BONUS EPISODE | Pro-Palestinian College Protests

Howdy folks, it's me, Tom Sawyer, coming straight from Clearview Church in the heart of our beloved Henderson, North Carolina.

Gather round, gather round. We've got a spectacle you won't want to miss. Join us for a rip-roaring adventure down by the Mississippi with me and all my pals at Clearview Theater's production of Tom Sawyer.

From fence painting to treasure hunting, it's a tale that'll tickle your funny bone and warm your heart. Dr. Avidan Shaw is opening up the whole night, taking a look at the life of my good buddy Mark Twain. So mark your calendars and grab your tickets for an evening of laughter, mischief, and good old-fashioned fun at Clearview Church, Saturday, April 27th and Sunday, April 28th. Doors will open at 6 and show starts at 7.

Tickets are free but they are going fast so come over and see us at Clearview Church in Henderson and get yours today. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Avidan Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you can find our show online by visiting ClearviewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. And we want you guys to help us keep the conversation moving forward. And you can do that by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. Leave us a good, excellent, top tier five star review on iTunes or Spotify.

Absolutely nothing less for any reason. And we're going to make sure that you are able to do that by leaving you some links in the description below. And as always, we are here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Avidan Shaw, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shaw, a lot of funny things going on in the world today. It would be funny if it wasn't actually happening, if it wasn't actually true. Like you look at it on TV and it's like, that would be hilarious if it wasn't actually true.

I feel like, have you guys ever seen, it's an older video now, but it was a viral video of this little boy after he gets his tonsils out or he has some dental work done and he's just like, looped out on medication. He looks at his dad and he goes, is this real life? I feel like you turn on the news and you look and you're like, is this real? Is this actually happening? It feels like something you would see on Always Sunny or one of those absurdist shows where it's like, oh man, I can laugh at it because I know in real life that would never happen.

But wouldn't it be hilarious if it did? And on today's episode, we want to talk a little bit about that, especially the protests that are going on on college campuses related to the war going on in Israel. I mean, it is astounding. You turn around and there's another college campus and there's another college campus where this is going on over and over and over and over and over again. I mean, it's almost like a viral trend that has caught on. You, and I don't want to eat up all the airtime here, but I know you are a scholar, Dr. Shaw.

Dr. Shaw, for anyone who doesn't know, is a text critic. And so you have spent a lot of time in higher education and universities are supposed to represent that next level of maturity, that conscious choice to pursue higher education and better myself beyond just the bare minimum of high school. It feels like they've become clown shows. It feels like it's almost universities have become a mockery of themselves. My issue with what's happening in America, especially at Columbia since August 17, 2024, is a little different. I'm not as opposed to students protesting. In fact, according to somebody who went and did some research on how students have protested on university campuses, back in 1776, Harvard students staged what's known as butter rebellion. Butter rebellion? Butter rebellion because they had changed the butter that they were serving in the dining hall. No way.

You're kidding. I thought butter was just a name that was just unrelated to the actual No, no, no. This wasn't even a protest. This was a full on rebellion. A rebellion. This is known as the butter rebellion. This is 1776.

This is prior to our revolution. Okay? So students have done this. This is part of what makes students students, of course. Yeah.

You need to study. At the same time, you're young, fresh ideas, and you have this syndrome of I'm going to stand for a good cause. That is true.

Yeah, I was going to say that. Quick to a cause. And then, of course, with the coming of the revolution in the sixties, fighting against the crown. Of course, there were some protests that happened there. In the 1830s, there were some more. And of course, as you know, in the sixties, there were protests on university campuses.

I mean, some of them became very heated and people died. This is different. This is not just your students protesting. This is so filled with hate and hate against the Jewish people.

The type that otherwise we would say, hey, that's wrong. That's hate speech. Yeah, that's wrong.

You shouldn't be doing that. Now it's tolerated on university campuses. And these students who are doing that, I have my own view.

