But following their failure to conquer Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, secular Arab revolutionary movements needed to reinvent themselves. They then turned to Islam. The idea was to use religion as a motivator to stir up the population, while ridding it of its moral restraints. In essence, they used Islam as a tool to spread their ideology.

One of the pioneers of this process was Egyptian author and scholar Sayed Qutb, who is known as the godfather of modern jihadist thinking and was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was executed in 1969 for plotting to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Before his death, he was instrumental in transforming Islam from its traditional roots and moral principles to Marxist/Hegelian theory—Hegelianism was a precursor to Marxism.

Although Qutb was against Marxism, he was heavily influenced by it. His understanding of the world was one of a life-and-death struggle between Islam and ignorant societies, which he referred to as Jahiliyah (pre-Islamic societies) that must be eradicated to achieve an authentic Muslim society. In Qutb's 1964 short book "Milestones," he outlined the ideology, strategy, and tactics of jihadism. It's an Islamic version of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin's 1902 political pamphlet "What Is to Be Done?" which was a blueprint for the ideological formation of the Soviet Union.

It's no wonder that books authored by Chomsky and Qutb were found by U.S. forces in Osama bin Laden's library at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. And university students are reading Chomsky and Butler as well as other authors who embrace this world view, including Michele Foucault, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Rashid Khalidi. This environment caused videos supporting Bin Laden's "Letter to America," published after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to surge in popularity on TikTok last November.

It's also not surprising that many radical leftists and jihadists see Israel as the cause of all the Middle East's problems. Israel and Israelis are not seen as an independent nation and a people striving to live and prosper but as an extension of European imperialism meant to repress the Arab population.

For example, in that same course on Islam and gender, the professor mentioned positive treatment of LGBTQ people and women in almost every Middle East country except for Israel, the first nation in Asia to recognize same-sex unions. She then accused Israel pinkwashing, cynically giving its LGBTQ residents rights only to legitimize its oppression of Palestinians.

Nothing good can be said about Israel because it is the root of all evil. In the eyes of my professor and others on the far left, Israel is the epitome of an oppressor, the unjust and the evil, and any good it does is a cynical attempt to distract from its repression of Palestinians. In this view, Israel and the Jews become hostis humani generis, the enemies of mankind. This is why academics such as history professor Russel Rickford of Cornell University felt "exhilarated" by the massacre of innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, and why tenured professor Joseph Massad of Columbia University called the same attack "awesome."

Any act to advance their cause is allowed, no matter how violent. This is why Hamas could carry out a sadistic massacre against women, children, and the elderly and three out of four Palestinians support it despite such actions being expressly prohibited by the Prophet Muhammad.

Modern antisemitism, which often manifests as the idea that Jewish power and wealth is the cause of injustice, shares a similar structure to Marxism. "Antisemitism is the socialism of fools" became a common axiom in the late 19^th century. Some historians argue that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin understood this and used antisemitism to boost his popularity.

Most Americans wrongly assume that Marxism collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union. But Marxist-based thought has been preserved in the Western world in universities and many leftist-progressive movements.