THE PROTESTS AND CONS

President Biden urged protestors to stay peaceful, as demonstrations and arrests continued to roil campuses around the country.

• More than 2,000 demonstrators have been arrested at pro-Palestinian campus protests nationwide. That includes more than 200 at UCLA, where cops dismantled the protest encampment after clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Those arrests have taken place at no fewer than 36 schools, according to the AP. Still, at some campuses, protesters and administrators have reached agreements to move encampments so protests can continue while allowing finals and other school functions to proceed.

• President Biden addressed the protests today from the White House, where he supported protesters’ right to dissent and free speech, but also condemned violence, destruction of property, and ethnic abuse. “Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues,” Biden said. “Violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is.” Biden claimed the protests haven’t impacted his thinking on Gaza at all. But the fact that he felt compelled to give these remarks shows they’ve clearly captured his attention—and, presumably, the attention of his pollsters.   

• Republicans, by contrast, seem to have boiled the protests down to one, endlessly repeated claim: antisemitism. It’s not hard to see the drive-a-wedge-among-Dems advantage to this charge for the GOP. What’s more subtle is the utter cynicism of the claim. The GOP’s staunch defense of Jews would be a lot more believable if: they didn’t support Donald Trump when he dined with America’s best-known Holocaust denier at Mar-a-Lago, years after taking two days to condemn the amalgam of white nationalists and neo-Nazis intermixed with “very fine people” at Charlottesville in 2017; or if Kevin McCarthy hadn’t tweeted an antisemitic rallying cry to supporters before the 2018 midterms; or if the GOP hadn’t imported “Great Replacement” theory — the very one that inspired mass murderers at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Buffalo, El Paso and elsewhere — from the fringes of racist message boards to the heart of GOP immigration rhetoric. To be clear, antisemitism has sometimes reared its head at protests. But the vast majority of student-led protests have kept their focus on criticizing Israel’s government, its actions, and their schools’ relationship with them. Which is part of the point. Cynically tarring all protest as antisemitic also spares GOPs from giving a thought to the demonstrators’ key charge: The bombardment of Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians.

Republicans are pretending to care about antisemitism, hoping it drives division among Democrats and promotes a feeling of chaos in Joe Biden’s America. Pretty cynical and pretty gross!

NEWS NEWS NEWS

WHAT A SPONSOR