In the waning days of 1968, as the Tet Offensive raged in Vietnam, a profound shift began taking hold in American public consciousness. What had been branded an unfortunate but necessary police action devolved into an unrestrained abattoir – a military quagmire without moral coherence or strategic logic beyond perpetuating its own perpetual stalemate of violence.
Gruesome footage of civilian massacres like My Lai seeped into living rooms across the nation. Caskets bearing the remains of young draftees returned home in solemn processions, the human toll of an increasingly incomprehensible conflict rendered palpably visceral. A new generation raised on Jeffersonian ideals of democracy and self-determination began questioning why their brothers, classmates and neighbors were laying down their lives to subjugate a faraway people simply clamoring for independence.
On campuses nationwide, a mass mobilization of student activism coalesced to denounce the escalating atrocities. A heady admixture of countercultural revolt and radical politics fermented grassroots opposition to the war through protests, teach-ins and resistance campaigns urging draftees to desert. An ascendant anti-war movement drew moral strength from the civil rights struggle’s era of civic unrest – the notion that principled mass dissent could catalyze societal awakening struck an inspirational chord.
Over a half-century later, history appears poised to echo those fading refrains of 1968 anew. Only this time, the killing fields fueling global outrage are not halfway across the world, but along the besieged Gaza Strip. And the stark images of civilian carnage are not transmitted through the detached medium of television broadcasts, but unfurl in real-time over social media – sounds and sights of hellfire amplified through each retweet and viral share.
On October 7th of this year, another ill-conceived military offensive unleashed unforeseen consequences and set a new cycle of fury into motion. What began as a limited raid into southern Israel by Gaza’s al-Qassam Brigades rapidly devolved into a harrowing spree of violence. Within hours, Israeli military positions had collapsed in disarray and Palestinian militias found themselves inadvertently advancing on unprepared civilian populations – a series of massacres ensued as militants came into contact with unsuspecting kibbutzim residents and a Negev music festival.
The Israeli government’s response to this operational nadir played out with Homeric savagery. In a feverish bid to restore deterrence, the Israeli Defense Forces embarked on a systematic seven-month demolition campaign against Gaza that reduced entire neighborhoods to apocalyptic rubble. Hospitals were bombed, schools flattened, even ancient cultural heritage sites pulverized in a scorched earth offensive that will undoubtedly be remembered as a 21st century iteration of the Siege of Sarajevo in terms of its unrelenting brutality.
While officially targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, Israel’s air and artillery barrages displayed a callous disregard for civilian life that claimed thousands of non-combatant casualties. And just as during episodes like the Sabra and Shatila massacres, Israel’s reprisals had little regard for the fact that Gaza’s packed urban environs ensured any protracted onslaught would take a devastating toll on the trapped population.
Images of bombed-out playgrounds, children’s corpses arranged in neat rows in makeshift morgues, and inconsolable parents mourning entire families vaporized in their homes – such abhorrent iconography ricocheted across the global digital sphere and ignited a firestorm of outrage. If the goal was deterrence, instead the Gaza offensive merely served to galvanize international opinion against the Israeli government.
Much as Vietnam catalyzed a generational awakening against American interventionism abroad, the Gaza War appears to have struck a profound moral nerve with Gen Z activists whose political consciousnesses took shape during the Arab Spring, Great Recession, Me Too reckoning and other seminal movements centered on human rights, equity and democratic empowerment. Perhaps more so than any previous cohort, the current wave of student protesters cut their teeth in an era acutely sensitized to asymmetries of power and the wanton suffering of civilians in military conflicts shaped by Cold War hangover thinking.
And just as the civil rights and anti-war struggles of the 1960s provided a unifying framework for intersectional solidarity across progressive causes, the Palestinians’ plight under occupation and blockade has emerged as a similar rallying point to coalesce today’s burgeoning youth-led activist ecosystem. With corporations and universities maintaining investments, research ties or other affiliations with Israel’s military-industrial complex, Gaza has become a powerful symbol around which to mount disruptive protests and sanctions campaigns.
At Columbia University, a sprawling tent camp encampment sprung up in October to oppose the school’s links to Israeli defense contractors, swiftly galvanizing like-minded insurrections across the Ivy League. Yale students stormed a construction site and halted the opening of a new campus building named for an Israeli defense company CEO. Harvard activists launched a labor strike targeting the school’s investment portfolio, blocking key administrative chokepoints for weeks.
