I missed you last week in my inbox — I was also struggling to write, and I think these protests had more to do with it than I was willing to admit. I'm grateful for your courage to share your experience with the news — it captures my sentiments exactly and expanded on them.
I wanted to share a couple of pieces I think are great that have helped me have words for the pain I feel.
Melissa, it's absolutely understandable that many of us struggled to focus. It was a crazy week of news. And thank you for the links. I've did read Anne's newsletter, but will check out Ethan's substack. Sharing of information is important!
Oh my goodness, Jenna, thank you for your clarity and these excellent links. I wrote about this, too, as Ive attempted to reconcile the news reports with my daughter’s on the ground accounts. I’m so grateful to be able to talk to each other as parents, to give ourselves a little spaced to just be confused together. I think that’s just as important as having answers.
Also: I just want you to know that I too write and erase entire paragraphs, and get jittery lobbing words into people’s inboxes, and question my motives (and value) as a newsletter-writer. It’s HARD to do this. But now I’m talking to you as a reader. I felt such a relief reading this, as I have felt with other things you have written. It is so settling to hear your actual human voice coming from your actual human heart. I know it’s easy to wax nostalgic about the old blogging days, but that’s what was so revolutionary about that time. So thank you for putting yourself out here like this. It really matters.
If I overthink this whole writing emails to thousands of people, I'm not sure I would ever press send! I was also relieved to read yours last night. It made me nervous to write about it, but at the same time, also felt weird not to acknowledge it. Self doubts the entire time until I pressed send.
Asha, that is why I wrote about it from the perspective of a parent. School administrations, their policies and decisions affect us directly in that way. There is nothing I can add from a political viewpoint. I know little about this war (I am learning though!), but I know how I feel as a parent of college-aged kids—that's why I focused largely on the media bias in the reporting.
Though unnuanced and bold in conviction these youth / generation are going to move forward in their lives with a lasting fire that propels them to live life with a commitment to truth and a knowing that it hurts more to stand in apathy than to face the consequences of following their hearts. That's what I predict anyway, based on the effects of the 60s on that generation of activists. Look how those who were youth in that generation shaped our world view as they turned into adults. Still so much fire and conviction, rooted in their youth experiences protesting and engaging in civic change efforts. In their adult lives, they have been strong voices for change and alternate ways of perceiving. They push us to see what's in front of us.
For this current generation, all of the deep provocation of their youth will take on a more nuanced tenor as they grow older and experience different facets of life. I guess what I am saying is that ultimately I am sad by the dark aspects of these activities yet have a deep knowing that these youth are bound to continue lives that will enrich our culture, and allow them (& remind others) to live authentically and bravely.
Thank you for making me move out of my observer's stance to a place where I can share what's been percolating inside my mind and heart Jenna. This is a gift of your writing, your voice. Look at you exercising your activism in middle age! See, the fire still burns. Just differently.🤍
I really love the way you framed this for me! Sometimes I feel...I don't know, apathetic that I'm not out there marching, etc. but I know that this is physically hard on my body right now.
This entire comment was beautiful to read. Yes, the younger generation will shape our world—they have been through so much and we need that fire to tear down policies that don't work for us anymore. As the old strongholds in politics step down as they retire, we need new leaders to emerge.
Omg Jenna I also found myself writing about this subject in my Substack, my daughter is a senior at Columbia and I’ve been wracked with guilt over my desire to support the students conflicting with my fear that my kid would get into trouble—the asian mom in me wants to tell her to avoid the issue, but that’s so wrong! I have felt so awful these past weeks! Thank you for writing this. (I actually searched my inbox because I thought I had missed a newsletter from you last week!) It has been so painful and I haven’t known what to do with this pain so I wrote about it, like you did. I feel less alone after reading your newsletter.
Your daughter is right in the center, so of course you have anxiety and all the conflicted feelings. I understand. Sometimes I feel SO hypocritical when I talk to my kids. "don't post that on social media" "don't get arrested." I rationalize it by telling them that the world is a different world than when I did all the things that I tell them not to do. It's true, and things feel more higher stakes, but how many times can I use that rationale?
I'm saddened for the seniors who have had ceremonies canceled. I hope that you will find joy and celebration. And HUGE congrats to your daughter on her graduation day!
This is a solid piece, nuanced, thoughtful, balanced. Again, you tap into a lot of what many of us are feeling and processing, and to express it so well... I'm happy to wait an extra week for it. Take care.
These are very good words, Jenna, and I think they speak to many, who, like you (and me), are conflicted on these issues. I appreciate you taking the time to research, think deeply and share your thoughts so eloquently.
