Not your grandma’s Democratic Convention

Given the past 10 months, it is reasonable to expect that there will potentially be large and possibly violent demonstrations regarding Israel, the Palestinians, and US policy toward the state of Israel outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It is equally likely that these demonstrations will be compared by the media and others to those that took place at the same convention in the same city in 1968. 

While there are similarities between the two movements, including anti-war sentiment – in 1968 regarding the Vietnam War and today regarding Israel’s war with Hamas – the differences are far more significant, and it is important to preemptively address them before the convention. 

The anti-Vietnam War protests, which in Chicago turned violent, were directed at our political leaders. The protesters claimed the war was a mistake, unnecessarily costing American lives and taxpayer dollars, and inflicting huge suffering on the people of Vietnam. 

Whatever one’s views on the war then, there was a legitimacy to the protests because, with the exception of the convention, they were largely peaceful and did not target any particular group of Americans, other than our political leadership that had brought us into the war. 

While today’s pro-Palestinian protests do share the anti-Vietnam anger towards the governing party and opposition to US support for Israel, they are radically different because of the significant hate component that has characterized these protests since October 7.  

The differences manifest in three ways. First, has been the explicit or tacit support of the terrorism of October 7. Long before Israel took action to defend itself, protestors were either rationalizing or actually supporting Hamas’s terrorism. The phrase “by any means necessary” appeared almost immediately at the protests. Explicit support for Hamas has remained an element in the protests ever since. 

Second, has been the persistent theme of delegitimizing the Jewish state leading to calls for Israel’s disappearance as reflected in the phrase “from the river to the sea.” Other manifestations of this are false references to Israel as an apartheid state as well as the genocide charge, and with it calls to boycott the Jewish state. These are not about policy disagreements but hate, things that were absent in the vehement protests in 1968. 

Third, and in many ways most significant in distinguishing between what is happening now as opposed to 1968, is the targeting by the current protests of a particular community within the United States. In their attacks on Zionism, the focus has inevitably fallen on the vast majority of American Jews, resulting, in many cases, in the exclusion of Jews from social justice, literary, artistic and other movements in which they have long participated.

This targeting of a particular community was nowhere to be seen in the 1968 protests, and this type of antisemitism is of a kind that hasn’t been seen in decades. 

Most consequentially, the rhetoric of today’s demonstrations has catalyzed the largest number of antisemitic incidents in America in years. For close to a year, the nonstop protests against Israel on campuses and elsewhere have inevitably generated not only hostility toward Israel but also an excuse to attack Jews in America. This has led to a 300 percent rise in antisemitic incidents and increased anxiety among American Jews. Whether it is on campus or out in the community, attacks on Jews have dramatically increased across the country and Jews are feeling more insecure than they have in years.

In sum, while the tradition of demonstrations at national political meetings is part and parcel of American democracy, it should be clear that the current anti-Israel manifestations have very little in common with past examples, particularly those of 1968.