Columbia’s Hamas kids think the Middle East revolves around their school

As Morningside Heights goes, so goes the Levant.

This is the childishly self-dramatizing conceit that’s been driving the pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University, with similar ideas playing into protests elsewhere.

It allows students living privileged lives at elite universities to believe that they are on the front lines of fighting so-called genocide, and what happens at their schools — and to them — is exciting, dangerous, and determinative of geo-political events half-a-world away.

This is not to say that what’s happening at Columbia isn’t important — to Columbia, in terms of who’s really in charge and whether the rules apply to pro-Hamas protestors or not.

But that doesn’t match the world-historical significance that the students want to attribute to their sloganeering and sleep-overs.

According to the statement issued by Columbia protestors at the outset of this episode, Israel has undertaken a “brutal onslaught” against the Palestinian people for 75 years that is “enabled by financial investments made by institutions like Columbia University.”