Campus Protests: Standing Up For A Noble Cause Or An Act of Vengeance Against Jews?
Campus Protests: Standing Up For A Noble Cause Or An Act of Vengeance Against Jews?
This is a guest post by Hagit Arieli Chai, Hebrew Union College, USC. She has written previously for our Substack [1].
We have seen lawlessness and chaos spreading across American campuses like a spring bloom. This bloom grows on hate—it is an abomination in a time we ought to feel liberated. Passover came and went, Shavuot followed, summer is here, but no liberation. The encampments are gone but Jew-hatred remains.
In the attack of October 7th about 1,200 Israelis died—the vast majority being civilians killed in the raid by Hamas terrorists—and at least 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza. The October 7 attack is what led to the Israeli military incursion.
Does anyone think about the hostages and their suffering in the hands of Hamas? The torture that they are experiencing is unimaginable. Watch this video of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin released by Hamas and imagine how your life would be if this murderous organization, whose doctrine is reminiscent of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” doctrine, were to succeed in their goals.
Look at what Hamas has done to Palestinians [2] and ask yourself what type of a world citizen can come out by following an ideology that supplies kids with guns and not toys, that beats instead of hugs, that chants hatred instead of love?
The students, their faces covered by masks and keffiyehs [3], call passionately to “divest from research and ties with Israel.” They claim they protest “genocide in Gaza,” but in reality they are driven by ignorance and arrogance. Embracing the false narrative of the Palestinians’ victimhood, they follow radicals who want to destroy the small but mighty group of people called Jews in the name of “justice” in the Middle East. How can the destruction of a nation be called justice?
Why was Gaza picked to be the banner for misery and injustice from all the other causes in the world? Why does no one protest against Assad deliberately killing civilians in Syria?
If the students are here for the cause of defending the lives of Gazans, they came too late to the game. They should have started their protest before October 7th, if they truly care for the Gazan people living under the brutality of Hamas [2]. Yaron Avraham, who fled Gaza as a child and was adopted by an Israeli family and converted to Judaism, describes what it was like to live under Hamas.
NYU professor Scott Galloway poses a question: what do the Arab brothers and sisters know that you don’t? He believes that there are outside forces manipulating the cause. In the past couple of months, we have witnessed students at elite universities demonstrating ignorance and making nonsensical demands—such as for a police-free campus. The protesting students see themselves as heroes engaging in civil disobedience. But they demand food and water be served to them by the university. I say, ask your sponsor! This clip demonstrates in less than two minutes what happens when ignorance and arrogance intersect:
Who is sponsoring these campaigns, which some deceptively describe as an exercise in “free speech” [4]. Is it really the students? Or outside groups sponsoring this mess to fight American democracy? The evidence is mounting that these highly orchestrated events on our campuses are organized by outside groups with ties to terrorist organizations. For example, left-wing groups and veteran demonstrators provided guidance and support before the rise of the pro-Palestinian encampments (“Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests”) [5].
According to Francesca Block, writing for The Free Press (“The ‘Micro-Intifada’: American Protesters Are Being Trained in ‘Militancy’”), students participating in the solidarity encampments at universities from coast to coast are being trained to become militants, violent, disobedient, and arrogant, demanding food and water while they break the laws and vandalize university property:
Many of the manuals, which are being shared via phone group chats with students across the country, encourage “militancy” and instruct protesters to break laws, seize buildings, vandalize them, and then use tactics to evade police detection and arrest. One guide, called “De-arrest Primer,” teaches protesters to physically resist arrest or, in some cases, assault police officers or throw projectiles at them to protect fellow “comrades” from arrest. “Each de-arrest,” the guide states, “is a micro-intifada which can spread and inspire others until we may finally shake off this noxious ruling order all together.
In early May, we witnessed the UCLA campus being trashed, vandalized, and degraded. While campus security stood by, allowing the anger and violence to brew and erupt, the protesters at the encampment took the law into their own hands, preventing students from accessing the campus and intimidating Jewish students. Eli Tsives wanted to access the campus as each student has the right to, but he was blocked.
Those who seek positive change in the world should be open to dialogue, should seek knowledge, should respect facts. Instead, the protesters chant slogans, hide behind barricades, and cover their faces with keffiyehs.
