Campus protesters for Palestine no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt

On Monday afternoon as I sat in class at NYU studying the antisemitic policies of the Third Reich, the “Flood NYC for Palestine” protests descended upon Washington Square Park. This October 7, a year after the worst Jewish massacre since the Holocaust, hundreds of people had interrupted their afternoons to join a march in support of what’s euphemistically referred to as Palestinian “resistance by any means necessary.” To say “terrorism” would be unsubtle, you see.

NYU students staged a planned “walk out” to join the “flood” on Monday. A group of faculty members and staff, tweeting under the moniker of NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, said that while they recognized the Hamas massacre anniversary, they viewed the day as providing “room for collective rage, grief and resistance.” Rage against who? And grief for who? From what I saw of the protest, there was no rage against Hamas; in fact many protesters wore Hamas headbands. There were no signs of grief for the 1,200 Israelis murdered or the 251 kidnapped. As I left class, I was surrounded by protesters banging drums and screaming “intifada revolution.” As the gathered masses in Union Square screamed, “pigs,” “go back to Europe” and “why don’t you go take a shower?” at Israeli counterprotesters, it became glaringly obvious that this march had very little to do with concern for Palestinian civilians. 

By now it’s well documented how, and how frequently, the masks slip at many of these events. Protesters say “Jew” when the self-imposed policy advocates using the term “Zionist.” The activists also repeatedly find themselves to be bedfellows of Islamic fundamentalists. Their chants reveal that they are the intellectual bedfellows of those who routinely advocate for discrimination and violence against gays, women and, of course, “infidels.” Students covered their faces with Covid masks or self-made keffiyeh balaclavas. The irony that students at my university want to intimidate Jews, in the classroom, the public streets and all across social media and yet still cover their faces to avoid “doxxing” would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. On the anniversary of October 7, they practically danced past my campus as they screamed “intifada intifada.”

Ignorance, about Islamism or antisemitism’s many guises, can no longer be a legitimate excuse for those who chose to demonstrate. The students that joined them this week have been given the benefit of the doubt for far too long. My classmates are not ignorant. They know what happened on October 7.  They know, when they wear a keffiyeh, that it was popularized by figures such as Yasser Arafat and the terrorist plane hijacker Leila Khaled. They know that suicide bombers have enacted their beloved “intifada” chants in Israel and have blown up men, women and children. They know all this and they join the march anyway.

Why? Because they believe that the situation in Israel can only be understood through an “oppressor/oppressed” lens.They think Israelis are white and Palestinians are brown. They believe Israel to be a white imperialist project and that it is therefore justified for Hamas, as “freedom fighters,” to livestream the mass murder of thousands of innocent civilians.

The professors and students at universities across the country no longer have the luxury of leaving our politics at the classroom door. As Monday demonstrated, the hatred against Jews is here, it is real and it shows no sign of abating. Students are not hesitant to openly endorse terrorists. So, if you are a student that does not hate Jews, that believes Israel has a right to exist and if you believe that it is morally wrong to celebrate terrorism, you must speak out now.

I recognize the desire to cling on to the days when you didn’t know your professor’s politics and you could debate with others in the classroom without fearing they held a desire to see Jews murdered just for being Jews. The time to pretend that everyone is coming from a place of “good faith” is over. Support of terrorism is no longer fringe but is, rather, an accepted position on campus. Those that came out to support terrorism this week know exactly what they are doing. We need to understand that they mean it when they say they celebrate “resistance.” They have no problem with the killing of innocent Jews in Israel and if we take their chants at face value, they want to “globalize” the killing. 

It is vital for us students to counter these arguments whenever we hear them. Correct the lies. Point out the tropes. Argue, even if this sounds obvious, against suicide bombing. Support from faculty should be welcomed and encouraged; I have been fortunate in the Jewish Studies department at NYU to find myself among scholars who have chosen to speak out, but it cannot be left to them. Even if it means losing friends. Even if it means failing classes because a professor penalizes you, based on their own biases. Even if it means offending some of your classmates who consider Hamas to be trailblazers or somehow representatives of left-wing ideology.