As disturbing as I find most of the campus protests in favor of Hamas, what makes my heart ache the most is the videos that keep popping up showing students blockading buildings and campus entrances, preventing jews from entering.
The antiwar protests are objectionable because they are based on half-truths–the only sources of information that the protesters accept are Hamas itself and their propagandists–but peaceful protests against what people believe to be atrocities are in principle a good thing.
Vandalism, “occupations,” disturbances of the peace, and such are unacceptable–the idea that such behaviors in the United States will influence Israeli actions is quite the stretch. But putting up with annoying useful idiots is a part of life.
As much as the left denies it, the pro-Hamas movement is an antisemitic hate movement. Opposing the war need not be driven by animus towards Jews as such, but for most of the protesters, the animus toward Jews is a major driving force. The Venn Diagram of antisemites and anti-zionists overlaps quite a bit.
Real Cultural Revolution vibe here. Yale students willingly turning themselves into faceless automotons. No independent thought. No individuality. Just a dead-eyed drones chanting idiotic slogans. https://t.co/SS5gvrJMv0
— Jim Meigs (@jamesbmeigs) April 23, 2025
Last year at UCLA, students vetted people coming onto campus, and Jews were prevented from entering. That is not protest in any way, shape, or form; it was apartheid. Jews have been the subject of attacks both on and off campuses, herded into locked rooms with baying mobs yelling through the door, and every protester who chants has stripped themselves of all humanity by covering their faces and chanting mindless slogans as they impose their wills on others.
This is the same sort of behavior that we saw in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Have you noticed that China is the model for both the globalists, who love the technocracy and social credit system in today’s China, and for the radicals, who admire the earlier version of Chinese communism, harkening back to the Long March and the Cultural Revolution.
Both groups even like abortion, population control/antinatalism, and top-down control of the economy. I’d love to know why China is such an appealing model for the left.
Whatever the reason, all the arguments in the world that the current anti-war movement isn’t about hating Jews, just Israeli war policies, are belied by the fact that it is Jews from anywhere in the world who are the focus of attacks. Synagogs, delis, people wearing kippahs–it doesn’t matter what signifier of Judaism you see–are the focus of assaults, vandalism, and intimidation.
I am often frustrated by the media coverage of the war–it is so slanted and ignorant that it is infuriating–but if I believed as many people do that Israel was targeting civilians for extermination I, too, would be outraged.
It’s just that I know better than to trust Pravda. Many people don’t, or forget the steady stream of lies to which they have been subjected. They suffer from Gell-Mann Amnesia–they know the media gets it wrong about everything about which they know, but still assume that they are telling the truth about things about which they don’t.
Sure, they got Biden’s dementia wrong, and COVID, and the Steele Dossier, and the Hunter Biden laptop, but they must be right about Gaza!
But I don’t despise people who I think are wrong on the war if they hold their opinions in good faith.
But let’s face it, the protesters themselves are antisemitic scum who love to use Brownshirt tactics and paint Swastikas everwhere.
