Throughout history, older people have always been involved in younger people’s revolutions.
There are examples of manipulative attempts, like the well-known rebellion in China where young people turned violent against their elders, including teachers and parents.
However, there have been cases where younger generations were motivated instead of manipulated.
For example, young Americans protested against the Vietnam War, essentially telling the older generation to deal with their own problems. A similar situation is now unfolding in America.
Once again, adults are influencing restless university students in the United States.
The large number of innocent children and women killed in Gaza is the result of political decisions at the highest levels. It’s a tragic and complex mess created by adults.
The students have been fighting for a cause. They don’t want their institutions to be even indirectly associated with the killings.
They want their universities to stop doing business with Israel, even though Israeli funding has been supporting endowments or lab activities.
It’s embarrassing for the White House, which has supported Israel through various measures, including exercising its veto power at the United Nations.
When authorities began dismantling the barricades outside the UCLA encampment early Thursday morning and detaining pro-Palestinian protesters, people were shocked but quickly understood why.
Adults are doing what they typically do. Accusations of anti-Semitism are being fabricated. President Joe Biden is discussing law and order, stating that democracy and lawlessness should be separate.
Student signs calling for an end to bombing and shooting are now making Jewish students feel threatened.
Biden mentioned disruptions to classes, the rights of other students to celebrate graduation being taken away, and “violence” being committed by protesters.
All of these events are taking place in America. And, predictably, the actions of the “adults” would not have been as harsh if the protesting students had been advocating for Palestinians to be killed.
Since the encamped students who ignored class and graduation plans were completely against the adults’ policies, what was seen in video footage was
police in riot gear with helmets, gas masks, and zip ties, getting their batons ready as they entered the encampment. CNN reported screams coming from behind the barricades.
Reports also mentioned that some protesters were kneeling on the ground with their arms zip-tied behind their backs as officers detained them and continued to bring more protesters outside the encampment.
This is how the “land of the free” is treating young people who did not want more women and children to be killed in Gaza or their nation to support the killings in any way.
Make no mistake, the students did not support Hamas. Adult videos are overshadowing the students’ videos, which state that they are against all kinds of killing, but Israel’s military campaign was getting out of hand.
With violence increasing in the West Bank in the months since Hamas’s attack on Israel from Gaza in October, the BBC said it has also found evidence of war crimes committed by Israeli troops.
The term “War crimes” has been in the news for a while, but it may have just been made more important by the US students.
For “lesser” incidents reported by the BBC, Palestinian homes have been vandalised with graffiti and Palestinian civilians have been threatened with weapons and told to leave the territory for nearby Jordan.
Images of Palestinian parents mourning their children’s sudden and horrifying deaths have become too common to be published by the mainstream media every day.
According to a BBC investigative report, an eight-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead while he and his friends seemed uncomfortable with the presence of an approaching group of Israeli soldiers.
Hundreds have reportedly been arrested in America, but the crackdown may just add more fuel to the fire and could be exactly what the protesters wanted.
It seems like the rebels are gaining public and even global attention now, after an increased support from various liberal groups.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are not limited to American universities now. They are at risk of spreading to schools in Europe and Australia.
Once again, those against the protests, especially American politicians, said the youngsters were being manipulated by outsiders with bad intentions.
Some university leaders, state officials, and politicians have called them “anti-Semitic”. This is despite the fact that, according to Aljazeera, many Jewish activists and some Orthodox Jews joining the ranks.
“As a child of Holocaust survivors, it disturbs me to my core to see my own people perpetrating something that we’ve been through,” Jewish antiwar protester Sam Koprak told Al Jazeera at a campus gathering.
The Biden administration is looking increasingly uncomfortable these days.
Being too harsh against the students contradicts the “democracy” preached by Biden every other day, but being too lenient would not stop it in addition to angering the Jews who have intertwined economic and political ties with the American adults.
Doing nothing is also ill-advised because the phenomenon seems to be spreading from Kuwait to Egypt and Lebanon as well as certain parts of Europe.
After all, rebellion without a cause can die quickly. Ones with truly common goals spread.
Tulsathit Taptim
