Despite all the hysteria in the punditry about campus protests against the war in Gaza, by and large, the student activists have been peaceful. Even at Columbia University, where an ill-advised police crackdown caused an inevitably angry reaction from protesters that led to a building occupation, this has been true. As former Washington Post journalist Paul Waldman explained in his newsletter, "People who have actually reported from the protests (see here or here) have by and large found them to be well-behaved." The vast majority of scary, violent images stem not from the protesters themselves, Waldman argues, but from the police crackdowns. "At the universities where the administrators had the sense to just let the students have their say, there has been almost no violence."
As the cable news has breathlessly covered, there was violence this week at UCLA. But even then, it was not the leftist protesters to blame, but a gang of far-right counter-protesters who rushed in and started to attack students. As ABC 7 reported, violence only broke out "when counter-protesters tried to break down the encampment." Unfortunately, this was framed by much of the media as "clashes" between protesters and the right-wing assailants. Any good faith reading of the situation is clear: The far-right demonstrators stormed the encampment and started the violence. The student protesters were defending themselves.
