Hey, tribe.
Another day, another nationwide debate about whether these student encampments for Palestine, spreading from college to college throughout the country, are peaceful and righteous or hateful and frightening. In today’s newsletter, I’ll unpack my own take on all the unrest. I’ll focus on Columbia for the purposes of this post.
Here is what I believe about the campus protests:
I believe that some students are motivated to be in these encampments by the real suffering they are seeing in Gaza. I don’t doubt that some, even many, of these students are truly anti-war and protesting for peace.
I believe that, within this group of genuinely well-intentioned people, there are many who know very little, if anything, about the situation they’re screaming about. There are countless video clips of protestors holding signs they can’t decipher, protestors who don’t know which river or which sea they’re chanting about, protestors who can’t clarify which territory they’re claiming is occupied, etc.
I believe some are there because it’s trendy, it’s hip, it’s a way to feel that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. I too was a college student at Columbia once, participating in a sit-in against the Gulf War, chanting “No blood for oil!” Some student activists were political science majors, well-versed in their causes, building a career in activism that they’d begun in high school. Others were there for the heady sense of purpose. Some were driven by boredom; some wanted to feel a sense of belonging; some were out to get laid. I myself had only the vaguest idea of the issues beneath the surface. I wasn’t yet aware, for instance, that the U.S. had actively supported Saddam Hussein right up until the moment it became more necessary to contain him. I was just falling in with an exciting cause led by people I thought were sexy and smart.
This raises the question: who are those protest leaders today? Which brings me to my fourth and most important point:I believe that much of the campus movement’s leadership is motivated not by any desire for peace or harmony, but by violent hatred. Let’s take a look here at some of that leadership.
One known leader of these protests is the group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is an openly violent eliminationist movement.Five days after the October 7th massacre in Israel, SJP distributed a 5-page “DAY OF RESISTANCE TOOLKIT” in which it clarified their views. It referred to Hamas as “resistance fighters,” celebrated the massacre, and included the following passages:
Liberation is not an abstract concept. It is not a moment circumscribed to a revolutionary past as it is often characterized. Rather, liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary. In essence, decolonization is a call to action, a commitment to the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty. It calls upon us to engage in meaningful actions that go beyond symbolism and rhetoric. Resistance comes in all forms— armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.
You don’t get freedom peacefully. Freedom is never safeguarded peacefully. Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn’t deserving of a peaceful approach by the ones who are deprived of their freedom.We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.
Another group leading student protests in NYC, including Columbia and CUNY, is Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Their basic principles include the following:
We uphold the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland in all of historic Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This requires that we stand against the entirety of the zionist settler-colonial project and for the national liberation of all of Palestine so that those in exile can return to live in freedom and dignity.
We are anti-zionists. Zionism is a settler-colonial white supremacist ideology built on the genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people. We therefore reject all collaboration and dialogue with zionist organizations through a strict policy of anti-normalization. The liberation of Palestine requires the abolition of zionism.
We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary. Just as we believe the liberation of Palestine will be achieved through the initiative and strategy of all forms of Palestinian resistance, we uphold the right of all oppressed nationality people in the United States and around the world to engage in all forms of struggle in pursuit of freedom.
Finally, another individual who assumed a leadership position within the Columbia protests is a student by the name of Khymani James. Because James has identified his pronouns as he, she or they, I’ll refer to him here as “he”.
In response to a Zoom hearing with Columbia admins seeking to clarify incendiary statements James had made on his social media posts, he had this to say:
If we can agree — as a society, as a collective — that people, some persons, deserve to die if they have an ideology that results in the death of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions… if there are people like that who exist, shouldn’t they die?
Zionists: they’re Nazis. They’re Nazis! They’re fascists! They’re supporters of genocide. Why would we want people who are supporters of genocide to live? I’m confused! Someone, in the chat, right now: should people who are supporters of genocide — should Zionists, aka Nazis, white supremacists — should they live? Should they live? Zionists, along with all white supremacists, need to not exist because they actively kill and harm vulnerable people. They stop the world from progressing… and so be glad, be grateful, that I am not just going out and murdering Zionists.Zionists don’t deserve to live. The same way we’re very comfortable accepting that Nazis don’t deserve to live, fascists don’t deserve to live, racists don’t deserve to live… Zionists shouldn’t live in this world.
