DEMONSTRATIONS against Khmer Rouge (Wikipedia).

Ten people, including two professors, will face misdemeanor charges of refusing to disperse as police tried to clear the University of California, Irvine campus of encampments in May created to demonstrate for Palestine in the struggle between Israel and Hamas militants.

More charges could be coming; the court date is Oct. 16.

I am not moved.

It’s not that I am not upset about the deadly overreaction of the Israeli government to the heinous attack by Hamas forces in starting the war, killing 1,500 Israelis and taking hostages, many of whom were mistreated and some executed.

What I am asking is where were these “warriors for justice” in the early stages of the conflict, when it was the Israelis who were being callously slain?

It reminds of me of the Vietnam War protests – also largely students – who raged in the streets and campuses over what they saw as cruel and unjust acts on the part of the U.S government.

But when the Communists prevailed in Vietnam and Cambodia, a mean tyranny descended in those countries. Hundreds of thousands of people were confined in “reeducation camps,” and many tortured in Vietnam.

In Cambodia (renamed temporarily Kampuchea), the victorious Khmer Rouge committed a genocide on their own people, taking the lives of an estimated 1.5 to 2 million persons, about 25 percent of the nation’s population. In terms of the United States, that would mean about 84 million people murdered.

And yet where were Joan Baez, Jane Fonda, Abby Hoffman and others most famous for their public virtue? Why were the streets and campuses not filled with righteous protesters? There were demonstrations, but darned few in the U.S.A.

There’s a legal maxim that reads “who comes into [the court of] equity must have clean hands.” There’s an even older maxim from classical Greece:

“When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are,” said Thucydides.