I think you have accurately depicted the kind of bubble we can live in, especially when we are far away from the “front lines”. I always used to marvel at the universal grief that seemed to come from the death of a famous person, and I would think, what about that person who just died in a recent natural disaster or domestic violence or war atrocities, can’t we mourn for them? It’s hard to make sense of all the sadness in the world, while continuing to live in our own little bubble.
Yes, this world is hard to comprehend. And there is so much sadness EVERYWHERE at this moment, not just in Gaza. In that sense, I am grateful that the protests forced me out of my bubble that I was hesitant to step out of, mostly for self-preservation and mental health. We can't ignore the atrocities.
Thank you for thinking and writing and not turning away from this utterly heartbreaking situation on all sides and for understanding that it is possible to have compassion for all and a complex moral understanding of the direness of what is happening here and overseas. It’s critical to understand the historical trauma borne by both sides and sadly there are no easy answers but that doesn’t mean we can ignore or be reductive about this crisis. There are thoughtful writers - I don’t agree with him on all other topics but I have found NYT’s Thomas Friedman’s insights on Gaza to be nuanced. Also there is a show on Netflix called Fauda that sometimes is too intense/heartbreaking to watch but does a decent job of sitting with the awful complexity and giving us a virtual sense of the unrelenting stress and sources of these problems. There are dirty hands and victims on all sides, some with out a doubt worse than others. But the humanity in all should always be amplified. Having the privilege of sitting in safety far from this devastation we have a moral obligation to absorb and understand the complexity of the conflict and not lose sight of all the lives killed and utterly destroyed and the trauma that gave rise to all of this. Reductive thinking is part of the problem.
Here are his thoughts on the student protests: “Readers have been asking me, and I have been asking myself of late, how I feel about the campus demonstrations to stop the war in Gaza. Anyone reading this column since Oct. 7 knows that my focus has been on events on the ground in the Middle East, but this phenomenon has become too big to ignore. In short: I find the whole thing very troubling, because the dominant messages from the loudest voices and many placards reject important truths about how this latest Gaza war started and what will be required to bring it to a fair and sustainable conclusion.
My problem is not that the protests in general are “antisemitic” — I would not use that word to describe them, and indeed, I am deeply uncomfortable as a Jew with how the charge of antisemitism is thrown about on the Israel-Palestine issue. My problem is that I am a hardheaded pragmatist who lived in Beirut and Jerusalem, cares about people on all sides and knows one thing above all from my decades in the region: The only just and workable solution to this issue is two nation-states for two indigenous peoples.
If you are for that, whatever your religion, nationality or politics, you’re part of the solution. If you are not for that, you’re part of the problem.
And from everything I have read and watched, too many of these protests have become part of the problem — for three key reasons.
First, they are virtually all about stopping Israel’s shameful behavior in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, while giving a free pass to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion in which it murdered Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli women and kidnapped or killed everyone they could get their hands on, from little kids to sick grandparents.
Again, you can be — and should be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing everything in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that thousands of children have been killed, maimed and orphaned. But if you refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to trigger this — not to justify what Israel has done, but to explain how the Jewish state could inflict so much suffering on Palestinian men, women and children in reverse — you’re just another partisan throwing another partisan log on the fire. By giving Hamas a pass, the protests have put the onus on Israel to such a degree that its very existence is a target for some students, while Hamas’s murderous behavior is passed off as a praiseworthy adventure in decolonization.
Second, when people chant slogans like “liberate Palestine” and “from the river to the sea,” they are essentially calling for the erasure of the state of Israel, not a two-state solution. They are arguing that the Jewish people have no right to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t believe that about Jews, and I don’t believe that about Palestinians. I believe in a two-state solution in which Israel, in return for security guarantees, withdraws from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state that accepts the principle of two states for two peoples is established in those territories occupied in 1967.
I believe in that so strongly that the thing I am most proud of in my 45-year career is my interview in February 2002 with the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, in which he, for the first time, called on the entire Arab League to offer full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal to the 1967 lines — a call that led the Arab League to hold a peace conference the next month, on March 27 and 28, in Beirut to do just that. It was called the Arab Peace Initiative.
And do you know what Hamas’s response was to that first pan-Arab peace initiative for a two-state solution? I’ll let CNN tell you. Here’s its report from Israel on the evening of March 27, 2002, right after the Arab League peace summit opened:
NETANYA, Israel — A suicide bomber killed at least 19 people and injured 172 at a popular seaside hotel Wednesday, the start of the Jewish religious holiday of Passover. At least 48 of the injured were described as “severely wounded.”
