Anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests 'cheapen the concept of genocide,' says Jewish historian and author

It is hard to fight against an enemy whose reason for being is to eliminate you.  

So said author and Jewish historian Rick Richman in an interview as he answered the criticisms that are being leveled against Israel. These criticisms accuse the Jewish state of committing genocide in Gaza. 

Rather, it is Israel, he said, that is trying to prevent a genocidal operation perpetrated by Hamas.  

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"It's extremely unfortunate to cheapen the concept of genocide," said Richman, "which is an attempt to eliminate people, and to attribute that word to a response by a people attacked as they were on Oct. 7th, by an explicitly genocidal terrorist organization whose charter calls for the elimination of the Jewish people."

Richman, author of the book, "And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel," said the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests are filled with misinformation and misguided passions by young people, students and even faculty.

They have been lured, he said, into a political position by authorities who choose to ignore the facts surrounding the centuries of clashes between Jews and Arabs and their modern-day manifestations.

On a recent episode of "Lighthouse Faith" podcast, Richman talked about a long list of topics concerning Israel, including the ongoing protests on college campuses and why so many are ignorant about Zionism. 

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The protests on college campuses and city streets that are disrupting graduations, holidays and events have vilified what's called Zionism. 

Protesters have deemed it a negative term, as is the case of one 20-year-old Columbia student activist who ranted that "Zionists don't deserve to live."

A student protester waves a large Palestinian flag at an encampment on the Columbia University campus, Monday, April 29, 2024, in New York.  (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

A resident scholar at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Richman answered this protester and others like him. He said that due to an education entrenched with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory), they can only see the world in a black or white, oppressor vs. oppressed landscape.

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"The first step is to understand what Zionism actually is," said Richman, "which is nothing like the caricature of these demonstrations. It is one of the great national liberation movements of modern times."

Zion in the Bible is the City of Holiness, a place "appointed by the Lord where his followers can live and serve Him."

It is actually modeled after "Americanism," founded on the lofty ideals of democracy, liberty and freedom, he said.

"So in a sense, Zionism was a subset of Americanism, and it was the alliance of Americanism and Zionism that was the great, the most successful ‘isms’ of the 20th century. The other isms — antisemitism, communism, fascism, national socialism — those isms murdered tens of millions of people."

Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of New York University’s campus in New York on Friday, May 3, 2024. Campus protests have continued as tensions rise across the United States. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)

But it's also now apparent why protesters in one breath shout for "death to Israel" and "death to America."

Zion in the Bible is the City of Holiness, a place "appointed by the Lord where his followers can live and serve Him," a city of refuge where the Lord protects His people from the evils in the world. One of the great hymns of the Christian Church written by Isaac Watts and Robert Lowry sings of the glory of Zion: "We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion / We're marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God."

"Zionism is the attempt to create for the Jews a state of their own in the same place, really just a portion of the same place where it stood for centuries."

In modern times, Zion has taken on political baggage in the conflict between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors. 

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But it's still an ideal, a city on a hill, a Camelot of sorts with real, earthly foundations. 

Said Richman, "Zionism is the attempt to create for the Jews a state of their own in the same place, really just a portion of the same place where it stood for centuries. In ancient times, it was a movement of national liberation, a movement of liberation of the Jewish people in an age of nationalism, where states were being created for the Serbs, for the Italians, for the Greeks and for the Jews."

Pro-Israel counter-protesters watch as hundreds of anti-Israel agitators stage a demonstration outside of NYU’s Stern School of Business in Manhattan, New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. The protesters staged a tent encampment in front of the school as they demanded a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)

In a letter posted recently, Jewish students from Columbia decried the anti-Israel protests and defended their right to exist, saying, "Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities" — and that "contrary to what many have tried to sell you — no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief."

In other words, Zionism and Judaism are so closely linked as to be considered one and the same.

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For protesters, though, the creation of a Jewish state has meant by default the oppression of the Palestinians by usurping Arab land. 

The most heinous accusation leveled against Israel since the Oct. 7 attack is that it is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. 

Hence, their phrase, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

But the reality, Richman said, is that Palestine was never an independent state. For centuries, Palestinians lived under the Ottoman Empire, which was dissolved soon after the end of World War I.  

Arabs actually rejected the formation of an independent state six times, including in 1937, in 1939 and again in 1947, when United Nations resolution 181 partitioned boundaries for the creation of a proposed Jewish state.  

A woman is arrested at a pro-Palestinan protest at the University of Texas on Wednesday April 24, 2024. (Jay Janner/American-Statesman)

That same resolution also created a proposed Arab (Palestinian) state.

So why was it rejected?

Richman said he believes it's because they did not want a state if the cost of that state was recognizing another one that was non-Arab or non-Muslim.

Said Richman, "It's a very big tragedy because the tragedy was not the Balfour Declaration or the state and the establishment of the state of Israel. The tragedy was that the Arabs did not take the opportunity to create their own state ... So the Nakba, which was called the catastrophe (mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war), was a self-created one. Back in 1948, it was a missed opportunity for the Arabs to create their own state."

"What Israel has been doing is an attempt to defend against a genocidal attack on it."

But the most heinous accusation leveled against Israel since the Oct. 7 attack is that it is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. 

"Genocide Joe" is what protesters call President Joe Biden for America's support of Israel. But Richman fumed at the moniker — for to him it is the most egregious lie.

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Richman said Hamas is the genocidal entity, as its purpose is grounded in eliminating Israel. "What Israel has been doing is an attempt to defend against a genocidal attack on it," he said.

Richman said that Jews are like the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." 

"And it's done it in a way that has been extraordinarily difficult because Hamas doesn't wear uniforms. They hide within and under civilians. Every civilian who has been killed is a tragedy, but every civilian killed as a result of Hamas using them as human shields — that in itself is a war crime."

The Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research said in December 2023 that 72% of respondents believed Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7th was "correct" — while only 22% said it was "incorrect."  

How do you fight an enemy like this?

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Richman said that Jews are like the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." 

What happens to them is only the start, he said. "Militants who believe their enemies deserve no dialogue, only death, will not stop until the world is converted to its rule."

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Lauren Green currently serves as Fox News Channel's (FNC) chief religion correspondent based in the New York bureau. She joined FNC in 1996. Her new book is "Lighthouse Faith: God as a Living Reality in a World Immersed in Fog." She is host of Fox News Digital's "Spirited Debate."