I think there are sinister forces behind who are making this happen. Yeah. I think that's a great point too, because it's not just protesting a war.

It's antagonistic toward a people group. Yes. Yeah. That's a great point. That's exactly what it is. It's not the war that's the problem. It's the people who are, quote unquote, making this happen. So we need to get rid of them. Not the war, not the circumstance.

We need Palestine to be free from this people. That's very right. And I would say, if any of you even remotely try to compare this to the civil rights issue, that was about, hey, black people in America, African Americans need to have the same freedom, the same rights, the same privileges we get to have. That's not what's happening here.

They're talking about pushing the Jewish people, the state of Israel, into the sea. Right. So there's nothing in the civil rights movement that said white people need to leave. They need to get out.

It was that, hey, we want to elevate our status up. This is being masqueraded as that. Oh yes, of course, all the time. Whether it's in the whole homosexuality issue, or they always bring civil rights.

And to me, people like Martin Luther King Jr. would be appalled that they are being compared to these matters. Whether it's homosexuality or this whole pro-Palestinian stuff that is happening. Or anti-Israel is what's happening.

Yes. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. It's not pro-Palestinian, it's anti-Israel. Well, that's what is happening. Students are calling for their universities to separate themselves from companies and organizations that are backing Israel.

You know what I mean? So if you're with them, oh man, we've got to take you out. So why do we want to pretend that this is not a pointed or targeted attack? Why do we want to pretend like this is just trying to get the Palestinian people uplifted?

It's like, no it's not. You wouldn't be calling for the removal of Israel or people who back Israel if it wasn't targeted. And what is even shocking to me is that just a few months ago, not even a year, right, since October, it hasn't even been a year, that Hamas terrorists came into Israel, right, into the borders of Israel, killed, kidnapped, killed some more in captivity, still some are kidnapped. This has just happened. Raped. And today we are in an educational academic institution where you would think people are using their minds to say, okay, so who's the bad guy? Oh, the Jewish people are bad guys. Yeah. Like, wait, how did that happen?

Yeah. Where is the logic? There is no logic.

There are sinister forces behind this. And we as Americans should stand up and say absolutely not. We're not going to tolerate that. We're not going to allow this. It's wrong. It's evil.

It's got to go. I'm grateful that you remind us of that perspective, that there's always a greater narrative. There's always a larger force that's at play. Because so many times people accept things at face value. I mean, they see a bunch of students on a college campus and they're like, oh wow, that seems like a worthy cause because there's lots of people behind it. Oh, they're saying Palestine should be uplifted and the Jewish people should be done away with. Well, there's a lot of them together, so perhaps there's merit to that. No, no, there are forces at work behind what you see. And if you are naive to that, you need to educate yourself.

We organize events here at Clearview Church that are relatively small in scale compared to other things. And so you look at footage like this and you look at all these people who were there and we have this false narrative that we're being fed that this just happened. The students just cared this much. And they just conveniently gathered here together and the sight of them together made other students who were compassionate. It's like, no, someone planned this.

Someone wrangled these students together. Lots of things have been planned in America over the past few years. And it's wrong. It's evil. And we as Americans, majority of Americans do not go for this garbage. They're not for this. And we have to speak out. We have to be courageous. And we have to say, yeah, we don't support this kind of stuff.

We do not support this. Is it too much of a stretch to say the forces behind this anti-Israel movement are also leaning anti-America? Oh, I believe so. I totally believe so.

In the past few years, this has been the thing. And so they're all connected. They're related. They are coming from the same source.

There's nothing like I can say. Now, this is a whole different thing. No, these are exactly.

If you follow the pattern, it's exactly the same. All of a sudden it begins to brew. And before you know it, it's so big. And people are going like, what is this? Oh, wait, there's something happening here. Or something happening here, too. Or something happening here, too. That sounds very familiar in the past few years.

