ST. LOUIS, Missouri — As rising tensions test the line between free speech and hate speech on American college campuses, two of Missouri's most popular politicians are speaking out about the ongoing university protests over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who previously supported free speech protections on college campuses, is urging U.S. President Joe Biden to deputize National Guard troops into federal military forces and deploy them to college campuses. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) is casting doubt on the legitimacy of a recent rash of violent rhetoric.
Videos started to spread online over the weekend showing demonstrators cheering or celebrating Hamas' use of rockets and protesters calling to "burn Tel Aviv to the ground." Another viral video taken outside the campus of Columbia University on Friday night showed two young men wearing masks and threatening that "the 7th of October would happen every day."
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, shared the video and said, " These are pro-Hamas activists. These are pro-hate advocates."
Three days later, Bush raised questions about the identities and the intent of people stirring violent rhetoric.
"As a Ferguson activist, I know what it’s like to have agitators infiltrate our movement, manipulate the press and fuel the suppression of dissent by public officials and law enforcement," she tweeted. "We must reject these tactics to silence anti-war activists demanding divestment from genocide."
Neither Bush's campaign aides nor her congressional staff have produced any evidence to support her suspicions that the violent rhetoric was fake or planted by conspirators who would aim to undermine the peace movement.
After a rabbi at Columbia University urged fearful Jewish students to "return home as soon as possible," Senator Hawley penned a letter to President Biden writing, "Campus police and local law enforcement have failed to secure the campus."
"Jewish Americans are at risk," Hawley wrote. "His letter quoted some of the inflammatory language circulating online, and urged the president to "mobilize the National Guard."
Columbia University, a private school, had specifically requested help from 150 New York Police Department officers. Those police used zip ties and crowd control techniques to clear the campus of roughly 100 protesters last week. Students have since been attending virtual classes online as the end of the school year approaches.
Neither the university nor Gov. Kathy Hochul requested any assistance from the New York National Guard, according to a guardsman who spoke to 5 On Your Side Tuesday afternoon.
The military official, who asked not to be named in this story, said NYPD outnumbered the state's National Guard troops by roughly three to one, and that police had better experience and more regular training in handling large crowds or riots.
"They don't need the National Guard to do crowd control on a college campus," he said, suggesting Senators Hawley and Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) were merely "trying to get attention" with their calls to summon military troops to squelch a few "college students being college students and thinking they're more important than they are."
Hawley and Cotton have both previously signed onto a Senate resolution to promote and protect free speech on college campuses. Both men were quick to suggest the use of military force to contain the spread of menacing language from enraged pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The threatening atmosphere spread far beyond the Ivy League schools on the East Coast. Leo Auerbach, a student who attends the University of Michigan, described a deteriorating environment on campus to the Associated Press on Tuesday.
"There's significant fracture within the student body, within the institution as a whole," Auerbach said. "You're seeing hate speech and pretty violent rhetoric being normalized at all levels."
At Washington University in St. Louis, security guards cleared the campus of a few demonstrators who gathered "for a few hours" over the weekend.
"They were putting up tents, which were not allowed," campus officials told 5 On Your Side. "They also told us they were not going to leave."
Biden has not responded to Hawley's calls to send in the National Guard, but he did address any calls to encourage violence.
"I condemn the anti-Semitic protests, that's why I set up a program to do something about that," Biden said. "I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and noncombatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
During a stop in north St. Louis on Tuesday afternoon, Bush briefly explained why she voted against Biden's push to send more military aid to Israel.
"I voted no on the Israeli military funding, because we don't want our tax dollars going to anywhere that's going to bomb children and to bomb innocent people," she said.
Biden's policy in the Israel-Hamas war has become a major flashpoint in the Democratic primary race.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell mounted a challenge to Bush after she called for Israel to stand down after the October 7th attacks.
When asked if she would commit to debating Bell before the Aug. 6 primary, Bush's aides ended the press conference and she walked away.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.