NYU professor: Gaza protests should spark dialogue, not campus crackdowns

After university officials in New York recently asked police to break up Palestinian solidarity encampments on campus, arresting hundreds, students across the United States have set up their own tent camps for Gaza.

New York University Professor Robert Cohen is a historian of student activism and protest. He recently sat down with TRT World to discuss the latest developments on college campuses, and how they relate to past protest movements in the US.

Here are excerpts of his interview with Tanguy Garrel and Shabina S. Khatri:

TRT World: Can you tell us a bit about what happened here with the protests?

Robert Cohen: Well, they had a protest where they occupied the Gould Plaza in front of the Stern Business School. By the end of the day, the police were called in to break it up, and they arrested dozens and dozens of students. And they broke up. There were about 200 police officers who broke up this demonstration.

The pretext for it was that there was some disobeying of the rules about allowing students past the barricades into the plaza and also cited allegedly anti-Semitic incidents. And so that was the pretext for the mass arrests.

I don't believe that. It's very rare to have people arrested that quickly. I mean, the same day for a demonstration that was nonviolent and that was similar at Columbia (University).

That was the day after the president of the university testified before Congress and people in Congress were advocating for not tolerating mass demonstrations, occupation. Then she authorised the police to come in and they arrested over 100 demonstrators and broke it up.

But then they came back again. (Officials are) under more pressure to do it again, to keep preventing the gathering of the students, because it's an equation of these demonstrations with anti-Semitism. And that's being used as hate speech, as a justification for basically suppressing free speech and demonstrations.

TRT World: And what do you think about that?

Robert Cohen: Well, I think it's really problematic because, first of all, in the United States, because of the First Amendment. Hate speech, as long as they don't threaten somebody, is not banned. It's a protected speech by the First Amendment. And the irony is that people on the right who are so critical when the left use that to try to prevent racist speakers from being on campus.

Now they're using that same rationale that this hate speech is threatening the people. Now they're using it themselves to suppress speech because they're saying that it threatens Jewish students. Now, you know, I'm not denying that it's a big country. There have been some anti-Semitic incidents, but there's still a question as to whether people are too quickly equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

I mean, if you're seen as being hateful when you criticise either Israel or the Gaza war, then that has free speech implications and it's really problematic. So this is one of the tensions - like, where do you draw the line between freedom of speech and threatening and bigoted language?

And I think that that's been kind of not handled. I mean, the way this is often discussed by political leaders in the country is to assume right away, without that much empirical evidence that all these demonstrations, that all these demonstrators are anti-Semitic.

But some of the demonstrators are Jewish. So that doesn't really make an effect here.

The literature that they gave out because I stopped by the encampment before, was dispersed on the back of the leaflet. They were recruiting anti-Zionist Jewish students. So that doesn't mean there couldn't have been some somebody on the fringes who was anti-Semitic.

But the demonstration itself, you're not interested in recruiting Jewish students if you're anti-Semitic. So it seemed to me to be problematic.

I just wonder whether these were really the reasons or more of a pretext for it, because you have to understand that given Congress has hostility to these demonstrations, which are equated with terrorism and Hamas sympathisers and anti-Semitism, that they want these demonstrations to be suppressed.

But is it true that these demonstrations are pro-Hamas, that they are anti-Semitic, that they're hate festivals? And I think that's a kind of simplification that let's say there might be some people like that, but you're not going to get masses of students in the United States who are protesting in order to express bigotry.

Mostly they're upset about the war and the killing. So I, I just think it's not convincing to me. I mean, I'm open to it if you show me evidence, but I haven't seen evidence of it, because when I was there, there were the anti-Zionists in the demonstration and across the street were the Zionists. Maybe that changes later.

But when I was there early in the day, there was no conflict between them. So I didn't see any anti-Semitic incidents. And I was there for a while and it was kind of welcoming. So I was sceptical about it. And I think just generally there's a problem that free speech is counterintuitive.

