To the Jewish students stepping onto campus — especially those who carry Zionism close to your heart — this moment is exciting, but it can also feel daunting.

College promises discovery, freedom, and growth. You’ll meet professors who open doors to ideas you’ve never considered, and you’ll form friendships that might stay with you for life. You’ll learn to see the world differently by encountering people whose backgrounds and perspectives are not your own. And along the way, you’ll also come to notice the small, grounding joys: a sunset after a tough day, an amazing meal shared far from home, or laughter echoing down the dorm hallway late at night.

But let me be clear: the campus you are entering is also filled with hostility and hate. You already know this. Israel has become a lightning rod for rage. And rarely is it spoken of with fairness or depth. Too often, slogans replace understanding. Israel is caricatured as a monolith of oppression. Zionism is dismissed as a moral failing. Posters, petitions, and protests make sweeping charges that ignore Jewish history and complexity. A word spoken in class can invite suspicion. Even silence is treated as guilt.

And the deepest pain may come from within. Some of your fellow Jews, often the loudest in Jewish campus spaces, will reject you for being a Zionist. That betrayal cuts more sharply than insults from strangers. To be pushed aside by your own people for loving Israel is not just isolating — it feels like exile within exile.

I want you to know: I see this clearly. I will not minimize it. The ugliness is real. You are not imagining it.

And yet — this is not the whole story. You are not as alone as you may feel in those moments. There are professors who still believe in open inquiry. Who will hear you out, even when they disagree. There are peers — Jewish and not — who understand the unfairness of singling out one people for relentless condemnation. There are vibrant organizations and communities nearby: Hillel chapters, Chabad houses, student Jewish unions, local synagogues, alumni mentors, and informal networks of supportive students. There are rabbis, chaplains, and laypeople ready to listen, guide, and champion you. Reach out. You will find others who will stand with you. The strength of Jewish life is that we never face our challenges in isolation.

You will also find anchors — moments that remind you who you are. The laughter of friends around a Sabbath table. The stirring words of Hatikvah sung in unison far from Israel’s shores. Festival foods, a prayer, the soft glow of candlelight, a melody from home. A professor praising the nuance of your argument. A peer defending you quietly in conversation. A campus lecture that expands your mind rather than trying to silence it. These moments are not trivial. They are reminders of why your convictions matter. Why your people endures.

Jewish history itself offers the deepest well of resilience. For centuries, our ancestors lived in exile yet clung to memory and hope. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill,” cries Psalm 137 — a verse whispered in Babylon, sung in Spain, wept over in Eastern Europe, recited in every corner of exile. That was not nostalgia. It was a vow. A vow of continuity. Of resilience. Of return. That vow carried our people through pogroms, expulsions, and even the Shoah. And it is because of that vow that you walk onto campus today as a free Jew. Able to claim your identity openly. Zionism is not a political slogan. It is the lived continuation of that vow.

The Torah urges courage in the face of fear. “Be strong and have courage, do not fear and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9). That promise was true when Joshua marched across the Jordan River. And it remains true when you step into a seminar room where suspicion surrounds you. God’s presence and your history does not end at the synagogue door. It follows you into lecture halls, dining commons, dorm rooms, and late-night debates. To remember that is to reclaim your footing when the ground feels shaky.

And never forget this: your particular love for Israel is not a betrayal of universal ideals. To stand with your people is not to stand against others. To care for Israel is not to deny Palestinian dignity. To carry your heritage with conviction is not an act of exclusion — it is an act of integrity.

You will break down in tears at times; I certainly have done so more often than I can count since the October 7th massacre. Certainly, there will be moments of exhaustion, loneliness, and doubt. But as noted in Jeremiah 31, (15- 17), even in tears, your labor has meaning; your steadfastness carries hope forward. Every time you hold fast and every time you refuse to hide who you are, you plant seeds for a future you may not see, but that others will harvest.

Our people have always carried this burden and this gift. In Babylon, Jews hung their harps on the willows and still sang of Jerusalem. In Spain, amid expulsion, families clung to Torah scrolls as they crossed into exile. In the Warsaw Ghetto, with nothing left to lose, Jews lit candles and whispered blessings into the darkness. In the Soviet Union, refuseniks risked everything just to teach Hebrew in secret. At every turn, the Jewish story has proclaimed the same truth: we endure. We carry forward. We do not let go.

You are part of that story now. You stand in their line. On their shoulders. With their strength.

You are not alone. You never have been. And you never will be.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

While children worldwide are participating in sports and leisure activities at summer camps, children living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) are in a “Fatah Army” summer camp with armed members of the PA Security Services, being taught to be terrorists.

This goal was explicitly declared during the camp’s closing ceremony, when the children were told the camp’s goal was to create a generation that will “continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners” — in other words, the path of killed and imprisoned terrorists:

Posted text: “The Fatah Nablus Branch concluded the activities of the ‘Fatah Army’ summer camp, which lasted three days and included more than two hundred male and female campers …

Fatah Nablus Branch Secretary-General Muhammad Hamdan emphasized that the ‘Fatah Army’ camp is part of the effort to prepare a national generation that will carry the message, adhere to the basic principles of its people, and continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners [i.e., terrorists] towards freedom and independence.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Movement – Nablus Branch, Facebook page, Aug. 4, 2025]

Pictures from the “Fatah Army” summer camp accompanied the post, showing boys and girls wearing military uniforms while participating in the camp activities. Significantly, the pictures show that PA Security Forces (PASF) personnel also took part in the camp.

