Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested that pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses across the nation are uneducated about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While pro-Palestinian demonstrations have taken place on colleges since shortly after Israel launched it’s assault on Gaza following the surprise October 7 attack by Hamas, the protests have significantly increased in intensity in recent weeks and have been accompanied by reports of antisemitic incidents.
During a Thursday appearance on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe, Clinton suggested to host Joe Scarborough that the ongoing demonstrations have been fueled by an ignorance of “the history of the Middle East,” while arguing young people are also lacking knowledge about U.S. history.
“I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now,” Clinton said. “They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East. Or, frankly, about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country.”
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Newsweek reached out for further comment to a Clinton representative via email on Thursday night.
Clinton then recalled the Camp David Summit in 2000, which saw her husband, former President Bill Clinton, attempt to broker a “two-state solution” deal between the Israeli government and the then-dominant Palestinian Authority.
Former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s failure to agree to a deal was called “one of the great tragedies of history” by the former first lady, who pointed out that a Palestinian state would have existed for decades if an agreement had been reached.
Clinton claimed that Arafat “wanted” to sign the agreement but was “pretty sure he’d be killed” by Hamas extremists, while recalling that former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were both assassinated by extremists as they pursued peace.
The former secretary of state went on to call the history of attempting to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “a very important piece of history to understand if you’re going to take any kind of position with respect to what’s going on right now.”
Clinton suggested campus protesters may have fallen prey to pro-Hamas “propaganda” on social media and in the classroom, adding young people are consuming information that often has a hidden “agenda” or lacks “any kind of context.”
“Propaganda is not education,” Clinton said. “Propaganda, whether it’s on TikTok or in the classroom, is actually the opposite of education. Anybody who is teaching in a university, or anyone who is putting content on social media, should be held responsible for what they include and what they exclude.”
“So much of what we’re seeing—particularly on TikTok—about what’s going on in the Middle East, is woefully false,” she continued. “But it’s also incredibly slanted: pro-Hamas, anti-Israel. And it is not any place where anyone should go to get information on complex manners, like what’s going on there.”
Clinton concluded by saying that educators “need to do a better job” in helping young people understand how to “filter” and interpret information on world affairs, while avoiding the pitfalls of falling into “easy absolutes” on issues that are “too complicated.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.