With students returning to college, and Hamas-backers already resorting to campus mischief, it’s time to shine a spotlight on Iran’s protest-financing.
Maybe it’ll finally show these antisemitic goons — or at least pols like President Biden and Veep Kamala Harris — what “useful idiots” they’ve been.
National intel boss Avril Haines confirmed last month that Tehran is behind some funding of anti-Israel, anti-American protesters in the United States.
As Danielle Pletka & Stephen Ailinger note at National Review, Haines’ revelation was a “warning about Iran’s ability to manipulate American civil society and underscores the imperative to declassify intelligence about Iran’s influence operations” in America.
Focusing public attention on those operations can help dispel claims, such as by Team Biden, that the protests are “organic.”
They can also prove how wrong Biden and Harris have been to insist that protesters “have a point.”
Sure, many naïve college kids have bought into the ludicrous and vile slur that Israel is committing “genocide” against Palestinians and should be destroyed.
The truth, of course, is the complete opposite: Israel has sacrificed the lives of its own soldiers to protect Palestinians in Gaza and avoid civilian casualties; Hamas, Iran’s leaders and other Islamic radicals are the ones who seek genocide against Jews — and don’t care how many Palestinian lives are lost along the way.
The kids get their skewed ideas, of course, from radical, left-wing professors and DEI agendas that paint Israel, and Jews, as oppressors.
Yet now we know Iran has funded outside agitators, pro-Palestinian groups and likely some student organizations to drum up anti-Jewish hatred as well.
Americans deserve to know how much funding. And which groups in particular.
How, exactly, are Iranian funds used to support the violence?
That info is vital, particularly now that classes — and “protests” — are resuming.
On Monday, as Cornell held its first day of classes, anti-Israel hooligans smashed a glass doorway and spray-painted messages, such as “Israel bombs and Cornell pays.”
Last week at Barnard College, they disrupted move-in day, and they’ve gathered at Columbia, too.
Declassifying and publicizing info defeated Russia’s plans to stage a false-flag operation in Ukraine in 2022 to justify its invasion. It can help counter the protests, too.
Beyond that, the public has a right to know how Iran is skewing US public discourse.
Americans can’t fight an enemy they don’t realize is attacking them.
Congress needs to force intel agencies to share what they know about Iran’s malicious handiwork.