I recognized that look in their eyes. It was the same look I received several times throughout my service with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Judea and Samaria. A look that showed the trauma of years of anti-Semitic indoctrination. When I was a soldier, I understood that look. After all, these Palestinian teens in Judea and Samaria had been, throughout their entire lives, led to believe that Jews were European colonialists who had no connection to the land and had orchestrated the displacement of the Palestinian people in 1948. I could at least understand the logic behind that look.
Receiving it by nearly one hundred students in the University of Florida on November 19th completely disoriented me. A similar look, with the only difference being that it was driven by the adoption of false information about the conflict and not necessarily blatant anti-Semitism.
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