On May 6, The Post shared dispatches from Columbia University on the protests against the Israel-Gaza war. On May 7, we published letters from readers in support of students across the country. Today’s letters are a roundup of concerned and critical voices. To join the conversation, email letters@washpost.com or go to https://wapo.st/letter. — Alyssa Rosenberg, letters and community editor

I was one of the students who chanted, sat in, boycotted and marched against the Vietnam War. In 1967, we took part in the giant peace march that extended all the way across San Francisco, as what had started as a student movement spread to the wider population.

President Lyndon B. Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not stand for reelection, in response to the national sense that he was responsible for the ongoing death and destruction in Southeast Asia. Many peaceniks, me included, cheered his decision and treated it as a great victory. There have been and will always be debates about it, but one thing we know for sure: Johnson’s decision not to run again gave us President Richard M. Nixon, a turn that could not have been worse for Democrats and, I would argue, for the United States itself. Johnson inherited the Vietnam conflict and was not happy about it, but it was through his initiative that the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed.

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We threw out the good with the bad, and maybe we got what we deserved.

Today’s campus protests look eerily similar to those sit-ins and marches of 1967. And as history repeats itself in this endless cycle of hatred, outrage and killing, many in this country want to hold President Biden responsible.

But I hope the war in Gaza doesn’t blind us to the looming threat of a second Donald Trump presidency. This idealistic teenager has, sadly I guess, grown into a pragmatic old man. Threats to stay home on Election Day or vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are self-defeating. If we can scare Mr. Biden into dropping out, or if our “protest votes” prevent his reelection, we are again throwing out the good with the bad, and we’ll again be getting what we deserve — and I don’t mean peace in the Middle East.

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Lou Caron, Riverview, Fla.

I went to Columbia, graduated, became an officer and went to Vietnam. I knew Grayson Kirk, Columbia’s president at the time, and was dismayed at the treatment of his office by antiwar protesters. I view the protesters today with the same repugnance. They are wrong, allow themselves to be instigated by others, and are made more important than they actually are by TV and news coverage.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik was right to call police to evacuate protesters from university property. College students are there to learn; if they don’t like the school or its policies, they shouldn’t enroll or stay there. I thought that in the ’60s and believe it true now. We were taught and expected to think for ourselves and not be agitators led by others. What do the protesters really want? They want to disrupt their own school — to change what? This is certainly not what I was in combat for.

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Peter Hutchinson, Gaithersburg

The continuing demonstrations on college campuses are misdirected.

The United States, with the help of Egypt and Qatar, has proposed a cease-fire in exchange for Hamas’s release of hostages. Yet in late April, a senior Biden administration official announced that Hamas was solely responsible for blocking the deal, and this was recently repeated by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This is the second time I know of that Hamas has refused to agree to the terms of an internationally sponsored cease-fire agreement.

Perhaps, instead of insisting that Israel end its attacks on Gaza, the protesters should start insisting that Hamas agree to the terms of a deal. It is Hamas that began this conflict, and it is Hamas that appears committed to continuing it. Demonstrators’ placards might better read, “Hamas must support peace.”

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Ken Lefkowitz, Medford, N.J.

Covering the war in Gaza is surely the greatest journalistic challenge of our age — it’s almost inevitable that any reporting on it will be criticized. Covering the protests sweeping across U.S. college campuses is similarly challenging. But given the media’s outsize role in shaping the way these protests affect the national narrative, it is critical that they be correctly identified.

Considering the wide array of ideologies — and, frankly, tactics — present among the protesters, the media can be forgiven for struggling with how to refer to them. But two oft-used monikers for the protests should be dispensed with out of hand: “antiwar” and “pro-Palestine.” The first makes little sense as a descriptor of this new wave of protests since, although the war has been winding down, a number of protesters explicitly call for attacks on Israel. Such sentiments are hardly antiwar; in fact, were these calls heeded, they would actively prolong the conflict. The second makes just as little sense, since virtually none of the protesters appear to call for a two-state solution, the only realistic path to a Palestinian state. Further, the bad behavior seen at of some of these protests damages those of goodwill advocating for a practical route to a Palestinian state.

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Given the diverse views of those involved, it is genuinely difficult to divine exactly what the protesters are for. Less hard to figure out, though, and what clearly unites them, is what they’re against. We should refer to these not as “antiwar” protests, nor as “pro-Palestine” protests, but as “anti-Israel” protests.

Oliver Kendall, Barcelona

Student protesters at Columbia and on other campuses who rally against Israel’s killing of Gazan civilians are missing an opportunity to justify their cause. The media seem to focus on the abhorrent few who turn the protests into antisemitic tirades, harass Jewish students and obscure the true intent of the majority of protesters, many of whom are themselves Jewish.

The point of the protests is the cruel and inhumane actions of the Israeli government against defenseless civilians in Gaza, where more than 30,000 have been killed, many of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. What these student protesters should do immediately is publicly dissociate themselves from the few who are genuinely antisemitic, denounce the harassment of Jewish students, and even offer the harassed students aid and comfort.

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The protests are not about harassing Jewish students; they are about the inhuman treatment of civilians by a foreign government that receives billions in military aid from the United States. So, kids, put it all in perspective and do the right thing to elevate your cause to its true, worthy intent.

Peter Tanous, Washington

I am a retired professor who taught higher education policy, and I worry now that the media are not covering the probable outcome of the campus protests.

Despite what they may say, Republican leaders care less about protecting Jewish students than about using the protests as an entry point to “reform” U.S. higher education, especially at elite universities. The congressional hearings for university presidents and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s trip to Columbia are examples of Republican efforts to erode public trust in higher education so that they can pass legislation to accomplish their policy agenda, which includes the following: tapping into universities’ high endowments; hiring more conservative faculty; dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and affirmative action; ending tenure; highlighting the Western canon in liberal arts curricula; and hiring politicians and businesspeople instead of academics for college presidencies.

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I wish the media would note that the current campus protests are offering Republicans a chance to accomplish their long-term objectives.

Constance Cook, Ann Arbor, Mich.

The April 27 front-page article “At Columbia, the seeds of a revolt” quotes Columbia University student body president Teji Vijayakumar as saying that graduating college seniors like herself had “never lived in normal times” because they were in elementary school during the Occupy Wall Street protests, middle school during the walkouts over gun control and high school during the Black Lives Matter protests.

Oh, same as it ever was.

My peers entered kindergarten with a president shot dead, were in middle school as the United States pulled out of Vietnam in shame (but only after our older brothers had died serving there), started high school while President Richard M. Nixon was resigning and became drivers as gas was being rationed and the threat of nuclear war hung over our heads. We thought we were the first, but our parents were happy to point out that they volunteered to fight Hitler after growing up in three-generation households during the Depression of the 1930s. And our grandparents had it rougher still.

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No one lives in “normal times.” A Columbia education ought to teach perspective. This does not invalidate moral opposition to war and unnecessary suffering, but it might dial down the generational self-righteousness.

Will Layman, Washington

College students who have disobeyed the law by occupying or trespassing among buildings as part of their protests have gone far beyond what the First Amendment or reasonable accommodations of protest allow. How devoted these students are to their mission. But they should accept the natural consequences of their choices. They have placed themselves in violation of their colleges’ codes of conduct and the law, so they should be ready to accept arrest, prosecution, suspension and expulsion. If they barricade themselves in buildings, let them stay there the entire summer, but without air conditioning. I hope they are smart enough to stay well hydrated, and I hope they brought plenty of snacks.

Bruce J. Berger, Silver Spring

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