Student protests have erupted across numerous elite American campuses over the past two weeks, pitting administrations against student activists. What accounts for the energy of the movement?
The Israel-Palestine issue is complex, with a good case to be made that Israel should have acted with more restraint. Palestinian motivations are understandable. What is harder to explain, however, is the exceptional focus of white progressive student protesters on this question.
Violence committed in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Ukraine and other trouble spots elicits little response. Uganda meting out the death penalty to homosexuals occasions a shrug. These offending governments are not allies of the West. But the West invests in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who armed those who committed atrocities in Yemen. It trades with China, which is currently imprisoning half a million Uyghurs in re-education camps. Where are the analogous movements to boycott and divest?
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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.
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