You would all but have to be living under a rock in recent weeks to have missed the nationwide campus protests over the Middle East war.

Ever since Oct. 7, when some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were murdered by Hamas terrorists in an attack on Israeli soil, the temperature in the Middle East increased quite a bit. An already touchy region of the world was made even more unstable by this unprovoked act.

As someone who has followed Middle East politics for several decades, I know as many others do that the issue regarding the Palestinians and where they should be living is not a simple solution.

While I fully support the ability of the Palestinians to live free and govern themselves, those running Gaza do not have the best interests in mind of the people there. Hamas terrorists have other interests in mind, most notably how they can best go about inflicting harm on those in Israel.

As for Israel, I fully stand with the Jewish people and their right to live free of terrorism and hatred at home, throughout the Middle East, and the world for that matter. That said, you can’t displace more than one million people and expect there to be no issues. Israel needs to work with its neighbors (not the terrorists) to find a solution to the Palestinian issue.

Sadly, this issue has not been solved for decades and won’t be anytime soon.

College officials must be held accountable to the fullest extent for losing control

As hot as things are in the Middle East, temperatures have been inflamed on many college and university campuses here in the U.S.

While there have been many peaceful and well-meaning protests nationwide supporting the people of Gaza, some protests crossed the line.

The arrests of students, staff and even some outside agitators at Columbia, North Carolina, UCLA and so on has made headlines in recent days.

Take for example Columbia University, where a number of people had broken into campus property and barricaded themselves inside. Why was this allowed to happen in the first place?

The simple answer is you have a school president appeasing the mob (not the peaceful protestors). When you do not fully demonstrate that certains actions have consequences, some will take advantage of the situation. It wan’t until New York Police Department officers were finally called in by school officials that order was restored.

The bottom line is a fair and yet firm policy from day one would have lessened chances of this law-breaking activity in the first place.

Any student participating in taking over/vandalizing campus property should be expelled immediately. Any staff or faculty having participated in the same actions should be given their pink slip. Protestors should be given a section of campus where they can speak for a period of time about what is going on in Gaza. Once that time has elapsed, they must move on. That means no overnight encampments etc.

With summer little more than a month away, are we going to be in for a summer of unrest like in 2020?

Even though many college campuses go dark for the most part other than summer classes, a fair number of these schools are accessible to the general public by foot. While many buildings may be closed and locked for summertime break, countless other areas of schools are not closed off to the public nor should they be.

Some students being denied enjoyment of graudation once again

USC announced recently it was cancelling its main day graduation ceremonies set for this month, though smaller individual school ceremonies were still planned to take place.

It is important to remember that some of those scheduled to graduate this spring were robbed of their high school commencement ceremonies due to COVID. For them, missing out on another graduation ceremony is like a second punch to the gut.

With the issue in the Middle East not going away anytime soon, we can likely expect more protests and even the potential for more unrest on some school campuses nationwide.

At the end of the day, it is critical for campus officials to send a clear-cut message to students, staff and others.

While you have every right to peacefully protest for a period of time, you do not have the right to intimidate others and/or hijack and vandalize campus property.

The question then becomes, will the message get through?

Photo credit: Natali Gonzalez