What is the underlying cause for all of these anti-Israel protests roiling American universities and clogging the nation's streets and highways? I'll wager that some of you would blame this on ill-informed youths who don't grasp the fact that they are siding with terrorists. Others would probably assume that we're seeing long-concealed, virulent antisemitism bubbling to the surface. But you're all missing the mark according to some "experts" who spoke to the New York Post about it this week. The true culprit in all of this is COVID. But wait... I thought we were done with the pandemic. Many of us are, but according to at least one forensic psychologist, the lockdowns left many students feeling isolated and full of rage, so now they're just seeking a common cause to help them identify with others in their age group. Yes, she seriously said that.

Blame it on Covid.

Campus protesters roiling colleges across the nation are part of a generation shaped by the pandemic, who grew up isolated and angered by school shut-downs and social distancing and are desperate to find a connection, community and a voice, experts told The Post.

The pro-Palestinian cause allows discontented youth to express “long-withheld rage,” said forensic psychiatrist Carole Lieberman. It gives them an “opportunity to identify with the ‘oppressed’ against ‘oppressors.'”

These kids are susceptible to propaganda.

Dr. Lieberman was at least willing to admit that the majority of these students "don’t have a full understanding of the movement they’ve aligned themselves with." She also agreed that there is too much ignorance about what the slogans they are chanting actually mean. But underlying all of that, these young people are mostly looking to find some sort of group or community where they can belong.

Not being a professional psychiatrist, I can't speak to this with any sort of authority. I suppose it's possible that there is something to that theory. Personally, I didn't feel all that impacted by the lockdowns, but then I tend to be something of a hermit anyway. Yet even if that's the case, don't these rioters still bear the burden of responsibility for the consequences of their actions and decisions? Would we be writing them a free pass if they were going out and forming new chapters of the KKK? 

There clearly comes a point where we can't turn a blind eye and write everything off to issues of "disaffected youth." If you're seeking a community and a sense of belonging, sign up to join the campus chess club or try out for one of the sports teams. Young people head out to college to gain an education in their chosen field, but also to learn how to appropriately coexist in society. The kids occupying these tent cities and calling for the extermination of the Jewish people are currently receiving neither. If you wind up leaving college with a criminal rap sheet instead of a diploma, you're not off to a very good start in life.

Beyond that, adults need to be hammering home the reality of the fundamental wrongness ( and frankly evil) of these demonstrations and riots. There is nothing wrong with feeling some empathy for noncombatants who wind up being killed or suffering from harsh conditions in a war zone. From that perspective, perhaps some of the original calls for a ceasefire were understandable, if misguided. But this contagion in the streets quickly transformed into something far darker. We have young people in our own country denying the horrors and atrocities of October 7 and chanting in support of intifada and the genocide of the Jewish people. Too many have somehow made the leap from "ceasefire now" to "death to America" in a shockingly rapid fashion. This is something that is far too serious to blame on residual loneliness from the COVID lockdowns, at least as I see it.