What America’s Palestine Protesters Should and Shouldn’t Do

If you’re not a hermit, you’re aware that college campuses all over the United States have been roiled by student demonstrations, typically involving encampments of tents in quadrangles or plazas or other public spaces. The demonstrators are protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza and U.S. support for them, calling for an immediate cease-fire, and sometimes demanding that the university divest from any investments in Israel and distance itself in other ways. University administrators now find themselves caught between idealistic and impassioned students, angry donors, influential groups in the Israel lobby, mendacious members of Congress, and faculty concerned that essential elements of academic freedom are at risk.

My sympathies are with the students here, which is not to say I agree with everything they’ve done or what a few of them have said. I’ve never doubted that what Hamas did in Israel on Oct. 7 was criminal and wrong, but its crimes in no way justify Israel’s indiscriminate and deliberately cruel overreaction. Nor should Hamas’s crimes lead us to ignore the suffering and displacement that Palestinians have experienced for decades. Although a handful of people involved in these protests have said reprehensible things, it is clear from multiple accounts that the vast majority of the participants (including a sizable number of younger American Jews) are motivated not by antisemitism but by sympathy for the plight of the beleaguered residents of Gaza, disgust at the support that the United States continues to provide to Israel, and a desire to advance the cause of peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike. It is ironic and disturbing, if not especially surprising, that the students’ critics seem more upset by the lamentable statements of a few ignorant hotheads than by the indiscriminate killing of 35,000 Palestinians or the genocidal sentiments expressed by prominent Israeli officials. If you’re going to condemn what a few extremists on one side have said, then fairness demands that you condemn extremists on the other side, too.

Will these protest movements accomplish their various aims? I don’t know. Having successfully focused attention on Israel’s predations and American complicity, I worry that they may now act in ways that unwittingly undermine the sympathy and support they have garnered, especially now that college and university graduation ceremonies are about to begin.

My thoughts on this subject are informed in part by a recent experience at a liberal arts college here in Massachusetts. I appeared at a public event on U.S. Middle East policy alongside a former State Department official, and we spent an hour or so responding to questions posed by a faculty moderator. We agreed on some points and disagreed sharply on others, but overall, it was a respectful and fruitful exchange of views. I made it clear that I thought U.S. policy in the past and at present was deeply misguided, and that the United States was now complicit in the crimes Israel was committing.

The event was uneventful until the Q&A. After the other speaker and I had answered a few questions from the audience, a student was called upon, rose, and began to read a long statement denouncing what was happening in Gaza. The speech did not respond to anything we had said over the previous hour, and despite repeated requests to wrap up and pose a question, the student read the statement to the end and then began a call-and-response chant with a group of perhaps a dozen other students. The chanting continued for several more minutes, a couple of security personnel arrived, and the students got up and marched out voluntarily.

The Q&A period resumed, but a few minutes later, another student was called upon, stood, repeated the same statement, and began another round of chanting with one other student. Unlike the first group, the two students then occupied the front of the stage and refused to leave. After a few more minutes, the organizers ended the event.

Nothing in the students’ statement or chants was offensive or threatening. If we had the opportunity to respond, I would have said that I agreed with much of what they were saying. But I felt it was a serious tactical error to force the event to shut down, because doing so turned the rest of the audience against them. Had the protests ended after the first interruption, the protesters would have made their point, the panelists could have responded to what they had heard, and the audience would have benefited from the back-and-forth. As it happened, however, most people in the audience were visibly annoyed that the event had been disrupted to the point that it had to end prematurely.

Having grabbed the third rail of the U.S.-Israel relationship myself, and given a fair number of lectures in front of audiences that included people who disagreed with me, here’s my unsolicited advice to the students who are trying to get their universities (and the United States) to devote greater attention to Palestinian rights and to distance themselves from what Israel is doing.

(For some additional suggestions on constructive actions one might take, see Nicholas Kristof’s column here.)

First, never forget that you are trying to reinforce the instincts of people who are already leaning in your direction and trying to win over people who haven’t made up their minds yet. You’re not likely to persuade a committed Zionist to alter his or her views, any more than they are likely to alter yours. But people who haven’t made up their minds yet are usually attracted by facts, logic, reason, and evidence. In my experience, they are turned off by anger, rudeness, intolerance, and especially by anyone who interferes with their own desire to learn more. When I was giving public lectures about the Israel lobby 15 years ago, it always helped if someone in the audience started shouting at me or making ad hominem attacks. Why? Because the rest of the audience saw such behavior as rude and unsupported by anything I had said, and therefore concluded that I was probably right.

Second, recognize that you are up against a well-funded, well-organized, and committed set of opponents with ample access to both mainstream and social media. They will use any excesses, regrettable incidents, careless or hateful statements, or expressions of anger to try to discredit the whole movement. If that doesn’t work, they’ll make stuff up. Thus, it makes sense not to act in ways that give the other side more ammunition.

Third, when it’s time for commencement, it would be an error to disrupt the proceedings to the point that those in attendance turn against you. Most of the students and families who will be there are not as engaged by these issues as you are, and many of them may not have a well-formed opinion about the destruction in Gaza and the ways the United States is enabling it. Most students will be at commencement to celebrate their own achievements, under the proud gaze of their parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends. All those people are going to be angry at anyone who makes it impossible for them to have that celebration. Yes, their annoyance hardly compares to what Palestinians are suffering, but that’s not the point. The goal is to try to bring as many people as possible over to your side, not to alienate anyone who might otherwise support what you are trying to achieve.

So: Do wear a kaffiyeh if you wish. And feel free to shout “cease-fire now” as you cross the stage to collect your diploma. But don’t block other people from entering the area, don’t make it impossible for the commencement speaker(s) to be heard, and don’t create an environment where those in attendance end up angry at you, instead of being angry about what is happening in Gaza. Making people whose support you need angry is not wise, because your fellow students and their families will not be mad at President Joe Biden or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if you spoil their graduation. They’re going to be mad at you, which is what the other side is hoping for.