Hamas and Boko Haram: Why do students support the worst humans on Earth? - opinion

No matter how I try, I can’t get my mind around it.

I’ve read the articles about how many of the campus protesters aren’t all university students and that they’re antisemitic outsiders, often professional and well-paid agitators receiving salaries from wealthy Israel-haters. I know there are many more Arab students on American campuses today than in my student days. And I know that professors have been allowed to pontificate unchecked on the supposed evils of the Middle East’s only democracy. 

Still, that doesn’t explain the participation of university students – even Jewish ones – in the ongoing campus encampments, demonstrations, and break-ins to support Hamas.

I do understand that decades of propaganda about Gaza have had their impact. Even we who live so close to Gaza and who meet Gazans from time to time were fooled. I’ve heard educated Israelis repeating the false tagline that “Gaza is the most crowded place in the world.” (Not even close.)

Soldiers serving in Gaza have told me they were astonished at seeing how nicely appointed the homes in Gaza were. I’m not talking about the villas with swimming pools owned by Hamas leaders and associates. The soldiers referred to average homes – both residential towers and ground-floor apartments with built-in tunnel entrances. I’m intrigued by the TV images showing pricey ceramic tile work, even inside the tunnels.

And speaking of tunnels, we knew there were below-ground constructions, something called The Metro, but we had no idea that the Gazans had built the most intricate underground system in the world. A Western city considering subways has to weigh the enormous cost and float a bond issue. Every homeowner with a cellar leak or who has wanted to add a basement playroom knows how expensive such construction is.

Billions that could have been spent on universities or five-star hotels on Gaza’s magnificent coast went to building tunnels, the only raison d’être for which was to kill Israelis. Imagine how many MRIs and anti-gravity walking machines you can buy for the cost of a single tunnel. Follow the money in Gaza right down into the ground.

Gaza, they say, is “an open-air prison” with astronomical unemployment. I think not. The Gazans managed to build tunnels, buy weapons, and have a fleet of Toyotas. I’m not saying that everyone in Gaza lives in a trendy apartment, but neither does everyone in Israel or even in the United States of America.

We know that the death statistics from the Gaza Ministry of Health are falsified, even though they’re constantly quoted by supposedly reputable news outlets. We can now guess that the Ministry of Labor’s estimates of unemployment are false, too. It took a lot of labor to build those tunnels and skyscrapers.

Before the war, I visited a mother from Gaza in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Hadassah Medical Center. Her daughter was born with a major heart defect. Between surgeries, the mom dressed the little girl in a gorgeous party dress. I foolishly assumed that she might have bought the dress at the hospital mall, recalling the Syrian war refugees who clandestinely brought their children to Israel for heart surgery. They loved the Israeli shopping mall.

The Gaza mother looked at me as if I were nuts. “It’s from Gaza,” she said. “We have nice dresses. Here, they’re too expensive.”

Why do so many students support terrorism?

AMONG THE campus protest signs: “We are all Hamas,” “Intifada until victory,” “Free Palestine,” “Death to America,” and, of course, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

This affection for Hamas puzzles me, particularly when Jewish students are involved. Would even one of the student protesters choose to live under Hamas rule? Certainly not a woman. Certainly not a gay person. What about an American-born Palestinian? We all remember how joyfully Hamas members threw PLO leaders from their rooftops.

The same demonstrators ignore the kidnapping, the rape, and the fact that the Palestinians initiated this war, knowing full well that Israel would have to fight back. What nation wouldn’t?

Still, why is there such sympathy for Hamas, which checks all the boxes of inhumanity?

For a moment, let’s take this question out of the Israel-Hamas conflict and look at a group similar to Hamas that glories in murder and kidnapping children.

Last month marked 10 years since April 14, 2014. No, not April 14, 2024, when the Iranians attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles. It was on April 14, 2014, that the Nigerian equivalent of Hamas, the jihadist group called Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 Chisok girls from their boarding school in the Borno state of Nigeria.

Like any terrorist group, Boko Haram rationalizes its actions. I can’t go into all their complaints about Nigeria , but among its key idealistic goals is saving the girls from the perils of an education. The very name Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden.” The teenage girls, 16-18, were reportedly used as sex slaves, raped, or forced into marriage.

Despite an international social media campaign launched to free them, Boko Haram viewed the attack as a success, gaining them attention around the world. That kidnapping laid the groundwork for ongoing school hostage-taking in Nigeria. More than 1,400 children have been kidnapped so far.

What happened to the original Chisok hostages? Some were freed. Others escaped. One – Lydia Simon – escaped just a few weeks ago. Simon was pregnant and had three small children with her when she was rescued. Ninety of the teens are still missing. Boko Haram continues to control territories in the Lake Chad islands. 

A hair-raising 2017 article in The New Yorker called Lake Chad the world’s most complex humanitarian disaster. Wrote author Ben Taub, “Boko Haram had come to the Chadian islands and begun kidnapping entire villages, replenishing its military ranks and collecting new wives, children, farmers, and fishermen to sustain its campaigns.”

These hideous acts are no different from those of Hamas and the many ordinary Gazans who accompanied the terrorist group in their days of looting, burning, and murder – all of which they vow to repeat. Polls show that Hamas gained popularity in Gaza after Oct. 7. It also gained popularity on campuses.

Campus humanitarians of the world: Wake up! The victims of the Oct. 7 attack were among the most peace-loving people on Earth. They tilled the soil and worked for peace with Gaza, not from a privileged ivory tower but while sustaining decades of rocket fire.

That expensively educated university students – among them Jews – are aligning themselves with the bigoted, murderous, antisemitic Boko Haram-like Hamas is ludicrous and evil.

I just don’t get it. 

The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers.