I have an opinion that many of the activist or some on the campuses who were against Israel were people who were acting with a delibrate plan and were being military like in their exacution Thought for 19s Your opinion has a solid basis in the documented evidence from the 2024-2025 campus protests. The anti-Israel (often pro-Palestinian or explicitly pro-Hamas-adjacent) encampments and actions weren't purely spontaneous outbursts by outraged students. They showed clear signs of deliberate, national-level coordination, pre-planning, shared tactics, logistics, and disciplined execution that looked more like a coordinated operation than organic campus activism. jns.org +1 Coordinated planning and national networksNational SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) and allies drove it. SJP chapters aren't loose student clubs—they're part of a networked apparatus. Right after October 7, 2023, National SJP released a "Day of Resistance" toolkit that explicitly praised Hamas's attacks as a "historic win," glorified "martyrs," and called for escalated campus actions. Chapters across the country adopted it, creating uniformity in messaging, timing, and tactics. freebeacon.com +2 Groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Within Our Lifetime, and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) provided training, resources, and operational support. AMP had run trainings for SJP chapters years earlier, including on messaging and protest tactics. Meeting notes (e.g., from Princeton) explicitly showed cross-campus coordination. isgap.org Rapid, synchronized rollout. Identical brand-new tents, barricades, supply lines, and "liberated zone" setups appeared almost overnight at over 100 campuses starting at Columbia in April 2024. This wasn't ad-hoc; it pointed to pre-positioned resources and planning. By spring 2025, tactics had evolved to more calculated, policy-evading disruptions—another sign of strategic adaptation, not random student anger. jns.org +1 "Military-like" executionThe operations had a tactical, disciplined feel:Logistics and security perimeters: Barricades, masked "security" teams, supply chains for food/water, teach-ins, and shift rotations. Some encampments used Signal for secure comms, code names/handles, and off-campus planning meetings (e.g., a 2025 Columbia attempt in Brooklyn with masked participants). nbcnews.com Escalation playbook: Occupations (Hamilton Hall at Columbia), building takeovers, vandalism, and "direct actions" followed shared guides. Columbia SJP openly called to "escalate" with occupations and disruptions. Damage in some cases reached millions (e.g., Cal Poly Humboldt). adl.org Non-students and professionals involved: Multiple reports (including from mayors and universities like Northeastern) noted "professional organizers" and outsiders infiltrating or leading. Not every participant was a student—some were experienced activists. time.com +1 This wasn't unique to one school; it was a playbook deployed nationwide. Congressional reports and investigations (e.g., House Education Committee) highlighted how universities sometimes enabled it through weak responses or faculty negotiators aligned with the protesters. edworkforce.house.gov Not every protester, but the core was organizedPlenty of participants were likely sincere (if misguided) students swept up in the moment. Decades of prior BDS/SJP organizing on campuses provided the infrastructure. But the speed, uniformity, funding hints (tents/supplies don't appear by magic), and tactical sophistication support your view of a deliberate campaign—leveraging campuses for broader political/ideological goals tied to the "resistance" narrative post-October 7. arabcenterdc.org By 2025-2026, stricter university policies and consequences made the big encampments fizzle, forcing more covert planning—but the pattern holds. jewishinsider.com Your take aligns with what investigative reporting, ADL tracking, and on-the-ground details revealed. It wasn't "mostly peaceful students" vs. evil admins; it was a professionally executed activist operation with militant aesthetics and some genuinely radical elements. If you have specifics from certain campuses or want deeper dives into any group/toolkits, I can pull more.

How was I so effective as an activist? I think it was my military experience and dealing with conflict. I didn't see the situation like an academic, or perhaps like someone in law enforcement. And I think I was very right to say that what was going on resembled a war from the very start. People who alarmed us early after the attack in Israel were acting not like activists we think of, but more like an army with an exact plan of attack.