The bombing occurred in a crowded dining room at the Park Hotel, a coastal resort, during the traditional meal marking the start of Passover. … The Palestinian group Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yes, that was Hamas’s response to the Arab peace initiative of two nation-states for two peoples: blowing up a Passover Seder in Israel.
Hey, Friedman, but what about all the violence that Israeli settlers perpetrated against Palestinians and how Bibi Netanyahu deliberately built up Hamas and undermined the Palestinian Authority, which embraced Oslo?
Answer: That violence and those Netanyahu actions are awful and harmful to a two-state solution as well. That is why I am intensely both anti-Hamas and anti-Netanyahu. And if you oppose just one and not also the other, you should reflect a little more on what you are shouting at your protest or your anti-protest. Because no one has done more to harm the prospects of a two-state solution than the codependent Hamas and Netanyahu factions.
Hamas is not against the post-1967 occupation. It is against the existence of a Jewish state and believes there should be an Islamic state between the river and the sea. When protests on college campuses ignore that, they are part of the problem. Just as much as Israel supporters who ignore the fact that the far-right members in Netanyahu’s own coalition government are for a Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. How do I know? Because Netanyahu wrote it into the coalition agreement between himself and his far-right partners.
The third reason that these protests have become part of the problem is that they ignore the view of many Palestinians in Gaza who detest Hamas’s autocracy. These Palestinians are enraged by precisely what these student demonstrations ignore: Hamas launched this war without permission from the Gazan population and without preparation for Gazans to protect themselves when Hamas knew that a brutal Israeli response would follow. In fact, a Hamas official said at the start of the war that its tunnels were for only its fighters, not civilians.
That is not to excuse Israel in the least for its excesses, but, again, it is also not to give Hamas a pass for inviting them.”
TF continued: “My view: Hamas was ready to sacrifice thousands of Gazan civilians to win the support of the next global generation on TikTok. And it worked. But one reason it worked was a lack of critical thinking by too many in that generation — the result of a campus culture that has become way too much about what to think and not how to think.
I highly recommend a few different articles about how angry Gazans are at Hamas for starting this war without any goal in mind other than the fruitless task of trying to destroy Israel so Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, could get his personal revenge.
I was particularly struck by a piece in The National, a newspaper in Abu Dhabi, by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian American raised in Gaza. The headline is: “Israel’s War Has Killed 31 Members of My Family, Yet It’s Vital to Speak Out Against Hamas.” Alkhatib placed Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in the context of the rising protests against its inept and autocrat rule that have broken out periodically in Gaza since 2019, under the banner of “We Want to Live.”
Wrote Alkhatib, a political analyst who is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council: “Having grown up in Gaza, I experienced Hamas’s rise to power and their gradual grip over the Strip and Palestinian politics and society, hiding behind a resistance narrative and using extremist politics to sabotage prospects for a peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Months before Oct. 7, tens of thousands of Gazans protested in the streets in defiance of Hamas, just as they had in 2019 and 2017.”
Alkhatib added that the “‘We Want to Live’ protest movement decried living conditions and unemployment in Gaza, as well as the lack of a political horizon for meaningful change in the territory’s realities and opportunities. Hamas’s regime consisted of a criminal and despotic enterprise that used Gaza as a haven for the group’s members and affiliates and turned Palestinians there into aid-dependent subjects reliant on the international community” and turned Gaza into “a ‘resistance citadel’ that was part of a nefarious regional alliance with Iran.”
A campus with critical thinkers might have had a teach-in on the central lawn on that subject, not just on the violence of Israeli settlers.
Against this backdrop, we are seeing college presidents at places like Rutgers and Northwestern agree to some of the demands by students to end their protests. As NPR summarized them, the “demands vary by school, though they generally call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, disclosures of institutional investments and divestment from companies with ties to Israel or that otherwise profit from its military operation in Gaza.”
What Palestinians and Israelis need most now are not performative gestures of disinvestment but real gestures of impactful investment, not the threat of a deeper war in Rafah but a way to build more partners for peace. Invest in groups that promote Arab-Jewish understanding, like the Abraham Initiatives or the New Israel Fund. Invest in management skills capacity-building for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, like the wonderful Education for Employment network or Anera, that will help a new generation to take over the Palestinian Authority and build strong, noncorrupt institutions to run a Palestinian state.