What is their message? They do not engage, do not talk, do not want to be interviewed. All that they want is to block and disrupt! “Anytime what you are protesting for becomes secondary to what you are doing, then you’re really not protesting for it, and you, in many ways, dramatize,” Rev. Sharpton said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Universities are failing in their duty to the campus community by allowing lawless individuals to take control of the campus and by empowering disobedience. Supported by outside organizers, these groups are breaking laws and university codes. By allowing this mess to go on, universities devalue Jewish students, who have proven to be studious and sincere. Despite enduring various institutional and societal barriers set up to discourage their participation, Jewish students have continually persevered and succeeded in their pursuit of American higher education.
In a democratic country like the US, higher education is meant to include everyone. That means that Jews, too, should be able to safely and peacefully advance through their college experience. Yet, Jewish students still encounter incidents of antisemitism in college. According to the 2014 National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students, 54% of Jewish students claimed that they had been targeted or witnessed antisemitism on their campuses. Examples of such incidents include name-calling, swastika drawings, vandalism, and other forms of harassment, intimidation, and even assaults [6].
In 2024 the situation is worsening day after day because the universities have forgotten their duty and their commitment to protect all students and provide a safe environment for learning and research [7].
Pro-Hamas agitators are not only taking over campuses—they are taking over America. Universities cannot protect the safety of their own students or control the activity on their campuses. Outsiders are coming in and barricading themselves on campus and camping out while students are trying to finish their semester and to celebrate graduation.
Why are the universities hesitating to act while the terrorist sympathizers are taking over the campuses, destroying and vandalizing property and intimidating and harassing their peers in the name of “justice”?
As Alan Dershowitz has pointed out, something very dangerous is brewing on our campuses. The chants and signs in support of Hamas are becoming increasingly dangerous. They go beyond supporting the people in Gaza and even beyond opposing Israel’s right to exist. Some slogans explicitly defend the murders and rapes committed by Hamas and demand even more violence against Israeli citizens. Protesters chant, “We are Hamas,” “We love Hamas rockets,” “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” and “10,000 repetitions of October 7th.”
If Hamas is not defeated in Gaza, this terror is likely to extend beyond the Middle East, and the very next terrorists might already be sitting on our campus lawns!
Footnotes:
[1] Hagit Arieli Chai previously wrote “The Campus Protests Are Not About Social Justice” post for our substack.
[2] Editors’ note: Read Michael Oren’s essay “How Gaza Became Israel's Unsolvable Problem” (archived version here) for a primer on Gaza.
[3] The keffiyeh, also known as a hatta, is a traditional Arab headdress. Historically, it was worn by nomadic communities—or Bedouins—in historic Palestine. Until the 1920s, the keffiyeh was almost exclusively worn by Bedouin men, according to Ghnaim, and it was simply a way to identify nomadic men in historic Palestine from villagers, fellaheen, and townspeople. According to Ghnaim, the first time we see the keffiyeh used as a political statement was during the Arab Revolt in Palestine in 1936—an uprising against British rule that included demands for independence and an end to Jewish immigration. At that time, the majority of the armed resistance was taking place in the villages, and the fighters used the keffiyeh to hide their features—helping it to become associated with the revolution. Read more about the history and modern meaning of keffiyehs here.
[4] Editors’ note: see here for explanations of why these protests are not protected by the First Amendment and Leonard’s law.
[5] Editors’ note: see also exhibits here and here.
[6] B. A. Kosmin and A. Keysar, National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students: 2014 Anti-Semitism Report (2015).
How can universities reject the Hamas occupations on the grounds of civility, academic integrity, and protection of the rights of Jewish students when, for years, nay, decades, the universities, their administrations and professors, have jettisoned civility, academic integrity, and the rights of Jewish students in favor of "social justice" and its "diversity, equity, inclusion" which designated Jews and the Jewish state as evil "oppressors" of innocent "victims," such as the Palestinians along with BIPOC, LGBTQ2S++, and, of course, Muslims generally. We have returned to Germany 1934.
Our universities, like those in Germany, are reaping what they sowed, showing their thorough corruption. There can be no return to the orderly past. The only serious avenue of reform is for our legislative and executive bodies to fire the administrative and professorial miscreants and forbid the current proto-Nazi policies. Small steps have been taken in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. This needs to be carried through all state institutions, while private institutions can be defunded and shown to be evil, as Harvard, Columbia, and MIT have been.
Very discouraging.