Why is pro-Palestinian rhetoric so offensive? The consequences for the university presidents and the public, and how to confront the repressive response
It looked clear to her that she was referring to the common pro-Palestinian rhetoric and trying to get the university presidents to sign on to it. Doing so would be an egregious violation of free speech. After all, even if you’re disgusted by slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” their meaning is contested in a way that, say, “Gas the Jews” is not. The presidents of the universities found themselves in a no-win situation and walked into a public relations disaster.
It seems that we are most vulnerable to a repressive response when people are scared and angry. That’s a lesson of Sept. 11, but also of much of the last decade, when the policing of speech in academia escalated in ways that are now coming back to bite the left.