This is not a time for exclusionary thinking. It is a time for complexity thinking and pragmatic thinking: How do we get to two nation-states for two indigenous peoples? If you want to make a difference and not just make a point, stand for that, work for that, reject anyone who rejects it and give a hug to anyone who embraces it.
Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @tomfriedman”
Chicago Tribune just published an op-ed from Northwestern University president Michael Schill : "University presidents are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the wave of protests and tent encampments on our campuses.
Bring in police, and we risk the physical safety of our students, staff, faculty and police for a result that is often unsustainable. Meet with students to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, and we are accused of capitulating to the “mob.” Here are the reasons why I chose to reach an agreement with Northwestern University protesters.
Right upfront, let me be honest about my biases. I am a proud Jew who practices many of our rituals. Being Jewish is core to my identity, and I grew up with a love for Israel, which remains today. My family has experienced antisemitism, and so claims by some that I have collaborated with antisemitic people feel like personal affronts.
One of the things I love about being Jewish is our culture of rationality and tolerance. This fits with the core value of universities to engage in dialogue and seek to bridge differences peacefully. When a tent encampment popped up on Deering Meadow on April 25, I immediately met with senior administrators to establish a set of principles. First and foremost, we needed to protect the health and safety of our entire community, including our Jewish students. Second, we believe in free expression, but that most assuredly does not include antisemitic or anti-Muslim harassment or intimidation. Third, any protest needed to be in substantial compliance with our demonstration policy, which prohibits tents.
With the help of a handful of exceptional faculty members, we began meeting with student protesters. They asked for several changes to university policy including divestment from Israel and the end of an academic program that focused on Israeli innovation. We said a flat no to both. But we did say we understood their isolation and alienation and wanted to work with them to improve life at Northwestern for Muslim students and students from the Middle East and North Africa.
That began three days and nights of difficult but productive discussions. Ultimately, we came to an agreement that they would take down the tent encampment and bring the demonstration into compliance with our rules and regulations. We would permit peaceful demonstrations on Deering Meadow for roughly a month and provide greater information to students about our investments. We also agreed to establish a house for Muslim and Middle Eastern students to eat, pray and socialize, something already enjoyed by our Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Black and female students. The university also committed to including Gaza in our Scholars at Risk program, which brings students and faculty members from war-torn or devastated areas to Northwestern, a program we employed with Ukraine amid the current war with Russia as well as Tulane University following Hurricane Katrina.
So where are we today? The tents are down, removing a source of antisemitic intimidation to many of our Jewish students. Our students are testing the edges of our agreement as one might expect from intelligent, idealistic young people. We have largely removed outside, more radical influences from the peaceful demonstrations taking place on Deering Meadow. And we stand ready to commence disciplinary proceedings against anyone who breaks our rules or engages in antisemitic or anti-Muslim behavior.
This resolution — fragile though it might be — was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who were in the process of learning. It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force. And it was possible because we sought to follow a set of principles, many of which I would argue are core to the tenets of Judaism.
I hope that our de-escalation proves stable and that we can be an example for other universities.
Michael Schill is president of Northwestern University."
Hi Juliet, thanks for sharing these resources here. I did read Friedman's opinion piece in the times. It's important to read from all sides, including the responses in the comments section.
I love that you wrote about this. My nephew has been talking to me about it (he goes to UC Santa Cruz, a very liberal college) and some of his family are worried about him being at college and fear he is apart of these protests but we keep telling these family members that this is exactly where he needs to be, it’s not what it seems on TV, and that this is where our youth shape who they are.
Stephanie, I'm really glad that your nephew has you to talk to and confide in. I can understand how family members are worried. As mentioned, it's hard to know what to believe and how to feel—parents don't always have the space and distance to react objectively. ❤️
Thanks for writing this from the perspective of a parent. I’m proud of the students for having ideals and fighting for a better world. Like you said, you weren’t able to keep ignoring the situation once it got to college campuses, and that’s the point of protests
Thank you for these words, Jenna… for the research, the listening, the conversations, the honesty, and the nuance that brought them here.
❤️ Thank you, Tanya.
This was really good. Thank you.
I so appreciate you reading. Thank you, Meighan.
I missed you last week in my inbox — I was also struggling to write, and I think these protests had more to do with it than I was willing to admit. I'm grateful for your courage to share your experience with the news — it captures my sentiments exactly and expanded on them.
I wanted to share a couple of pieces I think are great that have helped me have words for the pain I feel.
Anne Helen Petersen: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-college-student-keeps-the-score
Ethan Cohen's substack: https://substack.com/@ethanchorin
both offer thoughtful, nuanced and informed perspectives that have helped me feel more grounded and connected.
