“Jews, Jews”, the hordes of American students chanted, “go back to Poland”. Many of these students might identify as left-wing and anti-racist, but the only recent historical parallel to this uncloaked antisemitism were the naked chants of “Jews will not replace us” spewed by the so-called alt-right, the incels, groypers, and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in 2017.
How far have Hamas — the ideological heroes of these campus wannabe warriors — been willing to go in losing all of the trappings and the material spoils of their lives? They have gone all the way. Gaza today is shrouded in dust, shrapnel and rubble, and the relative — albeit limited — economic and material progress attained before the war is gone. In the region of 30,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians including women and children are said to have died as a consequence of the war Hamas instigated on October 7. Every university in Gaza has been damaged, a majority of the hospitals are out of commission and have been replaced by field hospitals. Gaza’s productive economy has been replaced with food packages dropped from planes and delivered by trucks.
Hamas’ approach, in other words, has been a disaster for Palestinians in Gaza, not to mention the Israelis and people of other nationalities — including Americans and Britons — murdered, raped, and kidnapped on October 7 itself. Those who wish to style themselves as pro-Palestinian should recognise the failure of Hamas as leaders for Palestinians.
But this ongoing pattern of failure has not stopped American students from falling into the arms of Hamas. While support for theocratic militants may for many be a juvenile silliness that most will simply grow out of and cringe about in future years, there is a risk of people following through on their words and turning to violence and terror, very literally globalising the intifada. At the very least, this is a fertile recruiting ground for radicals.
But as much as these wannabe radicals might shout and scream, in the long run, neither side — not Palestinians, nor Israelis — are going anywhere.
What is actually needed to resolve the conflict and bring dignity and freedom to the Palestinian people — and what I wish these students would advocate for — are mature, empathetic, and compassionate leaders on both sides willing to work together to build towards coexistence, economic development, and opportunities for the ordinary people living in the land. This means mutual recognition of the legitimacy and rights of both peoples on the land.
Continued and growing militancy is not the solution. Extremist ideologies that call for total victory and ethnic cleansing or try to paint one side or the other as temporary and removable settler colonialists are a pathway to hell.
The explosion of Hamasnik ideology on campuses in the United States and in Britain, as such, is a major embarrassment for these institutions. If universities cannot instil their students with peaceful, tolerant, and coexistent attitudes, then they have failed as institutions of higher learning.
