What a way to start off the new year of 2025. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, drove his truck into a Bourbon Street crowd of revelers celebrating the arrival of January 1 in New Orleans. He murdered 10 innocent people in the initial ramming and placed several dozen others in hospital; five of the latter died from their injuries. (Bourbon Street, for those unfamiliar with New Orleans geography, is similar to Times Square in New York City.) Thousands of others looked on during this despicable incident, horrified. Happily, justice was done, and he was killed at the scene of his brutality in a shoot-out with the local police.
Not too long ago, students from Tulane and Loyola universities, also located in the Crescent City, held a demonstration. They did so on Freret Street, on which both of these institutions of higher learning are located. They were protesting the supposed mistreatment of Palestinians by Israelis. These protests occurred in late April of 2024 and then again on October 8 of the year just gone by, to earmark the events of October 7, 2023. Yes, you got that right, they were celebrating the atrocity of this latter date.
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Aftermath of New Year's ramming attack in New Orleans that killed 15
(Photo: Matthew Hinton/ AFP)
How far is this part of Freret Street located from Bourbon Street? Not too far. It is about 5.7 miles. From this fact it is safe to say that there were at least a few dozen students from these two universities in that crowd of thousands of people on Bourbon Street when the New Year's tragedy struck. Presumably, a few of these young people took place in the previous protests against Israel in behalf of the Palestinians.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar is not an actual Palestinian. He changed his name in support of his Islamic beliefs. We may readily infer that he is a bitter critic of Israel from that fact alone. In addition, he had an ISIS flag in the vehicle with which he murdered so many innocent people.
I say, let’s give war a chance! Peace after these Middle Eastern terrorists surrender, not before.
One can only wonder why he chose the target of his murderous frenzy as he did: party goers celebrating the New Year on Bourbon Street. Yes, there might have been a few Jews in his target area, but they were hardly concentrated there. Why, one wonders, did he not aim at Chabad, or Hillel, or any of a number of synagogues in New Orleans. Perhaps it is because, with good reason, they all have armed guards. But, then, there were police on Bourbon Street at that time.
Tulane University students demonstrate in support of the Palestinians and threaten Jewish students
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One also naturally wonders, did those student protesters have any second thoughts about their own hatred of Israel? Do they now regret their previous support for the Palestinian cause, now that they have tasted, directly if they were on Bourbon Street on January 1, 2025, or indirectly if not, the sort of thing that Israel must endure regularly? And this goes for campus protests at Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley and numerous other such institutions.
Make no mistake about it. Happily, this was the first and only (so far) outbreak of Middle East-oriented terrorism to occur in New Orleans. But it takes place all too often in the only Jewish state on the planet. Imagine if this sort of thing occurred in American cities with the same regularity as in Israel (9-11, too, transpired only once). Would these student protesters, and their faculty mentors too, have at least a smidgen of appreciation for the plight of the Israelis under such circumstances? One can only hope so.
Prof. Walter E. BlockWhat has been the reaction of the leaders of the New Orleans community? One called this episode “unfathomable.” Not so, not so. It is entirely “fathomable.” It stems from hatred of Israel in particular, and of Jews in general, albeit geographically misdirected in this instance. Another called for “peace.” Peace, while Hamas still holds hostages? While they and their Hezbollah and Houthi colleagues are still lobbing missiles, rockets and drones in the direction of Israel? While Iran remains a dire threat to Israel? I say, no justice, no peace. I say, let’s give war a chance! Peace after these Middle Eastern terrorists surrender, not before.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans