But, honestly, if you look back, a lot of the Vietnam War protestors were considerably more violent than they needed to be; there were Communist agitators embedded who tried to move the protests towards the destruction of capitalism and democracy; and of course the point in civil disobedience is to disobey and, if necessary, suffer the consequences anyway as public and difficult-to-ignore documentation of the strength of your beliefs.

The saving grace of the Vietnam War protests wasn't the excesses and stupidity present in them, but that the Vietnam War was a stupid and brutal war with a simple solution (i.e. stop)--not that the Viet Cong wasn't quite awful when it came to killing civilians, just that we had no ability to intervene without being equally horrid; and because free speech was, indeed, strongly and violently suppressed by conservatives, and was very much needed as a prerequisite to speak politically (and free speech was supported by moderates also).

Gaza is different.

There is also horrific loss of life. But the situation on the ground is far more complicated, the ability to step away is far less, the skin in the game is very different.

But worse than that, the protestors can't seem to decide whether they want peace or want Israel destroyed, at least based on the signs they display. The Googled pictures of protest camps seem inordinately averse to showing signs. But I've read them off news videos, where you're less likely to get careful framing of the one sign that fits the story that the picture is there to help tell, and had a chance to walk past one protest camp in person.

You see "Victory for Palestine" here, "Ceasefire Now!" there. Well, which is it? Fight and win, or stop fighting and have peace? Columbia protestors had a huge "by any means necessary" sign...any means...like rampaging into Israel, killing lots of Israeli (and some international) civilians, and hiding in tunnels so that Israel can't retaliate without killing Palestinian civilians? That falls well within "any means". That all cool? Or are we going with the "Stop the Killing" signs?

The anti-Vietnam protests had a lot more unity of purpose than this. Maybe it was the self-interest that kept it comparatively unified. (If we forget about the destroy-capitalism radicals.)

Furthermore, the divest movement is playing the long game (inspired by the divest movement to pressure South Africa to end apartheid) in response to a critical immediate humanitarian catastrophe. Good to have some ask, some policy move (better than just hot air), but people are there because Gazans are dying right now, not because universities divesting from Israeli companies will create decreased profitability of Israeli companies thereby decreasing tax revenues for the Israeli government which will in turn somewhat reduce their financial clout, leaving them less able to field large numbers of soldiers and having to rely more on highly destructive but less expensive ways of waging war, hopefully increasing their appetite for a peaceful resolution, except Hamas rejects a peaceful resolution, so...um?

So--great to have an ask, but for the people with the Ceasefire Now! signs, it's at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive.

(For the record, I completely reject the methods of the counter-protestors at UCLA--they need to be found and charged with assault etc. (who are they, anyway?!)--and don't think that clearing outdoor protest camps is the right way to handle the situation.)