How to Fight the Hamas Demonstrators

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”- attributed to Edmund Burke. 

In older times the advent of Spring meant the onset of ugly mosquito borne diseases, such as yellow fever and malaria. This Spring a different sort of affliction has emerged with the warmer weather:  an outbreak of on campus demonstrations, long on antisemitic epithets and violence, and short on basic decency. The outpouring of on-campus support for Hamas in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, even before Israel had a chance to count its deaths, revealed a deep moral and intellectual decadence in academia which, though long in gestation, none of us expected to manifest itself with such virulence. The return in force of the protesters with the warmer weather this Spring is even more disturbing as their actions betray a higher level of preparation and coordination.

The atrocities of October 7 were designed by Hamas, and its sponsor Iran, to force an Israeli response with the expectation that the world would quickly ignore the worst outrages against Jews since the Holocaust and turn instead to denunciations of Israel's temerity to fight to liberate the people taken hostage and prevent another such atrocity in the future. 

Even a modicum of rationality, and a mere trace of historical knowledge, or just attention to the easily available public declarations of the perpetrators, should be enough to inoculate one against supporting the bloodthirsty madness of Hamas, an organization that uses rape, torture, and murder as well as the willingness to sacrifice its own Palestinian population as instruments of policy. Yet, heavily indoctrinated by a crude, ignorant scheme which separates people into victims and victimizers, colonizers and colonized, they confidently march along chanting primitive catch phrases in unison, slogans whose true frightening meaning escapes most of them. 

While the bulk of the demonstrators may be ignorant, the organizers worked hard to put the demon into their demonstrations.  They operated from polished manuals detailing the best means to recruit naive students. One of these (see the file below), used at Princeton, included a flow chart for recruiters to follow as they approach unwitting students. The contingent script started with a breezy introduction about showing solidarity with the encampment at Columbia, and worked through assurances about having allies on the University's disciplinary committee in case one is charged after occupying campus space, and the claim that convictions for trespassing are unlikely to result in revocation of an immigrant's “green card.” 

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Depending on how the potential recruit reacted she was triaged into either a “green” role, activities like picketing, a “yellow” one, including activities such as running gluten-free bread into an encampment, or, after some additional vetting, she might be slotted into the “red” tier of protesters who would participated in the occupation and risked arrest. It's unclear what color metaphor the organizers reserved for faculty allies who unhesitatingly led students into university buildings, and were just as quick to abandon them when the police showed up, leaving their followers to be arrested and to face criminal penalties. But, fair enough, as promised, they are now arguing for the dismissal of all charges.        

While it may be tempting to dismiss the demonstrations as so much youthful folly, the dark symbolism of the Hamas flags, or even Hezbollah’s (as has been seen in Princeton), raised by the participants, sometimes replacing standing America flags (as has happened recently at Chapel Hill and the University of Chicago), epitomizes the malice on display on many campuses.  There can be no innocent excuse for the behavior of the protesters, the ugliness of the slogans with which they harass Jewish students, and the force with which they call for violence against any administrator daring to enforce the rules the demonstrators violate. Nor is invading campus buildings, intruding on the workplaces of administrators and interrupting the normal functioning of the institutions a minor peccadillo—occupations are intrinsically violent. 

Worse than the students allowing themselves to be drawn into something as wicked as the pro-Hamas campus protests is the support given to this ugly epidemic of hatred by an unexpectedly large minority of our colleagues. While we are appalled by the few who have actively supported the protesters we are especially disturbed by the tepid or nonexistent response by the quiescent majority. Most of these colleagues who chose to remain quiet need to be reminded of John Stuart Mill's admonition:

“Let not anyone pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

The response from university administrators have ranged from that of the University of Minnesota, that quickly reacted to violations of their time, manner, and place rules on demonstrations, to the that of Rutgers University, that quickly buckled, accepting most of the demonstrators’ demands. We note that the longer an institution takes to enforce its own rules, the more difficulty and pain results when it finally does, and no institution, be it a university, a government, or even a club, can long endure if it fails to uphold its own rules.  Indeed, on campuses where the administration has folded in the face of previous occupations, the protesters expect the same deference today-the after-effects of appeasement are longer-lasting than a long term home mortgage. 

The demonstrations have now managed to attract the attention of Congress, which all too often stands ready to score short term political points. Most recently this comes in the form of a bill to suppress antisemitic speech.  The politicians need to be reminded that for the past three quarters of a century much of Europe has lived with laws of this nature, and yet antisemitic incidents from both sides of the political spectrum become ever louder.  While the current bill may never become law, and if it did it would likely be struck down by the Supreme Court, the fact remains that violating the first amendment by silencing obnoxious speech can easily seem to validate it-people inevitably ask themselves, “Why, if the arguments against the point of view being silenced, are so strong, do the opponents feel the need to censor?” Of course, free speech isn't just for internet trolls and campus Hamas supporters, it's also there for You, the vast majority who maintain the ability to distinguish between good and evil.

If a liberal education inoculates one against prejudice and hatred, then the cure for those under the ill influence of bad speech is good speech. So speak up! If you don't like having college campuses occupied by apologists for Hamas, you can say so, to your friends, your neighbors, to people you know, or, with a little bit of more courage, to people in power. The least you can do, if you were able to read this to the end, is to  sign our public statement condemning the onslaught of hatred that has taken over our beloved academic institutions.

Sergiu Klainerman, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University

John Londregan, Professor of Politics at Princeton University