Protests begin in the streets but — for lasting impact — should end at the ballot box | Editorial

Students disrupting normal activity at university campuses across the nation to protest the Israel-Hamas war are being compared to the 1980s activists who launched the divestiture movement that led U.S. companies to stop doing business with South Africa’s racist apartheid system of government.

But the violence that has marred current demonstrations — some of it spurred by overzealous law enforcement — seems more reminiscent of the 1970s protests against the Vietnam War that claimed the lives of four Kent State University students who were shot and killed by Ohio National Guardsmen and two protesting Jackson State University students who were fatally shot by police in Mississippi.

The potential for volatile situations to quickly get out of hand has led several universities to limit further protests on their campuses, and hundreds of students have been arrested. Students and supportive faculty are portraying such decisions as unfair restrictions on their right to free speech. But that right, and others, have always had limitations, especially when lives may be at stake.

» READ MORE: End the bloodshed in Gaza | Editorial

It also should be noted that many Vietnam War demonstrators had a personal interest in protesting in that they were likely to be drafted and deployed to a war zone. Other protesters during that war were either related to or knew someone who had already been wounded or died in combat. Neither of those circumstances is likely with most of the students who are now asking Israel to stand down.

Campus protests nearly 7,000 miles away in America have had no impact on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, even as U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken tried again this week to negotiate a hostage release deal with Hamas, continued making plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah. More than a million Palestinians have fled there, trying to escape Israeli bombs that have claimed the lives of roughly 34,000 people — many of them women and children — since the war began.

Understanding that campus demonstrations in America are unlikely to move Netanyahu, some protests are instead focused on getting universities to divest themselves of any endowment ties to Israel or U.S. weapons manufacturers. But divestment didn’t have much impact on South Africa until major American companies such as Coca-Cola, Chevron, and American Express, plus 90 cities, 22 counties, and 26 states, joined the antiapartheid movement.

An effective divestiture strategy takes time and the people starving and dying in Gaza don’t have much of that.

That doesn’t mean students and faculty protesting how Israel has conducted its war should stop protesting. But if they continue, they need to draw a distinct line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. And when they see protest participants, especially nonstudents, who seem more interested in creating chaos than saving Palestinian lives, they should ask for police assistance to get them to leave.

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Everyone, not just college students, needs to recognize what’s wrong with the world and speak out in favor of the changes they want to see happen. That also means recognizing that the best way to achieve change in this country is by participating in its democracy. That’s an especially important message to college students, who polls show are interested in this presidential election.

Students who are agitated enough to protest a war also should be agitated enough to vote. But they must do their homework. Find out which candidate has the same aspirations and policy goals; not just with Israel and Gaza, but gun control, artificial intelligence, student debt, abortion, climate change, and other issues that this country needs to resolve.

Students must use the same energy that led them to join a protest to help a candidate they deem worthy to win an election.