Do Protests Work?

I’m a free speech advocate. So, as campus protests over Gaza heat up, I sympathize with college administrators who have to balance the right to protest with the necessity of keeping their campuses safe and allowing normal campus life to continue. But, when push comes to shove (and there’s been way too much of both pushing and shoving lately) I tend to come down on the side of speech, even when it’s unpleasant.

So, for example, I thought USC was wrong to cancel a speech by its valedictorian, who is Muslim, for fear of what she might say. Now they’ve canceled the main commencement altogether.

But beyond the high theory, there’s the practical political question: is any of this doing any good? Will it bring the killing to an end?

I doubt it. Despite all these protests, Congress passed military aid to Israel (as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza) on overwhelming votes. So, not only do the protests appear to be ineffectual, I think there’s a fair chance that they’re pushing the American public the other way.

Because the protesters are not persuasive or sympathetic figures. Images of some of the most “privileged” kids in America wearing keffiyehs and camping out on campus malls when they should be in class aren’t exactly appealing. And their rhetoric makes it worse. I listened to a report on the BBC News Hour yesterday afternoon in which a protester used the word “solidarity” no less three times and charged Israel with “genocide” four times, by my count. “Colonialism” was also sprinkled in there. Who talks like that?

My own view on this is that Hamas started it with their attack on October 7th, Hamas invites the attacks on civilians by digging tunnels under hospitals, Hamas could gain a cease fire by releasing its hostages and accounting for those it killed and Hamas could end the war altogether by laying down its arms, recognizing Israel’s right to exist and working toward a two state solution.

On the other hand, I’m no fan of Netanyahu either. I think he’s pushed this too far and ignored world public opinion, which was initially sympathetic to Israel. And he opposes a two state solution, leaving one to wonder what his end game is. It doesn’t help that he’s also probably corrupt and he has a persona that gives arrogance a bad name.

(Along these lines, killing 33,000 (and counting) Palestinians is in no way a proportional response to the 1,500 Israelis killed in October. But, on the other hand, 43,000 British people were killed in the Blitz while a half million German civilians were killed in the Allied bombing response. About 2,400 Americans (most of them military) were killed at Pearl Harbor while 200,000 mostly civilians died as a result of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When you start a war you shouldn’t expect a proportional response.)

At some point this war has to end, the killing has to stop and Gaza has to be rebuilt. The military operations have to give way to political solutions. One thing about moderates is that we don’t do protests. If we did we’d have signs that said something like “End the War!” on one side and “But under terms that require Hamas to release its hostages, recognize Israel and lay down its arms” on the other. Our chants would be, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, reasonable solutions must prevail.” It doesn’t even rhyme.

On the other hand, taking one unyielding position results in crisper messaging. Nuance makes for bad political theater. I get it.

I’m a strong advocate for free speech, so I think the protesters should be given wide latitude. But right now it seems like it’s wide latitude to hurt their own cause.