The Stealth Jihad in American Schools
by Carole Hornsby Haynes – February 2024—first published at American Thinker.
Since the October 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, college campus rallies in support of that barbaric act have erupted across the United States. Israel is only one part of the global plan of Islam.
Islamic law — Shari’ah — requires Jihad to be waged as “warfare against non-Muslims” until all the world is under Islamic law. Jihadist doctrine is advanced by both violent techniques and “civilization jihad,” a stealth subversive effort to destroy Western civilization from within a nation by its own hand. The pattern of Islam is to use the courts, schools, art museums, and other major institutions including outreach to churches to infiltrate, gradually introduce Shari’ah, and then finally takeover a nation. American education is a prime target.
For more than sixty years, billions of petro-dollars have been donated to American universities to alter public opinion and U.S. foreign policies. This subversive shaping of the mindset has reached a wide swath of American society through students studying for careers in banking, business, law, public health, education, and urban studies. Through university outreach, programs in the Middle East are developed and provided to K-12 and adult education students.
Gifts to American universities are designed also to enhance the image of the Arab states and their rulers, effectively tamping down public criticism of Muslim hostility to Jews and Christians. One of the more recent donors and the largest investor in universities, Qatar has an image problem as a funder and supporter of both terrorist groups — Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood — and as home base to the rabidly anti-Israel, anti-American Al Jazeera.
Former English diplomat John Kelly noted, “They expect a return upon their donations to institutions of learning and their subsidies to publishing houses; whether it be in the form of subtle propaganda on behalf of Arab or Islamic causes, or the preferential admission of their nationals, however unqualified . . . or the publication of the kind of sycophantic flim-flam about themselves and their countries which now clutters sections of the Western press and even respectable periodical literature.”
Arab donations between 1986 and October 2022 totaled nearly $11 billion with more than 10,000 contracts and gifts spread across 273 institutions. The total is grossly underestimated because numerous donations have gone unreported. Beginning with Aramco’s funding in the early 1950s, donors from Arab states have quietly made contributions to American universities, hijacking the field of Middle East Studies with faculty, including college presidents, who are using their positions to advance political agendas that are pro-Arab/Palestinian, anti-Israel, and pro-Islam.
Though the far left has never had any real political power, they have controlled the social and cultural narrative. During the summer of 2020, academics defended looting and/or supported the destruction of the nuclear family while Fortune 500 CEOs did nothing.
The brutality of Hamas in murdering babies, raping women, and taking the elderly and disabled as hostages was cheered on by left-wing student groups. Academics also weighed in. A Cornell University professor speaking at a recent pro-Palestine rally called the attacks “exhilarating.” A Stanford University instructor told her Jewish students to stand in a corner like “Israel does to Palestinians.” Other academics have posted their support on social media. Administrators remained silent.
Has the radical left gone too far? Some brave souls are standing up. It began with Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire, who read an open letter signed by over 30 student groups at Harvard — his alma mater — which blamed Israel, instead of Hamas, for the murders. Ackman and several other CEOs contacted Harvard to get a list of the members of each Harvard organization that issued the letter. They are refusing to hire anyone who signed the letter. Job offers to some graduates already have been rescinded.
Marc Rowan, the chairman of the Board of Advisors at Wharton who donated $50 million to the school in 2018, called for donors to cease any further donations until the university’s leadership changes. Vahan Gureghian, a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees, resigned. The Huntsman family announced they have closed their checkbook on all future giving to UPenn. David Magerman, who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance Technologies, said he will cease funding to UPenn. The 80th richest man in the world, Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, and his wife Batia, resigned from the executive board of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Others followed. Playboy cut ties with the porn star Mia Khalifa for cheerleading the massacres in Israel.
Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars are speaking up in support of Israel. Even TMZ got in on the game, reporting that Black Lives Matter Chicago has embraced the terrorism of Hamas.
Meanwhile, all those rabid Harvard activists who gleefully signed a pro-murder statement were in a blind panic and tried to explain away their participation, saying they did not read the letter.
Sure. Are we to believe that very smart Harvard students do not read before they sign? Public beware of Harvard-educated lawyers. In the end, all students removed their names. They are learning that actions do have consequences.
First, there was Bud Light and then Target, followed by the snowballing scandal surrounding Ibram Kendi’s antiracism center at Boston University. With the loss of donors, the university administration suddenly saw the virtue of institutional neutrality. Harvard, Northwestern, and Stanford’s presidents have issued statements that they will cease responding to political, geopolitical, or social issues that do not directly impact the core mission of their universities. They should have adopted this policy long ago. These cocky academics seem to care little that the public has lost confidence in higher education and, more especially, elite universities.
As Ackman pointed out, “None of these institutions are solvent without the support of their alumni. Perhaps this is the beginning of a catalyst for change.” The question is whether it is too late for these arrogant institutions to regain their reputations.
Most important is that no foreign money be allowed to flow into our educational institutions to shape the mindset of students and influence American policy to support a radical ideology. Since its birth in 1987, Hamas has declared it aims to destroy Israel. The fact is this Islamic terrorist group intends to annihilate not just Jews but anyone who is not a Muslim.
The pro-Hamas rallies where students celebrated the mass murders and beheadings show just how successful the indoctrination has been. Since the United States shares with Israel the greatest number of the world’s Jewish population, allowing Islamic indoctrination of students creates an enemy within and poses a dire threat to our national security.