By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

There is no shortage of condemnation right now for pro-Palestinian students encamped at Australian and American universities.

Across our comfortably grey-haired media and politics, these young activists are belittled as entitled dreamers, extremists and radicals. They are accused variously of engaging in hate-speech or of being prone to manipulation and naïve about historical details.

But imagine, for a moment, the obverse. Imagine if the university campuses of liberal democracies had remained completely silent, their students unmoved through seven months of West-enabled displacement of a million-plus Gazan civilians and the deaths of some 34,000 – many of them, children.

What, given the proud locomotive power of political ‘demmos’ and sit-ins, would such indifference say? It is, when you think about it, almost unthinkable.

To be sure, some of the students’ words and actions in solidarity with a beleaguered people, have been ill-conceived, and tactically unwise. At their worst, they have been morally indefensible.

Expressing unqualified support for Hamas is both – bone-headed and utterly wrong. No credible case for human rights can begin with the accommodation of a misogynist death cult inimical to secular governance and pledged to the eradication of a neighbour.

Nor can such a cause proceed on the basis of abuse and persecution of that other people – even here in Australia.

Openly siding with the aims of a terrorist group merely does the Israel lobby’s work for it. This lobby has made an art form of conflating criticism of the Jewish state with anti-Semitism, including even, criticism of Israel’s extreme right-wing government. And the lobby has similarly conflated support for Palestinian statehood with rewarding terrorism.

This dishonest approach has had the chilling effect intended, dissuading many Australian politicians and public figures from speaking up strongly for Palestinians lest they be depicted as anti-Jewish and apologists for political violence.

So, for a student spokesperson to unreservedly support Hamas and its toxic aims, however wild and unrepresentative such views may be, merely gives substance to the lobby’s complaint.

Other comments though, are more in the realm of intent and interpretation. Israel’s supporters argue fiercely that the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” operates as a call for genocide, because it proposes the obliteration of an Israeli state. This may be true for some who utter the words but not for others. In any event, for Israel, which insists on the narrowest of legal definitions of genocide to exclude its material actions in Gaza, it suggests something of a double-standard. Does it need to be pointed out that Israel, as an occupying power, itself already extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea? Or that it does not merely talk about denial of Palestinian statehood but actively prevents it?

Student support for “intifada” has also enflamed Israeli umbrage based on an interpretation of the term as essentially code for terrorism. Again, there is some substance to this complaint given that past deadly attacks have been mounted against Jews as part of an intifada.

But the Arabic term actually means “uprising” or “resistance” and therefore can apply to anything from non-violent non-cooperation through to direct acts of vandalism, assault and murder.

It is probable that student protestors using these terms vary in both their understanding and intent, just as it is obvious that calls to silence them rely on their most pernicious interpretations.

These are difficult issues for lawmakers, universities and commentators to differentiate, and anyone weighing in does so knowing their conclusions will be misrepresented.

In any event, it seems important to me that we not lose sight here of the fluid dynamics, social utility and multiple perspectives of youthful protest.

As I have noted in these pages before, many past protests which were condemned in their day, have in fact been vindicated by history. And it is worth remembering that these generally spontaneous campaigns invariably gave rise to a mixture of measured and responsible public statements, and undisciplined hyperbolic exhortations.

This ‘wildness’ is in their nature. It is unreasonable to expect episodic resistance movements to adopt the saccharine language and anodyne message discipline of governments and corporations.

Think of the suffragettes campaigning for women’s democratic participation, land rights marchers, environmental blockades used to save the Gordon below Franklin and other habitats, and human rights campaigners standing up heroically to authoritarian governments the world over.

In each case, so-called “extremists” willing to challenge power, to disrupt order, and to put themselves at risk of physical harm and criminal prosecution, were first vilified and then vindicated by history.

There is a sense in which they protested loudly, so that the rest of us didn’t have to.

Does protest typically involve a degree of single-mindedness easily dismissed as fanaticism? Undoubtedly. But we are a better, freer and richer society for these discordant actions which shook us out of our torpor, exposed our convenient hypocrisies, and aimed for something higher.

To its considerable credit, Australia recently broke ranks with a captive American establishment to support a resolution stipulating “the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations” consistent with its charter rules.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong rightly justified the move as “the opposite of what Hamas wants”. Hallelujah.

Did university protest unlock this change of policy? Probably not, but if you fall into the snooty chorus of contempt for students’ rights to take a stand, let me ask you a question: would you prefer their doleful compliance? Would you have them muzzled?

There are plenty of countries to choose from where this is enforced by law.

Their number is growing all the time.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.