When I say past few years, I'm talking about four or five years. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

The University of Southern California actually canceled its graduation over this. Really? Yeah. I didn't realize it was this prevalent. But it's everywhere. And that's the thing that I think I'm realizing more and more the more I see stuff like this. And I think people really need to realize is these have to be organized. These things don't just happen. We're telling you as event organizers, this is what we do. We work at a church. We have events all the time.

I mean, Ryan and Dr. Shah do that way more than I do. But what I'm saying is I see the amount of work that goes into even, like I said, relatively small things that we do. Something like this that's nationwide doesn't just happen because people care so much. It has to be organized by someone with an agenda and someone with money.

That's right. And to compare this to the past, like the civil rights issue from the 60s, like the Greensboro race, the policies, the racist policies that were there and the things that happened. To say that this is the same thing that's happening here. They were fighting for their rights. Here, it's not just fighting for the rights. Here is a group of people were brutally killed, massacred. And now today, so October, November, December, January, February, March, April.

Six months later, we are protesting against the very people who got massacred. Right. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Explain that. Make that make sense.

You can't. Yeah. And anti-Semitism is a problem and has been for quite some time. And you would think that we're living in this post-Holocaust world that people would immediately recognize it, call it out.

Some of these university presidents haven't done that and have looked at some of them and know what they believe and where they stand. Oh, yeah. It makes sense why they do that.

You know, Colombia, especially. Yeah. It didn't seem that long ago that almost everyone in America were convinced that Hamas were terrorists. They were a terrorist organization. You know, they kidnap civilians. They kill people. They kill women and children. But now they're freedom fighters.

And I'm not sure how they've became freedom fighters overnight. It's propaganda. I mean, it's a chapter out of Hitler's Mein Kampf. This is propaganda.

If you can if you know how to spin a narrative, if you know how to how to how to repeat the same thing. I read that chapter, by the way. I read that. Oh, yeah. I read that chapter about twenty five years ago.

Yeah. I have I read through Mein Kampf to see what went through this man's head to do what he did or to lead the people. And it's very unimpressive, unimpressive book. But that chapter I particularly focused on propaganda.

How how do you do that? And it's quite interesting how to create a movement, how to to focus that hate towards this one group and how to rally people and repeat it again and again from different angles. And before, you know, people start. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.

That's a chilling comparison. And I don't believe I really don't believe that propaganda is working. But this movement is is being pushed and funneled and financed somehow. Yeah. And that's that is what I'm saying. I don't believe most Americans agree with all this.

I don't think so. Even many of the universities have said, if you do this, we're going to arrest you. We're going to be going to call the police. You're going to be arrested. So I'm very optimistic and I'm very pleased in some ways.

But at the same time, this broadcast is done so that if any of you are even remotely thinking this is OK, it's not OK. Yeah, it's not OK. Yeah. I don't believe many of these people even know who Palestinians are. So that's what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, these students, do you really do we really believe these are pro Hamas, pro terrorist students, or they just dumb students who've been paid or suckered into caring about a cause?

I think it's a mixture. I think there are students who are real students at those universities. And again, I have no evidence to prove this, so take it as it is. I think there are genuine people who are like, really, OK, well, I'll stand for that. And not educated, not aware of the issues. And I think then there are forces behind who are making it look like a lot of students or a group of students are behind all this. And I think somebody needs to do some investigation here. And I'm sure they are.

I'm sure there are people out there doing that. I mean, realistically, how do we verify that all of those students that are attending are actual students? Yeah.

How do we verify that? I mean, all of them have masks on. Yeah. Right. To me, it's like, OK, why do you have a mask on?

Because you don't want anybody to know who you are. Right? I mean, look at this.

I mean, not every one of them here, but I see several right there. Yeah. Five out of 10, at least. Oh, yeah.

And I would say seven out of 10. Most of them have masks on. They're all hiding themselves. They know that what they're doing is wrong, but it's a chance to cause some chaos and get away with it. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I don't even know if they're all students there. I'm sure they're not. I think some of them are just agitators brought in for that.

