8 | MARCH 25 • 2021

PURELY COMMENTARY

MOSES OR PHARAOH
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PROGRESSIVE
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ing for something that will
excite them and give them a
reason to keep living. These
youngsters are not failures
and they are not fools. They
are actually very bright and
very honest with themselves
and cannot pursue a goal that
doesn’t seem worthwhile.
This transition period we
are in can be long and pain-
ful. The struggle between
Pharaoh and Moses happens
within each of us, but it
also has social, national and
international ramifications.
The Bible describes the time
of hesitation whether to go
Pharaoh’s way or Moses’ way
as the 10 plagues of Egypt.
But in the end, the ego,
namely Pharaoh, surrenders.
Now we are approaching
that point of choice on the
global level. We can choose
to experience the plagues, as
well, or we can choose Moses’
way before the plagues land
on us.
We know that in the end,
Moses will win, and we will
build a united society, where
people care for one another.
Therefore, the sooner we
head in this direction, the
faster we will achieve this
blissful state. In the process,
we will avoid Egypt’s afflic-
tions.
Now is our time to make
a choice which way to go,
toward the land of Egypt, and
suffer, or toward the land of
Israel, the land of unity and
love.

Michael Laitman is a Ph.D. in philos-

ophy and Kabbalah, M.S. in medical

bio-cybernetics, and founder and

president of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah

Education & Research Institute.

accepted colonialisms,
Erakat dismissed
the Jewish national
liberation movement
as imperialistic. Rather
than fulfilling millennia-
long Jewish desires to
return to their indigenous
homeland, Zionism
repeats the “colonial
denial of peoples’
sovereignty beginning
in the 15th century and
the conquistadores’
exploration and conquest of
the Americas.”
Despite massive
historical and archeological
evidence substantiating
and complementing Jewish
biblical claims to Israel,
she asserted that this
Jewish “biblical right” is
merely a “stand-in with an
indigeneity.”
That Zionism “is
predicated on the removal
of Palestinians” also
appeared on Erakat’s rap
sheet against Israel. She
did not explain how then
some 600,000 Arabs in the
League of Nations Palestine
Mandate, created in 1922
for the establishment of
a Jewish national home,
grew to about 1.2 million
at Israel’s independence in
1947. Furthermore, Israel’s
own Arab citizenry today
numbers almost 2 million,
in addition to more than
4.7 million Arabs in the
Palestinian-ruled territories.

HOLOCAUST
COMPARISON
Not even the Holocaust was
sacred for Erakat, who rela-
tivized the Nazi genocide of
6 million innocent Jews by
comparing it with the nakba,

the “catastrophe” that was
the establishment of mod-
ern-day Israel. According to
Palestinian myths, during
its 1948 independence war,
the Jews ethnically cleansed
perhaps 750,000 Arabs
from what became Israeli
territory. In reality, most
of these anti-Israel Arabs
fled combat zones, often
under directives from Arab
authorities who wanted to
destroy Israel without wor-
rying about Arab civilian
casualties.
Without explaining how
the flight of a relatively
small number of Arabs
equals the systematic
extermination of European
Jewry, she declared that the
Holocaust and nakba should
be Arab-Jewish “traumas
that we hold together.”
Hill attempted to
substantiate Erakat’s
demonization of Israel
by stating that “to be
Palestinian in the State of
Israel means that I am less
likely to get a high-quality
education.”
Yet, Israeli Christian
Arabs are more likely than
Jews to qualify for university
admission — a fact that
disproves his simplistic

analysis. His Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.-like appeal
that “our Jewish brothers
and sisters can’t get free
until everyone is free” will
surely fall on the deaf ears
of Israeli Jews (who Dr.
King, a Zionist, supported)
who reject the charge that
Israel holds Palestinians in
bondage.
Plitnick, despite his
self-description “as a
Jew,” likewise will win
little Jewish sympathy with
his statement that, given
the “crimes that Israel has
committed,” it “has become
a victimizer and that is very
hard for people to accept.”
A lie is a lie, no matter who
tells it.
The panelists, each with
long records of anti-Israel
activism that, in the cases of
Erakat and Hill, frequently
spill over into antisemitism,
have established their
reputations by recycling
anti-Israel propaganda as
fact. That Erakat and Hill
are professors in good
standing and represent
commonly held views
on Israel epitomizes
the intellectual and
moral decadence of the
contemporary university.
They should be recognized
as the toxic purveyors of lies
that they are.

Andrew E. Harrod is a Campus

Watch Fellow, freelance researcher

and writer who holds a Ph.D. from

the Fletcher School of Law and

Diplomacy at Tufts University, and

a J.D. from George Washington

University Law School. He is a fellow

with the Lawfare Project. Follow him

on Twitter at @AEHarrod.