In one picture, a female PASF member in full uniform is seen marching with the young campers. In another, three male PASF members wearing flak jackets and holding Kalashnikov assault rifles are sitting with the children:

As Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) recently exposed in a detailed report, the PA Security Forces (PASF) are deeply and fundamentally involved in terrorism.

Likewise, Fatah officials have bragged that most of the dead terrorists in recent years were from the PASF or Fatah. In this context, it is clear why Fatah specifically invited them to teach the children to “continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners.”

It goes without saying that the indoctrination of child soldiers is cynical child abuse and a severe breach of international humanitarian law.

But that has not stopped Fatah — the ruling party of the PA that is supported by international donors — from running such indoctrination camps for child soldiers in recent years.

Young boys performed drills with assault rifles in a 2023 summer camp run by Fatah and the PASF. At another Fatah camp that same year, boys were taught to handle and disassemble Kalashnikov assault rifles, and received close combat training:

PASF members let hundreds of children pose with their assault rifles at a Fatah camp the year prior. And another joint Fatah-PASF summer camp in 2022 gave children weapons training so as to teach them to fight the Israelis — “the sons of dogs,” as a Fatah representative termed them.

These summer camps are part of a large-scale PA and Fatah strategy of deep indoctrination, aiming to turn Palestinian children into child soldiers. PMW exposed this indoctrination in detail in its 2022 Special Report for UN World Children’s Day.

The indoctrination has continued unchecked, as seen when Fatah had a girl chant a poem at an event this January celebrating the 60th anniversary of its first terror attack.

The girl called for children to turn their seemingly innocent toys and possessions, such as bicycles, ribbons, and baby bottles into weapons against Israel:

Girl: “Students of the Gaza Strip, teach us a bit of what you know, for we have forgotten. Teach us how to be men, for we have men who have turned into dough. Teach us how the stone becomes a precious diamond in the hands of the children. How the child’s bicycle turns into a mine and the silk ribbon turns into an ambush. How the spout of the baby bottle, when placed under arrest, turns into a knife.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Jan. 5, 2025]

The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.

French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument connecting a rise in hate against France’s Jewish community with the recent decision by Paris to recognize a Palestinian state.

“The analysis that France’s decision to recognize the state of Palestine in September explains the rise in antisemitic violence in France is erroneous, abject, and will not go unanswered,” Macron’s office said in a statement on Tuesday, insisting that “the current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalization and manipulation.”

The French leader’s office added that “violence against the Jewish community is unacceptable” and called for all local and regional governments in the country to “take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators of antisemitic acts.”

Netanyahu on Sunday sent a letter to Macron in which he wrote that “your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this antisemitic fire.” He warned that “it is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews, and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets.”

The letter came a few weeks after Macron in late July announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state and issue a formal statement at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all announced their own plans to recognize a Palestinian state in the following days.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has celebrated the Western countries for their decisions. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, for example, praised the plans to recognize a Palestinian state as “the fruits of Oct. 7,” citing the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as the reason for increasing Western support.

“As [US President Donald] Trump has shown, antisemitism can and must be confronted. The president is protecting the civil rights of American Jews, enforcing the law, protecting public order and prosecuting antisemitic crimes,” Netanyahu wrote in his letter. “He has deported Hamas sympathizers and revoked the visas of foreign students who incite violence against Jews.”

France has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 — 1,570 — was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews.

“Antisemitism is a cancer,” Netanyahu warned Macron in his letter. “It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve, and to do so by a clear date: the Jewish New Year, Sept. 23, 2025. History will not forgive hesitation. It will honor action.”

Benjamin Haddad, who serves as France’s Minister Delegate for European Affairs, said in response to Netanyahu that “France has no lessons to learn in the fight against antisemitism.”

Last week, vandals targeted a tree planted to memorialize Ilan Halimi, a Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death in France in 2006.

“Cutting down the tree honoring Ilan Halimi is an attempt to kill him a second time. It will not succeed: the Nation will not forget this child of France who died because he was Jewish,” Macron posted Friday on X. “All means are being deployed to punish this act of hatred. In the face of antisemitism: the Republic, always uncompromising.”

On Aug. 7, employees of Israeli airline El Al discovered red paint splashed all over the doors of their Paris office and graffiti of such slogans as “Palestine will live, Palestine will win,” “To hell with Zionism,” and “Genocidal airline El Al.”

This prompted the airline to pull all its staff from the country and issue a statement saying, “El Al takes the incident very seriously and is actively cooperating with the authorities, adhering to the guidance of officials in both France and Israel. The airline proudly displays the Israeli flag on its planes and strongly condemns all forms of violence, particularly antisemitism.”

On March 13, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy released an analysis of hate against Jews in France by historian Marc Knobel, an associate researcher at the Jonathas Institute in Brussels and author of Cyberhate: Propaganda and Antisemitism on the Internet. He found a link between conflict in the Middle East and antisemitism in France.

“A recurring correlation emerges between peaks in antisemitic acts in France and periods of tension in the Middle East, particularly visible in the years 2000, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2023, and 2024,” Knobel wrote. “What stands out in 2025 is the prevalence of antisemitism linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.”

Knobel urged that “it is essential that politicians are aware of the impact of their words on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; irresponsible and violent speeches by the radical left can exacerbate tensions and fuel antisemitism in our country.”