Well, that was more or less confirmed even during the George Floyd riots, that people were, you know, when there was a shooting or something that happened in that town, protesters would come in from other cities because they know I can steal a high-definition TV and get away with it. This is kind of my opportunity. And I think there's some level of that going on here where I can... I mean, it may not turn violent, but I can go and do something.

I don't have to go to class. Yeah. I don't even know if these are even common thieves who aren't here just to take advantage of this. I think there are sinister forces behind this who are probably funding this. It's like, hey, you go do this.

Here's your $100. Right. It's kind of funny because all the... Yeah. We'll knock this off your student loans. Yeah.

Maybe not all, but I would say... Even if there's no student loan, here's your thing. You're sitting in a basement doing nothing where here's your $100.

Go act like a student and go do this. Yeah. Look, y'all should really be watching the video podcast for this, but dude's just like, oh man. And they're all wearing that same scarf too. That's the Hamas scarf?

Well, it's a terrorist scarf. It's kind of ironic that I would say maybe 95 to 99 percent of all these protesters are liberals on the left, or at least left-leaning, but they're supporting an organization who oppresses women, oppresses homosexuals, is clearly anti-Semitic, wants to instate a theocracy over in the Middle East. And they're like, we'll support that. They're all the things that we claim to hate, but we'll support it.

And why? Because it's against the Jewish people? I guess I just don't understand why the American left suddenly has beef with Israel. Right. Right.

And I'm even wondering if even they know why they have a beef. Yeah. This is what we've been assigned to do almost. That's the mindset. I think you're 100 percent right. This is what you're assigned to do.

Go do it. And it's not even the American left. It's students. Like why are students at universities?

And I don't even know if they're really all students. And then it's like, well, we're not supporting Hamas. We're supporting Palestine. It's like, but Israel's not at war with Palestine. They're at war with a terrorist organization. Right. So why is the slogan that Palestine will be free?

If it's not Palestine, it's an organ. So you condemn Hamas. Okay, cool. That's fine. But you still want Palestine to be free from Israel?

Why? Why are they related? Yeah, I don't think any of that is really happening. These are agitators. Many of them may not even be students, but they are definitely there to cause chaos.

This is election year, cause chaos, cause drama, cause upheaval in our otherwise peaceful society where people do care. Somebody asked me, do you not care about the Palestinians? I said, absolutely I do.

God cares about all people. Right. Right. But does, does that mean you have to be antisemitic to do that?

Right. God talked to Jewish people when our, our own friend that we know that we go to Israel with, he'll often say, it's like, yeah, Israel should do this and that. And there are two places we can do better. Yes, we should do better. I mean, he himself is saying that. So it's not like we're here saying, oh, Palestinians are bad people.

No, of course not. But lately what is happening, this whole antisemitic chant is the one that should be very troubling to everybody. Whether you're in the college world or whether you're just an average American, it should be troubling to you that these are just ways to distract. These are ways to cause fear in the hearts of Americans. This is the, this is a way to harass people.

This, this is just evil. Yeah. We've talked about this on the show before and you mentioned it earlier in the episode, but hatred toward God's people, antisemitism is an old problem. Isn't it?

It has plagued us for a while. Where, where else, I mean, other than, other than the Holocaust, where else have we seen that throughout history? I mean, that goes back even to the Bible. I mean, look at the time of Esther. Yeah.

Right. Haman was, was waiting to hang all the Jewish people, Mordecai, on the gallows. I mean, he was, he was gearing up the entire Persian empire to kill every Jewish person. I mean, that's what the goal was.

Are we ever told why? Are we ever given a reason why Haman wanted to kill the Jews? Yeah. He was an Agagite and, and in, you know, a hundred years, a couple hundred years prior to that, the king of Agag had been killed by Samuel. Yep. That's right.

That's right. And because of his evil and because of all that he was doing against God's people. So there was always that hatred that there's going to come a day.

We'll take revenge. Yeah. And here was his chance, but God turned it upside down or right side up and use this young girl named Esther to save her people who at the time did not want to be used. Yeah. Right. She was like, I don't know.

