The police are beating you up to protect against the violation of someone's feelings

The university's clampdown is supposedly justified by "the need to protect Jewish students who have felt threatened"? (We know that other interests are involved).

What does it mean to "feel threatened"? This kind of claim has dogged American liberalism and pseudo-leftism for decades. In 2020, Biden claimed that the government must protect "people of color" from "having their feelings hurt." In the heyday of radical feminism, women were sometimes encouraged to say that they "felt uncomfortable" in the presence of some man, with the conclusion following that he had threatened them, because they "felt that" that was the case. Some activists would claim that a victim's testimony should never be doubted, because victims never lie.

Now some Jewish students who are pro-Israel (many are not) say they feel uncomfortable in an environment where Israel is criticized (or, unsurprisingly in the current context, hated). Jewish leaders on the right are encouraging this, as they claim that opposition to Israel simply is anti-semitism.

The universities clamping down on protest are not defending against the theoretical possibility of violence. If their concern were safety, there are simpler ways to achieve that.

To what may this be compared? Perhaps to clearing a ghetto because some people living there committed some crimes. Or to wiping out Gaza in response to the crime of a faction operating there. Or settling a quarrel with 'Communism' by napalming peasants.

At stake is the very possibility of the political. It is disruptive by nature, and offends the ‘feelings’ of others. The associated violence is almost always wielded by state authorities referencing the false or wildly exaggerated attribution of that violence to those of their opponents against whom it is used.