The ideological underpinnings of the Pro-Palestine protests on American campuses connect Israel’s war in Gaza to all other forms of oppression, from police brutality to homophobia. But are elite university students presenting themselves as anti-racists, anti-imperialists, and anti-colonialists to preserve their privilege?
NEW YORK – It is easy to ridicule the college protesters in the United States calling for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Students at some of the country’s most expensive and prestigious universities don Palestinian keffiyehs, “liberate” campus buildings, as though they were freedom fighters, and, in the case of at least one young protester, demand food and water from the college authorities as “basic humanitarian aid.”
NEW YORK – It is easy to ridicule the college protesters in the United States calling for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Students at some of the country’s most expensive and prestigious universities don Palestinian keffiyehs, “liberate” campus buildings, as though they were freedom fighters, and, in the case of at least one young protester, demand food and water from the college authorities as “basic humanitarian aid.”