It is difficult to rank the number of competing categories of chaos that have resulted from the October 7th attack by Hamas on Jewish civilians. Each deserves serious consideration, from the brazen depravity of the spark igniting the point we are at today to the conflagrations that have erupted on American college campuses and taken the country back to another time, another president and a direction both unpredictable and potentially calamitous.
The shocking October slaughter of 1,200 mostly Jewish civilians elicited a brutal response against mostly Palestinian citizens of Gaza by Israel and President Benjamin Netanyahu. Since then, an estimated 80 percent of Gazans have been displaced and, according to Reuters, more than 34,000 killed. With a planned Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, the toll may rise much higher.
Worldwide reaction to the conflict has now spread to American college campuses, including Colorado, where encampments and protests have reached every time zone. Arrests have now surpassed 2,200 and continue to rise. Also increasing is the number of violent police responses that in some cases rekindle memories of 1968 when the Viet Nam War divided the nation.
It is easy to think that, said Metropolitan State University-Denver political science chair and professor Rob Preuhs. Students, he said, “don’t think their issues are being addressed by the government.”
Protesting students, as well as some faculty, are angry that in the face of the upticking number of Palestinian deaths, the bombing of hospitals by Israel, nearly total destruction of Gaza and now, potential famine caused in part by the inability to deliver food. The administration is remaining strong in its support for Israel.
The President, though slowly softening in his support for all of Israel’s decisions, spoke about the growing unrest on American campuses.
“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” said Biden. Protesting students, he said, do not have the right to disrupt the lives of fellow students, especially toward Jewish students in a threatening or violent way. “Antisemitism,” he stressed, “has no place” in America.
But students and younger Americans are a key Democratic voting bloc that, as was the case in 1968 when the war divided the nation, may be critical in Biden’s reelection. Students, said Preuhs, are moved by “idealism and ideology and feeling the need to push their influence.”
Besides an end to the conflict, students across Colorado and fellow groups across the country, feel there is a growing call for America to rethink its pro-Israeli policies as well as for colleges and universities to divest from any investments or companies with financial connections with Israel. Divestiture was also an issue that inspired student protests a generation earlier when they targeted America’s connection to South Africa.
Denver’s Auraria campus where MSU-D, University of Colorado-Denver and Community College of Denver are located, several hundred student protested America’s Israel policies. Similar protests also took place on campuses from Fort Collins to Pueblo. Denver police arrested more than 40 protestors for camping policy violations. Across the country, more than 2,000 campus arrests took place at more than 71 campuses, some, including at UCLA and Columbia turned violent.
While President Biden has been in regular communications with Israel’s Netanyahu and dispatched Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to the region, little has changed. In fact, some things have actually worsened.
CNN and a number of other news agencies are reporting a “full blown famine” is spreading among the Gazans displaced since October. News reports quoting the World Food Programme call the situation dire.
“It’s horror,” said Cindy McCain, wife of the late Senator John McCain and WFP’s executive director. “It’s so hard to look at and it’s so hard to hear.” WFP, said McCain, is asking for “unfettered access” to Gaza for deliveries of food, medicine and essentials. Over the weekend, Israel ordered any reporting by Al Jazeera, including reporting on the delivery of supplies to Gaza, permanently suspended. Al Jazeera is a Qatar-owned English language news agency.
Still, despite cease fire negotiations with Hamas, the Israeli Prime Minister has paid little heed to the President and continues moving ahead on a planned military offensive aimed a Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.
These are “tricky issues,” said Preuhs, the MSU-Denver political scientist. But patience among protesting students along with a number of America’s allies “is wearing thin.”
Still, Preuhs said there is still time between now and the November election for the situation to cool down. But decisions on how the war between Israel and Hamas is pros- ecuted is not entirely those of the President.
The Israel-Hamas war has created a cauldron of both ugly antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiments across the U.S. Jewish students have reported being targeted and assaulted on campus for simply wearing yarmulkes while Muslim students say they’re regularly singled out for their garb and faith.
These incidents may calm if the war being prosecuted is solved or, at least, cooled through negotiations and if the President can find a way to reason with Netanyahu. But if the assault on Rafah is carried out and results in what many call unnecessary carnage and violence; if there is no exchange of Palestinian prisoners as well as the 250 Israeli hostages taken on October 7th; if there is a repeat of the Israeli killing of World Central Kitchen volunteers, it may not put an end to unrest on campuses or at the polls.
Preuhs said it’s important to remember that protesting students make up only a small sliver of the total number of students attending college. In the end, they may not be the tipping point. But they still matter.
On the other hand, in politics, past is often prelude. It is hard to totally dismiss the notion that another presidential election 56 years ago that was preceded by a Democratic convention in Chicago with an undercurrent of a war an ocean away went a long way in affecting how Americans voted for their next president.
