AT PENPOINT
The happenings on the campuses of the USA are remarkable because these were the very campuses where there was repression of the right to free speech, in the name of anti-anti-semitism, which was a thinly disguised way of ensuring that Israel was given the support it wanted. As American disgust with the slaughter in Gaza builds, the previous conflation of Semitism and Israel has not yet broken down, but it has become frayed.
At its peak, the dominance of pro-Israel rhetoric meant that Palesinians calling for freedom of their country were labelled as anti-Semitic. This created the first cracks, for it meant that Arabs, whose language was quintessentially Semitic, were being excluded from the Semitic tent.
Instead, the Semitic identity was being stolen by Zionists; not even all Jews, because a number of Hasidic Orthodox Jews reject the Zionist label, and oppose the existence of the state of Israel.
There seems to be a point here, for Zionism, the belief that Jews should have a homeland of their own, originates from the view that Jews are a nation. This view seems to have something to do with the historical experience of turn-of-the-20-th-century Jews in the then Russian Empire, which also covered portions of modern Eastern Europe, especially Poland. One result of those pogroms was that a lot of Jews migrated to the USA, where they imbibed nationalism.
The solution they reached was to define Jews as a nation in the 19th century sense, deserving of a homeland. This won support from the UK and France, who committed during World War I to give the Jews a homeland in Palestine. The Holocaust intervened in World War II, creating a sense of guilt in the West, which led to the creation of Israel.
Therefore, Eastern European Jews, largely Russians and Ukrainians, were at the forefront. The interesting thing is that they were not religious Jews. They identified as socialist, or at least social democratic, which explains why the Labour Party was so influential in the early years of Israel.
Orthodox Jews included those who were against the creation of Israel before the coming of the Messiah. This is not the exact mirror image of those orthodox Muslims who opposed the creation of Pakistan, for they claimed that the whole of India should be under Muslim rule, but it is possible to see the parallel with Jewish Orthodoxy.
The young protesters at universities in the West are engaged in something that was also done by their parents, or perhaps their grandparents, back in the day: supporting, but not adopting, an ideology which their elders have declared opposed to their own. In the 1960s it was communism, this time it is Islam.
In the USA, a lot of Jews decided against uprooting themselves, but they wanted to show loyalty to Israel. These Jews were active in both the Republican and Democratic parties, but especially the Democrats. There was a lot of money given to candidates who supported Israel, until it became a truism that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was perhaps the most powerful donor in the USA. Candidates for Congress and for President followed the money.
However, by the same token as Israel claimed a state, the Palestinian people did too. Palestinians forced out of their homes in 1948, had to go where they could. Within the Third World, they went to Arab countries, within the West, they went to the USA and Europe, and South America. The largest Palestinian population outside the Middle East is in Chile, where there are 500,000, and the second largest is in the USA, where there are 255,000. Though they are still fewer than American Jews, they are present on college campuses, both as teachers and as students.
The last time there was a similar outburst, probably much greater and more intense, was in 1968, when student protests seems to break out all over the world. One of the consequences was the resignation of Charles De Gaulle as President of France in 1969. The French protests had started over the raising of fees in French universities. It also led in the USA to the Kent State shootings in 1970, in which students protesting the Vietnam War at the Kent State University were fired at by the Ohio National Guard, and five were killed. That shocked the entire USA, and helped end the Vietnam War.
The police forces going onto US campuses to break up the pro-Palestinian protests have revived memories of that horrifying incident, though it does not seem that matters will get that far. Not only was Kent State unprecedented, but it must be remembered that students then had a vested interest in ending that war, which they do not have in Gaza. Students did not want to be conscripted, as the USA was obliged to do. Conscription came to an end after the Vietnam War ended, and while the USA has sent Israel vast funds, allowing it to carry on its fatal work, and while it has even scrambled its warplanes in the theatre against Iranian missiles and drones, it is showing no signs of needing the kind of manpower that will compel conscription.
It should be noted that the antiwar protesters included female students, who were not motivated by a desire to dodge the draft, but by sympathy for the Vietnamese people, who were treated by the US forces badly, but not as badly as the Israelis are treating the Gazans.
The problem with war is that it takes time for atrocities to be uncovered. The Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre occurred in May 1968, but was only revealed to the American public in November 1969. The IDF has been targeting hospitals, schools and hospitals already, but no My Lai has yet come to the public eye. However, just as the Kent State shootings occurred before My Lai became public knowledge, the pro-Gazan protests have occurred before any IDF atrocity has been revealed.
However, it should be noted that much of the support is motivated by a source that would originate only on a university campus– free speech. It is worth noting that freedom of speech is one of the basic components of the university, much as it is that of any democratic society. However, the principle of freedom of speech is also used for the blasphemous cartoons against the Holy Prophet (PBUH), so the protests do not necessarily mean any sort of victory for the Palestinians. After all, the same principle justifies Israeli propaganda, which has been centred on the October 7 attacks, and the need to remove the Hamas leadership.
This is one of the problems of democracy and free speech. What if the majority is in favour of genocide? Israel clearly is, because the War Cabinet formed by Benjamin Netanyahu includes all shades of Israeli opinion, and is packed with retired generals. There is no way of adjudging the pro-Gaza protesters as in any way inherently morally superior to the pro-Israel activists. Killing babies might well be wrong, but according to what standard? The truisms of religion must be adopted, which is exactly what liberalism was given shape to avoid. Along with religion come a large number of other questions, like which religion is to be followed.
The pro-Israeli lobby should look to the long term. The kneejerk US support for Israel will end when those protesting today take over the reins in the decades to come. Even if no future President is involved in these protests, if he supports Israel 40 years from now, it will be because he thinks it good for the USA, not because, as today, it is the default US position.
At the moment, the various police forces arrayed themselves on the side of Israel. The arrests of protesters could have been disguised as support for law and order, had it not been for the police’s inaction when pro-Israel vigilantes tried to break up the UCLA encampment.
The young protesters at universities in the West are engaged in something that was also done by their parents, or perhaps their grandparents, back in the day: supporting, but not adopting, an ideology which their elders have declared opposed to their own. In the 1960s it was communism, this time it is Islam.
