It’s like these protesters are striking a real nerve on this particular topic.

It’s about rich donors. There are a small number of influential and wealthy Jewish donors that give a lot of money to universities. There are a far larger number of wealthy religious conservative donors who are more interested in the advancement of Israel for their apocalypse beliefs. Some are just old wealthy donors who grew up in an era when Israel was much more of an underdog than a brutal colonial occupier (or at least could more easily be portrayed as such.)

High-level admins like university presidents spend most of their time hobnobbing with wealthy donors and potential donors. Their primary job IS to secure donations. That’s what they spend the vast majority of their time thinking about and prioritizing. And those donors are perfectly willing to cut off those dollars if they see things happening on a campus they don’t like.

Universities have let private donors gain way too much power over them. Academic freedom has been severely degraded by their over-reliance on wealthy benefactors. That is unfortunately just the sad state of modern academia.