The ‘Anti-West’

As I am sure all my readers are aware, there has been a recent explosion of pro-Palestinian protests across university campuses. While they began following the barbaric attack by Hamas on Israel, they have escalated into anti-Semitic chants on the streets and the establishment of unruly encampments in public spaces. The previously clean, well-kept green lawns on college campuses are now being taken over by a group of hostile activists who demand their universities divest from corporations funding “genocide.”

While most apolitical students on campus are aghast at the sight of pristine lawns being converted into the equivalent of a homeless camp, those who cherish Western values and norms should understand how uniquely devastating these protests are. These demonstrations, marked by uncivil behavior, victimization rhetoric, and baseless intersectional narratives, starkly contrast with the Western values we hold dear.

Many of the protesters have discarded the Western commitment to civil discourse and peaceful assembly with a one-word justification: “genocide.” Protesters engaging in public disturbances, defacing private property, and sometimes even violence show a blatant disregard for law and order. The constant vitriol and hostility directed not just at Israel but often indiscriminately at bystanders simply trying to go to class degrade the very idea of what it means to be civil.

Moreover, the protests are imbued with a pervasive sense of victimization that distorts reality. This narrative, which paints the Palestinian cause as purely one of oppressed versus oppressor, ignores the complex, multifaceted nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such oversimplification is not only intellectually dishonest but also undermines the nuanced approach required to understand and eventually resolve such issues. Thus, it is antithetical to the Western value of reasoned and informed debate.

Dante’s 10th Circle

As someone who has walked through the belly of the beast, these encampments are worse than any outsider could imagine.

Walking around these camps, modernity is nowhere in sight. Unbathed activists roam in days-old clothing. Commonplace items like running water and toilets have been replaced with heaps of bottled water and tents equipped with buckets and soggy toilet paper. Occasionally, you see activists take a break from long, psychologically laborious days of shouting “truth to power” by pulling out their MacBooks and catching up on the countless classes they have missed.

On the fence around Northwestern’s Deering Meadow, you see intersectionality at its zenith. Activists have put their artistic skills to work, crafting signs that would make the anti-war protesters of the ‘60s blush. One sign read, “Interfaith Lesbians for Palestine.” Another read, “F**k 12 from Gaza to Chicago.” Yet another — clearly written in the handwriting of a male — said, “Trans-gals for Palestine!”

Sound like Dante’s 10th Circle of Hell? I think so — but to anti-Israel activists, these are “liberation zones.”

Blame the Professors

As described above, academia has reached new lows that could never have been imagined. These protests reveal the depths to which universities have become institutions that breed resentment of Western values and hostility toward those who cherish them.

One cannot understand the cause of these protests without understanding how academia operates in the 21st century. Academia today serves to invert all norms of the past. Being a slave to your hedonistic impulses has been renamed “sexual liberation.” Marriage is overrated and stifling. Policing doesn’t protect black and brown communities but instead is likened to the abhorrent practices of the Jim Crow era.

With universities actively trying to classify Western standards like law and order, civil discourse, and rational inquiry as unjust, it only makes sense that a relatively tolerant, enlightened nation like Israel has attracted so much hate from college students.

Don’t believe me? Take it from the horse’s mouth. In an interview with CNN’s Abby Phillip, USC valedictorian Asha Tabassum said, “I believe in what I believe, and it is because of the people around me that I have met at USC, the classes that I have taken, the professors I have learned from that have led me to look at the world this way.”

What’s even worse is that Tabassum said this in response to Phillip’s question about whether she supports “the abolition of Israel.” Frankly, I thank Tabassum for her honesty. One cannot look at the protests exploding on campuses right now without realizing their direct connection to what professors teach their students.

Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee

The rallying cry of these anti-Israel protesters is that they are exercising their First Amendment right to protest. In response to the encampments, Northwestern’s Political Union hosted a debate on the resolution: “Universities Should Regulate Political Speech.” The opposition to this resolution was ostensibly supposed to be pro-free speech, arguing that universities should not regulate political speech. Instead, I watched as the debater transformed into a human pretzel, arguing that universities should prohibit and condemn all forms of hate speech but simultaneously allow the current encampment littered with anti-Semites to continue.

The irony appalled me. I do not remember this student or any of the students currently illegally occupying the Deering Lawn at the barricades defending my YAF chapter’s right to free speech when students demanded our 2023 Spring Speaker be canceled. Instead, they were calling for the censorship of my group. The protesters invoking the First Amendment as an excuse to disrupt classes and illegally occupy university property deserve an Olympic Gold Medal with this grand display of mental gymnastics.

This hypocrisy reveals a new threat to the First Amendment as originally understood and further demonstrates the anti-Western sentiment motivating these protests. Those on the Left who defend the right of students to organize in violation of university policies will use this as a badge of being a free speech defender. All while arguing that anyone who disagrees with liberal orthodoxy, like UPenn Professor Amy Wax, is engaging in hate speech and deserving of swift punishment and cancellation.

The only good thing about these protests is that they have made clear to spectators the extent to which our universities have been corrupted, providing the conditions for future change.