The Israel-Hamas War in the Gaza Strip in the past seven months has led to the deaths of more than 34,000 Palestinians, including approximately two thirds being women and children.
It has become the biggest controversy on college campuses in many decades, and has led to massive demonstrations and occupations of many campuses by protesters, and by outside agitators not connected to the universities.
The ugly situation has many tones of antisemitism, endangering Jewish students, advocating violence, and calling for destruction of Israel.
Freedom of speech and the right to protest are basic constitutional rights, but it does not include the right to interfere with normal operation of educational institutions.
One can disagree with the strategy and tactics of the Israeli government, and yet also understand that a nation has the right to exist and to defend itself after the horrific massacre of about 1,200 people on October 7, 2023 by the extremist Hamas terrorist group.
One can also condemn right wing MAGA Republicans, led by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Ohio Senator J D Vance, and other extremists, who want to employ military force to end the protests.
It is also disturbing that college students often have little knowledge and information, as they rely on social media, rather than established news sources, for their view of the world.
Colleges are supposed to be places for debates, education, empathy, and understanding, not for occupation and calls for genocide against an entire nation and people. To allow a small percentage of students and outside agitators to shut down a campus and threaten those who are opposed to their tactics is reprehensible.
These disturbances on college campuses are undermining the future of universities in the public mind, as extremism, violence, and occupation by many students and outsiders endanger public support for higher education.
It is also making more likely that many commencement ceremonies around the nation will be canceled, and this for students, who in many cases, did not have a high school graduation ceremony due to the COVID 19 Pandemic in the Spring of 2020.
Many of these demonstrators are destroying their education, as many will be suspended or expelled, will face possible criminal charges, and many corporations will be unwilling to hire people involved in civil disobedience without any conclusion.
Young people have a right to their beliefs, but not to stop the operations of universities, as many of these individuals will regret long term their youthful emotions that will not be good for their long term futures.
Every effort must be utilized to end the Israel-Hamas War and to free the remaining hostages, and Joe Biden has a major challenge ahead of him to convince Benjamin Netanyahu to change his strategy that has endangered the international community’s view of the conflict.
This issue could affect the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, bringing back memories of the disastrous Chicago Democratic convention in 1968, that led to the defeat of Hubert Humphrey and the Presidency of Richard Nixon.