The kids are revolting
And popular feminist blogger Jill Filipovic argues we should celebrate their activism and compassion
Jill Filipovic is an lawyer and author who has published articles in the NY Times, the Washington Post, Time, and CNN. For a number of years she was a blogger for Feministe, and currently posts on her own substack.
Filipovic’s most recent posting is titled “Leading with the heart: On protesting for Gaza”, in which she argues we should be celebrating, rather than criticizing, the many “kids” (yes – that’s the word she uses for them – presumably referring to high schoolers and college students) who have actively protested against Israel and in support of the Palestinians since the start of the Hamas-attack-on-Israel war.
Filipovic’s arguments and sentiments as expressed in this posting seem to me be not just misguided, but actually delusional — and at the same time seem to reflect a style of thinking and an attitude that I’ve found to be fairly common when talking about the war with friends and family. Let me start by quoting (in bolded italics below) from Filipovic’s posting (although the title says a great deal by itself about the theme of her article).
”But there’s also a lot more space for appreciation, awe, and respect for young Americans and their response to this war.
It is heartening that so many young people in America feel personally obligated to show up and speak out against excruciating violence. It says something good about them that they are not cynical or resigned, that they feel so deeply, that they believe showing up can affect change; that they cannot countenance this level of human suffering. They see so much devastation: Homes turned to rubble; human beings forced to flee again and again; bombs blowing people to bits; disease stalking those who survive; scores and scores of dead children. They don’t scroll past or change the channel. They may not quite know what to do, and they may sometimes say the wrong things, but they are showing up.
... And also: I see many of the people out protesting ... as principled people, whose principles aren’t identical to mine, but who are very obviously striving for moral goodness — who are mostly driven by a desire to preserve human life, including lives very far from their own.”
In all fairness, Filipovic takes pains to make sure the reader knows that she decries the atrocities committed by Hamas and feels the pain of both sides in the conflict. She also expresses her belief that many of the “kids” engaged in the protests don’t really understand the meaning of the phrases they chant and that she knows that there are some – especially leaders of the protests – who hate Jews and hate the U.S. However, the real focus of the article is her argument that for most of the protesters, their motivation is nothing more nor less than compassion for the Palestinians in Gaza. These protesters are not antisemitic — they just care a lot about the lives of innocent Gazans – as Filopovic states in the concluding paragraph of the article:
“But there is also a deep and obvious impulse at play in these protests for the thousands of average people who show up to them or support them, which is simply to stand up for the lives of people who are being crushed. This is righteous. It is good. It deserves much more recognition and respect than it’s getting.”
Some comments:
As I read this, it made me wonder if Filopovic can remember anything about her time as a high school or college student, and if she herself has thought at all deeply about what it is that she is applauding.
OK, maybe — some, and perhaps many, of the protesters don’t’ have any idea what river is being referred to when they chant “From the river to the sea”, and maybe they don’t even know what the term “Intifada” refers to when they call out in unison that “The only solution is intifada revolution”. Maybe they think that if a phrase includes a rhyme, it must refer to something that is just and good. Maybe some don’t realize they are calling for the elimination of the state of Israel, for the genocide of Jews, and eventually for the domination of even the U.S. by Islamic fundamentalists. Maybe they don’t realize that it actually was Palestinians who massacred innocent women and children on Oct. 7 and raped and murdered young Israeli women. If so, then – as Filopovic herself seems to be arguing – they are deeply uninformed and ignorant, but still want to lend their voices to a movement and plan of action that they actually know nothing about — a movement that supports a group that is deeply antisemtic, that oppresses women, celebrates violence and death, and that is deeply antagonistic to gays and lesbians (to the extent of murdering those who are found to have engaged in same-sex sex).
Is that level of ignorance really something that we want to applaud? Is that really something that is deserving of our respect? Maybe – and I guess I’m just spitballin’ here – we should applaud those who, when learning about the deaths of innocents in an area of the world far from the U.S., make some at least tiny effort to learn more about the situation before joining in with the mobs who chant for the genocide of Jews. Maybe they should google the phrases that the leaders of the protests ask them to chant. Is that really too much to ask of the “kids” that Filopovic claims are so “righteous”?
And are most of the protesters really as “principled” as Filopovic at least says that she believes they are? If so – what laudatory principle or principles are guiding their behavior? Is it the principle that we must always stand against the killing of innocents in Middle East countries? If so – seems odd, eh, that it is only the innocent Palestinian lives that the protesters care about, and not the lives of the Israelis (and it should be noted in this context that some significant percentage of the Gazans who have died are far from innocent – in fact, some were members of Hamas, including those who committed the truly monstrous atrocities of Oct. 7) . And what about all the innocent Muslim women and children killed by the tens, and perhaps hundreds, of thousands in Syria and the Sudan? Why don’t THEIR lives matter to the “principled” protesters? Oh right – because Israel was not part of that loss of life at all — but so much for “principles”.
