Commentary
On Oct. 7, 2023, my life changed forever. My close friend and roommate, David Newman, borrowed my car to attend the Nova Music Festival in Israel. When I heard the chilling wail of sirens signaling Hamas rocket attacks, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t fathom the true scale of the horror.
By 7:30 that morning, I received a text message from David simply reading: “Pray for me.” Those three words marked the beginning of two harrowing days I’ll never forget. For 48 hours, we searched for him, clinging to hope. On the evening of Oct. 8, a devastating image arrived—a field strewn with bodies. I recognized David by the shirt I had lent him for the festival.
The next morning, I woke to a flood of social media posts glorifying the attack that killed my friend. It was shocking, disgusting, and utterly absurd. When in history have people, mere hours after a terrorist attack, condemned the victims instead of the perpetrators?
The accusations of Israel committing genocide began on Oct. 7 and have only grown louder. Over the past two years, the extremes have dominated the conversation, drowning out reason and nuance. We must do something about this. That’s when we formed Let’s Do Something.
When my organization, Let’s Do Something, began visiting U.S. campuses to promote a pro-West, pro-Israel message, we sought to understand the alarming rise in anti-Semitism and why so many people seemed to hate Jews. It quickly became clear that the issue on campuses had little to do with Israel itself. The so-called “pro-Palestine” movement, often cloaked in the banner of “Free Palestine,” cares little for Palestinian or Israeli lives. It has become a destructive force, fueled by a unified pro-Marxist, pro-jihad sentiment that threatens open dialogue.
This was no clearer than after the recent cease-fire proposal was accepted. There was rejoicing in the streets of Tel Aviv, Gaza City, and across the Muslim world. Yet the one place where it wasn’t celebrated was among the pro-Palestine movement, which has been insurgent across cities and campuses throughout the Western world, showing more clearly than ever that their cause has nothing to do with actually supporting Palestinians and everything to do with opposing America and the West.
There are two types of people in the world, just as there are two types of movements: those that build and those that destroy. Our memorial on Columbia’s Butler Lawn sent a clear message to the world. While others from the pro-Palestine movement sought to destroy in that very space over the past two years, we were there to build: build bridges of dialogue, build connections with students, build a space where debate is safe again, and build a better future.
The current cycle of hate must stop—not just for the sake of the Middle East, but for the world. The Middle East is moving toward peace, with the Abraham Accords fostering a Muslim–Jewish alliance that counters radical jihad. The region will be fine. Our concern lies elsewhere: with you, the young American mind.
There is no commodity more precious than the minds of young Americans, and bad actors such as Russia, China, and Iran are seizing the current conflict to influence them. They see this war as an opportunity to sow division and radicalize.
We need a new kind of radicalism on college campuses—not radical jihad, not the radical left or right, but a radical center. We must resist hate with courage, restore debate with joy, stop silencing ideas, and start talking again.
The 1,205 chairs we set up at Columbia University stood as a tribute to the lives lost, including my friend David. They also stood for something greater: a call to reject hate, embrace dialogue, and build a future where ideas can flourish without fear.
That’s where Let’s Do Something on Campus comes in. We are here with a purpose: to confront ideas, not people.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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