Pro-Palestinian protests are not about human rights

New York City saw another surge this week of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activism on and off campuses — with displays of shocking ugliness which remind us that this movement has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with grotesque fantasies of revolutionary violence.

On Labor Day, a group called Within Our Lifetime marched from Union Square to Washington Square Park, chanting “Globalize the Intifada” and waving the flags of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups. This is at least the third time the group has done that; one of its protests in June was held outside an exhibit commemorating victims slain and abducted at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7.

This celebration of terror was particularly obscene since it happened just two days after the bodies of six murdered hostages, including that of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a California-born Israeli-American with dual citizenship, were found by the Israeli military in a tunnel in Gaza. Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages were slaughtered after nearly 10 months in captivity because their Hamas captors apparently feared they would be rescued.

One may debate whether or not the government of Benjamin Netanyahu helped doom the hostages by prioritizing its effort to crush Hamas over a hostage deal. One may also debate whether the Biden administration tied Israel’s hands too much and impeded a hostage rescue. But ultimately, the responsibility for the hostages’ death lies with Hamas, which also uses the men, women and children of Gaza as its hostages and human shields. Yet the protesters excuse its reign of terror with such catchy slogans as, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” The Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of nearly 1,200 people in Israel — the vast majority of them civilians, including children and entire families slaughtered together — is the protesters’ idea of “resistance.”

Protests have also resumed on the Columbia University campus, where the fall semester has just begun. Activists disrupted convocation on Sunday by banging pots and drums and attempted to disrupt the first day of class on Tuesday by picketing at the campus gates, harassing and berating people entering the campus. While the activist groups’ ostensible goal was Columbia’s divestment from companies associated with Israel, a statement they have released, shared by the national chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, articulates a much more grandiose and truly demented agenda.

According to this manifesto, “True divestment necessitates nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself.” In case that wasn’t clear enough, the statement goes on to say that divestment must “undermine and eradicate America as we know it.”

One may ask why these people are attending a prestigious and expensive university — many of them probably with government-subsidized financial aid — if they want to bring down both the university and America itself.

This infantile campus radicalism is particularly disturbing because, as a report released by Columbia last week acknowledges, its anti-Zionist animus — combined with its verbally and physically aggressive tactics — have been particularly intimidating to Jewish students. According to the report, based on student testimonies, Jewish students have been “shoved, pushed to the ground, [and] berated for showing support for Zionist causes.”

The plight of Palestinians is real, and there are good reasons to criticize the current Israeli government and its ultraright elements. But just as the murder of the six hostages is a potent reminder of the Oct. 7 atrocities and the inhumanity of Hamas, the actions and rhetoric of Hamas’ American defenders are a reminder of the radical left’s moral bankruptcy.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.