Near my home in Silver Spring, Md., there is a dark side road. It has stayed this way, free of street lights or other illumination, because residents have fastidiously worked to maintain the “foresty feel” of the area. Yet, many nights, as I’ve walked along that pitch black road to visit my friend’s house at the end, I couldn’t help but note that it was simply waiting for an accident to happen, enjoining someone to get critically injured before things could really change. Today as well, we all — members of the Penn community — are groping our way down the pitch black road of life on this shared campus and waiting for something bad to happen. Only then will administrators be able to properly light up the way before us and demonstrate the moral clarity we all so desperately need.
Indeed, congratulations are in order for Penn, which has now joined a long line of universities too timid to actionably respond to the demonstrations engulfing campuses around the country for what they are: a call to violence and a subversion of the free speech ideals we all strive to embody.
With the construction of a pro-Palestinian encampment on College Green, students (and presumably outside organizers) have capitalized on the ultimately non-committal stance of administrators — and illustrated a masterclass on how to loudly return to campus after being previously barred due to flagrant violations of campus policy.
These students have aligned themselves with Penn Against the Occupation and are the same ones who occupied Houston Hall, posted photos of projections of antisemitic statements onto various campus buildings, and participated in a Philadelphia march through campus that vandalized campus buildings and local businesses.
All this to say, we are currently dealing with protestors who have time and time again made their intentions and methods clear, yet continue to receive fourth chances to redeem themselves after disregarding red lines in the past.
As encampment protestors ran various programs throughout their first day, chants also rang out: “You wanna know what we say about Israelis? They're pigs" and "There is only one solution, intifada revolution." Similarly, the Ben Franklin statue was spray painted with the phrase “Zios get fuckt”.
Some significant organizations have also thankfully come to support the encampment’s cause. This past week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made clear that he found the pushback students have been receiving on campus over their activism "deeply worrying." Similarly, Hamas spokesperson Bassem Naim was fully supportive of the students on campus who were refuting “the Zionist narrative.”
When a terrorist group and sworn American enemy aligns itself with your movement, it necessitates serious introspection, and when all the dust settles, I question whether I would want to be the student who answered the Ayatollah’s call to action.
Even after Interim President Larry Jameson announced that the encampment was in violation of University protocol and must disband, they have refused to leave. I commend Jameson’s announcement and the courage it takes to clear-headedly stare down the encampment, but the administration has unfortunately not had the inner fortitude to act on their well founded objections. Why is Penn making room for “harassing and intimidating comments and actions by some of the protesters?” Why do they choose to negotiate with those who “disrupt and intimidate?” I can only hope this policy changes in the near future.
As a Wall Street Journal editorial succinctly noted this past week, “Those who once claimed speech is violence now claim violence is speech.” Activists, who for a long time have tried to walk a fine line by entirely barring professors and outside speakers from campus because they want to share ideas deemed dangerous or represent unfavorable ideologies, are now attempting to cloak themselves in the same principles of free speech, even as their protests descend into truly aggressive tactics and the intimidating language seen above.
Enough is enough. Students cannot try to have their cake and eat it too. Jameson, give us the proverbial street lights Locust Walk needs. Hold this encampment to the same reasonable standard you would hold any protest that touched on race or gender and actually shut down these protestors who have had their chance before and flouted the rules over and over, knowing nothing would be done. Listening sessions are good. Genuine class discussions are better. But occupying spaces on campus is performative and counterproductive to real progress on the issues that divide us so bitterly.
I am a Zionist and, to them, that makes me a pig.
I am a student who wants to engage with thoughtful protestors, not those who make use of terrorist symbols.
I come from a family that has been pushed out of countries and organizations before and am not interested in letting myself join that chain again.
Welcome to the mediocrity of equivocation: I hope we can all learn to enjoy it.
AKIVA BERKOWITZ is an Engineering junior studying computer science from Silver Spring, Md. His email is akivab@sas.upenn.edu.
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