Socialists, non-students, activists emerge as leaders of anti-Israel protests on campuses
May 3, 2024
As college campuses nationwide are wracked by anti-Israel protests – sometimes violent – socialists and non-students are emerging as leaders, even if they were not previously affiliated with the Palestinian cause.
Many of the chants on Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus this week were led by Matthew Smith, a freshman majoring in physics who told Just the News that he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and is trying to start a Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter at Fordham.
“There is only one solution – intifada revolution,” Smith said while waving a flag and directing a crowd of demonstrators outside of the entrance to Fordham. “Intifada,” the Arabic word for “uprising,” is commonly used to refer to two periods of violent uprisings of Palestinians in Israel. The eras are marked by suicide bombings and the deaths of more than 5,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) says that the Arabic word “intifada” translates to “uprising” or “shaking off.”
Smith, who told Just the News that he does not “have any roots in Palestine,” nor has he ever visited the region, said that intifada “literally just means revolution,” and that “revolution can mean violence, but there’s also been peaceful intifada.”
Although Smith led chants until his voice was hoarse during the protest Wednesday, he did not organize the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which formed around 8 a.m. Wednesday in Lowenstein Hall at Fordham. The original organizer of the event appears to have been Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that the school never actually gave recognition to, despite a long legal battle to do so.