Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confronts pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia.

 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson at Columbia. Politico/AFP/Getty.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confronted pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University. Politico. Johnson announced that he said he would call Joe Biden to send in the National Guard to break up the protests. Speaking over the protesters heckling him, Johnson said that the protests did not count as free speech and criticized the president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, for being weak and ineffectual. He is joined by his criticism of Shafik by many other Republicans and at least one Democrat, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. The protests at Columbia have lasted a week and have spread to other campuses across the country. There have been incidents of outright antisemitism at the Columbia protests. 

 

My Comment:

I've got mixed feelings about this. I think Mike Johnson was pretty obviously trying to distract against the fact that Ukraine aid got passed. That was hugely unpopular among the Republican base, especially since Johnson didn't secure any border security measures. Taking on the Columbia protesters is a very good way to get that out of the news. 

With that being said, I do think the Columbia protesters do need to be confronted. They have been acting terribly to the Jews on campus and it's clear that they aren't protesting Israel's actions in Gaza, they are protesting the existence of Jews themselves. That's absolutely not acceptable and the protests need to be broken up.

Is Johnson right that this protest isn't protected under the 1st Amendment? I would believe so. Protest is protected under free speech but civil disorder is not. Occupying campus and preventing people from using it goes beyond simple protest and harassing Jews on campus is disorderly conduct at best and a hate crime at worst. 

That being said, I am concerned about free speech when it comes to Israel and Judaism. I don't support bans on the ideas that the protesters spout, as misguided and inaccurate they are. I also don't support laws about denying the Holocaust or other similar laws against antisemitism, people should be able to say whatever they want whenever they want. 

Regardless, I think there is a huge difference in how this is being handled at Columbia and other campuses compared to what happened at UT-Austin today. When an unlawful protest broke out there, police didn't waste time in breaking it up. The protest was disrupted and the leadership was arrested. Compare that to other campuses where the protests have lasted weeks. 

I haven't made a secret of my disdain for left wing protests in general and the pro-Hamas position specifically. These protests are absolutely pointless as Israel does not care at all what happens on American campuses, at least in terms of foreign policy. They do care about the Jewish students being threatened, but they absolutely aren't going to stop their war on Hamas regardless of what happens at college campuses in America. 

I think the idea is to put pressure on Joe Biden which also seems pointless. Biden no longer has any influence on Israel's actions, which is proven by their strike on Iran and their refusal to change their war plans. Any change in foreign policy by Biden won't actually do anything to stop the war in Israel. It could be this could be another effort for the progressive left to take over the Democrats, but that seems pointless when they basically have done so already. Biden, instead of shifting to the center, has gone hard left outside of his Israeli policy, so there isn't much of a point. 

As I have mentioned before, Biden is in a no-win scenario here. If he goes hard against the pro-Hamas wing of his party, he risks losing them, and he has indeed lost quite a few of them already. If he goes in their favor he risks losing Jews for Democrats for good. He has no good options and no matter what he chooses he will be hurt for 2024. Which side will he choose? I am not sure, both options are bad for him. I'd hope that he would side against the protesters but who knows what he will do? I doubt even Biden knows...