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The Leadership of the Campus Protests Believes in the Total Destruction of Israel by Any Means

(New York Magazine) Jonathan Chait - Many progressives deny that extremism characterizes the campus protests. But this view contains a significant amount of denial and wishful thinking over who is running these protests. The best way to understand the beliefs of protests is usually to read the published statements of the groups organizing them. That is especially true when the protests are well organized by an established network. In this case, the protests have been organized by Students for Justice in Palestine. And their position is totally explicit: They believe in the total destruction of Israel as a state by any means, including violence. Not every protester shares this goal, of course. But it is the goal of the people directing the protests. That is why their slogans and chants call for elimination rather than coexistence. Allies of the protesters have tried to blame the constant antisemitic harassment and atmosphere of menace emanating from their activities on a handful of outsiders. The Washington Post reported on "a Columbia student who has taken part in the pro-Palestinian protest encampments declaring that 'Zionists don't deserve to live.'" But this student didn't merely take part in protests, he was a leader of them, and he negotiated with the administration on their behalf. At the University of Michigan, the leader of the main student anti-Israel group, who had been sympathetically profiled in the New York Times, wrote on social media, "Until my last breath I will utter death to every single individual who supports the Zionist state. Death and more. Death and worse." The most violent and unhinged statements are coming not from the periphery of the protests but from their leadership.
2024-05-02 00:00:00
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