Indicating just how expansive the unrest has become, other elite institutions like Stanford, Cornell, NYU, USC and Duke have all experienced tumultuous demonstrations in recent months opposing their financial and research ties to the Israeli military-industrial complex. As was the case in 1968, the ivy-covered quads of America’s most prestigious universities have emerged as cataclysmic flashpoints in academia’s anti-war insurrection.
Beyond the campus protests, the Gaza War has catalyzed a broader reawakening of the Palestinian solidarity movement worldwide. Grassroots boycott and divestment campaigns have gained steam, with activists disrupting events and pressuring corporations, cultural institutions and celebrities to sever ties with Israel. Consumer boycotts of companies like SodaStream, anchored by viral social media campaigns, have dealt tangible financial blows.
On the political front, stalwart pro-Israel lawmakers have faced unexpectedly fierce primary challenges from progressive insurgents capturing the anti-war zeitgeist. Once a third-rail issue, sympathy for the Palestinian cause has gained surprising mainstream acceptance among Gen Z and young millennial voters, posing an existential threat to the Democratic Party’s traditional unconditional support for Israeli government policies. Growing polarization over the conflict has opened a chasm within the party that will only widen heading into the 2024 elections.
Of course, no historical comparisons are perfect. The Palestinian struggle differs in numerous aspects from the anti-colonial revolutionary movements of the 20th century that inspired widespread sympathy among 1960s activists. Hamas and other Gaza factions retain theocratic, anti-democratic elements that have alienated certain liberal and leftist factions. The lack of unifying figurehead akin to Ho Chi Minh, coupled with power struggles and territorial rivalries between Palestinian groups, has hindered a cohesive global branding campaign.
But what the Gaza resistance and its allies have undeniably replicated is not necessarily the aesthetic iconography of past antiwar mobilizations, but rather the core dynamic of catalyzing grassroots outrage powerful enough to puncture mainstream political complacency. The paradigm-shifting impact of unsparing combat footage from a lopsided conflict humanizing civilian suffering. And perhaps most crucially, sparking moral awakenings across an entire ascending activist generation energized by cries of injustice against seemingly hopeless odds.
Just as the haunting images of martyred students at Kent State and Orangeburg galvanized opposition to Vietnam, or the summary executions of protesters like Neda Agha-Soltan electrified Iran’s Green Movement, the impassioned Palestinian appeals for intervention over Gaza’s smoking ruins have found global resonance. In an interconnected digital age, people anywhere can now bear virtual witness to the plumes of smoke from razed residential blocks in real-time – each scene of devastation a potential catalyst ready to ignite the next localized wave of unrest.
The viral clip of a bereaved Palestinian father cradling his lifeless young daughters killed by shrapnel has already become such a spark and generational touchstone, searing itself into the online consciousnesses of millions. An immortalized digital Guernica for the 21st century permanently archived in social media’s indifferent vault of horror – a fount of images potent enough to resonate across continents and compel even the most detached to frustrated action.
Where this latest incarnation of the global anti-war groundswell goes from here remains uncertain. The frustrating inertia of the Israeli government and its American benefactors suggests advocates should steel themselves for a protracted slog aimed at reforming the institutions and power structures that have long enabled the regional status quo. As Vietnam’s conscripts were withdrawn in 1973 but bombing missions continued, the work of untangling the Gordian geopolitical knot of Gaza will likely require an even more grueling long-haul mobilization.
What seems indisputable, however, is that the anti-war movement has entered a new phase of grim immediacy and intensified unrest worldwide. Just as 1968 disabused the previous generation of American stewards about the wisdom of meddling in foreign revolutions, 2023’s protest reignition could prove the millennial left’s collective disillusionment over the futility of U.S. adventurism in the Middle East.
When reflecting on the cascading waves of youth-fueled revolt encircling Gaza over the past year, the question must be asked – if this is still merely the beginning of a new global dissent, what greater upheavals lie ahead? Perhaps foreshadowed in the Gaza Strip’s blasted corridors lies a sprawling anti-war conflagration still smoldering in the embers, awaiting only a strong enough gust to ignite the inferno anew.
| The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Al-Sarira. |