If I don't like what you're saying, I tell you 'shut up.' It's free speech for me, but not for thee. And that's really problematic because a university depends upon freedom and the free exchange of ideas to explore. Let's say somebody thinks a war is wrong and problematic. How are you going to explain, how are people going to know what your critique is if you can't speak out?

So the idea that both the Zionist and the anti-Zionists should be able to speak freely is important for what the university is supposed to be about, which is pursuing the truth.

TRT World: How do you feel personally when you see what is happening in New York University and other colleges?

Robert Cohen: Well, I'm concerned about the issue of academic freedom and freedom of speech. There was questioning in Congress about some professor at Columbia who expressed sympathy for Palestinian liberation and made it sound like he was pro- Hamas.

I wouldn't agree with someone being pro-Hamas, but that doesn't mean that they should be banned from their positions. Teaching academic freedom means that you're allowed to pursue truth as you see it. And if they're trying to indoctrinate the students or force students to have their position, that's an abuse of their authority in the classroom.

But if you're just writing a book about Palestinian nationalism and you are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or even to Hamas, you have that right as an academic. You're supposed to be protected for that. So I'm concerned that what the (Columbia University) college president said was, 'basically no we're going to cancel academic freedom for people who are too out of the mainstream.'

And to me, that's a violation of academic freedom. If I read something about Hamas that I don't agree with, I'll say it. That would be something I would do. But I wouldn't say you can't publish or you can't be a teacher at the university because you have this position.

That's a violation of academic freedom. That means the only people who have academic freedom are people who agree with me or mainstream America. And if you take that back to the period when I was growing up and when the Vietnam War was going on, if you had barred the university from critiquing the Vietnam War, you know that war might never have ended.

In other words, it was the anti-war movement that brought out the kind of lies and myths and problems with that war that helped to finally, after years and years, convince people that the war was wrong. So I see there's a lot of tension here. You're making people uncomfortable because you are questioning something where there has been a lot of public support.

But in a way, as an academic intellectual, it's sort of your job to raise questions when you think something's wrong and you can't do that if your speech is suppressed because it's unpopular. And that's really a kind of a problem with this, that academics should have the freedom to explore what they see as historical truth in my field, whether I agree with it or not.

And again, if I don't agree with it, I'm going to argue with the person. But I think that's healthy. I don't think it's good that you suppress ideas that you disagree with. And that to me is what's going on now, because there's such a heated reaction to the anti-war movement here.

TRT World: Well, about the mainstream, polls now say the majority of Americans think that Israel should have a ceasefire in Gaza. But then we have politicians and US President Joe Biden just approving these billions of dollars in aid for Israel. So who is really out of step with the mainstream?

Roger Cohen: There's a difference. Think about the campus. There's a difference between the issue and the movement in American history.

Student movements have always been unpopular from the southern movement against racial discrimination at the lunch counters in 1960, the Freedom Rides, the free speech movement, the antiwar movement, you name it. Student movements were unpopular even when the Vietnam War became unpopular. The anti-war movement was even more unpopular. Now, how is that possible?

Well, it's about cultural conservatism. First of all, like when athletes and the United States take a pole position, like a basketball player, a football player takes a radical position in politics, they say 'shut up and play.' With students, it's 'shut up and study. You are supposed to respect your elders. You're here to learn.'

And so you're getting out of your prescribed social role by raising questions. So I'm saying even if the polls show that there's increasing criticism of the war in Gaza and of Israeli policy, there still is going to be the student movement that's raising issues people are uncomfortable with because they're occupying territory.

There's all this denunciation of them. 'They're anti-Semitic, they're pro-Hamas, they're pro-terrorist.'

In other words, they are a lot of times sort of caricatured, in part because people are uncomfortable with young people not respecting their elders. So what I'm saying to you there, it seems illogical, but it's always been the case that a majority of the American public is uncomfortable with student activism.