Melissa, it's absolutely understandable that many of us struggled to focus. It was a crazy week of news. And thank you for the links. I've did read Anne's newsletter, but will check out Ethan's substack. Sharing of information is important!
Oh my goodness, Jenna, thank you for your clarity and these excellent links. I wrote about this, too, as Ive attempted to reconcile the news reports with my daughter’s on the ground accounts. I’m so grateful to be able to talk to each other as parents, to give ourselves a little spaced to just be confused together. I think that’s just as important as having answers.
… aaaaaaand I read your post before reading the comment you left on mine!!!
Also: I just want you to know that I too write and erase entire paragraphs, and get jittery lobbing words into people’s inboxes, and question my motives (and value) as a newsletter-writer. It’s HARD to do this. But now I’m talking to you as a reader. I felt such a relief reading this, as I have felt with other things you have written. It is so settling to hear your actual human voice coming from your actual human heart. I know it’s easy to wax nostalgic about the old blogging days, but that’s what was so revolutionary about that time. So thank you for putting yourself out here like this. It really matters.
If I overthink this whole writing emails to thousands of people, I'm not sure I would ever press send! I was also relieved to read yours last night. It made me nervous to write about it, but at the same time, also felt weird not to acknowledge it. Self doubts the entire time until I pressed send.
Asha, that is why I wrote about it from the perspective of a parent. School administrations, their policies and decisions affect us directly in that way. There is nothing I can add from a political viewpoint. I know little about this war (I am learning though!), but I know how I feel as a parent of college-aged kids—that's why I focused largely on the media bias in the reporting.
This was really powerful, thanks so much for sharing your words Jenna.
Thank you so much, Katie. I appreciate the read ❤️
Though unnuanced and bold in conviction these youth / generation are going to move forward in their lives with a lasting fire that propels them to live life with a commitment to truth and a knowing that it hurts more to stand in apathy than to face the consequences of following their hearts. That's what I predict anyway, based on the effects of the 60s on that generation of activists. Look how those who were youth in that generation shaped our world view as they turned into adults. Still so much fire and conviction, rooted in their youth experiences protesting and engaging in civic change efforts. In their adult lives, they have been strong voices for change and alternate ways of perceiving. They push us to see what's in front of us.
For this current generation, all of the deep provocation of their youth will take on a more nuanced tenor as they grow older and experience different facets of life. I guess what I am saying is that ultimately I am sad by the dark aspects of these activities yet have a deep knowing that these youth are bound to continue lives that will enrich our culture, and allow them (& remind others) to live authentically and bravely.
Thank you for making me move out of my observer's stance to a place where I can share what's been percolating inside my mind and heart Jenna. This is a gift of your writing, your voice. Look at you exercising your activism in middle age! See, the fire still burns. Just differently.🤍
"exercising your activism in middle age"
I really love the way you framed this for me! Sometimes I feel...I don't know, apathetic that I'm not out there marching, etc. but I know that this is physically hard on my body right now.
This entire comment was beautiful to read. Yes, the younger generation will shape our world—they have been through so much and we need that fire to tear down policies that don't work for us anymore. As the old strongholds in politics step down as they retire, we need new leaders to emerge.
Omg Jenna I also found myself writing about this subject in my Substack, my daughter is a senior at Columbia and I’ve been wracked with guilt over my desire to support the students conflicting with my fear that my kid would get into trouble—the asian mom in me wants to tell her to avoid the issue, but that’s so wrong! I have felt so awful these past weeks! Thank you for writing this. (I actually searched my inbox because I thought I had missed a newsletter from you last week!) It has been so painful and I haven’t known what to do with this pain so I wrote about it, like you did. I feel less alone after reading your newsletter.
Your daughter is right in the center, so of course you have anxiety and all the conflicted feelings. I understand. Sometimes I feel SO hypocritical when I talk to my kids. "don't post that on social media" "don't get arrested." I rationalize it by telling them that the world is a different world than when I did all the things that I tell them not to do. It's true, and things feel more higher stakes, but how many times can I use that rationale?
I'm saddened for the seniors who have had ceremonies canceled. I hope that you will find joy and celebration. And HUGE congrats to your daughter on her graduation day!
This is a solid piece, nuanced, thoughtful, balanced. Again, you tap into a lot of what many of us are feeling and processing, and to express it so well... I'm happy to wait an extra week for it. Take care.
Thank you ❤️
oh man, i am of a very similar age and demographic as you, and i feel all of this 1000000000%. thank you for putting it all to words.
