The pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the 14th century BCE, proclaimed the sun-disk god Aten to be supreme, and suppressed the worship of all other deities. There has long been speculation that his monotheism influenced ancient Judaism during its earliest, formative period. Robin Ngo writes:

In the fifth year of his reign, Akhenaten moved the royal residence from Thebes to a new site in Middle Egypt, Akhetaten (“the horizon of Aten,” present-day Tell el-Amarna), and there ordered lavish temples to be built for Aten. Akhenaten claimed to be the only one who had access to Aten, thus making an interceding priesthood unnecessary. . . .

Did Akhenaten’s adamant worship of one deity influence the biblical Moses, leader of the Israelite exodus? Was Akhenaten’s monotheism the progenitor of Israelite monotheism? According to . . . Brian Fagan, we are talking about two different kinds of monotheism.

“Israelite monotheism developed through centuries of discussion, declarations of faith, and interactions with other societies and other beliefs,” Fagan writes. “In contrast, Akhenaten’s monotheism developed very largely at the behest of a single, absolute monarch presiding over an isolated land, where the pharaoh’s word was divine and secular law. It was an experiment that withered on the vine.”

Commenting on the wave of anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, Seth Mandel writes:

Gazans have not have been fully honest in public. There’s a reason for that. To take just one example, Amin Abed was nearly beaten to death with hammers for criticizing Hamas. Abed was saved by bystanders, so presumably the intention was to finish him off. During the cease-fire, Hamas members bragged about executing “collaborators” and filmed themselves shooting civilians.

Which is what makes yesterday’s protests all the more significant. To protest Hamas in public is to take one’s life in one’s hands. That is especially true because the protests were bound to be filmed, in order to get the message out to the world. The reason the world needs to hear that message is that Westerners have been Hamas’s willing propaganda tools. The protests on campus are not “pro-Palestinian,” they are pro-Hamas—and the people of Gaza are Hamas’s victims.