During a break in his hearing, Khymani confided to his social media audience, in a recorded aside: “The meeting’s a joke. They definitely were hoping that I was gonna walk back: I fight to kill.” Here he broke into cackles of scorn. “Oh, they were hoping I was gonna walk that back! They were hoping I was gonna walk that back. No. I said what I said.”
He also mused to his social media circle: “I actually kind of hope they do kick me out because I’ve been meaning to travel to South America.”
Well, it’s possible that he’ll get his wish, though the jury is still out on that front. So far, James has merely been banned from the campus. It’s anyone’s guess whether he is also suspended, or expelled, or merely enduring a temporary probation period. I hope he’s not allowed to return. Calling for all Zionists to die is most definitely a call for Jewish genocide, since it would mean the murder of millions of Jews — the vast majority of us.
So here I think it’s important to point out a glaring double standard that progressives abide by.
How many times have I heard, since Trump’s rise to power, that if David Duke is endorsing you, maybe you should reconsider your platform? That “very fine people” don’t march alongside torch-bearing white supremacists chanting Jews will not replace us? That having the Proud Boys in your following points to something amiss about your message? That making common cause with people chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”, waving Confederate flags, or wearing Camp Auschwitz t-shirts pretty much reveals everything the public needs to know about your motives on January 6?
So why aren’t these protestors subject to the same expectations?
If you claim to be pro-peace, anti-war, for the safety and dignity of all people, desirous of a ceasefire, then you can’t take your marching orders from people who are shouting, “We are Hamas,” “By any means necessary,” “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution,” “Al Qassam, we love you,” or “All forms of resistance are legitimate and necessary.”
And if you don’t know the meaning of the sign you’re holding, you shouldn’t be waving it. If you don’t understand the chant you’re parroting, you shouldn’t be shouting it. If you don’t agree with Khymani James that all Zionists should die, which Columbia University Apartheid Divest (or CUAD) said they didn’t only after every news outlet on the planet put a spotlight on his genocidal stance, then he should not be your leader.
And if you’re fighting for Columbia to divest from a nation you think is guilty of apartheid, you should at the very least also demand its divestment from Qatar.
Qatar is an emirate whose ruler holds total executive and legislative power within the nation. Its economy essentially runs on a system of indentured servitude so oppressive it’s tantamount to slave labor. While its minority of citizens are among the richest in the world, up to 90 percent of its residents have no civil liberties or political rights. Under the country’s Sharia Law, apostasy is a crime punishable by death. Homosexuality is routinely punished with years in prison. Prison sentences are also issued to Qatari women for sex outside of marriage, even when they are the victims of rape. Criticizing the government can incur a life sentence.
None of these social-justice minded students are demanding divestment from Qatar — quite the opposite. They are almost certainly receiving money from Qatar, which is currently the most significant foreign donor to U.S. universities. It has financed U.S. colleges to the tune of almost $5 billion since 2001, and per the ISGAP (The Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy), there is “a direct correlation between donations from Qatar and other Persian Gulf countries and the presence of pro-Palestinian groups, notably SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine), on college campuses.”
I’ll have more to say on this topic very soon, fam. I’ll wrap here for the day so as not to go too long.
In the meantime, a belated shavua tov. Hold steady and lean into your Jewish community. We will outlive them.
Am Yisrael Chai.
We protested against the War in Vietnam when I was in college at the University of Wisconsin. We were against sending our own young men, drafted against their will, to die needlessly by the tens of thousands while trying to kill as many people as possible in a war oceans away. We were protesting for peace and love and to bring them home. Most of the protests were peaceful marches, but sometimes something happened and the police (we called them “pigs”) threw teargas canisters and we all ran away, except for a few who threw them back and got arrested. They were NOTHING like what is happening now. These are based on ignorance and hatred, specifically antisemitism, and lies about who is indigenous to Israel. Also “genocide”. It helps to read your posts, but inside I’m SCREAMING 😱
I wish the world could hear and see your words, Elissa. It's been making me ill and so dumbfounded with the little knowledge that I have, and even I know enough to understand it's not what it appears. It's antisemitism even if many people involved would never say they agree with antisemitism. Follow the money is what I always say.