Thank you Emily. Appreciate hearing from you.
Oh my, Jenna. A gift to every inbox it hits <3
❤️ Thank you Julia.
These are very good words, Jenna, and I think they speak to many, who, like you (and me), are conflicted on these issues. I appreciate you taking the time to research, think deeply and share your thoughts so eloquently.
So nice to hear from you Abigail! And thank you commenting here. All the best to you and family.
Given the murkiness surrounding this topic-i appreciate your courage in adding some insight.
Thank you Simon. I really appreciate the feedback.
I think you have accurately depicted the kind of bubble we can live in, especially when we are far away from the “front lines”. I always used to marvel at the universal grief that seemed to come from the death of a famous person, and I would think, what about that person who just died in a recent natural disaster or domestic violence or war atrocities, can’t we mourn for them? It’s hard to make sense of all the sadness in the world, while continuing to live in our own little bubble.
Yes, this world is hard to comprehend. And there is so much sadness EVERYWHERE at this moment, not just in Gaza. In that sense, I am grateful that the protests forced me out of my bubble that I was hesitant to step out of, mostly for self-preservation and mental health. We can't ignore the atrocities.
Thank you for thinking and writing and not turning away from this utterly heartbreaking situation on all sides and for understanding that it is possible to have compassion for all and a complex moral understanding of the direness of what is happening here and overseas. It’s critical to understand the historical trauma borne by both sides and sadly there are no easy answers but that doesn’t mean we can ignore or be reductive about this crisis. There are thoughtful writers - I don’t agree with him on all other topics but I have found NYT’s Thomas Friedman’s insights on Gaza to be nuanced. Also there is a show on Netflix called Fauda that sometimes is too intense/heartbreaking to watch but does a decent job of sitting with the awful complexity and giving us a virtual sense of the unrelenting stress and sources of these problems. There are dirty hands and victims on all sides, some with out a doubt worse than others. But the humanity in all should always be amplified. Having the privilege of sitting in safety far from this devastation we have a moral obligation to absorb and understand the complexity of the conflict and not lose sight of all the lives killed and utterly destroyed and the trauma that gave rise to all of this. Reductive thinking is part of the problem.
Here are his thoughts on the student protests: “Readers have been asking me, and I have been asking myself of late, how I feel about the campus demonstrations to stop the war in Gaza. Anyone reading this column since Oct. 7 knows that my focus has been on events on the ground in the Middle East, but this phenomenon has become too big to ignore. In short: I find the whole thing very troubling, because the dominant messages from the loudest voices and many placards reject important truths about how this latest Gaza war started and what will be required to bring it to a fair and sustainable conclusion.
My problem is not that the protests in general are “antisemitic” — I would not use that word to describe them, and indeed, I am deeply uncomfortable as a Jew with how the charge of antisemitism is thrown about on the Israel-Palestine issue. My problem is that I am a hardheaded pragmatist who lived in Beirut and Jerusalem, cares about people on all sides and knows one thing above all from my decades in the region: The only just and workable solution to this issue is two nation-states for two indigenous peoples.
If you are for that, whatever your religion, nationality or politics, you’re part of the solution. If you are not for that, you’re part of the problem.
And from everything I have read and watched, too many of these protests have become part of the problem — for three key reasons.
First, they are virtually all about stopping Israel’s shameful behavior in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, while giving a free pass to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion in which it murdered Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli women and kidnapped or killed everyone they could get their hands on, from little kids to sick grandparents.
Again, you can be — and should be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing everything in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that thousands of children have been killed, maimed and orphaned. But if you refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to trigger this — not to justify what Israel has done, but to explain how the Jewish state could inflict so much suffering on Palestinian men, women and children in reverse — you’re just another partisan throwing another partisan log on the fire. By giving Hamas a pass, the protests have put the onus on Israel to such a degree that its very existence is a target for some students, while Hamas’s murderous behavior is passed off as a praiseworthy adventure in decolonization.
Second, when people chant slogans like “liberate Palestine” and “from the river to the sea,” they are essentially calling for the erasure of the state of Israel, not a two-state solution. They are arguing that the Jewish people have no right to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t believe that about Jews, and I don’t believe that about Palestinians. I believe in a two-state solution in which Israel, in return for security guarantees, withdraws from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state that accepts the principle of two states for two peoples is established in those territories occupied in 1967.