So this movement is raising critical questions about the war in Gaza and the country is now beginning to raise questions about it. But they still don't like the movement. And that's in part because of the way if you open up The Wall Street Journal, you see that it's like, 'the university has a bunch of woke professors who are pro-Gazan. People are grooming them to become pro-Hamas, you know, sympathise with terrorism.'

And that's such a distortion because the number one major in the United States is business and finance, and number two is computer science. There aren't a lot of people doing radical Middle Eastern studies as their major college campuses. But, you know, these sorts of caricatures are very powerful.

So what I'm saying to you is that the movement is affected by all those factors that make it unpopular, no matter what critique it uses. And then also there are a lot of students of colour. There are students who are dressed wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh. So it seems alien to mainstream white America.

So there's that hostility as well. In a certain sense, it's really hard for any student movement to get a sort of fair hearing and to be appreciated for what it's raised. Instead, they're kind of resented for raising uncomfortable questions.

Even in 1968, when after the Tet Offensive, the country turned against the Vietnam War, they still didn't love the student movement. And in fact, right after Kent State (University) in 1970, the Gallup poll showed the number one problem in the United States, according to most people, was student unrest.

And they're all politicians. A lot of politicians like (former US Presidents Ronald) Reagan and (Richard) Nixon and (former Vice President) Spiro Agnew and (former Alabama governor) George Wallace, they got more and more popular because of the student movement.

And there are politicians who are doing that today. Saying that 'these are hate-filled and why are the universities so full of hatred? It's like a hate festival.' But that's really a very one-sided way of seeing the movement.

A lot of it is opposing hate. They (the students) want to stop killing and stop war.

TRT World: So we saw that there is a wall right now erected at NYU. Can you describe a bit of what happened?

Robert Cohen: I think they're trying to prevent the occupation again of Gould Plaza. So they built this wooden wall to keep people from coming back into it.

Now they don't have these police barricades, now they have a real wooden structure there, which again, is kind of a sad, sad thing. Earlier in the semester, by the way, the administration closed the steps of the student union building, which had been used to rally. It was a free speech area that closed.

And so already at the beginning of the war, you had this issue about stopping. You don't want to have all this controversy, so you have peace. But it's like the peace of the graveyard. There's nobody really talking very much. And then a little later, because that's free speech here, it was closed.

Some of the pro-Palestinian students came to the campus library and started to read impromptu converting it into a free speech area and started reading Palestinian poetry.

And then that was interrupted. You know, there was a clampdown. So you had a poetry reading in the library being stopped. I mean, maybe it was a little bit loud and disruptive, but if you close the free speech area, then you're going to have that happen. So what I'm saying is that to me, that symbolises that this is problematic.

And let me just say too, I think it's better if the universities try to find a way to get a dialogue going about these issues. That is, we have experts here on the Middle East from both the Israeli and the Palestinian perspective and beyond. Why not use that expertise to foster greater learning? Because one thing that's lost in all this is that having students become active is a real opportunity for people to learn, to be educated about what's going on.

And so it's great how students are doing that. But I think it'd be better if the university itself was trying to foster dialogue because America in this era, post-(former US President Donald) Trump, is very polarised. You know, people are more like talking past each other and denouncing each other. And look, I know this is a very contentious issue.

People are dying. Things always get more emotional. But it would be better if we try to find a way to be able to talk to each other. And so to me, one of the real problems with where we are right now is, we're going to shut off dialogue.

And that's so counter to what the university should be about, not just because of political freedom or free speech, but the university should be a place where people can learn and so this is in a way, it's so antithetical to the mission of the university to have this kind of advocacy suppressed.

TRT World: Why do you think universities are so scared and reacting so strongly?

Robert Cohen: Well, because what happened when the Harvard president and MIT and (the University of) Pennsylvania. They testified to Congress and they didn't do a very good job. They were really lawyered up, but they were not competent at explaining the difference between a free political forum and personal harassment.

You can advocate bigoted things from a podium, but I can't come to your dormitory and start threatening you because of your race or creed or whatever. And so they did a bad job. And then (Elise) Stefanik, the conservative congresswoman and the others, they really wanted to get them fired. That is the presidents of Harvard and Penn, and they did.

