When Activists Normalize Violence and Terrorism

The recent DC shooting shows the danger of a movement that fails to stand on principles. College students are not innocent.

Masked protesters at Pomona College, 10/07/24

On the evening of Wednesday, May 21, two staff members from the Israeli embassy — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. The shooter shouted “Free, free Palestine” as he was detained by security. This tragedy is not merely a one-off incident, but part of a larger movement in the Western world that justifies terrorism and antisemitism in the name of righteousness. College students play a large role.

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian militants associated with the terrorist organization Hamas invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 civilians and taking 251 hostages, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The subsequent Israeli offensive in Gaza has spurred activism across the West, including prominent actions on American college campuses. In Claremont, groups like Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have staged protests and spread messaging calling for the colleges to divest from Israel. While their initial motives may have been innocent, the movement quickly mutated into something more insidious.

Beyond divestment, student organizations at the Claremont Colleges have associated Israel — dubbed “the zionist entity” — with white supremacy and colonialism, mourned the deaths of terrorist leaders, and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. They have glorified Hamas, describing terrorists as ‘martyrs’ and claiming that allegations of rape and murder were made up. They’ve labeled anyone who disagrees as threatening, fascist, racist, and genocidal. Worse, they have repeatedly targeted and villainized Israeli and Jewish students, creating an environment on our campuses and fueling a movement throughout our country that justifies discriminatory fear-mongering and hatred.

On April 5, 2024, masked protesters took over Alexander Hall at Pomona. Dozens of students gathered in the building, harassing and physically obstructing administrators. At least 18 students occupied the president’s office. Over 100 more chanted outside. This incident resulted in 20 arrests, 10 suspensions, and additional campus bans, sparking poorly substantiated claims that Pomona College was suppressing free speech, targeting pro-Palestine activism, and engaging in racial profiling. After their disruptive and hostile display of force, activists claimed they were victimized, choosing to ignore how their actions worked to create a toxic and unsafe  campus culture.

On October 7, 2024, one year after the horrific attack on Israel, masked protesters occupied Carnegie Hall at Pomona. They carried signs with slogans like “Repression Breeds Resistance” and “Long Live the Intifada.” They stormed the building, disrupted classes, barricaded doors, and committed blatant acts of vandalism — spray-painting “Free Palestine,” “Intifada,” and “From The River to the Sea” in red on the walls and cutting wires and projector screens. They explicitly embraced fear tactics: witnesses present at the event have recounted protesters harassing Jewish students using explicitly antisemitic language, and multiple journalists and professors have also described being accosted. Many have rightly wondered why these protesters would choose that particular day — the anniversary of a brutal attack, a day when many Jewish and Israeli people were mourning friends and family members killed or held hostage — to stage such a disruptive incident.

Throughout these protests, chants have used violent anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric. “From the river to the sea” is a call for the erasure of Israel, a state created by the United Nations for the Jewish people who felt homeless due to longstanding European antisemitism culminating in the Holocaust. “Globalize the intifada” references two major incidents of unrest between Israel and Palestine, the second of which was defined by widespread terrorism and the killing of over 1,000 Israelis. This is an explicit call for violence against Israelis and Jewish people across the world — like the recent attack in DC. The shooter’s exclamation, “Free, free Palestine,” is another chant frequently used by student organizers across the country, including those in Claremont.

This series of events illuminates a devastating conclusion: a movement founded in opposition to violence has come to embrace it. The rhetoric of groups like PDfA and SJP, through signs, chants, and social media posts, has helped create a climate throughout our country and the Western world where profiling, harassment, assault, and even murder are encouraged and praised if carried out in the spirit of ‘liberation from oppression’ (just look at the response to the cold-blooded assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson). Colleges should make young people feel safe to express any identity and voice any opinion. But masked students invading campus buildings, interrupting classes, accosting Jewish students, and committing vandalism has instead produced an environment of fear within our institutions. These groups not only condone and justify terrorism — they themselves are proto-terrorist organizations.

Members of these movements often claim that the antisemitic actions of a few bad actors don’t represent the entire cause. But refusal to condemn these incidents — antisemitic conspiracy theories distributed in pamphlets, the use of a racial slur against a college administrator, comments using antisemitic tropes about Jewish people covertly controlling the world — sends a message that student protesters support, or at least condone, these acts. The silence of the pro-Palestine movement in the wake of the DC shooting speaks volumes.

Acts of violence against civilians — be they American, Israeli, or otherwise — are never justified in a functioning democracy. This should be an uncontroversial claim. When movements turn away from principles of nonviolence and protecting the sanctity of human life, they not only commit heinous acts in the name of justice; they also weaken their cause. Our nation’s history shows that nonviolent movements can affect widespread change — from civil rights to lesbian and gay activism — and that violent protests alienate potential supporters, inhibiting progress. Violence makes a movement objectionable — and for good reason.

We cannot turn back the clock. Mr. Lischinsky and Ms. Milgrim cannot be brought back. They are not the first victims of this wave of antisemitism, nor will they be the last. If student activists truly care about ending violence, they need to drastically change their narrative now.