There has been unceasing tension between Palestine and Israel supporters since the terrorist organization Hamas attacked on October 7. In the U.S., the pro-Israel marches that have taken place have been collected and tame. The pro-Palestinian protests, by contrast, have been full of anger, violence, and all sorts of chaos.

The most recent anti-Israel mob to walk the streets of Washington D.C. left Union Station, a popular city landmark, full of vandalism and the ashes of the American flag they burned. At this protest, police officers were attacked by some of the thousands that surrounded them. And any pro-Israel counter-protestor that dared to face the tsunami of Hamas sympathizers was, at the very least, met with intense verbal harassment. This demonstration was by no means the first of its kind, and presumably, it will not be the last. However, college students across the nation are gearing up to make a statement notably different than those that have taken place.

The anti-Israel protests that occurred on college campuses in the spring and throughout the first part of summer were utter pandemonium. Encampments sprang up, Jewish students were harassed, and campus buildings were broken into and seized by the terrorist enthusiasts. This fall, however, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) is organizing “a nationwide strike to demand universities divest from Israel.” And while there is no set date for when this next wave of protest will commence, it’s reportedly designed to encourage students to “disrupt campus life” by cutting class.

“Palestine and the current political moment around it is the most important movement in our lifetimes,” the YSDA resolution stated. “[S]tudents across the country are organizing for their schools to divest from Israel in the largest anti-war movement since 2003.” It went on to describe the “moment” as “exciting” and one that cannot be allowed to be “self-contained or fade away.”

Allegedly, the purpose of this adjusted strategy is to keep up the “momentum” regarding these pro-Palestinian protests. According to YDSA National Coordinating Committee member Erin Lawson, “No one can ignore large swathes of empty classrooms. … We need disruption — and a strike does just that. When students refuse to go to class, the university cannot function.” But the question remains: will these fall class strikes produce different results than the spring campus encampments? David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, doesn’t believe so.

It’s unlikely “this latest call to skip class will prompt any meaningful movement on the part of campus administrators,” he shared with The Washington Stand. “This call is just the latest in a decades-long movement known as the BDS movement — Boycott, Divest, and Sanction — that has been going on now for years.” It stands to reason that “those sympathetic with the Palestinian cause have sought to leverage influence for years against the state of Israel, with little to no effect.” As such, he speculated “these agitators are simply trying another technique that likely will inconvenience campus life, but prompt very little practical effect.”

But what Closson described as “a lamentable fact of American life” is how, as evidenced by the spring campus protests, there “are very few consequences for holding patently anti-Semitic viewpoints or engaging in conduct that threatens the lives of Jewish students.” And Closson predicted that the same will be true of whatever unfolds in the upcoming fall semester.

Ultimately, he argued, “It seems that anti-Semitism is one of the few remaining racist ideologies that people are allowed to hold and get away with.” And “for those who have tracked these issues for many years, the BDS movement is not new.” And yet, “It does increasingly appear that anti-Israel agitators are becoming more aggressive in their advocacy and in their demonstrations against Israel.”

However, Closson noted that Christians shouldn’t be surprised by these developments. As he put it, “[A]nti-Semitism, whether in the pronouncements of Haman or Hitler, does not seem to ever truly die. I’m under no illusion that the late spring protests we witnessed at the conclusion of the most recent school year will continue in some form on American college campuses, particularly elite college campuses.”

But according to Closson, there is a biblical response to this. “Christians should expect anti-Israel, anti-Jewish protests,” he said. At the same time, “while we recognize that every person, including protesters, are made in God’s image, Christians ought to be the people that speak the truth in love and condemn anti-Semitism wherever it may be found.” He concluded that “we should also be the people that look to stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters, letting them know that the Christian community stands squarely with them as their very identity is threatened and called into question.”