8 | MAY 9 • 2024 
J
N

PURELY COMMENTARY

opinion

A Page from the 1968 Playbook?
R

adical students set up 
a protest encampment 
on the lawns of New 
York’s Columbia University, 
closing down the campus. 
Policemen try 
to break up the 
encampment 
and arrest 
more than 100 
protesters, but 
they are soon 
released and 
resume their 
demonstration with even 
greater force. Soon, other 
campuses — Yale, Berkeley, 
Ann Arbor — follow 
Columbia’s example. The 
violence reaches a peak that 
summer at the Democratic 
National Convention in 
Chicago where large-scale 
riots break out. The protests, 
the riots, have a major 
impact on American foreign 
policy, weakening its support 
for a controversial war.
Readers of that opening 
paragraph might conclude 
that it describes the anti-
Israel demonstrations 
now plaguing American 
campuses. But the paragraph 
in fact summarizes the 
situation 56 years ago during 
the student revolts of 1968. 
The rebellion began with the 
takeover of many buildings 
at Columbia University 
and soon spread to other 
campuses. The violence 
reached a climax that 
summer at the Democratic 
Convention in Chicago. The 
2024 Democratic Convention 
will also be held in Chicago 
where the demonstrators are 
expected to converge.
At first glance, at least, 

history seems to be repeating 
itself. Consciously, perhaps, 
nostalgically, today’s 
protesters are taking pages 
straight out of the 1968 
playbook. But in multiple 
ways, the current unrest 
differs fundamentally from 
that of the 1960s. In fact, 
they could not be more 
different.
Though spearheaded 
by the Students for a 
Democratic Society and 
other radical groups, the 
youth rebellion of the 1960s 
was anti-war — specifically 
against America’s disastrous 
entanglement in Vietnam. 
The protesters’ logo was 
“Make love not war,” and 
their ubiquitous symbol, 
the peace sign. Today’s 
protests, by contrast, are 
pro-war. “Globalize the 
intifada” and “Burn Tel Aviv 
to the Ground” are their 
slogans and their symbols, 
the flags of genocidal 
terrorist organizations. Their 
glorification of the atrocities 
of Oct. 7 and calls for Israel’s 
destruction would have been 

utterly alien to the activists 
of 1968.
Also, unlike that earlier 
rebellion, which was about 
tolerance and love, today’s 
demonstrations are about 
racism and hatred. Chants of 
“Go back to Poland,” threats 
to murder all Zionists and 
campus areas blocked off by 
human chains have driven 
many Jewish students away 
from their campuses. At 
Columbia, a rabbi warned 
them not to return and 
jeopardize their safety. In 
total contrast, Jews figured 
prominently in the anti-war 
movement. Its leadership, 
including outspoken figures 
such as Abbie Hoffman, Jerry 
Rubin and Mark Rudd, was 
disproportionately Jewish. 
Apart from a handful of 
virulently anti-Israel Jews, 
the current demonstrations 
are effectively judenrein.
Another basic distinction 
relates not to the students 
but rather to the faculty 
and administration. Stand 
Columbia is the name of 
the coffee table book about 

Columbia’s history, but it 
is difficult today to know 
exactly what Columbia 
stands for. Back in 1968, 
university presidents and 
most professors knew 
precisely what they stood 
for. Columbia’s Core 
Curriculum was designed to 
enable students to read the 
Declaration of Independence 
and understand the 
Founders’ genius. The 
university was proudly 
American and deeply 
committed to Western values. 
The required Contemporary 
Civilization course extolled 
that civilization’s virtues. 
Most of that legacy has 
been jettisoned by Columbia 
and other universities today, 
to be replaced by relativism, 
Marxism and loathing for the 
United States, specifically, 
and the West, in general. 
Apart from a vague 
devotion to free speech 
and campus safety, today’s 
administrators are incapable 
of mounting a serious 
intellectual or philosophical 
defense against the 
demonstrators’ demands 
to decolonize not only 
Palestine, but also America. 
They don’t have the moral 
wherewithal to effectively 
protect their Jewish 
students. The faculty, with 
few courageous exceptions, 
enthusiastically support the 
demonstrations.
Yet, in one essential 
way, the protests of 1968 
resemble those of 2024. 
The primary objective of 
both was, and remains, 
the radical alteration of 
American policy. Fifty-

Michael 
Oren

Columbia’s tent encampment

 (AFP)

