Across the United States, ideologically possessed college students have seized college campuses and demanded their respective institutions “disclose and divest” from companies linked to Israel, with some going as far as demanding divestment from all military contractors or companies. These protests have also taken on an overtly anti-American, anti-capitalist message. The students are not only calling for divestment from Israel, but also from US “imperialism.”
Harvard encampment protesters raised the Palestinian flag over the statue of John Harvard, replacing the American flag while chanting “Free Palestine.” The screams of “Allahu Akbar” could be heard in the distance. At UCLA, a wall of protesters prevented Jewish students from accessing their classrooms. Last week, Shai Davidai, an Israeli assistant professor at Columbia University’s business school, was prevented by the school from entering the university’s main campus where he planned to sit peacefully in on the pro-Palestinian demonstration.
A mob of anarchists at Columbia University stormed and occupied Hamilton Hall. Student journalists documented scenes of windows being smashed in attempts to seize the building; students can be heard proclaiming the hall was “liberated,” and a banner reading “Intifada” was hung from the building.
This isn't leftist; it's a hate movement
These activists claim to champion the Palestinian cause and Hamas.
At Florida State University, students held signs calling to “honor the martyrs,” meaning Hamas terrorists. At Stanford, students wear Hamas headbands. Across all college campuses, non-Arab students wear keffiyehs and cover their faces with COVID-19 masks.
American universities have historically been theaters for anti-war demonstrations, but recent escalations point to a departure from peaceful tactics. These students believe that they are part of a revolution, members of the generation that is throwing off the oppression of the patriarchy, white supremacy, and American imperialism.
In the name of progress, these students have taken a page out of the pre-war Nazi playbook. Racial, religious, and intellectual intolerance is a rejection of the enlightened ideas once the cornerstone of these Ivy League institutions.
Most of these students lack the historical, geopolitical, and religious knowledge to understand the extremism and implications of the Islamism and “martyrs” they are championing.
If they had such knowledge, they might better understand that the social justice issues they espouse, such as queer rights, feminist theory, and abortion hold no place in Hamas’ vision for society in the Middle East. Yet they have taken up the cause despite undermining their ideological interests because neo-Marxist academic elites have popularized a critical theory lens of the conflict, which frames Israel as the “colonizer” and the Palestinians as the “colonized.”
This oppressor-oppressed paradigm is a worldview in which most college students are indoctrinated. This is why a feminist advocating for abortion rights will show up to a pro-Palestinian college encampment with a poster – incongruous in such an Islamist power setting – that reads “Abortion Saves Lives.” It is why Khymani James, a black queer man who is politically active for Black Lives Matter (BLM) and March for Our Lives, will publicly call for the death of all “white supremacist Zionist.” They see themselves as brothers in victimhood with the Palestinians.
The facts, a historical perspective, and an understanding of just war theory hold no place in this worldview.
It is a purely emotional post-modern ideology that seeks to group classes of “oppression” together, it sees no nuance and is incapable of critical thinking. Anarchy is the only means to “liberate” society from what they view as mechanisms of oppression and in which they include Zionism and capitalism as well as the patriarchy and US imperialism.
These students are rioting on their university campuses not because they care deeply about Palestinians; most couldn’t even point Gaza out on a map. They are self-aggrandizing and disillusioned narcissists reading their own “oppression” into the Palestinian plight. To them, liberation for the Palestinians means “liberation” for all.
The social contagion of neo-Marxist ideas speaks to the main character syndrome that plagues Gen Z. From their ivory institutions, these college students are abusing and undermining their privilege, which will be the downfall of the American university system and the West at large.
The rise of Nazism in pre-war Germany was popularized first in the classroom and among academic elites.
What happens on university campuses is coming for the entire Western world.
The writer is an educator for The Philos Project and regularly writes and speaks about geopolitics and foreign policy on her podcast, The Philos Project Podcast.