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From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free
Trespassing and vandalism – “mini-Gazas,” William McGrun calls them, resembling summer camps – have sprouted up at colleges across America.
The difference is that instead of singing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,” the college kiddies opt for someone leading them in chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Cultural Approbation
Explains Mr. McGrun in the WSJ, students don a keffiyeh, a head covering originally worn by Bedouin tribesmen to protect against the desert sun and sand.
In the 1930s (keffiyehs) became a symbol of Palestinian identity and was famously worn by Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. As an added plus, it can hide your face from police and administrators trying to identify you.
Left-wing students have always loved movements that liberate them from the classroom—especially ones that come with a uniform and ready-made slogans that substitute for serious argument and boost their sense of moral superiority. “I’ve always thought of accessories as the exclamation point of a woman’s outfit,” fashion maestro Michael Kors said. Among today’s protesters that goes for men as well.
A Hangover from 1960s Self-Indulgence
Back then radical chic offered any number of options, ranging from long hair that annoyed parents to Chairman Mao hats or Che Guevara berets that conveyed a more revolutionary vibe. More recently, thousands of women wearing bright pink hats converged on Washington the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration to protest his vulgar reference, heard on the “Access Hollywood” tapes, to grabbing women by a part of the anatomy.
An Appropriate Ensemble
William McGurn admits to each of his three daughters going through a Disney princess phase, giving their father an insight into the appeal of a good costume…
… especially when wearing it allows you to demand special treatment. Then again, my daughters were 6.
But the adults at colleges and universities have obligations as educators. Their indulgence of the drama created by the student protests has been an abrogation of these duties. Probably the most notorious example was Columbia’s President Minouche Shafik, who at first called in the police to clear encamped students when they ignored university directives to leave.
The day after the cops cleared the encampment, the protesters were back on another part of the lawn. Ms. Shafik then shifted to a pretty-please approach, promising not to call the cops in again. When that too failed, she went with pretty please with sugar on top, which predictably failed as well. The protesters responded like an uncooperative boy at the supermarket screaming at his mom and threatening a very public tantrum if he doesn’t get his way.
Students in their keffiyehs know that university administrators “aren’t up to the follow-through that would make real their lofty words about speech and signal that those who won’t obey the rules making the life of a university possible will be out.”
For all the talk of “outside agitators” hijacking peaceful campus protests, the students made no effort to purge from their ranks the Hamas headbands, Hezbollah flags or those threatening to repeat the savageries of Oct. 7.
There was a day, continues Mr. McGurn, “when Americans looked at universities as ideals for how to live peacefully in a free society guided by the accumulated wisdom of the past. Now Americans see them as home to the unreasonable and mindlessly destructive.”
Lowering the Bar:
Cancelling Exams
From the WSJ’s Notable & Quotable:
Statement from Columbia Law Review student editors (1 May letter):
We believe that canceling exams would be a proportionate response to the level of distress our peers have been feeling. In the alternative, making courses mandatory Pass/Fail would be the next most equitable solution.
