Protests on Ivy League campuses over the Israel-Palestine conflict are reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of 1968 and are adding to pressure on the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.
Like in 1968, the protests are dividing universities and exposing tensions between Arab-American students and their allies against Jewish students and theirs. The protests have sparked anger, with students demanding an apology and amnesty for those arrested at a previous encampment at Columbia University. The university is negotiating with students over the new encampment, but the outrage is closing in on the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden.
The protests are the latest in a string of campus demonstrations over the Israel-Palestine conflict. In recent years, students have called for their universities to divest from companies that do business with Israel and have passed resolutions condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The protests have been met with resistance from some Jewish students and groups, who argue that the movement is anti-Semitic.
The protests are also taking place against the backdrop of a larger debate within the Democratic Party over Israel. In recent years, some Democrats have become more critical of Israel’s policies, while others have remained staunch supporters. The Biden administration has tried to strike a balance between the two factions, but the issue is likely to remain a source of tension within the party.
The protests are a reminder that the Israel-Palestine conflict remains a deeply divisive issue. They are also a sign of the growing activism on college campuses, where students are increasingly speaking out on social and political issues.
The protests at Columbia University began in April, when students set up an encampment on the university’s south lawn in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The encampment was met with resistance from the university administration, which eventually called in the New York City police to break it up. More than 100 students were arrested.
The arrests sparked outrage among students and faculty. A group of faculty members gathered on the steps of the university’s main administrative building to demand an apology and amnesty for the students. One speaker, Christopher Brown, a professor of history, accused university president Minouche Shafik of endangering the students and of failing to defend Columbia’s excellence in testimony to a House committee the day before the police raid.
“She has forfeited the privilege to lead this great university,” Professor Brown declared, to raucous cheers and a chant of “Resign!” from hundreds of students.
The university says it is negotiating with students over the new encampment, even as workers set up chairs nearby for next month’s commencement. All this outrage is closing in on another institution, the Democratic Party, and its leader, President Joe Biden.
The touchstone for the Columbia protesters is the struggle on that campus for racial justice and against the Vietnam war of April 1968, which culminated in a police crackdown and more than 700 arrests. For Democrats nationally, 1968 is also becoming a touchstone, an ominous one. The campus protests that year found a focus in the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago, where the party plans to convene in the same month this year.
In 1968 pro- and anti-war delegates shouted and bickered over Vietnam. In the end the Democrats voted down an anti-war plank and nominated Hubert Humphrey, a Minnesota liberal who, as Lyndon Johnson’s vice-president, was tarred as pro-war. A national television audience watched in horror as Chicago police attacked protesters outside the delegates’ hotel with tear gas and clubs. More than 650 protesters were arrested and scores were hurt, as were many police officers.
Any chaos in Chicago would be bad for Mr Biden, who is running, as in 2020, as the candidate of normalcy. But the drama will almost certainly not be as intense as in 1968. Pro-Palestine groups want to rewrite the party’s plank on Israel, yet such fights no longer play out on convention floors. Mr Biden’s aides will control the platform, as they will the script of the convention, now just a particularly dull TV show. As in 1968, Chicago is being stingy with permits to protest, but the police superintendent, Larry Snelling, has said the department is preparing to respond to “large-scale First Amendment activity” with “constitutional policing.”
Many of the superficial parallels to 1968 will probably prove to be just that. Still, “There is a parallel that’s unavoidable,” says Bill Ayers, who as a leader of Students for a Democratic Society was beaten and arrested in Chicago in 1968. “And that is that Hubert Humphrey, the great liberal from the Midwest, tried way too late to extract himself from being a cheerleader for Vietnam.”
Dogged by anti-war protesters, Humphrey struggled to unite Democrats and ultimately lost narrowly to Richard Nixon. “Irony of history,” Dr Ayers says. “How could Richard Nixon be elected as a peace candidate? Here’s a great anti-communist warmongering prick.” Though as president Nixon would intensify the war, he claimed as a candidate to have a “secret plan” to end it. Donald Trump has said he would end the Ukraine war in a day and, referring to the war in Gaza, has told Israel to “get it over with”. Maybe Mr Biden will succeed in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, and the anger will dissipate. Maybe the protesters chanting today against “Genocide Joe” will nevertheless show up to vote for him.
Dr Ayers, who went on to help found the militant Weather Underground and spent years as a fugitive, pulled the lever for Humphrey. “I always vote for the lesser of two evils,” he says, “because they’re less evil.” He argues that voting is a practical rather than moral act, words other activists might take to heart.
The more thoughtful of Columbia’s activists, by the way, may also have something to teach everyone else, on campus and off. “We commit to assuming best intentions, granting ourselves and others grace when mistakes are made,” reads the eighth community guideline in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, “and approaching conflict with the goal of addressing and repairing.”
