For decades, a generation of students, often protected  by their parents from information and views that might disturb them, arrived on college campuses demanding that administrators continue to protect  them from  feeling hurt by uncomfortable ideas or stressed by robust discussions of the harsh realities of a complex world. They called out microaggressions and insisted on trigger warnings. Their fragility blocked controversial guests invited to speak on campus. It was all about how they felt, not the intention of the speaker or the writer, even if the author was Shakespeare.

For many of those very same students, this changed  dramatically after the October 7 massacre of  about 1400 Israelis  by Hamas terrorists and their taking as hostages some 240 more, followed by the Israeli military’s forceful response. Intellectually indolent and morally bankrupt, a disturbingly large number of them immediately framed the current conflict in simplistically upside-down good and evil terms,  joining others worldwide who celebrated  the wanton rape, torture, maiming and killing of Israeli civilians. This contributed to opening  the fire-hose of antiSemitism worldwide, sentiments never far from the surface even in so-called civil societies. FBI Director Christopher Wray reported US incidents are at “historic” highs. Only 2.4 percent of the American population, Jews account for 60 percent of religious-based hate crimes.

At U.C. Berkeley, a teaching assistant offered students extra credit for participation in an anti-Israel demonstration. At Stanford, a lecturer reportedly singled out Jewish students in an undergraduate class, called them colonizers and asked them to stand in a corner, telling the room that’s what Israel does to the Palestinians. At George Washington University, Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) projected on the façade of a school  building the words “Glory to our martyrs.” At Harvard, the Palestine Solidarity Committee  issued a letter, cosigned by 33  other student groups,  holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” At the University of Maryland, supporters of a pro-Palestine event posted a message of “Holocaust 2.0.” At Cornell University, a student was arrested for threatening proximate violence against Jews.

No wonder so many Jewish students are afraid to walk across campus or raise their hands in class. Demonstrators who were hyper-sensitive to all shades of microaggressions have become callously indifferent to the injuries they are inflicting.

As Amy Spitalnick, leader of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told the Associated Press, “It shouldn’t be hard to support Palestinian rights and dignity … while still condemning what Hamas did to Israeli civilians. The fact that there are some who refuse to do that has been a heartbreaking, mask-off moment for many in the Jewish community who expected more.”

These left-wing firebrands insist that their only concern is justice for the Palestinians. Hogwash! They brandish the slogan “from the river to the sea,” widely understood to espouse the elimination of the state of Israel and, by extension, the end of the Jewish people. Let’s be clear. SJP is very explicit in its resistance “toolkit,” proclaiming that “we… are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.” Its demonstrations here and abroad are part of the Hamas mission to “go beyond symbolism and rhetoric,” to destroy Israel and those in the diaspora who support it.

They also casually misuse the loaded term genocide, which has a specific legal definition involving both acts and intentional behavior. Accidentally killing innocent people (“collateral damage”) who are cynically being used as human shields by Hamas (strategically driving up civilian deaths for propaganda purposes) is tragic but not the same as stated Israeli government policy. In contrast, Hamas has been explicit in its genocidal intentions. Article 7 of Hamas’s founding covenant (1988) states that judgment day won’t come until Moslems kill the Jews. Article 13 rejects any compromise solutions until Israel is destroyed. Its 2017 revised charter rejects any recognition of Israel (“the Zionist enemy”), asserting the “liberation of all of Palestine” is its goal. What do these campus avatars of social justice think Hamas would do now to Israeli citizens if it had the personnel and firepower to continue its October 7 massacre?

Does the ignorance among these young people know no bounds? How bizarre were the young demonstrators in New York holding signs proclaiming “Queers for Palestine!” In Gaza, they’d be persecuted or worse. Hamas killed one of its commanders for homosexuality. In the West Bank, a gay man was beheaded. At the Hamas-run Islamic university in Gaza, women are required to cover their hair, and student demonstrations are violently suppressed.  

Where were the outraged American students when the Assad regime displaced over 400,000 Palestinians and killed over 300,000 civilians, including over 3000 Syrian Palestinians, in quelling the post-Arab spring pro-democracy uprising?

Where were the demonstrations decrying the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, using child soldiers, driving the death count in the Yemeni civil war to to over half a million? No concerns about how Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon denies Palestinians citizenship, property rights and governments services? Any campus protests decrying public lynchings against Moslems in India? Pakistan’s mass deportation of Afghan refugees? How many of them can even spell Rohingya and Uighur, let along champion their causes?

It’s a toxic blend of anti-Israel and anti-Semitism that motivates these student demonstrators today. These hate-filled inciters on the left are soulmates of the white supremacists on the right in Charlottesville, Virginia marching who chanted of “Jews will not replace us.” In both cases, Jews are the target.

My entire professional career had been premised on the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, and higher education is supposed to foster healthy debate among competing ideas. Free speech, even – unfortunately – hate speech, is protected by the First Amendment, until it becomes direct harassment or incitement to violence. No institution should allow that behavior to proceed with impunity. In response, Presidents of Brandeis University and Columbia University have suspended privileges for SJP to hold events and receive other institutional resources. Notwithstanding thoughtful criticism by the likes of part-time Brandeis teacher Bob Kuttner of The American Prospect, I believe that Brandeis President Ron Leibowitz was right in the action he took, saying that fostering free speech can’t come at the price of permitting harassment or threats of violence.

There is much to discuss and debate thoughtfully and respectfully, especially given the level of misinformation and disinformation. When a country is facing an existentialist threat, just what does the right and duty to protect call for? (I wrestled with this in my last blog.) Clearly Israel must better facilitate humanitarian assistance to non-combatants, but how best to do that in face of Hamas’s mendacity, deceptions and stated goals?

One can justifiably be critical of Israel’s government without blaming all its citizens for its actions, recognizing also that all Palestinians do not support  Hamas. Neither side should be targeted with collective guilt. But mutual trust is at an all-time low, and successful confidence-building measures far away.  After the shooting stops, the path forward is unclear. New leadership is needed on both sides.

There is an important role here for universities. At Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, two professors are holding forums for students of all faiths, answering questions, managing discussions, dealing with complexity and nuance – in short, teaching students not to be swept up in oversimplification and misinformation. At my alma mater, Wellesley College, President Paula Johnson has been actively involved for at least two years on the issue of anti-Semitism on college campuses. She was quick to condemn the October 7th attack and is committed to student safety. But she is still being faulted for not firing some student residence hall assistants who had posted that that there “should be no space, no consideration and no support for Zionism within the Wellesley College community.” As with Dartmouth’s approach, Johnson favors the opportunities for teaching. As she seeks to reshape Wellesley’s culture, she must tread carefully between taking needed punitive measures and protecting lawful free speech.

It is difficult to be a college president these days. It is also difficult to be a young Jewish student on campus. Nor should we discount the dangers of rising Islamaphobia in America.

As we move towards the Presidential election, questions abound about the relative participation of young people. Beyond whether they’ll vote, the mindset of left-leaning students, galvanized around President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war, is of particular concern. According to a Harvard/ Harris study, 51 percent of Americans between 18-24 believe the Hamas rampage was justified.

The deteriorating support of Israel among young people and their dramatically diminished enthusiasm for President Biden have dire implications for the outcome of the 2024 election, and thus for the future of our democracy. I fear the kind of MAGA-led authoritarian government that could make life for these young people – and the rest of us – far worse than they or we could ever imagine.

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