# What is the goal of student encampments in the US (re Gaza)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-goal-of-student-encampments-in-the-us-re-gaza/1001225>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Tags:** israel-hamas-war\
**Created:** [May 7, 2024, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-goal-of-student-encampments-in-the-us-re-gaza/1001225 "2024-05-07T13:22:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 19

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**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2024, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-goal-of-student-encampments-in-the-us-re-gaza/1001225/19 "2024-05-07T15:49:44Z")

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> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#):
>
> Yeah, this strikes me as a fundamentally unserious movement (which is not to say the students involved are not in earnest, just that they haven’t really thought about who has the power to do what, and what strategies would actually be effective at persuading those people). Which is true of the vast, vast majority of student protests, it’s just that this one is getting about 10,000x the media attention that most of them do.

Absolutely. I posted the following in another thread to put it in perspective:

> [@I support the cause of the pro-Palestinian protestors](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-support-the-cause-of-the-pro-palestinian-protestors/1000841/1):
>
> Second, a major motivating factor behind the protests spreading across college campuses is springtime. College students will go outside and protest anything given a popular motivation. Trying to crack down on such protests is counter-productive. That just provides further motivation as the protestors feel that their right to free speech is under attack. We are talking about young stupid people surging with hormones. They don’t understand that given a choice of liver and onions or lutefisk to eat that chanting “We want a cheesesteak!” is not going to result in a cheesesteak for dinner. The rest of us need to remember that we were once young and stupid too and didn’t know how conceive of productive, realistic compromises that provide solutions. But someone still has to apply the pressure to change the menu to include better choices, otherwise it’s too easy to complacently to sit and hope it gets better.

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