When a group of seventy students began anti-Israel demonstrations three weeks ago on the campus of Columbia University in New York, few Americans expected that it would turn into a national student protest, which would eventually raise serious questions about the future of America. , would degenerate.
In recent weeks, the protest has spread to dozens of other universities in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts in the American northeast, but also to universities in southern states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and as far west as California. Across America, campuses are closed and students are forced to attend online classes. At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, one of the largest graduation ceremonies, which is attended by 65,000 people annually, was canceled last week at the last minute.
The US is used to student protests. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, thousands of American students took part in marches against this war on campuses for months. This was the beginning of a culture of protest among American students that has continued over the past six decades.
However, recent weeks of uprisings on American college campuses are different. These demonstrations were dominated by anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hate slogans. Demonstrators even used violence to prevent Jewish students and lecturers from entering campuses.
At Columbia University, students used slogans that were outspokenly pro-Hamas and that even called on Hamas terrorists to invade Israel again and attack civilians as on October 7 last year.
The former liberal Democratic governor of New York Andrew Cuomo wrote in a column in the Wall Street Journal refer to the protests as a disgrace. According to Cuomo, this exceeds any reasonable limit on the freedom of speech, and the actions of the students and other protesters amount to “terror tactics”.
A member of the US Congress, and an outspoken anti-Israel activist, Ilhan Omar’s daughter was part of the initial group of students who undertook the protest action. Omar, who was born in Somalia and for the past few years has represented a district in Minnesota in the US Congress, is part of a growing group of American politicians with an immigrant background from Africa and the Middle East who are extremely critical of Israel, but also old established American alliances and values, stand.
The student uprisings join the last six months of huge demonstrations in numerous American cities against Israel. The growing Muslim population in the USA is outspoken and increasingly activist against Israel, which is awash in Jew-hatred, but also a general disapproval of the Western character of American institutions.
A large group of anti-Israel activists recently met in Chicago to discuss plans to disrupt the Democratic Party’s August convention in the same city. The group of activists were all outspokenly pro-Hamas and even Iran. It is already clear that the once pro-Israel Democrats are becoming divided over this.
As America changes demographically, what has happened on university campuses in recent weeks will also spill over to other institutions and eventually a significant part of society. This does not bode well for the future of America. Over the next few years, uncontrolled immigration could erode the US culturally from within, which could give rise to a huge political and societal crisis. The student protest action is only the beginning of it.
