Opinion: 'There's a crucial difference between Vietnam and Gaza student protests'

In an opinion piece for Middle East Eye, academic and activist John Rees argues that the key difference between student protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and pro-Palestine protests now is the society-wide support in 2024. 

He writes: "In the US in the 1960s, the movement was in part driven forward by opposition to the draft. Today's movement has no such immediate spur.

In the UK, the anti-Vietnam War movement was dominated by students, who made up well over half the major anti-war marches. That is not the case today. The mass movement had been mobilising on an unprecedented scale for eight months before the students moved into action in the UK.

In the UK, the largest of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in 1968 numbered 100,000 people, smaller than the smallest of the repeated Palestine marches, which was 150,000, and dwarfed by the largest, which numbered 800,000. 

Moreover, in 1967 and 1968, there were only two large-scale national marches in the UK. In the last eight months, there have been 14 national demonstrations for Palestine."

You can read the full column below.

Opinion: The crucial difference between the Gaza and Vietnam student protests