In America, thousands of students in the best colleges, from Massachusetts to California, are staging protests, calling for universities to stop doing business with weapons manufacturers, for the refusal of research funds from Israel and divestment from companies that support the war a Gaza. Such massive student protests (also in Italy: in Rome Sapienza University had to cancel some classical music concerts in the Aula Magna of the Rectorate fearing riots and sit-ins in favor of Palestine) had not been seen since the presidency of Richard Nixon and the demonstrations against war in Vietnam in the sixties.
What happens on campuses influences political debate a Washingtonespecially after the approval in Congress of a 26 billion dollar aid package for Israel which pitted the Jewish country’s closest allies in both parties against left-wing Democrats aligned with those demonstrating against the government Netanyahuaccused of having caused a genocide in Gaza resulting in over 34,000 deaths, two thirds of which were women and children.
The story is complicated because it has various levels of interpretation. At least three.
1. Students protest in favor of Palestine, but the right to demonstrate thanks to freedom of expression of thought must be accompanied by the concerns of many Jewish students according to whom some of the slogans, speeches and actions of the demonstrators are equivalent to acts of antisemitism. So the academic authorities of famous universities such as Columbia University, Harvard, Yale, Rutgers, NYU – for years very tolerant and faithful to woke policies – accused by conservatives of doing nothing to stop the chaos on campuses, at a certain point decided that such behaviors they would no longer be tolerated. Since the day Columbia in New York called the police to clear out the sit-ins on April 18, protests have intensified everywhere. Hence the request for the intervention of the police and the mass arrests in over twenty universities, with more than 400 students ending up in handcuffs (108 at Columbia alone). In many schools the gates are closed and for the next semester lessons will be virtual only.
2. The second level of interpretation is politic. The anti-Israel protests are an electoral obstacle for President Biden, who tries to balance support for Washington’s closest Middle Eastern ally, particularly after the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, while at the same time condemning right-wing Netanyahu despised by Biden) for the excessive military reaction that has sown endless destruction and deaths among civilians in Gaza. In order not to inflame the debate even more, the president chose the middle path: “I condemn the anti-Semitic protests, but I also condemn those who they don’t understand what is happening to the Palestinians” he said. The issue will remain hot until the November elections, also because Biden tries not to lose the support of the Muslim community, influential in ‘disputed’ states like Michigan, which could be crucial to beating Trump.
3. The third level of interpretation will please conspiracy theorists. The students’ demand to separate the affairs of universities from the arms companies that contribute to Israel’s military attacks on Gaza has its roots in BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions). This is a campaign that has been fighting against Tel Aviv’s oppressive policies in Gaza and the West Bank for years. This movement gained new strength in US universities when the war passed the six-month mark and the stories of horror and suffering in the Strip multiplied calls for a cease-fire.
And here’s the financial background: in addition to activist groups like ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ and ‘IfNotNow’, the BDS movement, in particular, has been financed on several occasions by the Open Society Foundations of George Soros (now managed by his son Alex). I documented this in detail in my book The Soros affair, in which I explain why the billionaire of Hungarian origin, a Jew who fled Nazism, is a archenemy of Israel and in particular of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. Soros has spent hundreds of millions of dollars using his OSF to delegitimize and paint the Jewish state of Israel in a bad light.
The list of groups opposed to Tel Aviv funded by George and Alexander Soros’ Open Society Foundations is longstarting with the New Israel Fund (Nif) engaged in a series of activities on the BDS front, which has received 837,500 dollars since 2009, up to the Education for Just Peace in the Middle East association, which has received 700,000 dollars since 2018, most recently with a two-year grant in 2022. An Israeli government “stop list” prohibits the activity of twenty organizations supporting the BDS movement (defined as “an anti-Semitic campaign”), of which six are American and, of these, four are financed by Soros.
Despite the controversies, it is clear however that the vast majority of protesters, both American and Italian, are not driven by financial motivations but by a sincere concern for the atrocities suffered by Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Students are not on anyone’s payroll. They are fighting against Bibi’s right-wing government, not against the Jews.
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