What is not unclear is that the students now condemning Israel are the products of an elite American academic industry that offers leftist ideologies as its main product and, brace yourselves, the younger professors on many campuses are much further to left in both ideology and politics. The old liberals are scared to death of the young leftists. Furthermore, the young professors are scared to death of the students, many of whom have been coddled in privilege and even more of whom have been marinated in a brine of radical ideologies.
The chaos engulfing elite college campuses across America should surprise no one. The sight of privileged university students chanting “from the river to the sea” and calling for an end to American support of Israel was absolutely predictable. This is exactly what happens when the ideological left is in the driver’s seat and leftist students are all too ready to go along for the ride. Americans of a certain age might be tempted to say this is 1968 all over again. But, in the case of the campus protesters, the current situation is actually far worse.
Just look at New York’s famed Columbia University, founded as a college by the Church of England and later the historic school of American patriots. In 1968 Columbia was the scene of campus protests and a surging ideological Left, with students directing their ire at the U.S. government and the war in Vietnam. Like many elite institutions, it has a long history of anti-Semitism. Fast forward to 2024 and the same scenes now flood back, with students protesting and leftism ascendant. This time the anger is directed at the State of Israel and the students have styled themselves as liberationist allies of the Palestinians, who they present as victims of Israel’s “settler colonialism.”
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