It's exciting times for the unthinking Left. Across the country (indeed, across the West), university campuses are erupting with the same kind of protest. Nominally, Israel/Palestine is the narrative of these protests. But I am warning here that American students are actually the targets.

Tent cities have been hurriedly constructed on college quadrangles (this was a methodology in the 1980s as well, when we protested investment in then-apartheid South Africa via campus "shantytowns", as they were called then). Students are driven by a range of motivations — ranging from sincere idealism, as many from all backgrounds watch the bombardment and starvation of Gaza with horror; boredom — a generation which has grown up on its phone, finally has a battle, replete with heroes and villains, risk and tactics, exciting enough 'IRL' to compete with Mortal Kombat; and ignorance, as naive students who have no knowledge of the complexities of the agony of Israel/Palestine's conflict, credulously mouth reductive, inflammatory slogans, including "We are Hamas", "Intifada Now" and "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free." Students more knowledgeable and compassionate could as easily call for a ceasefire; for peace talks; and for all sides to obey the international rules of war.