Scenes of the reinstated Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University on its fourth day/ Photo from Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, Date: 21 April 2024, 14:07:15
Pro-Palestine protests have broken out on university campuses across the United States. Some have turned violent, while others have resulted in the destruction of public property. Many have laid siege to public buildings, and there have been repeated instances of crowds chanting antisemitic or even genocidal slogans.
The pro-Palestine protesters have been compared to the anti-Vietnam War protestors by their supporters. But other than the fact that they are protesting, the two groups share little similarity. Several fundamental differences are: they are not championing women’s rights or minority rights; they are not protesting for peace, the US is not at war in Gaza; Hamas is a designated terrorist organization. And these kids are not in danger of being drafted.
The hippie protestors in the 1960s were closely aligned with the Civil Rights movement, fighting for women’s rights and minority rights. The pro-Palestine mobs, however, are protesting in favor of a system where women have almost no rights. Additionally, there are 1.9 billion Muslims and only about 16 million Jews. So, they are protesting in support of the majority, not the minority.
Some of the anti-Vietnam protestors felt war was morally wrong, so they wanted peace, as reflected in songs like, “All that we’re saying, is give peace a chance.” Representative Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., mistakenly characterized the pro-Palestine protestors as wanting peace. She said, “Contrary to right-wing attacks, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza.” But this is a misrepresentation. The pro-Palestine protestors do not seem to have a peace agenda. Furthermore, a lot of them are calling for violence against Jews and Israel, shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Even if a few of them use the word “peace,” they aren’t really calling for peace. They just want Israel to stop defending itself.
One of the main reasons that the hippies opposed the Vietnam War was because of the draft. The college students of that era were draft age and stood a good chance of being conscripted and sent to fight in Vietnam. However, the US has not had a draft since 1973. These kids are not in danger of being sent to war.
The connection between the anti-Vietnam War protests in America and the Vietnam War was direct: America was in a war, and the young people wanted America to no longer be in that war. The pro-Palestine protests, on the other hand, seem to have a less logical connection.
Hamas attacked Israel and killed 1,200 civilians. Israel finally had enough and is decimating Gaza. So, liberal college students in the USA shut down their universities, broke the law, threatened people, damaged property, preached antisemitism… The connection is difficult to see.
According to a PBS interview with protestors at UCLA, they want the university to be transparent about its ties to Israel. This raises an important difference between the 60s and now: the hippies were protesting against the Vietnam War. These kids are protesting against Israel, against a country. And although many of them wouldn’t admit it, the reality is that they want Israel to no longer exist.
The students are demanding that the university “divest the endowment from corporations that profit off of Israel.” Basically, they want the university to give back donor money and ostensibly raise tuition. And the corporations are likely to be American corporations. This seems incredibly far removed from the war in Gaza.
A UCLA professor explained that protesters wanted “transparency in their universities’ relationships with Israeli institutions.” A professor at Columbia University said that they wanted “an academic boycott of Israeli institutions via the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global Center and dual degree program.” So, the boycott with Israel would not be limited to financial ties but academic and cultural as well. There is a big difference between Vietnam protestors wanting the US to stop fighting the war in Vietnam and the pro-Palestine protestors wanting the US to stop engaging with Israel.
On a cultural note, a glaring difference is that the anti-Vietnam protest movement gave birth to some of the greatest music ever recorded: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Hamas tunes, by contrast, are not quite as catchy.
One similarity might be the possibility of terrorism. The anti-Vietnam War movement led to the birth of groups like the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), Black Liberation Army (BLA), Red Army Faction (RAF), and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Today we are looking at Antifa, but given the connection with Palestine, Islamic extremist terrorism is also possible, ranging from Hamas to the PLO, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS.
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