Will This Fall Erupt in New Pro-Palestinian Violence?

Palestinian activists are huddling this weekend to devise the "next phase" of their protests

Radical Palestinians are planning and moving again on multiple fronts, raising the question: will we experience a violent fall semester on college campuses, in workplaces, in our places of worship and on our streets?

The answer appears to be yes.

On this Labor Day weekend, the nation’s top Palestinian and pro-Hamas strategists are gathering in Detroit, Michigan. We should pay attention as they plan for what they call the “next phase” of their campaign against Israel and against Jews.

We saw a glimmering of this incipient uptick over this week.

On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian radicals stormed and occupied the Redmond, Washington offices of Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president. All were arrested and the two Microsoft employees were fired.

The protesters surveilled the company’s executive offices to determine how they could break into Smith’s office. And they placed “listening devices” in the offices to spy on the president and his top assistants.

Seven protesters were arrested there while others loudly demonstrated outside the Microsoft campus and carried signs that said, “Join the Worker Intifada.” And of course, Abdo Mohomad, a former Microsoft employee and their leader spoke wearing a face mask along with a Kaffiyeh covering everything except for his eyes. The look was intimidating.

Smith in a news conference he held in his office after the protesters were arrested described the protester’s MO: “When obviously seven folks did what they did today, storm the building, occupy the office, lock other people out of the office, plant listening devices….that’s not OK. When they were asked to leave and they refused, that’s not OK,” Smith said.

This kind of protests involved violence and were direct attempts at intimidation of the top executives at the high tech company. Microsoft, like many technology companies have contracts with the Israeli government.

Regretfully, these were tactics reminiscent of the New Left. It was particularly encouraged by the self-styled revolutionary activist Saul Alinsky who sort of served as the New Left’s guru. He counseled political radicals, including myself, in the 1970’s.

We may soon see Alinsky’s tactics in the shape of new strategies now being hatched by anti-Israel activists. The Detroit strategy conference this weekend is called the “People’s Conference for Palestine.”

The organizers are upfront in saying they seek to organize a set of new, national militant anti-Israel protest actions across the country. On their website, the People’s Conference urges anti-Israel activists to “join us to strategize, prepare, and utilize the existing skills and capacity of our movement in this next phase of struggle.”

It’s quite unclear what the “next phase” of the “struggle” may look like. But it appears they promise to create and deploy new forms of Palestinian “resistance” across the country as the Israeli military bears down on Hamas’ last strongholds.

Many Substack readers know that I began writing this column as a former anti-war activist who was a roommate with Chicago 7 defendant Rennie Davis. I went on strategy “retreats” with Rennie and helped shape some of the nation’s largest anti-war actions including the infamous 1971 “MayDay” disruptions of Washington, D.C.

The slogan of that radical action was, “if the government doesn’t shut down the war, we’ll shut down the government.”

It failed, but I cut my teeth on militant tactics and learned from the best.

In my early Substack posts, I also did a deep dive into Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” the “bible” for New Left activists. Alinsky was their “guru” who guided groups like the militant Weather Underground and the Black Panthers.

“Rules” conveyed many lessons for radical activists. One key takeaway was the need for militancy and the importance of being regarded as a “dangerous enemy.” Alinsky stressed it was important to “induce fear” in your opposition.

As he stated, “The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.’ The word ‘enemy’ is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people, to identify him with the Have-Nots.”

He adds that’s it’s good that the militant is defined as “dangerous.” As Alinsky noted, “for in that one word the establishment reveals its fear of the organizer, its fear that he represents a threat to its omnipotence.”

He further counseled, “Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.”

This is the model for the pro-Palestinian protesters. It is to intimidate, instill public fear, and for the authorities, to be regarded as the enemy.

At all of the previous pro-Palestinian college encampments, only radical students were permitted to enter and they exuded intimidation. They barred Jewish students from entering the encampments or engaging their fellow students in open dialogue who were inside the Palestinian strongholds.

Across the country’s campuses, radical Palestinian activists disrupted classes, attacked students who wore Jewish symbols, hunted down Jewish students, occupied buildings, painted Swastikas in student dormitories, and in some cases, beat security guards who tried to help.

The ”fear factor” was one of their best weapons. And I suspect, they intend to use it again this fall.

I think we can expect that we’ll soon see the “next phase” of Palestinian “resistance.” Get ready.