Campus radicals are using Gaza as smokescreen to support Hamas terrorism and the butchering of Israelis. One University of Michigan student explains how faculty deliberately allowed it to escalate.

College students have started occupying university campuses nationwide to protest Israel. Their ultimate goal is clear: support for Hamas terrorism, and the death of America and its allies. On April 23, Columbia University made the decision to end all in-person classes for the remainder of the semester, a decision met with outrage from parents and students forced to fork over the $70,000+ tuition anyway. The reason? They couldn’t get control of the pro-Hamas protests on campus—especially after they refused to allow the New York Police Department (NYPD) on campus to restore order.

Restoration News covered the Death to America occupation that sprang up at the University of Michigan over the past few days: “Dusting off their ‘Occupy’ and ‘CHAZ’ playbooks, radicalized students at the University of Michigan have set up the ‘Liberated Encampment Zone.’ This consists of a tent city on campus, anarchist propaganda, and calls for ‘The Third Intifada’ and the defeat of the ‘liberal-fascist associates’ of Zionists.”

Michigan Allows Things to Get Out Of Hand

A student at the University of Michigan, Josh Brown, told Restoration News the administration has allowed an escalation of the pro-Hamas protest and encampment. In an exclusive interview, Brown said, “The encampment at the University of Michigan represents yet another step in a consistent pattern of escalation by student groups on campus and inaction by university administration.” The student groups actually glorify terrorists, Brown said. “These student groups have a history of advocating for violence . . .  while flagrantly violating university policy and the law. University administrators must take immediate and decisive action to ensure the safety of Jewish students on campus.”

Brown blasted the university in March in an op-ed in the Michigan Review for honoring a student group, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), with a Martin Luther King, Jr. Spirit Award. Brown wrote, “SAFE is the University of Michigan chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, an openly anti-Zionist organization advocating the destruction of the State of Israel. From inviting known antisemites to speak to members’ forcing their way into university buildings, SAFE is quite active on campus.”

He related the story of a campus event less than a week before the October 7 attacks, in which SAFE held an annual “apartheid wall” demonstration:

This event showcased a mock wall resembling the Gaza–Israel security barrier adorned with Palestinian imagery. Most disturbing of all was the depiction of a woman holding an AK-47 rifle surrounded by the words “Power to Our Freedom Fighters. Glory to Our Martyrs.” This woman is Leila Khaled, notorious for hijacking not one, but two civilian aircraft using firearms and explosives. Since retiring from plane hijacking, Khaled has continued to advocate violence in various interviews.

 
Image courtesy of Josh Brown

In response to the October 7 atrocities, SAFE made a social media post calling the attacks “100% predictable and justified.”

American Colleges Go Berserk

Events at America’s colleges have gone from heated to way out of hand in the course of a handful of days.

Jonathan Turley noted a sign at Columbia that read, “Admitted Students Enroll in Revolution.”

Radical students protested and occupied several college campuses over the weekend, as things got “mostly peaceful” and threatened the safety of Jewish students. Michigan and Columbia are far from isolated incidents. Similar occupations have sprung up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), New York University (NYU), and Yale.

Among those arrested at the NYU protest: teachers who refused to allow NYPD to break up the protest:

Same thing at Columbia:

Maybe that explains why Jewish students will not return to campus. They’ve cited serious safety concerns and Columbia’s protection of pro-terrorist radicals:

(Just in case you thought these protests were grounded in sanity, check out the Queer Art Market for Palestine this coming Saturday in Ottawa.)

At least one pro-Hamas campus encampment—at the University of Minnesota—got broken up by the police.

However, organizers promise they will return for a larger encampment this week.

Pro-terrorist encampments have also sprung up at several other colleges. Cal Poly-Humboldt closed campus. Harvard closed Harvard Yard for the week. Students at Cal Berkely started an encampment / occupation.

Shocking as they may appear on cable news, pro-Hamas and anti-Western protests on campus didn’t just start this week. They’ve gone on since the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. In November, students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison protested an appearance by Ben Shapiro:

Protesters shouted down First Lady Jill Biden in a March appearance in Arizona:

Protestors even showed up in Atlanta to support Hamas after October 7:

As terrorist-supporting protests have broken out across America, President Biden has remained oddly silent. He finally broke his silence on Monday, April 22, and in his typical fashion, he equivocated. One might even say he expressed sympathy for the “very fine people on both sides” of the conflict:

“I condemn the antisemitic protests,” the president told reporters en route back from a speech he had delivered to commemorate Earth Day. “That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”

An Utter Lack of Leadership

Biden obviously has what many now call his “Michigan problem.” He must balance the working class vote with the radical pro-Hamas factions in Dearborn and other cities that have become home to large populations of immigrants who think of America as oppressive to their culture and religion. So far, he has failed to find a unifying message to assuage the mainstream and radical factions of his party. He risks losing votes to both factions in his bid for reelection in November. Biden’s attempts to play both sides and to buy votes have rung hollow with the voters. Even in today’s America, it seems unlikely that assuaging the growing pro-terrorist fringe of the radical left, represented by the likes of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D–MI) and Ilhan Omar (D–MN), will win him a majority of the vote.

Many of America’s ills find their source in an utter lack of leadership at many levels. Whether that be among elite liberal college presidents, soft-on-crime district attorneys and mayors, open border policies, blue state insanity, and everything in between, America cries out for stronger leaders who will make the tough decisions necessary to clean things up.

So far we haven’t discovered the necessary leadership at the University of Michigan. Nor Columbia University, nor many other college campuses.