The Elementary Distinction Between ‘Speech’ and ‘Assault’

The distinction between “speech” and “assault” is not hard to make. But supporters of Mahmoud Khalil, the alien with a green card who either took part in, or supported, the harassing and roughing-up of Jewish students on the Columbia campus, the seizure of Hamilton Hall, and the subsequent vandalism inside the building, the man who led demonstrations in support of Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, and called for the complete destruction of the Jewish state in one of its slogans — “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” — and, with the violent expulsion of all of its Jewish inhabitants, its replacement by a 23rd Arab state, are finding it impossibly difficult to make that distinction. More on that intellectual, and moral, failure, can be found here: “The Difference Between ‘Speech’ and ‘Assault,’” by Seth Mandel, Commentary, March 14, 2025:

Columbia University appears to be standing by the punishments it has doled out to students who took part in the infamous occupation of Hamilton Hall last year, confirming disciplinary actions “ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions.”

Separately, Barnard College has issued one expulsion over Hamilton Hall, as well as two expulsions of students who barged into an Israeli history class and threatened the students. In the wake of those expulsions, supporters of anti-Zionist violence staged further sit-ins and occupations. All of this was aimed at intimidating the university into rescinding disciplinary action for any rulebreaking or lawbreaking related to Gaza.

The intent was to carve out a “Palestine exception” to make anti-Zionist-inspired violence unpunishable. Had the school caved, it would have been seen, accurately, as an endorsement of violence….

The “Palestine exception” to university rules of conduct that apply in other situations is based on the notion that the soi-disant crimes of the Israeli state committed against the Palestinians are so grievous that no time, place, or manner restrictions ought to be placed on any “speech” about those crimes. And the very definition of “protected speech” should, when it comes to “Palestine” and the war in Gaza, be expanded, so as to include such acts as harassing Jewish students, seen as agents of the Jewish state that needs to be delegitimized, and the shutting down of classes that are likely to contain pro-Israel content.

Those students at Columbia who are not terminally dimwitted should be able to understand that “protest” through speech — real speech, the coherent address spoken in a normal tone, rather than the 20-decibel level of screaming the same slogans over and over again through bull horns — will always be protected. But incitement to violence against the Jewish state, Jewish students, Jewish faculty, the surrounding of Jewish students by demonstrators who keep them momentarily imprisoned, the vandalizing of university buildings, and the physical harm visited on students, and on university staff who are trying to protect buildings from damage, as the janitors in Hamilton Hall did, only for one of them to be so severely assaulted that he had to spend five days in the hospital, is not “protected speech.”

A perfect example comes from one of the Barnard students facing expulsion: “The fact that my removal has taken place so baselessly, simply because I believe that a holocaust of the Palestinian people is unequivocally wrong has completely shattered the illusion of what I thought Barnard stood for.”…

This Barnard dozy bint thinks she is being expelled not for her beliefs, but she is wrong. It is not her “beliefs” for which she is being punished, but her acts: she helped invade, and vandalize, Hamilton Hall, which is Columbia University property. She can “believe” anything she wants, but she can’t break furniture, surround and threaten Jewish students, scrawl slogans on the walls in paint, and support others who are roughing up janitors merely trying to protect the buildings they are assigned to look after. What was it she thought Barnard “stood for”? Bullying of Jewish students and faculty, mob rule, destruction of property? No, sorry, that is not protected speech.

Though theoretically one can express solidarity with the people in Gaza without resorting to bullying, violence, and mob rule, to judge by the past year pro-Palestinian students need the violence and vandalism to make their point. What point? The one about “From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free” that calls for the destruction of Israel, and “Intifada Now,” which threatens violence against Jews everywhere.

Similarly, the Hamilton Hall goons who were arrested and charged with trespassing and burglary were not, in fact, punished for their private thoughts. It’s worth recalling an account in the New York Times of the Hamilton Hall occupation from the perspective of those taken hostage.

After midnight on April 30, dozens of activists entered the building with ropes, chains, zip ties and the like, barricading the doors. After a scuffle, they let three building workers leave. One filed an accident report with pictures of his wounds stating he was “assaulted and battered, and wrongfully imprisoned.” That employee and another trapped in the building, the Times wrote, “said they strongly objected to the tactics of the occupiers, which they said had taken a toll on them. Neither man ever wants to work in Hamilton Hall again.”…

One of the janitors had been beaten so severely that he had to remain in a hospital for five days.

Perhaps the punishments herald a return to sanity for the school—after all, they were initially announced before the Trump administration pulled Columbia’s federal funding for its violations of civil-rights law. If so, the institution might start attracting students who know the difference between “feelings” and “assault and battery.”

You may have “feelings” and “beliefs” and “thoughts” about Israel and Gaza and Hamas.. Fine, you can not only have them, but you are allowed to express them orally or in writing. But you cannot fan out across a campus and seek out Jewish students who are walking to class, surround them, and hold them briefly hostage, while screaming in their faces anti-Israel slogans. You cannot enter a classroom and scream at the Israeli instructor in order to keep him from being heard by his students, and then scatter antisemitic leaflets around the room. You cannot force your way into the main administrative building on the campus, barricade the doors, break furniture, paint pro-Hamas and anti-Israel slogans on the walls, and rough up the janitors who are trying to protect the building.

How hard is it to understand the difference between “speech” and “assault”?

In any case, the students now being expelled will have plenty of time to make that elementary distinction.