In “The Economist/YouGov poll from December 2-5, 20% of young adults” polled “agreed with the statement ‘the Holocaust is a myth’. That’s one-fifth Holocaust deniers,” notes Crémieux. Studies find that Millennials and Generation Z are more likely to believe the Holocaust never happened. Another 30% of young adults don’t know whether the Holocaust happened. So only half of young adults know that the Holocaust happened.
Holocaust denial is particularly common among progressives and blacks, according to The Economist/YouGov poll:
Top groups that believe the Holocaust didn’t happen:
-Democrats: 10% (vs 5% of Republicans)
-Black people: 13% (vs 5% white people)
-City residents: 14% (vs 3% rural people)
-Young people: 20% (vs 0% of age 65+)
Hamas, which governs the Gaza trip, “recently published a denial of the Jewish Holocaust on its official website,” notes the Washington Institute. Hamas claims that “the so-called Holocaust…is an alleged and invented story with no basis. . . . The invention of these grand illusions of an alleged crime that never occurred, ignoring the millions of dead European victims of Nazism during the war, clearly reveals the racist Zionist face, which believes in the superiority of the Jewish race over the rest of the nations.”
Colleges have allowed masked pro-Hamas rallies in states like Virginia, which ban public mask-wearing except for Halloween and health reasons, even though colleges would never tolerate mask-wearing right-wing protesters. This ideological favoritism based on the viewpoint of protesters violates Supreme Court rulings such as Police Department v. Mosley (1972), which said pro-union protesters couldn’t be allowed to picket if other groups weren’t allowed to picket. The Virginia Court of Appeals has upheld Virginia’s mask ban, but left-wing prosecutors like Steve Descano won’t enforce it against pro-Hamas protesters. Even though Code of Virginia § 18.2-422 clearly states, “It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place…However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes….”
Grand Central Terminal in New York had to be closed for several hours last month when pro-Hamas protesters tried to get inside to attack the police. Train service was temporarily disrupted.
Colleges are applying campus rules against inappropriate remarks in a selective fashion. Washington University in St. Louis investigated a professor for anti-Hamas remarks that some people viewed as dehumanizing toward Palestinians. But at Cornell University, there was no investigation of a professor who called the Hamas terror attacks “exhilarating” and “exciting.”
A diversity and inclusion director at Cornell University supported the Hamas terror attack, writing that Hamas was “fighting for life, dignity, and freedom…against settler colonization, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, which the United States is the model.”
Universities that routinely speak out against microaggressions, Supreme Court decisions, Republican legislation, and things like students wearing sombreros to Halloween parties could not bring themselves to condemn either the Hamas terror attacks that killed at least 1400 people, or campus protests that explicitly praised the terror attacks. One university claimed it must remain neutral about “geopolitical issues and news events.” Such universities have often taken sides on political issues, such as climate change policy, and spoken out about news events, such as the death of George Floyd.
Northwestern University, which publicly criticized the Supreme Court for ruling against race-based college admissions, refused to “make an institutional statement” about the terror attacks by Hamas that killed relatives of some of its students.
Hamas kidnapped many civilians, including small children, from neighboring Israel, seizing them as hostages. Some of these hostages are American citizens. This hostage-taking came after the Biden administration agreed to pay a $6 billion ransom to Iran in exchange for the release of five American hostages. Hamas admits Iran gave it weapons it used in its attack on Israel. The Biden administration released millions of dollars to the Hamas-controlled government of the Gaza strip.