And so then what's the lesson from that? You know, Columbia's president was summoned the other day (to Congress) and then the arrest (of student protesters) happened the next day. These people have power and plus the donors have said, 'I'm not going to give money.'

Like this guy (Robert) Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team, he said because he sees these demonstrations as anti-Semitic.

'Students don't feel safe there, so I am not going to give any more money to the university.'

So as a private university, it needs this endowment. So you have the donors threatening them, Congress threatening them. So there's a lot of pressure and even overt pressure. Usually it's covert, you know, like with the free speech movement in 1964, I've got to figure out, like, what caused this free speech area to be closed down today?

It's not covert. It's right out in the open. It's like saying if you don't shut down the demonstration, we want you to get fired. And even after you've done that, we still want you to get fired because it's coming back. You haven't suppressed, as if the president is a tank commander who can mow down students. It was ridiculous. But the point is they're not like making this up.

They could lose their jobs. They've seen this, especially at Harvard. You know, the way university works is a big pecking order. Harvard's at the top. If the president of Harvard loses her job because of what's seen as inadequately repressive policing of these demonstrations and tamping down, then anybody could lose their job.

So I think that pressure - if you're a university president, are you going to be on the side of being permissive and support free speech? Are you going to be on the side of being repressive and not have to worry about the donors and Congress coming after you? I think the answer is sort of obvious. And what's dangerous about that is who's going to protect free speech and academic freedom if the college and university presidents are under this pressure and are afraid?

That's why it's so problematic.

TRT World: Can you give us a sense of how professors and lecturer here feel about it? We saw faculty members trying to protect their students.

Robert Cohen: Yeah, there are faculty members who were trying to head like a human chain to try to protect the students who are on campus so they wouldn't be arrested.

There were some professors who actually got arrested, others contributed money to the bail fund. So there have been professors who are supportive of the movement and supportive of their students. And I think most professors are supportive of free speech and academic freedom. But, you know, there's not total unanimity because of this issue about anti-Semitism. Some are concerned because when you charge people with being an anti-Semite, that's a serious charge.

And so where's the evidence for it? How do you make sense of it? It's kind of hard to figure out. So some I think, well, maybe it's better that we don't have these protests because you don't have that issue anymore, you know, to worry about that bigotry. And the other thing is just generally speaking, professors are busy, a lot of them.

They may not like what's going on, but only a small cadre of people are going to do something like the human chain to stop the arrest. So I think there are faculty who are upset about it and I think that most faculty feel like people should have free speech and academic freedom.

But the group that went out there to defend them is sort of a small group. So it's a sort of a division. But I think in general, the faculty would like there to be free speech and academic freedom, but also would like there not to be these charges about rule breaking and anti-Semitism.

TRT World: Why do you think that the student movement is significant and historic in a way? Why isn't it just a bunch of local protests?

Robert Cohen: Well, because it's important because it's dealing with a very major international problem. The US has been supporting Israel militarily for decades and decades, and often that's almost unquestioned. And now because of the war and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, they are raising the question and you know what?

You don't have to be anti-Zionist or anti-Israel to be concerned about the sort of far right government and Netanyahu. And it's insensitive to the issue about what's happening to civilians in this war and children. So I think that the movement is not just some local dispute, but it's about sort of the conscience of the campus of this generation being upset.

They don't want to grow up in a world where human life is violated in this way. And by the way, I want to just say it's not just that piece. There are also students from the other side who are upset about what happened with Hamas on October 7 and just saying, why did that happen?

How is that connected to what the situation was in Gaza beforehand? So there's a whole kind of questioning of Israel, of Netanyahu, of American foreign policy that is raising questions that are really important. And I think often because young people are well, first of all, they are military age. I mean, although there's not a draft now, they are often at the forefront of raising these issues.

