Petroleum to Palestine: The Newest Protesting Trend

May 2, 2024

If you study the Google trends records for the word “protest,” you’ll discover an interesting trend. Activity surrounding the term “protest”  peaks about once every four years, conveniently during an election. 2016? Black Lives Matter protests. 2020? Black Lives Matter. 2024? Gaza.  

As Daniel Turner, Founder and Executive Director of Power The Future, points out,

“Climate activists have been quiet. Have you noticed no one is throwing soup at Degas anymore? Or gluing their hand to the highway? That’s because they’re currently being paid to scream “Kill the Jews”. They still have their “No Planet B” tees in the closet with the BLM one.”

With every election cycle, in the United States and abroad, comes a new “trendy” social movement, whose demands are added on to those of the previous movement. For example, currently, as college students create encampments around the country for Gaza, their demands include defunding police, reparations, cutting emissions.

As Fox News reported,

“The student demands from the University of Chicago’s anti-Israel encampment is a giant progressive wishlist that goes well beyond Gaza.”

One of the students’ demands is that the University cut its emissions in half by 2030. You may be thinking, “What on earth does that have to do with the Middle East?” We truly don’t know.