liberals about the extreme sexual assaults on women attacked and held hostage by Hamas on October 7. Evidence has now come to light of the horrific barbarism and sadism with which these women were abused.
They were not only the victims of multiple, extremely cruel rapes, but also had their genitals mutilated.
Even though there was undeniable evidence of widespread rape during the pogrom from the start, it took the UN eight weeks to say anything about the carnage. Finally, in a dying voice this week, she said she was "shocked" by reports of "gender-based atrocities and sexual violence" in Hamas attacks. Meanwhile, women's rights organizations and human rights NGOs have still said almost nothing about this horrific depravity.
The shocking reason for this reticence is that the barbaric attack on Israeli women undermines the very narratives with which these liberals identify.
The slogan of the staged "#MeToo" movement is "Silence is violence". By demonizing all men as potential rapists, it undermined legitimate horror and disgust at actual rape. The pogrom of Hamas, which showed so repulsively what violence against women really looks like, exposed the painful emptiness of “#MeToo”.
It also contrasts with the liberal narrative that demonizes Israelis as “oppressors” and whitewashes Palestinians as victims. The unimaginable suffering of Israeli women (and we now know that men have also been sexually abused) at the hands of Hamas simply does not fit in.
At the heart of the perverse reaction to Hamas atrocities is the basic progressive mantra of moral relativism, the erasure of objective truth and the rejection of the need to distinguish between forms of behavior. But without such a distinction there is no morality.
Liberals thereby ignore the difference between the intentional slaughter of civilians and the unintentional killing of civilians in a justified war. They are oblivious to the fact that
Hamas tries to kill as many Israelis as possible (as well as deliberately using Palestinians as cannon fodder), while Israel tries to spare civilian lives to an extent unknown to other armies.
Liberals ignore the fact that thousands of Hamas terrorists are among the dead Palestinians, and falsely and viciously portray Israel as deliberately killing children. The Palestinian drive to exterminate the Jews is called "resistance," and Israel's resistance to extermination is called "genocide."
They refuse to distinguish between Hamas aggressors and their Israeli victims, and scream for Israel to cease fire. None of them demand that Hamas surrender, which would immediately end the destruction. Conversely, an Israeli ceasefire would condemn even more Israeli civilians to be killed, tortured and raped.
Those who want Israel to "stop killing" are not gentle pacifists committed to the ideal of the brotherhood of mankind, but moral cretins.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of them in the West today.
We now understand why university leaders carefully ignore incitement to genocide on campuses; why are they protesting "Let's Globalize the Intifada!" shouting shoulder to shoulder with liberals who, they say, only want to end the bloodshed; and why feminists are silent about the barbaric rape, murder, and sexual mutilation of Israeli women by Palestinians in Gaza.
Liberal dogma has created a morally depraved society that marches shoulder to shoulder with the savages of Islam's holy war.
The Hamas pogrom and the war in Gaza act as a kind of rehearsal breakfast in the body of the West, illuminating from within the grave illness of this poisoned civilization, which may prove fatal.
Featured image: AFP
