Hoboken, May 2, 2024. The student protests roiling campuses make me queasy and hopeful at the same time. Let me explain.

First, the queasiness. Israel’s U.S.-enabled mass murder of Palestinians appalls me, but so did Hamas’s mass murder of Israelis. I see Hamas militants as violent, anti-democratic zealots, not social-justice warriors.

Now, the hope. Students protesting Israel’s U.S.-backed war in Gaza strike me as smart, idealistic, committed to making the world a better place. The New York Times reports that the protesters see Gaza as a symptom of global problems related to “policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, racism and the impact of climate change.”

My hope is that these young activists will form a movement opposed to all wars, not just the war in Gaza. Ending war will make the world fairer and freer, healthier and greener, less racist and sexist; because militarism, by which I mean the institutions, practices and values that perpetuate war, is the meta-problem that exacerbates other problems.

One huge obstacle to ending war is the widespread belief that war is a permanent part of the human condition. Those who share this fatalistic belief should check out World Beyond War, a nonprofit dedicated to abolishing “the institution of war itself, not just the ‘war of the day.’”

The World Beyond War website debunks the “myth” that war is inevitable and a “necessary evil.” The organization’s website details how war impoverishes us, erodes civil rights, promotes bigotry and harms the environment. It spells out what we could do with the $2 trillion-plus a year spent on “war and preparations for war”; and it proposes how we can make the transition to a world without war, in which disputes are resolved nonviolently.

How will Palestinians, racial minorities and other oppressed people get justice if they don’t fight for it? They will get it the way Gandhi and Martin Luther King got it, through nonviolent activism. Research has shown that nonviolent movements, while not always successful, fare better than violent ones.

The transition to a demilitarized world won’t be easy. My generation couldn’t pull it off, perhaps because too many of us adhered to the old slogan No justice, no peace. Today’s young protesters, I hope, recognize that the inverse is true: No peace, no justice. We can only create a just world if we abolish institutionalized mass murder once and for all.

Further Reading:

In addition to World Beyond War, check out my book The End of War and my recent war-related columns:

Is Killing Children Ever Justified?

Dear Feminists, Please Help End War!

You’re Not Free If You’re Dead: The Case Against Giving Ukraine F-16s

The Statistics of Lovers’ Quarrels

Frans de Waal (RIP) and the Origins of War

Things Were Worse When I was Young