In 1972 college unrest was going nuts. The Vietnam War was extraordinarily unpopular and rock/roll music was on a tear lambasting our incursion into South East Asia. Right?
Except one thing. This nation's young may have hated the war but not their parents. In fact Nixon won the election against the "peace" candidate McGovern by the 2nd largest margin in US history (520 votes to 17). Of course, the kids had it right.
On the other hand, college kids are usually kind of FOS. They don't get "it" exactly right and look like jackasses making their point.
Aware that protests are going on at almost every campus in the United States? How about at Columbia? No, not that one, Columbia College in Chicago (Along with Northwestern, U of I, and every other major school out here). This is not an Ivy League thing, it's a young adult thing.
The message is coming out wrong (WAY WRONG), coming out anti-Semitic but the point adults in the room aren't hearing is that kids universally don't like watching the Palestinians get their asses kicked because they're largely innocent.
I see demonstrations at a few schools I think the kids are complete assholes. At every school, I start to wonder what would unite this nation's young in a way that hasn't occurred in 60 years. Bibi might want to pay attention. This is happening all of the world. Not good for Israel or the globe's Jewish population which is not more secure after the Bibi's military response.
The Ivy League’s Anti-Israel Protest Meltdown
School officials reap what their politically monoculture faculties have sown.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
April 22, 2024 5:38 pm ET
Anyone who thinks concerns about antisemitism are overdone isn’t paying attention to the scenes at elite universities. Anti-Israel, antisemitic protests at Columbia, Yale and elsewhere are getting uglier, and it isn’t clear the progressives in charge of these institutions are up to the job of enforcing order or protecting Jewish students.
At Columbia in New York City, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have surrounded Jewish students to push them from a protest camp dominating the campus lawn. “Attention Everyone,” a voice says in a campus video, “Can I get everyone to form a human chain, we have a Zionist at the entrance of our encampment.”
The “Zionist” was a Jewish student whose friend wore a necklace with a Star of David, according to News Israel correspondent Neria Kraus. The Palestinian crowd followed the order to “slowly walk and take a step forward so we can push them out of the camp.”
Many protesters on and near campus wear masks or kaffiyehs to disguise their identities. Students have to walk through a gauntlet to get to class. The protesters carry banners calling to “Honor the Martyrs of Palestine” and a sign pointing to pro-Israel counterprotesters as “al-Qasam’s next targets.” Al-Qassam is the military wing of Hamas. That’s a call to kill Jews.
On Friday Columbia President Minouche Shafik invited police to clear the campus encampment after protesters refused to leave. About 100 were arrested. But the demonstrators returned with a vengeance, and it isn’t clear that Ms. Shafik has the fortitude to handle them.
In a statement on Monday she told students that “antisemitic language, like any other language that is used to hurt and frighten people, is unacceptable” and that “appropriate action will be taken.” The school moved all classes temporarily online to “reset” and “de-escalate the rancor” and to “consider next steps.”
But the protesters are winning if they’re allowed to shut down classroom instruction. Ms. Shafik’s statement notes “there is a terrible conflict raging in the Middle East” but doesn’t include a single mention of pro-Palestinian groups as the perpetrators of the campus harassment. Columbia also deactivated the university key card of Jewish professor Shai Davidai and told him he was “not permitted to enter the West Lawn” on grounds that his plan for a counterprotest was a safety risk.
Similar scenes unfolded over the weekend at Yale in New Haven, Conn., as Gabriel Diamond described Monday on these pages. Jewish students were harassed and one was hit in the eye with a flagpole and hospitalized. On Monday Yale finally called in police to arrest those who refused to leave a campus plaza.
This crisis in liberal education has been decades in the making. These schools have sown the intolerance their students are demonstrating by putting identity and left-wing politics above the free exchange of ideas. A progressive faculty monoculture has fueled divisive narratives blaming the Middle East’s ills on colonialism and imperialism.
Antisemitism has too often been tolerated within Near Eastern Studies departments. On Oct. 8, 2023, Columbia professor Joseph Massad praised the “awesome” scenes of the Oct. 7 massacre “witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs.” In 2018 Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi posted on Twitter (now X) that “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world” could soon be traced to “the ugly name of Israel.”
The liberal elites who run these institutions seem to lack the moral self-confidence to stand up to these student bullies. College presidents have to take charge, restore order and protect Jewish students, or the trustees should fire them and find someone who will.