Anti-Israel protestors on some college campuses have engaged in clearly illegal behavior, including taking over buildings, building illegal encampments on school property (thereby denying its use to other students), restricting the freedom of movement of other students who disagree with their views, and even some physical violence. Some defenders of the protest have justified these illegal tactics by calling them civil disobedience.
Illegal actions can indeed be justified in some situations. But the tactics used by many anti-Israel protestors fail any plausible criteria for such. The laws they are violating are not unjust. The victims of the violations are almost entirely innocent people. The violations are highly unlikely to lead to improvements in government policy. And, finally, the protestors’ objectives are themselves unjust.
Martin Luther King and many others…
