Protests Then and Now
By Dennis Mitchell
There is some irony in the fact that last Saturday was the 54th anniversary of the Kent State University shootings and we now have the biggest protests on college campuses since those Vietnam protest days. There is also irony in the fact that many of those condemning the student protests of today the loudest are of the baby boom generation which was the protesters against the Vietnam War.
Now, the baby boom generation is interesting. The first generation to come of age after the invention of the birth control pill, it forged the sexual revolution. It was also the generation that made drug experimentation almost a right of passage. By the time this generation hit 50, it had done a 180-degree turn into virtual opposition to many sexual choices and freedoms and was the strongest for wanting a war on drugs. Some would call those changes maturity, but maybe hypocrisy is a better word.
I heard an interview with a man who was a student at Kent State in 1970. He said the students didn’t think the calling in of the National Guard by the Ohio governor to remove protesters was a problem. “We thought they were like us,” he said. “After all, the National Guard was what you joined to avoid the draft for Vietnam.” Avoiding the draft and protesting against the war was certainly a tactic used by some baby boomers. At least the baby boomers protested against a war in which America was directly involved.
Most of the protesters against the Israeli Army retaliation in Gaza don’t have a dog in the fight and don’t understand the problems in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. There is much said about wanting a two-state solution now – Israel and a Palestinian State. That was exactly what the United Nations proposed in 1948. However, the Palestinians rejected that compromise and vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. That didn’t happen through a series of wars in the area – 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.
Instead, some Palestinians have formed terrorist groups that have struck at Israel periodically through the nearly eight generations since. This war was started by a raid of the terrorist group Hamas into Israeli settlements and the taking of hostages. The Palestinian people have suffered significantly in this war, but it was one of their terrorist groups that started it.
If the Palestinians really want to have peace in the area, they have to get rid of their slogan “From the river to the sea” and find intelligent leaders who wish to find a long-term peaceful solution to what is called the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Until that happens, the terrorist groups will continue to operate at the expense of the Palestinian people.