Of course, perhaps it is a different laudatory principle that motivates their protesting. Perhaps they are opposed to the simple existence of a country that is dominated by people of a single religion. Well, in that case, wouldn’t they be offended by Saudi Arabia, by Egypt, by Jordan, by Syria, by Bahrain, by Qatar, by Iran, by Iraq, etc. etc.? No? So it’s only the one JEWISH country that offends their sensibilities and leads to their not-based-in-reality chants about apartheid. Not very principled — unless the principle is one grounded in deep antisemitism.
Let me offer another set of explanations for the actions of the kinds or protesters that Filopovic argues are so deserving of our respect and admiration. I take it as a given that most people prefer to bully rather than being bullied. Most people want to be part of the “in crowd” and don’t want to take a chance on being thought of as someone who thinks differently from the way the majority in their peer group seem to think. And most people like being part of a large group, and like to think of themselves as good people who are willing to stand up to authority and power.
What is clear is that in most colleges, and in lots of high schools, the way to be part of the socially admired “social justice” crowd is by supporting the Palestinians and hating Israel. And students have seen that they can bully and intimidate the Jewish students without any negative consequences. In addition, mindlessly chanting slogans as part of a mob is fun – both the act itself and the obvious feeling of power that it gives you when you see others being intimidated and frightened by your actions. All of that is very human. But it sure isn’t something I think should be applauded and admired, and to claim the actions of the protesters are not antisemitic is beyond disingenuous. Can anyone even imagine anything like this happening if the targets of the protests were Muslims, or Asians, of African Americans? No one can reasonably claim that the fact that those being protested against are Jews is irrelevant to the willingness of many of the students to participate in the protests – which is, by definition, antisemitism.
One reason I found Filopovic’s posting so irritating is that I think it reflects a certain very naïve impulse – the desire to try to spin just about anything that people do into something positive — even thoughtlessly shallow and ignorant and hurtful actions. Yes, it would be nice if almost all of the “kids” protesting were doing it for laudatory principled reasons, and it would be nice if antisemitism had nothing to do with it, and it would be nice if their actions were grounded in defensible morally admirable principles. Of course if that were the case, then those who openly support Israel wouldn’t have to worry about being targeted and bullied — the way the unfortunate Israel-supporting high school teacher was at a high school in Queens NY.
But I simply do not buy that. Take a look at the mob of protesting students at Cooper Union, banging on the glass of the library where several Jewish students had gone for safety. If you can watch that mob in action and come away thinking that they were nothing more than a group of principled and compassionate students who care about innocent lives – then you sure see the video differently than I do. Watch the video linked above about the “principled” student protesters at the high school in Queens. Watch the recent video of the “kids” protesting in the Eaton Center shopping center in Toronto, terrifying shoppers and intimidating the police. Do they look principled and compassionate and deserving of our admiration to you? Or how about Rachel Birney, the USC student filmed gleefully ripping down posters of abducted Israeli men, women, and children. Is she one of the “kids” so admired by Filopovic for their principled activism? By what moral code that Filopovic thinks should be applauded is an action like that acceptable? And if you can watch and read about the large number of Harvard students who began their protests within hours of the initial reports of the grotesque massacre of Israeli innocents by Hamas terrorists – protests that began well before Israel had killed ANY non-terrorist Gazans – and then claim that the protesters were motivated by principled (and not at all antisemitic) compassion for the lives of innocents in a land “far from their own”, then I think it’s time for you to check your own moral compass, along with your grip on reality.
Am I being ungenerous? Maybe so. Perhaps Filipovic is thinking more about those who recently protested outside a private residence in N.Y. because the mother of a 19-year-old victim of Hamas rape and abduction was speaking at a meeting in the building, and then screamed at the mother as she left the building. If not those — then maybe these kids protesting in NY. As Filipovic says, even if you disagree with the protesters’ political position, you do need to admire their principled compassionate engagement in the political process (unless, of course, you have an ounce of compassion of your own, in which case none of this seems like anything other than grotesque inhumane bullying).
Even calling the “kids” that Filopovic applauds “useful idiots” is too generous, although certainly they are useful to a death-celebrating cult. I can think of a lot of young people more deserving of our admiration than these.