*** This is an off-the-cuff post about the protests happening on college campuses all across the United States. I have tried to accurately portray their reasons for protesting as I understand them without adding my own commentary as much as possible. My focus here is the deeper, underlying causes for the current protest movement as a whole, not to offer my perspectives on Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack. ***
Over the past week, we have watched as protests have escalated on college campuses around the United States, with encampments being established in University common areas in support of Palestine and against the actions of Israel as they have carried out a large-scale assault on the Gaza Strip. This current altercation started in response to an invasion by Hamas militants into Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 Israelis. As the fight has continued, the number of civilian deaths in Gaza has reached almost unbelievable numbers, with over 34,000 casualties reported, the majority of which have been children and non-combatants.
On the global stage, this was initially viewed as an act of self-defense, which the Israeli government continues to use as their justification for their actions. But the longer the war wages, the less and less convincing this argument is beginning to seem, with the International Criminal Court even considering arrest warrants for Netanhayu and some in his government in response to investigations finding potential crimes against humanity. A couple of nations have even brought charges of genocide against Israel.
It is not surprising, then, that people would protest what is happening. Globally, there is a pro-Palestinian protest movement, including within Israel. And there are segments of the Jewish population even here in the United States who see the Netanyahu government’s actions as antithetical to the tenets of Judaism. The claims of genocide are not unfounded when one looks at the images and reads the stories of what is happening on the ground in Gaza. Given how hard it is for reporters to actually report from there, we are at a disadvantage and must rely on the reporting of potentially biased or questionable sources. But this is the state of things as they currently stand.
But why are college students protesting this when there are so many things happening in our own country? When young women have lost their right to reproductive freedom, books are being banned, teachers and college professors are being told they are not allowed to teach courses on certain subjects, and children are being murdered in mass at public schools due to the ease of availability of automatic weapons?
I think the current protest movement goes back further than October 7, 2023. I think the seeds for this protest have been germinating for a while, and this moment in history served as the catalyst for it to reach fruition.
The last 8 years have been tumultuous times here in the United States. The election of Donald Trump as president, the murder at the hands of police of George Floyd and many other innocent black lives which spawned a major protest movement during the COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings in our schools, book bans, direct attacks on trans rights…the list goes on and on.
On January 6, 2021, followers of Donald Trump stormed the United States capital and interrupted the certification of the election of Joe Biden. They tore down an American flag and replaced it with a Trump flag. They vandalized the building. They killed police officers. They stormed onto the floor of Congress and rifled through the desks in the offices of Nancy Pelosi and others. This was seen by many as a sort of turning point. Maybe we would take seriously the threats to our democracy that these types of Republicans represent. Maybe we will do something to change the political landscape.
We have done no such thing. In fact, the problem has only gotten more and more ingrained in the system, with Trump continuing, 4 years later, to claim that the election was stolen from him and the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz entrenching themselves in the House with the goal not to legislate but rather to sow chaos and stoke division and “own the libs”.
In light of all of this, those on the left have continued to offer pushback. But most of the time, it has not been enough to make a lasting impact. Then the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. They struck down affirmative action for college admissions. States began attempting to ban Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, with some states passing laws doing just that. Despite some of those laws being deemed unconstitutional, the damage had been done. Colleges and businesses are afraid to run afoul of the MAGA crowd and are left in precarious positions.
The students were going to protest something. All of these things going on, and people are upset. They are frustrated. Regardless of political leanings, they want change.
When a genocide started being broadcast on TikTok, a place young people go largely as a distraction, enough was enough. They joined the global movement to see Palestine freed from Israeli occupation, some with better and more nuanced reasons than others. But as the war has continued and as the Zionist Israeli government has continued to defy pleas from other nations to stop and find a path to peace, the tensions and negative feelings toward it have escalated. They have shifted from demanding a ceasefire, which colleges lack much standing to broker, to demands that are closer to home, with calls for their Universities to divest from companies that support the Israeli government.
This, again, puts college administrations in a precarious position. While the students have a First Amendment right to protest, The chants of “From the river to the sea” seem to cross a line. What are largely calls for an end to Israeli occupation are being interpreted and perceived as attacks against the Jewish people themselves.
As I have highlighted in previous posts, this has been going on since the start of this current fight. Any criticism of the IDF’s actions is automatically lumped into the category of antisemitism. So as students stand in solidarity with Palestine, because of how polarized our nation is, they are treated as though they are standing in solidarity with Hamas. Early in the conflict, Netanyahu stated that there were no non-combatants in Gaza, and pro-Israel Americans have latched onto that idea and made the same mistake of lumping all Palestinians as members of Hamas. It is the same racism that had us telling jokes in the early post-9/11 landscape about lining up all the Arabs and mowing them down cuz we wanted cheap gas again. Did the people of Gaza elect Hamas to be their leadership? Yes, but that does not necessarily make them all supporters of the group, especially since a good number of the people living in Gaza now were either not born or not old enough to vote in that election (do with that information what you will).
And because all the Palestinians are Hamas supporters, then all their defenders here must be supporters of Hamas and therefore anti-Jewish and so their protests must be silenced because it is antisemitic by its very nature.
So the administrations take action to stop the antisemitism on their campuses. The students stand their ground, and in some cases occupy administration buildings, and are met with police in riot gear who pepper spray them and tackle them to the ground as though they are part of a violent uprising. The situation escalated, the students fight harder, and the police fight harder still and now commencements are canceled and classes have gone full remote.
I mentioned earlier that, when this whole conflict first began, that any view that expressed even mild criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza was plunked into the category of antisemitism. Well, something else was going on at this time too. The news media, no matter what the political leanings, all seemed to be telling the same story. Any news about the conflict from a Palestinian position was actively blocked from social media. It felt like a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign. Let us add this to the mix of things that could trigger protest. Especially when the only place one seems to see pro-Palestinian content happens to be the same platform the government is threatening to ban. It all looks like they want to silence dissent on the issue.
In one of my favorite films, SLC Punk!, during one of his monologues, Stevo is talking about Salt Lake City in the 1980s. He says,
"In a country of lost souls rebellion comes hard. But in a religiously oppressive city, where half its population isn't even of that religion, it comes like fire."
Were students being oppressed up to this moment? Not necessarily. But, it has begun to feel that way for some. Young people are having their rights stripped away at an alarming rate. My daughter has fewer rights than her mother did. She’s expressed frustration and even despondency at living here. She has expressed fear of what the future holds for her.
It can easily feel like you are not allowed to think and say certain things when it feels like the spaces where you used to be able to say them are being stripped away. So they reacted. And now here we are. Young people’s voices are every bit as important as those of the Baby Boomers who somehow still hold the majority of our elected offices. If we would stop trying to shut them up or keep them out of the discussion, we might learn something and also be able to enact changes that will benefit all of us, and future generations as well.