I don't know. And Mordecai, her uncle said very clearly, Hey, look, help for God's people is going to come one way or the other. It's going to happen. God's going to save his people. And that's what, that's the reason why we're doing this podcast today. Right. Or this YouTube. It's because God's help is going to come for his people one way or the other.

But you and your family will surely die. Yeah. And I think that's something that, you know, we should call our listeners to action on is that this is not an issue to be on the wrong side of, neither is it an issue to sit on the fence. Right. Because if we, if we like, let's, let's wind the clocks back a couple of decades and take this to world war II, where it's the allies and the axis power. Nobody's unclear. Right.

All of America agrees that they are, they are harmful and should be stopped. Same with the cold war in the Soviet union, even with the, like you talking about the civil rights movement, like nobody. Yeah. There was pushback, but nobody was like, well, this really isn't, I don't know what to, everybody knew their son needs to happen.

But there's a lot of Christians right now that's like, well, I don't know. Just wait it out. It'll go away as election year. Right?

Well, think about it because FDR, in my opinion, he hesitated for a while, right? He already had sent out his, his person to check and make sure, yes, this is happening against the Jewish people. They are being murdered in the gas chambers. Something needs to happen, but they're still delayed. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

They're still delayed for a while. If I'm not wrong, it was like a six months to a year. Wow. Yeah. It was not like immediate.

It's like, yes, there's a problem. Let's go six months to a year. That's a long time.

Yeah. While people are being killed, people are being killed. And at that point, of course, Pearl Harbor happens. This and that happens. And there's like, okay, now we're ready.

Now we're ready. Can you imagine how many hundreds of thousands died? Yeah. So one reason for doing a show like this is to say, yes, just like God used Mordecai to tell Esther, help for God's people is going to come some way, but you and your family will surely die. But could it be that you have come to this point for such an event like this?

Could it be that you have been raised to this position for such a time like this? So for us, maybe we have been raised for such a time like this to speak out. Yeah, that's true. And again, we're not trying to be hateful towards anybody. We're just saying, come on, use your head. Don't buy into this, whether this is real or make belief, whether these people genuinely care about Palestinians.

But what they're saying is hateful towards the Jewish people. We need to speak out and say no. But also recognize behind the curtain, there are sinister forces where the students need to just go back to studying.

I think some of them need to. I mean, they look like students, but then some, I'm not sure. Who are they?

Who are they really? Your face is very obscured. I don't know what you look like. Are you really, just because you have a backpack, does that mean you're a student? I don't know.

You may be an out-of-towner that's causing trouble. Do they have to show their ID to protest? No, you don't have to show your ID to protest.

These days, you probably don't even have to show your ID to go to school to show up on campus. How do we even know? Who are these people? So again, I'm not exempting the people from what they're doing. Yes, but I think we need to take a firmer stance against people like this and say no. And I think many of them are.

I mean, a lot of universities, as I was looking online, they've already said, you do that here, you're done. Yeah, good. We're arresting you. That's a good thing. And so anyways, people need Jesus. Amen. Amen. Y'all need Jesus.

Y'all do. Even, I mean, God's people need Jesus too. And that's the point of doing this is that we know that God has a plan for his people and God has a very beautiful plan for his people that we can read about in the Bible.

And so to support them, to support them and even protect them as also as children of God, that's what God wants us to do. And if young people, you want to protest, I mean, think about Tiananmen Square. I mean, that was a good protest in China in 1989, standing up against this dictatorship and standing up against the People's Liberation Army that came with tanks and tear gas.

I mean, that's a protest. Yeah. Yeah. Don't stand for freedom. Right. Don't protest in support of genocide. Yeah.

I feel like that's the bare minimum. That's not a cause to get behind just in case you were unclear. Yeah. Right. You know, think about the civil rights movement. Yes, that was a cause to get behind and stand for the truth. There are other things, but not this.