I think that for them, this is like a really important question and it's sort of pressing political leadership to do so. And by the way, it's not just young people, because you look in Michigan, this is an Arab community. Adults were involved in that vote against President Biden, you know, the uncommitted vote in the Democratic primary.

So it's not just the students that are concerned, but the students are highly visible. And so I think this is raising a question about this war and the US support of it that, you know, is really of great significance. And it hadn't happened.

I mean, the Students for Justice of Palestine, those groups have existed for decades as the '90s in Berkeley, but they didn't attract this kind of larger scale support until the war in Gaza raised the issue and made it so.

So I think that what the the students have been doing is getting the country or pressing the country to start asking questions about how this war is being conducted, whether it's proper for the US to support this war and those types of questions because there's been such a consensus on support for Israel militarily, those kinds of questions are kind of new to the mainstream and are pretty significant.

TRT World: Last question - do you think that the Gaza issue will affect elections and the voters in November?

Robert Cohen: It could. If it does, even before that, it could. The Democratic convention this summer is being held in Chicago. In 1968, the whole Chicago thing blew up because there was this huge conflict between the demonstrators and the police back then.

Governor Richard Daley, who was a political boss and pretty intolerant, ruled the place with an iron fist. And there was basically like a police riot against the protesters. So it kind of blew up when the convention was going on. And that made it look like, well, the Democrats, this is their convention.

The country is out of control. Even the city they're in is out of control. And so that could hurt if that happens again. And plus, there's concern that the same young people who are doing this rallying might say, well, you know, Biden is not being critical enough of this war and trying to stop it. You know, Biden has been critical of some of the excesses of Netanyahu.

But they still haven't stopped the aid. So I think it has a potential because he won (in 2020) in part because of the youth vote. So there's some concern. But the other question is, what would Trump do? I mean, he moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem and I think there's no evidence that he'd be antiwar or anything like that.

So it just may be the people they may not come and vote for Trump, but they might stay home. And that's also true with the overall Arab and Muslim population. But on the other hand, look at what you know, the Muslim ban. Look at what Trump was doing. Still I think it could hurt Biden because he needs that youth vote.

TRT World: And would you like to add anything that you couldn't share that you like to highlight?

Robert Cohen: Well, I just think that I mean, from my perspective, I just wish that the political leadership, the news media and the country at large would, you know, give the students movement a kind of fair hearing. And if it's done, if there are people in the movement that have done things that make Jewish students uncomfortable, that just because they're critical of Israel, that's one thing.

But if there is anti-Semitism, that should be dealt with as well. But I just think that the way that this is being depicted by the media in the United States and by politicians is with a very broad brush. And that's not uncommon. Like the antiwar movement in the '60s was depicted as like a communist front.

And there were some communists in it, but it was mostly the students wanting to stop the killing and stop a war they regarded as unjust.

And it would be really nice if for once in American history, those who are not young would listen to young people. And I don't mean that they have to be uncritical of them, but just give them a fair hearing and not just write the whole generation off because you're talking about thousands of thousands of people and that's not a fair, judicious way to deal with a movement like this.

And I also just want to say that in terms of the movement, you know, it's about divesting and cutting the universities' ties - either not having branch campuses in Israel or military support.

And I think that from my perspective it would also be good that's not really talked about is doing something more immediately helpful to the people of Gaza like raising money, helping to fight the famine, lending university expertise, building universities to rebuild the educational infrastructure of Gaza, and doing the same with the hospitals and the in other words, like kind of a Marshall Plan for Gaza.

That was when America helped reconstruct Europe after it was ravaged by war. I mean, I know that's hard to talk about now because the war is still going on, but I'm just saying, just being focused on cutting your ties with Israel doesn't really get at this other problem, which is, US-backed military effort of Israel has reduced a lot of Gaza to rubble.

And I think there's a moral responsibility that we should consider that the university and the United States should be involved in helping to rebuild. So that isn't discussed yet because everybody's focus this moment is focused on this one piece (a ceasefire). But I think that's really important because if we want to stop suffering, we have a lot of resources to help with that reconstruction.