I believe in that so strongly that the thing I am most proud of in my 45-year career is my interview in February 2002 with the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, in which he, for the first time, called on the entire Arab League to offer full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal to the 1967 lines — a call that led the Arab League to hold a peace conference the next month, on March 27 and 28, in Beirut to do just that. It was called the Arab Peace Initiative.
And do you know what Hamas’s response was to that first pan-Arab peace initiative for a two-state solution? I’ll let CNN tell you. Here’s its report from Israel on the evening of March 27, 2002, right after the Arab League peace summit opened:
NETANYA, Israel — A suicide bomber killed at least 19 people and injured 172 at a popular seaside hotel Wednesday, the start of the Jewish religious holiday of Passover. At least 48 of the injured were described as “severely wounded.”
The bombing occurred in a crowded dining room at the Park Hotel, a coastal resort, during the traditional meal marking the start of Passover. … The Palestinian group Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yes, that was Hamas’s response to the Arab peace initiative of two nation-states for two peoples: blowing up a Passover Seder in Israel.
Hey, Friedman, but what about all the violence that Israeli settlers perpetrated against Palestinians and how Bibi Netanyahu deliberately built up Hamas and undermined the Palestinian Authority, which embraced Oslo?
Answer: That violence and those Netanyahu actions are awful and harmful to a two-state solution as well. That is why I am intensely both anti-Hamas and anti-Netanyahu. And if you oppose just one and not also the other, you should reflect a little more on what you are shouting at your protest or your anti-protest. Because no one has done more to harm the prospects of a two-state solution than the codependent Hamas and Netanyahu factions.
Hamas is not against the post-1967 occupation. It is against the existence of a Jewish state and believes there should be an Islamic state between the river and the sea. When protests on college campuses ignore that, they are part of the problem. Just as much as Israel supporters who ignore the fact that the far-right members in Netanyahu’s own coalition government are for a Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. How do I know? Because Netanyahu wrote it into the coalition agreement between himself and his far-right partners.
The third reason that these protests have become part of the problem is that they ignore the view of many Palestinians in Gaza who detest Hamas’s autocracy. These Palestinians are enraged by precisely what these student demonstrations ignore: Hamas launched this war without permission from the Gazan population and without preparation for Gazans to protect themselves when Hamas knew that a brutal Israeli response would follow. In fact, a Hamas official said at the start of the war that its tunnels were for only its fighters, not civilians.
That is not to excuse Israel in the least for its excesses, but, again, it is also not to give Hamas a pass for inviting them.”
TF continued: “My view: Hamas was ready to sacrifice thousands of Gazan civilians to win the support of the next global generation on TikTok. And it worked. But one reason it worked was a lack of critical thinking by too many in that generation — the result of a campus culture that has become way too much about what to think and not how to think.
I highly recommend a few different articles about how angry Gazans are at Hamas for starting this war without any goal in mind other than the fruitless task of trying to destroy Israel so Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, could get his personal revenge.
I was particularly struck by a piece in The National, a newspaper in Abu Dhabi, by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian American raised in Gaza. The headline is: “Israel’s War Has Killed 31 Members of My Family, Yet It’s Vital to Speak Out Against Hamas.” Alkhatib placed Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in the context of the rising protests against its inept and autocrat rule that have broken out periodically in Gaza since 2019, under the banner of “We Want to Live.”
Wrote Alkhatib, a political analyst who is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council: “Having grown up in Gaza, I experienced Hamas’s rise to power and their gradual grip over the Strip and Palestinian politics and society, hiding behind a resistance narrative and using extremist politics to sabotage prospects for a peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Months before Oct. 7, tens of thousands of Gazans protested in the streets in defiance of Hamas, just as they had in 2019 and 2017.”
Alkhatib added that the “‘We Want to Live’ protest movement decried living conditions and unemployment in Gaza, as well as the lack of a political horizon for meaningful change in the territory’s realities and opportunities. Hamas’s regime consisted of a criminal and despotic enterprise that used Gaza as a haven for the group’s members and affiliates and turned Palestinians there into aid-dependent subjects reliant on the international community” and turned Gaza into “a ‘resistance citadel’ that was part of a nefarious regional alliance with Iran.”
A campus with critical thinkers might have had a teach-in on the central lawn on that subject, not just on the violence of Israeli settlers.
Against this backdrop, we are seeing college presidents at places like Rutgers and Northwestern agree to some of the demands by students to end their protests. As NPR summarized them, the “demands vary by school, though they generally call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, disclosures of institutional investments and divestment from companies with ties to Israel or that otherwise profit from its military operation in Gaza.”
