Written by Johnathan Taylor.

At a recent anti-Israel rally at New York University (NYU), two Columbia University students admitted their lack of understanding about the protest they eagerly joined. Captured on video, which went viral after being shared by Rudy Giuliani, one student confessed, “I think the main goal is just showing our support for Palestine and demanding that NYU stop… I honestly don’t know all of what NYU is doing.” This candid admission highlights a concerning trend of activism without awareness, sparking a broader debate about the motivations and knowledge behind such movements.

Their confusion was palpable, with one student turning to another for clarification and receiving only a similar expression of ignorance: “I wish I [were] more educated,” her friend lamented. This scene on the steps of NYU’s campus in downtown Manhattan raises questions about the effectiveness and sincerity of protests driven by participants who are unclear about their own cause.

Soros’s Strings: Funding the Movement

The intrigue deepens with the revelation that George Soros, through his Open Society Foundations, has been funding these protests on campuses across the nation. The New York Post uncovered that Soros’s foundations have given at least $300,000 since 2017 to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a group actively promoting these campus activities. USCPR, in turn, offers stipends to its fellows to organize “campaigns led by Palestinian organizations,” incentivizing the spread of their agenda.

Furthermore, the campus scene is both politically charged and comfortably catered, with protestors at Columbia’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” enjoying amenities such as delivery pizza, coffee from Dunkin’, and organic snacks—all while ostensibly supporting Palestine. This juxtaposition of casual campus life with intense political activism paints a complex picture of modern protest dynamics, where funding and support can sometimes obscure the underlying issues at stake.

Our Take

The unfolding drama at NYU and Columbia serves as a microcosm of a larger issue: activism influenced by significant funding and lacking in foundational knowledge. While supporting a cause is everyone’s right, understanding that cause is crucial to effecting genuine change. In this case, the mixture of high-level funding and low-level understanding creates a volatile cocktail that can dilute the very goals these protests aim to achieve. It is essential for future activists to be better informed and genuinely connected to their causes, rather than being puppeteered by powerful backers with their own agendas.