US dilemma: Listen to students or military industrial complex

While student protests against the Israel-Palestine conflict may be morally compelling, the US feels equally compelled to fund Israel's right to shield itself from attacks launched against it out of Palestine. This places the US in a dilemma.

The Israeli incursion constitutes a religious war. On the one hand, a persuasive argument can be made that Israel's bombing and shooting of Palestinians is morally reprehensible because these attacks have killed many civilians, including women and children. In essence, the Israeli-Likud incursion into Palestine constitutes a religious war, where 99 percent of Palestinians are Muslim—and the attackers are Jewish.

But the First Amendment to the US Constitution provides in no uncertain terms for "the separation between church and state." In this regard, the First Amendment plainly states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

What does this mean? This phrase has been interpreted by many US commentators and pundits to mean the US government cannot favor one religion over another by involving itself in a religious war (e.g. David Calloway in "Freedom Forum," 2024).

In addition, Article VI of the Constitution states that no religious test may be required for anyone to run for office. So, now both the US Constitution and one of its amendments underscore the importance of maintaining "the separation between church and state."

The US has earned condemnation by the world for its modern-day acts of colonialism. The US has become the recipient of heavy criticism in the global media and by citizens across the world for its warmongering attitude of invading any country it wishes in order to extend its dominion and control over the world's resources and enrich the coffers of its military industrial complex.

In addition to committing such atrocities under the name of democracy, incessant US government spending on war has run up the national deficit to over $34 trillion—and triggered what may turn into the early stages of hyperinflation. If hyperinflation (or worse, hyper-stagflation) does indeed set in, as many commentators are predicting, this will deeply impact US consumers and potentially lead one day to large bank failures.

Back home in the US, hundreds of campuses across the US have now been affected and police have arrested over 1,000 students on these campuses. Campuses from Columbia to Texas to UCLA have been impacted.

To see with my own eyes what a student protest looks like over Israel's incursion into Palestine, I went to observe a protest at San Francisco State University near where I live. What I saw was a small tent city that had been set up on the grass quad between the Administration Building and the Cesar Chavez Center.

This was at 2 pm on a weekday and there were some 100 students milling about. On the edges of this tent city, two women instructors were holding classes on the lawn. In each case, the professor had asked her students to sit in a circle—where a lively conversation was taking place between the faculty member and her students about the Israeli incursion.

This was the same San Francisco State University that had experienced widely publicized protests during the 1960's over the inequality of African Americans. And it was at this very campus where only a few years later, students aggressively protested US involvement in the Vietnam War.

So, it did not surprise me that this university would be one of hundreds of campuses across the US to encounter student protests over the Israeli occupation of Palestine. After all, this campus had filled the role of being a "lightning rod" for student protests for over half a century.

But where does all this leave the United States? Some of its citizens are demanding that the US end its funding of all wars, including Palestine and Ukraine. But the corporate complex that profits from war continues to push for extending US involvement.

Remember, it was President Eisenhower who stated when leaving office, "Beware the military industrial complex."

Gregory K. Tanaka, Ph.D., formerly a law school dean and bank president, is the author of Systemic Collapse and Renewal: How Race and Capital Came to Destroy Meaning and Civility in America and Foreshadow the Coming Economic Depression (New York: Peter Lang Publishing).

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