The campus protesters are not the first generation of Western activists who have championed movements that promised liberation in theory and misery and murder in practice.
Imagine that the campus protesters got their wish tomorrow: not just “ceasefire now” in the Gaza Strip, but the creation of a “free Palestine”. How free would that future Palestine be?
This isn’t a speculative question. Palestinians have had a measure of self-rule in the West Bank since Yasser Arafat entered Gaza in 1994. Israel evacuated its settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority that same year and Hamas won legislative elections the next.
Loading...
Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times.
