As an occasionally-proud Millennial, I grew up hearing the phrase, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."
For years, it's been clear that Western governments don't really believe this, but we've now gone one step further: why negotiate when you can reward them?
I'm not even talking about good-old-fashioned funding of terrorist groups through channels favored by foreign policy morons like Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Joe Biden. No, I'm talking about rewarding terrorism at home.
Because let's get one thing straight:
What we're now seeing erupt on college campuses is terrorism.
Terrorism is defined as the illegal use of violence and/or intimidation to achieve political aims, with a particular focus on civilians. And what's going on across the country? Radical lunatics have descended on college campuses to use violence and intimidation to drive out Jewish students from public life, all under the ridiculous guise of being anti-war.
Chants like "Intifada," "We are Hamas," and "Death to America" are definitionally pro-war, and so are the open and shameless calls for the persecution of Jews.
But what have colleges done? Have they defended Jewish students — a minority among minorities? Have they defended the equal rights these colleges claim to worship? Have they even suggested that calls for violence are wrong?!
No. Instead, they've capitulated, handing these radical Islamists — and the petulant Western children they've indoctrinated — victory after victory, from agreeing to virtual classes to cancelling graduation ceremonies.
Instead of setting clear and consistent guidelines for on-campus behavior (with an intellectually-honest approach to free speech), they have channelled the idiotic and deadly views Obama, Kerry and Biden: if you give them what they want, maybe they'll leave you alone...at least until after the election.
It doesn't work on the schoolyard, and it doesn't work on the world stage.
One thing is abundantly clear: Driving Jews from campus to make sure anti-Semites aren't offended by their mere existence will only continue academia's central role in the suicide of Western values.
Follow Ian on X (@ighaworth) and Substack.
