Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, setting off war in the Middle East. Antisemitism was on the rise before the Hamas spree of murder, torture and kidnapping, but since that time Jewish students on American campuses have been threatened and attacked.
Recently, the White House announced new actions aimed at combating antisemitism just days after Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the administration had not seen "any credible threats" – then immediately shifted the conversation to concerns about Islamophobia. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) begs to differ with KJP.
"It's an enormous problem, and we're seeing it all across the country," Cruz said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
The antisemitism rampant on college campuses, he said, is rooted in cultural Marxism – and sunlight is the most potent weapon against it. Cruz said his new book "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" details how Marxism has infiltrated and taken over key American institutions, beginning with higher education.
Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant father, said Marxists have always sought to advance their theories through public education.
"My grandmother was a sixth-grade teacher in Cuba," he shared. "When I was a little boy, she told me that when Castro and the communists seized power, one of the first things he did was to send the military into the elementary schools.
"[Those] soldiers would go into kindergartens and first grades. They'd tell the little kids, 'Close your eyes and pray to Jesus and ask for candy.' The kids would do so, and they'd open their eyes and there'd be no candy. Then they would tell the children, 'Close your eyes and pray to Fidel Castro and ask for candy.' The kids would do so – and the soldiers would quietly put a piece of candy on each of their desks.
"That's Marxism. It is built on lies. It's built on indoctrination. It's designed to tear down allegiances to anything – to God, to family, to anything except the all-powerful state. And that is the ideology that we are seeing that has infested the major institutions of our nation," Cruz told show host Tony Perkins.
Marxists long ago labeled Israel as the oppressor
Marxism begins by dividing the world into oppressors and victims and has always supported violence as a means for victims to overtake oppressors, Cruz explained. Case in point, he said: It has identified Israel as an oppressor.
"That's why for example, at Harvard, my alma mater, 35 student groups signed a ridiculous, ignorant, naïve, and antisemitic statement that said every bit of the violence carried out by Hamas terrorists – every civilian murdered, every woman and little girl raped, every infant slaughtered – they said all of that is 100% the fault of Israel," the senator noted.
"Why? Because to the cultural Marxist, everything is justified in the so-called 'victim' overthrowing the so-called 'oppressor.' We're seeing it literally every day across the world."
Marxism branched out when it became popular in American universities in the 1960s, Cruz said.
"It began to mutate to a number of different variants. One of the first was Critical Race Theory. Instead of socioeconomic, they look at race and they view America as irredeemably racist. Their solution, again, is the so-called 'victim races' violently overthrowing and using government power to redistribute from the so-called 'oppressor races.'"
It then morphed along the lines of gender and sexual orientation, he continued.
"The ideas of the radical Left are wildly unpopular. Normal, rational people don't support abolishing the police. They don't support open borders. They don't support surgically mutilating and castrating little children. They don't celebrate the atrocities carried out by Hamas terrorists.
"This means Marxists thrive on power, coercion and indoctrination. It's why the Marxists focus on schools, on universities and K through 12, and on journalism and entertainment … because it takes indoctrination to push this assault."
Conservatives can no longer 'cede' ideas to the Left
Cruz said that's why he has been helping elect conservatives in local school board races in Texas. The involvement of citizens at the local level in exposing Marxists' positions, he argued, is the most important weapon in reclaiming the political narrative.
"For too long we've ceded ideas to the Left – [but] sunlight is powerful," he emphasized. "Conservatives and libertarians with resources who've been successful in business need to invest in the organs of transmission of ideas. Go buy a TV station, buy a radio station, buy a movie studio, buy a book publishing house, buy a record label, engage in the battle of ideas.
"The model I point to is Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, which I think is the most consequential step for free speech in decades. We cannot stand on the sidelines or be spectators in the stands and say, 'Well, this is bad.' We've got to get on the field," Cruz said.
