This is no 1960’s love-in during anti-Israel rallies at elite universities

Amid the disruptions at elite universities across the nation, it is tempting to compare the student protests over Gaza to uprisings during the Vietnam War. 

Five decades after Columbia, Berkeley and other schools were rocked by student riots, police raids and chants of “Hell No, We Won’t Go,” tent cities and mass “teach-ins” are popping up again on some of the same campuses. 

Now as then, quisling administrators are afraid to enforce rules and radical faculty members egg on the bullhorn bullies.

Students who want the education their parents paid for are ignored as classes are either canceled or offered on a remote-only basis. 

But the comparison to the past only goes so far because there are fundamental differences in motivation.

The earlier uprising was driven by opposition to a war in Asia that produced a televised stream of American body bags and the panic of young men facing a military draft.