Campus Protests: Analyzing The Ineffective Tactics Used By Pro-Palestine Protesters

By Dr. Tom H. HastingsPhotos: Wikimedia CommonsIn my town, I am periodically confronted by activists who wreck stuff, throw things at cops, smash windows, and claim to be strategic and effective. Yeah, no.What they cite as evidence is, “Well, here we are, months later, and we are still talking about it. That’s effective.”Um, sorry. Virtually all the talk revolves around “Geez, that was horrible. How do we prevent anything like this happening again?” That is not effective.Organizers of protests should ask themselves at virtually every decision point: how will this affect recruitment to either our numbers of supporters and allies or our direct participants or both?This exact thing happened on the campus where I teach, and the results have been instructive. Students began to act to demand that the university stop any relationship with Boeing, since Boeing is a war contractor supplying Israel and Israel has been slaughtering children in the name of self-defense.Good for you, students. All colleges and universities should figure out how to stop supporting any murderous regime, from Russia to Israel to Venezuela to Iran to Sudan and on. What are the investments made by the Boards of Trustees? This business should be transparent so students...