While some words are stupid, student protesters are usually proven right

Across our comfortably grey-haired media and politics, these student 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 naive 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 1 million Gazan civilians and the deaths of some 34,000.

What, given the proud locomotive power of political 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 abysmal. At best, tactically cumbersome, and at worst, morally indefensible.

Expressing unqualified support for Hamas is both - boneheaded 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 criticism of Israel's extreme right-wing government. And it has similarly conflated support for Palestinian statehood with rewarding terrorism.

This approach has had the desired chilling effect, 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 protestor to declare unconditional support for Hamas and its toxic aims, however wild and unrepresentative such views may be, merely gives substance to the lobby's complaint.

Other chants, though, are more in the realm of intent and interpretation. Israel's supporters argue fiercely 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.

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

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

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

READ MORE MARK KENNY COLUMNS:

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

In any event, it seems important to me 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 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 and 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 rights, land rights campaigners, environmental actions 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 the status quo, 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, 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 our torpor, exposed our hypocrisies, and aimed for something higher.

To its considerable credit, Australia yesterday 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.

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 chorus of contempt for students' rights to take a stand, let me ask you a question: would you prefer doleful compliance?

There are many countries to choose from where this is the case. Their number is growing all the time.