MOST CAMPUS PROTESTERS AREN’T EXTREMISTS, BUT THE EXTREMISTS HAVE SEIZED THE NARRATIVE, THANKS TO THE MEDIA
By Peter Dreier
On our blog.
It is hard to find an objective analysis of the ongoing student protests about Israel and Palestine – which so far have taken place on over 50 campuses and led to over 2,000 arrests -- or the wider war that has provoked the demonstrations. Here are some thoughts:
1. Most of the student protesters want an end to the horrific violence and violations of basic human rights (housing, health care, food) that they see on TV and on social media every day.
2. Most protesters don’t support Hamas (a theocratic, anti-women and anti-LGBTQ terrorist organization) or want to see the mass murder or exile of Israeli Jews. Still, a small fraction of protesters do support Hamas. For example, when the national office of Students for Justice in Palestine called Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel "a historic win for the Palestinian resistance," and when 34 Harvard student organizations issued a joint statement saying they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence," that can reasonably be interpreted as support for Hamas. These views are often what the media reports and what gets the headlines. Most news outlets, particularly TV, are suckers for extremism.
3. Most of the protesters want an end to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and to Israel’s widespread discrimination against its Palestinian citizens. They want equality and peaceful co-existence between Jews and Palestinians. They want Netanyahu gone, but they don’t know enough about Israeli politics to know what kind of government might replace him and his government. They don’t have clear or well-reasoned thoughts on the end-game, such as what to do when the Gaza war is over. But neither do most well-informed experts. I favor a two-state solution and many of the protesters I’ve talked to share some vague idea that this would be a good idea, but they don’t understand much about Israel-Palestine history or the real options. They don't know about the Israeli peace movement or groups like Standing Together, founded by Israeli Jews and Palestinians to work toward mutual understand, justice, and peace. They don't understand the geo-politics of the Middle East and what it would take to forge a real peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians that would require pressure from other Arab governments, the US, the EU, and the UN to allow self-governance for both Jews and Palestinians.
4. I don’t deny the existence of campus anti-Semitism nor do I deny that it has been increasing. Anti-Semitism is not the same as anti-Zionism, but sometimes the two overlap. When Jewish students hear slogans like “intifada forever,” “Zionists don’t belong here,” or “Settlers, Settlers Go Back Home, Palestine Is Ours Alone,” they aren’t unreasonable to view them as attacks on Jews. When protesters tell Jewish students to “go back to Poland,” when they see swastikas on campus buildings, or view the poster of UC-Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chermininsky that calls him a “Zionist” and depicts him with flood on his knife and folks “while Gaza starves,” they recognize it as anti-Jewish bigotry. Such incidents only have to happen once and they can be hard to forget.
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