Once known as a publication offering beauty, fashion and lifestyle advice to teenage girls, Teen Vogue has evolved into a platform that frequently platforms one-sided narratives, featuring writers who have openly expressed their support for terrorism and anti-Israel rhetoric online.
Esraa Abo Qamar’s piece, ‘Scholasticide in Gaza Means There Are Almost No Schools or Colleges Left’ is just the latest to be published in Teen Vogue’s new anti-Israel mission.
The story of Esraa Abo Qamar – who goes by Esraa Sameer on social media – is undoubtedly emotional and likely resonates deeply with Teen Vogue’s target audience. As a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, Esraa had to halt her studies in October 2023 due to the outbreak of the war. Any student passionate about their education would be heartbroken to learn that a girl the same age would be forced to abandon their studies because of conflict.
Esraa frames Israel as the perpetrator in this story, leveraging her op-ed to falsely accuse Israel of not only committing genocide, but also “scholasticide” whereby Israel is framed as deliberately destroying the education system in Gaza.
The term “scholasticide” was termed by none other than a former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official, Karma Nabulsi. Nabulsi worked as an international spokesperson for the PLO from 1977-1990, when the organization was at its height of launching attacks against Israel. Using an emotionally charged and baseless term coined by a former member of a terrorist organization raises serious doubts about its credibility.
Not once does Esraa mention the real culprit of the destruction of Gaza’s educational system – Hamas. Esraa fails to acknowledge that Hamas has hijacked the education system in Gaza to promote its own extremist agenda that prioritizes the destruction of the State of Israel over providing youth with a meaningful education.
This education system has clearly worked to indoctrinate Esraa, who gleefully celebrated the Iranian regime’s October 1 missile attacks on her social media, writing “God is the greatest” over a video of missiles and calling it the “best view of my life.”
Apparently, the education of Israeli students is less important, as Esraa omits that one of those missiles hit a school in Gedera.
Of course, the Hamas-run education system in Gaza doesn’t teach accurate history. Otherwise, Esraa would remember that Israel has not ruled Gaza for most of her life. While Esraa writes that Gazans have suffered under “violent military rule and apartheid” since 1948, her emotionally charged perspective on the history of Palestinians overlooks critical historical facts. Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948 until 1967, when Israel won the territory in a defensive war. Esraa further omits that Israel has not governed Gaza since 2005, when Israel disengaged from the territory. Since 2007, Gaza has been under the control of Hamas, which has imposed a brutal and oppressive regime that focuses on terrorizing Israelis and uprooting the Jewish state rather than taking care of its own civilians.
Part of Hamas’ terrorism strategy comes from embedding themselves in civilian locations. In fact, Hamas has systematically taken advantage of the Islamic University of Gaza since the institution’s founding, using it as an outpost to indoctrinate students with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. On multiple occasions since October 7th, Hamas has used the university to manufacture weapons and launch anti-tank missiles. In other instances, Hamas’ own misfired rockets have hit schools in Gaza.
The accusations that Israel destroyed Gaza’s water and sanitation sites and “weaponized starvation” similarly fall short when all the facts are presented. Since the start of the war, Israel has coordinated more than 1.3 million tons of aid to be distributed in the Gaza Strip and has worked to increase the supply of clean water throughout the war.
This is a UNICEF water desalination plant in Khan Yunis, Gaza. @Cogatonline assisted in coordinating its repair, and it now supplies 20,000 cubic meters of water to the people of Gaza every day.
There is no mass dehydration. There is no genocide. They’re all lying to you. pic.twitter.com/DeYxvpa0mn
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) December 19, 2024
However, these facts don’t matter to Esraa, who merely states in passing the reason for the war starting in the first place – Hamas’ vicious terror attacks on October 7, 2023, which stole the lives of more than 1200 Israelis, many of whom were students and young adults.
If facts don’t matter to Esraa, then neither do definitions, as she purposefully misrepresents Zionism to be a “religious nationalist ideology,” rather than the desire for the Jewish people to live in their historic national homeland. Students protesting this in the U.S. aren’t simply “activists” as Esraa claims but are rather denying the Jewish people of a basic right. Moreover, the pioneers of Israel were largely secular Zionists and founded the state on that approach rather than on religious ideals.
Esraa does get one thing right in her article – war kills dreams. Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to perpetuate a prolonged conflict against the Jewish people, depriving innocent individuals of their right to education and peace.
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Photo Credits: AFP via Getty Images
