Faulty assumption: people experiencing college have basic knowledge of the geopolitical landscape.

Versus...

Factual observation: Mobs of students at prestigious colleges and universities in Colorado and across the country don't know the map. They are so ignorant of international affairs that they champion and defend those who would kill them.

At the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Department of Ethnic Studies called Israel's defensive actions against Hamas "another unprecedented genocidal attack on the Palestinian people." Well-informed Chancellor Philip DiStefano said the department's statement does not reflect the university's stance.

Just last week, a group of ill-informed activists demanded Colorado College condemn Israel. We see this uprising across the country.

Liberal-minded college students — whether at Harvard, UC-Boulder or Colorado College — share a few key mores. In general, they advocate:

— Abortion rights

— Equal opportunity for women, minorities and the LGBTQIA-plus community

— An end to racism, slavery, misogyny and other forms of discriminatory evil

— Freedom of and from religion

Despite these common collegiate values, a large group of students confronted Colorado College President L. Song Richardson last week about the institution's position on the Israel-Hamas war.

They did not like Richardson's Oct. 12 email to the college community, which took no side in the war.

"Let's come together and provide care, create compassionate spaces for healing, act with kindness towards each other, and remember our shared humanity," the email concludes.

The students have an agenda that sounds contrary the institution's desire for peace.

"The group urged Richardson to condemn the conflict as a genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli Defense Force and Israeli government," explains The Catalyst, the independent student newspaper of Colorado College. They presented Richardson with demands:

— Access to analyze the private institution's $1 billion endowment.

— College must divest from companies profiting from Israeli "apartheid and occupation."

— College formally condemns the genocide happening in Gaza "by the Israeli government."

— College cancels the Summer Blocks in Israel programs "that directly support the Apartheid Government and go against the values of decolonization and antiracism."

With regards to condemning Israel, Richardson told students "It's probably not going to happen."

Good, considering Hamas started the war by torturing, raping, and killing Israeli women, children, babies and attendees of a peace concert. By contrast, Democratic Israel warns Gazan civilians to get out before executing strikes on Hamas.

By condemning Israel and supporting Hamas, students side with a hard-right theocratic government that tortures and kills those who refuse to worship Allah or obey Sharia Law. After Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006, the new government declared the "end of secularism and heresy in the Gaza Strip."

Palestinian atheists, agnostics and those of moderate faith must feign religious belief and obey theocratic law. Imagine such an arrangement in the United States, which has upheld freedom of belief and disbelief for nearly 250 years.

Jonathan Schanzer, with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote about the "Talibanization" of Gaza under Hamas. The regime imposes strict rules on women, discourages liberties associated with Western culture, oppresses non-Muslim minorities, enforces Sharia, and uses police to enforce mandatory religious beliefs.

Whereas Hamas strictly forbids abortions, Israel harbors Gazans who seek them.

In 2014, the Israeli parliament guaranteed free abortions to all women between the ages 20 and 33 regardless of financial circumstances. Yet, throngs of students defend Hamas. And pity members of Gaza's LGBTQIA-plus community.

"Homosexuality remains deeply taboo in the Palestinian territories, where traditional norms play a prominent role in social and political life," reported the Associated Press in an article about last year's beheading of 25-year-old gay Palestinian Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh.

Across the world's most liberated and diverse country, American students support right-wing militant haters who would happily behead them for what they value and believe.

As political indoctrination replaces education, this paradoxical madness could indicate an unhinged future.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

Photo credit: Taylor Brandon at Unsplash