After a wave of pro-Palestinian protests led by students universities across the countrysome schools, like Brown University, say they’re is considering a sale from corporations that support or work in Israel.
In most cases, when summer is on the horizon, tensions arise between protesting students and university administrators seems to have decreaseda minimum of for now.
The dramatic scenes of police and state troops dismantling student camps on campus and arresting protesters have sparked some accusations heavy-handed law enforcement tactics. At the identical time, some law enforcement agencies have determined that these are extremist agitators who are usually not actually students contributed to the clashes on university campuses in April and May 2024. At least within the case of the protests at Columbia University about 29% of individuals that the arrested New York cops had nothing to do with the college.
I’m a former senior U.S. government counterterrorism official and national security scientist and terrorism. The wave of recent pro-Palestinian, student-led protests jogs my memory of one other tense era within the United States, also sparked by U.S. involvement in a foreign war – the Vietnam War within the late Sixties and early Seventies.
Student anger over the long-running U.S. war in Vietnam reached its peak on August 28, 1968, on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. There were violent clashes between police and demonstrators on the streets “The Battle of Michigan Avenue.”
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Students' anger over the Vietnam War is growing
In the mid-Sixties, the United States increased its support of the South Vietnamese government against communist North Vietnamese fighters and turned away from military training to conduct open and direct US combat operations. This happened after August 1964, when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the United States Destroyer within the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
From Spring 1965The U.S. military was involved in ground, air and sea operations against North Vietnam and the Vietnamese insurgent fighters supporting it.
Anti-war protests within the USA also began around this time. A socialist group called Students for a democratic societywhich opposed US imperialism, played an lively role inside this anti-war movement, which grew as US military operations in Vietnam continued in 1966–68.
Meanwhile, President Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he wouldn’t run for re-election and hesitated US bombing missions in Vietnam. The opened the door for Vice President Hubert Humphrey to face Republican challenger Richard Nixon this summer.
Various student groups and antiwar organizations, including members of Students for a Democratic Society, protested against Humphrey outside the Democratic National Convention meeting in Chicago in late August 1968. They were indignant that Humphrey didn't do that strongly condemn US involvement in Vietnam. Some protesters held signs For example, it said “Imperialism Saigon Prague” and “ceasefire now”.
Late within the evening of August 28, 1968, the protests reached violent proportions. The Chicago Police Department, Illinois National Guardsmen and other police personnel beat demonstrators with batons They dragged them and handcuffed them while they arrested about 600 people. According to a former Chicago Police Department officer That night's events involved several protesters who were asked to clear the realm between Grant Park and the Convention Center Hotel. When those orders weren’t followed, police began aggressively dispersing the protesters who were still present, in accordance with this official.
About 100 demonstrators and police forces Officers were injured within the clashes. Observers were also involved within the fighting. Police forcibly forced a CBS correspondent out of prison Dan Rather, for instance, from the Congress constructing while filming a live news segment.
“Days of Rage”
After August 1968, antiwar groups became increasingly disillusioned with the prospects for peace in Vietnam—and with what they saw as peace The unchecked power of the US government to suppress free expression and protest activities.
In early 1969, a brand new group got here calling the weathermen emerged from Students for a Democratic Society. The Weathermen had a more aggressive and revolutionary worldview than many members of Students for a Democratic Society. The Weathermen believed that direct confrontation with the state was the one approach to achieve their goals of forcing the United States to finish the war in Vietnam and sparking a revolution within the United States
The Weathermen organized one Three-day protest called “The Days of Rage” in downtown Chicago in October 1969 – in recognition of the bloody clashes just over a 12 months earlier on the Chicago Democratic National Convention. Hundreds of weathermen were prepared for physical combat Chains, baseball bats and slingshots. The demonstrators fought sporadically with law enforcement and the Illinois National Guard over the following three days in various parts of downtown Chicago, destroying property and arresting dozens of weathermen.
“A Declaration of War”
In May 1970, the United States remained engaged within the Vietnam War, further fueling the war The Weathermen's anger over the conflict and other perceived examples of what they called “capitalist imperialism” abroad and inequality at home at home. The Weathermen renamed themselves the Weather Underground and released “a declaration of war” against the US government. The core group of Weathermen most focused on violent motion was probably quite a few only in several dozen. Across the country, there was a bigger group of members who believed within the organization's ideals but not its most extreme practices.
This was the start of the Weather Underground almost decade-long campaign of domestic terrorist violence, including 25 bombings of presidency buildings and others perceived symbols of US imperialism and injustice. They bombed them US Capitol in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972 And the State Department in 1975along with attempted bank robberies.
During this terror campaignThe Weather Underground bombings injured several people and caused property damage at various locations. During a 1981 bank robbery in Nanuet, New York, three cops were killed in a shootout with Weather Underground members. During this time, the FBI worked closely with various government and law enforcement agencies to analyze the group prosecute various members.
As a result, In the mid-Nineteen Eighties, a lot of Weather Underground's founding members were arrested or imprisoned – essentially end their terrorist actions.
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The Prospects for Domestic Extremism Now
This summer is the The Democratic National Convention will once more happen in Chicago. The parallels to previous events in Chicago, corresponding to the Battle of Michigan Avenue in 1968 and the Days of Rage in 1969, are fascinating – especially given the stark divisions within the country currently over the war between Israel and Hamas. Of course, there are also big differences, including the indisputable fact that students within the US don’t have any legitimate fear of the draft – and that there are not any US troops on the bottom in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian student protests on campuses this 12 months were largely peaceful and under no circumstances resembled the size or intensity of physical confrontation with law enforcement seen in Chicago within the late Sixties.
This just isn’t to say that anger and despair over U.S. policy toward Israel will disappear any time soon, even when there are signs of encampments and protests on college campuses disappear.
Terrorism scholars and experts like me have spent a long time trying to find out the precise variables and aspects that drive individuals toward violent actions within the name of political and ideological causes. The current environment within the US surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas has not yet mobilized people along this path. But as protesters said in 1968: “The whole world will be watching.”
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