On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization

by Douglas Murray

But two further aspects of the protesters’ behavior stood out. The first was the idea that chanting something repeatedly, day in and day out, might achieve something. Many of the protesters shouted themselves hoarse by chanting “From the River to the Sea” and similar slogans. What is interesting about this is that it is the absolute antithesis of what communication in a university is meant to be about. Academic life is meant to be about reasoning, winning arguments with facts and persuasion. What the protesters were doing was the opposite of such communication. At the same time they were demanding that the American and Israeli governments should do what they want, they were communicating their message by a form of intellectual bludgeoning. It was as though to say a thing again and again might, in time, force the people they were trying to persuade to change their minds. That is an odd art of persuasion, for it expects not a change of mind but a demand that another person accept their attitudes. It is like hitting someone over the head repeatedly. But it is not intended to persuade. It is intended to beat another party into submission. The second aspect of the protests that were interesting was the way in which the protesters aped one aspect of the behavior of Hamas at a lower level of violence. At the campuses where police were deployed, it seemed that the students wanted the police to harm them—or at least harm the student next to them. This was a version of the radicalis...