The violent crackdown on students protesting against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza reveals the stark hypocrisy of political and academic leaders at our colleges and universities, including my own. Instead of first turning to dialogue and debate – the very skills and values universities should promote – school administrators have turned to police, extreme discipline, and complying with a mainstream consensus that seems more interested in suppressing criticism of Israeli and American policy than protecting students.

From Columbia University to my own University of Southern California, peaceful student encampments in common university areas have been dismantled by city police, with hundreds of students arrested. Some have been suspended, evicted from dormitories, and threatened with expulsion and criminal conviction. At UT Austin, state troopers threw a Fox cameraman to the ground and arrested him. At Emory University, the chair of philosophy, Noelle McAfee, was arrested by a police officer wearing a balaclava, as if he were conducting an antiterrorism raid. Another Emory professor, Caroline Fohlin, who sought to protect students being arrested, was wrestled to the ground by two police officers, handcuffed, and charged with battery.

The trial of a US military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees in Iraq two decades ago, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, collapsed on Thursday when an eight-person civil jury in Virginia failed to return a verdict.

Caci Premier Technology, a private company contracted by the US government to provide civilian interrogators at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004, had been accused of conspiring with US soldiers to physically and mentally assault those held with the intention of “softening them up” for questioning.

“The Italians having a proverb,” wrote the 17th-century British courtier Anthony Weldon, “‘He that deceives me once, its his fault; but if twice, it’s my fault.’”

Today, we commonly summarize that old Italian proverb as: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Since the horrific 7 October attack, the far-right Israeli government and its army of propagandists have deceived and fooled Western politicians and journalists not once or twice, but multiple times.

There are almost too many lies, distortions and falsehoods to keep track of. Forty babies beheaded by Hamas? Never happened. Babies baked in ovens or hung on clothes lines? False. A Bond-villain-style lair hidden under al-Shifa hospital? Nope. Palestinians in Gaza caught on camera faking their injuries? A complete fabrication. The list of Hamas hostage-takers found on a wall in the al-Rantisi children’s hospital? Sorry, no, it was just the days of the week on a calendar in Arabic.

At a diner just off the freeway north of Sacramento, a mostly white crowd listened intently as it learned how to “save America” by leaning on the same laws that enshrined the rights of Black voters 60 years ago.

Over mugs of coffee and plates of pot roast smothered in gravy, attendees in MAGA and tea party gear took notes about the landmark Voting Rights Act and studied the U.S. Constitution. They peppered self-proclaimed “election integrity” activist Marly Hornik with questions about how to become skilled citizen observers monitoring California poll workers.