No, not this. I appreciate that reminder that we need to engage our brains in what we take in. Like, don't just accept things at face value.

I feel like that's kind of where we've been programmed as a society with all the information that we get daily. Just take all that information in and that just allow people to tell you what to think. But question it.

Push back. Think about what agenda could be behind what you're seeing. Think about a larger narrative and know that there are very real forces at play who are against God's people and against the nation in which we're living.

That's right. But also remember to pray. Pray as God's people that we're praying for this. It's not just something that we're going to go out and make our own protest and show them.

It's never going to work. But God is working something behind the scenes and pretty soon it'll reveal itself. That's right. And it's part of our mission on this show to not only keep you informed, but to get you on the right side. And again, I want to stress that because a lot of people will, I think, still listen to a show like this and be like, well, you know, someone's talking about it.

And as long as y'all are talking about it, that's good. And I'll pray from here. But to do something, to stand up. And Dr. Shah, if someone's wondering, what can I do? What can I do to help? What can I do to support? What can I do to make this effort known?

What would you, what advice would you- Number one, I think you said it right there. Pray. Pray for our nation. Our nation needs a lot of prayer. Pray for revival in our nation.

Pray for love and peace. God is not a God of turmoil and disturbance. And that's what I'm seeing here. I don't see people fighting for anybody's rights here. This is chaos. This is purposely causing disturbance that they're hoping will catch on and cause more disturbance in our nation so that people will be distracted and fearful.

God is not, God is not for that. And so we need revival in our nation. We also need to pray for courage in our leaders, that they will stand for what is right and not back down. Discernment to know when there are really genuinely people caring for somebody versus this.

I don't know what this is. And so we need to do that as well. I would say to our people who are listening, watching, educate yourself. Don't be naive. Educate yourself.

I had a couple of people come to me when all this happened in October. I had a couple of people come in and ask me, it's like, you know, I've been reading things on Israel and what Israel has been doing. And I was like, what have you been reading? I was like, what has Israel been doing? I mean, I mean, I came across a site and I would send it to you.

I'm like, you can send it to me if you want to. I'm aware of those kinds of things, but what do you think Israel is doing? I don't know. I mean, that's what I'm kind of conflicted here. You're conflicted over something you don't even know about. Yeah. How, what does that mean?

Right. So somebody tried to twist their ears and they were trying to twist mine. And so I was like, wait, let's, let's, so I, we had some shows here. I even preached on it.

And then the people came to me, gave me a hug and said, thank you. Cause I, I don't know how I was going down the wrong path. I was like, yeah, it happens.

It happens. The enemy has an agenda. You know, David, one of our sound engineers was talking about where does anti-Semitism come from?

Well, just think about it. God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bring his plan of salvation into this world, to bring his son into this world. Fully God would become fully man, but he'll come through this family. Not because there was anything special in that family is because he chose that family.

And ever since then, he hated that family. And nobody is saying anything. Churches are just like, well, we're going to have a new series on something, something, something. Well, I'm glad you said that because I think that the left has played that game to the silence is violence game. I think they've played that too long. And I think it's time for people on the right to realize that's actually an effective game.

Yeah. Now that's the heart behind today's episode and really behind the Clear Read Today shows that you would take the time to educate yourself, resource yourself, and listen to the larger narrative of what's happening and ultimately stand with God's people. Like we reminded you today, pray for God's people, pray for our nation, pray for all the things that we are experiencing and ultimately that we would come back to God. If you enjoyed today's episode, if you learned something write in and let us know 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

Don't forget you can partner with us financially on the same website. Become part of our Clear Read Today show family as we together seek to impact the nations with the gospel of Jesus. John, what's coming up tomorrow? Tomorrow we are getting back into our series on marriage and family. We're going to have perma guest Nicole Shaw back with us, so make sure that you stay tuned because we've got a lot of marriage tips, tricks, and biblical advice coming at you. Very nice. Make sure you guys tune in. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Read Today.