Amid unrest on campus, thinking about a different time | Herald Community Newspapers

By Howard Kopel

An aphorism often attributed to Mark Twain states: “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Readers of a certain age will, like me, remember the upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s. Recent events have made me reflect on the similarities and differences between today’s “student protests” and those of yesteryear.

Fortunately, the protests we see now have not (yet) evolved into the horrific bombings and other crimes we witnessed in the days of the Weather Underground and other similar groups. The Weather Underground took “credit” for as many as 25 terrorist bombings in this country. Other similar groups existed around the world at the time, including the Red Brigades of Germany, the Japanese Red Army, and others in the United States and abroad.

The 1970s saw many plane hijackings, ending the era when you could walk to your plane gate without any security checks. If this seems strange to younger readers, watch an older romantic comedy where the foolish lover chases the sobbing girl onto the plane!

Particularly in the 1970s, the various Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestine Liberation Organization and others, became particularly active.

During those years, most of the unrest focused on the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War, and was often led by college students unhappy with U.S. policies. Politically motivated violence resulted in the murder of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by a white supremacist, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy by a Palestinian unhappy with Kennedy’s support for Israel. Students staged takeovers of many university offices and buildings, and demonstrations became increasingly violent.

The current unrest centers on Israel’s fight against Hamas terrorists. The violence has not yet reached the levels it reached in the 1970s, but beware! In the 1970s, student groups were eventually infiltrated by radical elements who in turn radicalized some of the students. We hear numerous reports today that a significant number of so-called student protesters are in fact paid, professional agitators who coach and train the students.

This is where the comparisons of the two eras become frightening. As I write this, I hear that more and more colleges have canceled live classes and switched to distance learning. Others have canceled graduation ceremonies. This takes me back to my own college days, when part of a semester was canceled in 1971 and every student was given a “pass” instead of a grade.

I’m not suggesting that we’re necessarily heading for a repeat of the bad old days of the ’60s and ’70s; there are important differences in the causes of the problems and other factors. According to surveys, the war between Israel and Hamas is not a major political concern for most people on both sides of the political divide. No American soldiers are involved or likely to be involved in the fighting. The country as a whole does not appear to support the takeover of the schools.

However, the similarities are certainly worrying, and one of the scariest expressions in the English language is, “This time it’s different.” We must be vigilant and ensure that the chaos does not spread. We must be careful not to spread the latent anti-Semitic poison that seems to be the true motive of some of the instigators of our current problems.

I remain optimistic that the unrest we are currently witnessing will eventually calm down, that cooler heads will prevail, and that there will be compromises and reconciliation that will allow us to return to a sense of normality. Our country has faced many crises throughout history. Somehow we have managed to survive difficult times like these, and I believe we will continue to do so now and in the future.

Howard Kopel represents Nassau County’s 7th Legislative District and is the Presiding Officer of the Legislature.