What Palestinians and Israelis need most now are not performative gestures of disinvestment but real gestures of impactful investment, not the threat of a deeper war in Rafah but a way to build more partners for peace. Invest in groups that promote Arab-Jewish understanding, like the Abraham Initiatives or the New Israel Fund. Invest in management skills capacity-building for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, like the wonderful Education for Employment network or Anera, that will help a new generation to take over the Palestinian Authority and build strong, noncorrupt institutions to run a Palestinian state.
This is not a time for exclusionary thinking. It is a time for complexity thinking and pragmatic thinking: How do we get to two nation-states for two indigenous peoples? If you want to make a difference and not just make a point, stand for that, work for that, reject anyone who rejects it and give a hug to anyone who embraces it.
Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @tomfriedman”
There's a lot to process here and I want to take it in, but just wanted to acknowledge your comment and thank you again for sharing.
Chicago Tribune just published an op-ed from Northwestern University president Michael Schill : "University presidents are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the wave of protests and tent encampments on our campuses.
Bring in police, and we risk the physical safety of our students, staff, faculty and police for a result that is often unsustainable. Meet with students to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, and we are accused of capitulating to the “mob.” Here are the reasons why I chose to reach an agreement with Northwestern University protesters.
Right upfront, let me be honest about my biases. I am a proud Jew who practices many of our rituals. Being Jewish is core to my identity, and I grew up with a love for Israel, which remains today. My family has experienced antisemitism, and so claims by some that I have collaborated with antisemitic people feel like personal affronts.
One of the things I love about being Jewish is our culture of rationality and tolerance. This fits with the core value of universities to engage in dialogue and seek to bridge differences peacefully. When a tent encampment popped up on Deering Meadow on April 25, I immediately met with senior administrators to establish a set of principles. First and foremost, we needed to protect the health and safety of our entire community, including our Jewish students. Second, we believe in free expression, but that most assuredly does not include antisemitic or anti-Muslim harassment or intimidation. Third, any protest needed to be in substantial compliance with our demonstration policy, which prohibits tents.
With the help of a handful of exceptional faculty members, we began meeting with student protesters. They asked for several changes to university policy including divestment from Israel and the end of an academic program that focused on Israeli innovation. We said a flat no to both. But we did say we understood their isolation and alienation and wanted to work with them to improve life at Northwestern for Muslim students and students from the Middle East and North Africa.
That began three days and nights of difficult but productive discussions. Ultimately, we came to an agreement that they would take down the tent encampment and bring the demonstration into compliance with our rules and regulations. We would permit peaceful demonstrations on Deering Meadow for roughly a month and provide greater information to students about our investments. We also agreed to establish a house for Muslim and Middle Eastern students to eat, pray and socialize, something already enjoyed by our Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Black and female students. The university also committed to including Gaza in our Scholars at Risk program, which brings students and faculty members from war-torn or devastated areas to Northwestern, a program we employed with Ukraine amid the current war with Russia as well as Tulane University following Hurricane Katrina.
So where are we today? The tents are down, removing a source of antisemitic intimidation to many of our Jewish students. Our students are testing the edges of our agreement as one might expect from intelligent, idealistic young people. We have largely removed outside, more radical influences from the peaceful demonstrations taking place on Deering Meadow. And we stand ready to commence disciplinary proceedings against anyone who breaks our rules or engages in antisemitic or anti-Muslim behavior.
This resolution — fragile though it might be — was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who were in the process of learning. It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force. And it was possible because we sought to follow a set of principles, many of which I would argue are core to the tenets of Judaism.
I hope that our de-escalation proves stable and that we can be an example for other universities.
Michael Schill is president of Northwestern University."
Hi Juliet, thanks for sharing these resources here. I did read Friedman's opinion piece in the times. It's important to read from all sides, including the responses in the comments section.
I love that you wrote about this. My nephew has been talking to me about it (he goes to UC Santa Cruz, a very liberal college) and some of his family are worried about him being at college and fear he is apart of these protests but we keep telling these family members that this is exactly where he needs to be, it’s not what it seems on TV, and that this is where our youth shape who they are.
Stephanie, I'm really glad that your nephew has you to talk to and confide in. I can understand how family members are worried. As mentioned, it's hard to know what to believe and how to feel—parents don't always have the space and distance to react objectively. ❤️
Thanks for writing this from the perspective of a parent. I’m proud of the students for having ideals and fighting for a better world. Like you said, you weren’t able to keep ignoring the situation once it got to college campuses, and that’s the point of protests
That is what youth is for—to shake the status quo from older generations who sink into apathy.
💯