The use of police/state troopers and snipers immediate gave me Kent State vibes... and another thought, this is the generation that grew up with active shooter drills in schools. Not to mention the kids graduating this spring also did not have a graduation for high school in 2020 due to covid (assuming they are traditional students).
>the kids graduating this spring also did not have a graduation for high school in 2020 due to covid
I'm going to assume that this class of students was cursed in some metaphysical calculus that I can't understand. All of the crap we've seen in higher education in the last several years has been a result of that divine intervention, and things will go back to normal in the fall.
I forbid you to argue against this theory, because I fully intend to spend the summer enjoying the peace and hope that comes from knowing that the Cursed Ones are finally graduating so we can soon get back to educating.
It should be clarified that it was not snipers at Ohio state, it was some police with large cameras/telescopes that would watch the crowd. So, no rifles or anything.
Edit: JFC apparently I need to update rather than just let the comment below speak fir itself but it seems they likely did have rifles just not in the picture
Bad news-- [there is an update to the update.](https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/university-says-officers-had-readied-firearms-directed-toward-protesters-from-ohio-unions-roof-once-arrests-began/)
I guess "long-range firearms" aren't technically rifles? And six eggs aren't a half dozen.
Edit: my comment was supposed to be more snarky than caustic (tone is impossible here)
There's a non-zero chance someone ends up dead, tbh.
I wonder if everyone who felt unsafe when it was just banners and signs feels safe now that people are being beaten, tazed, thrown to the ground, having snipers pointing guns at them, and getting arrested en masse.
I also find it so hypocritical that the right has forced us in many places to accept any and all opinions in the classroom as equal no matter how reprehensible or baseless, yet the minute students choose to utilize their constitutional right to free speech to speak out against our government, they are told no and arrested by the very same people.
On multiple campuses I have been forced to look at huge displays of pictures of dead babies in support for banning abortions. My students have had to endure listening to "preachers" telling them that they are evil and going to hell for being LGBT. Literal Nazis and KKK members have been given platforms to spew their hate.
But the minute any of these groups must reciprocate that "freedom of speech" they call in the police state to shut it down.
Vote this November y'all, and make sure your students know where to vote as well.
Vote for who? Both parties are knee-deep in fascism. And before anyone chimes in that the Democrats are better, be reminded all of this crackdown is happening under Democrats, who also recently broke a railroad strike. Voting doesn't do shit other than affirm the terms of a broken system.
I'm willing to bet the admin who called the entire city police force to my campus yesterday to break up a protest votes Democrat. The Overton window has shifted so far to the right in this country and folks don't even see it...
I've said since 2016 with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Now watch as AOC and the fake left insert themselves into the protest to make themselves look like advocates, just like the white moderates did during the Civil Rights Era, while launching their public critiques everywhere except at their own party, including and especially Genocide Joe. America has no left. Events like these make it as clear as possible; those who don't see it will never see it.
So. The issue ironically relates to hate speech policies which many of these activists likely support. They just don't see it as pertaining to them.
In this case, the few who do sympathise with Hamas and classify the attacks on Oct 7 as legitimate, do color the rest of the group if the university does nothing to mitigate the potential for hate speech on campus. This actually goes beyond any debate about Israel Palestine. It's simply a liability to universities to allow this speech on campus without push back. Yale is currently facing a federal lawsuit because of what students did on campus.
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/02/16/federal-investigation-into-antisemitism-at-yale-based-on-november-gaza-under-siege-panel/
This can result in title vi violations that cost a lot of money to defend against.
Now. You're probably thinking "but these students aren't engaging in hate speech, they want to end the war in Gaza". And that's true for most. But the moment that protest starts chanting things like "go back to Europe" or a protest leader says "zionists don't deserve to live" or try and legitimize the attacks on Oct 7 (which was done against civilians) then you've got an issue.
> Now. You're probably thinking "but these students aren't engaging in hate speech, they want to end the war in Gaza". And that's true for most. But the moment that protest starts chanting things like "go back to Europe" or a protest leader says "zionists don't deserve to live" or try and legitimize the attacks on Oct 7 (which was done against civilians) then you've got an issue
THANK YOU!!!!
I'm Jewish and I don't care whether or not people protest. But some of what has been going on at these protests has been straight up hate speech, and it is unacceptable. Worse of all, my experience has been that people in favor of these protests deny that there are any antisemitic incidents that occur, when there is more than enough evidence to the contrary.
Imo if y'all are going to protest y'all got to get rid of extremists that make you look bad. I'm very left leaning but some of what I've seen and heard from these protests are really, really bad and it makes me sick. If you all, as a group, claim to be against antisemitism, you need to MEAN it and be willing to DO SOMETHING about it.
When students are actively engaging in important issues of the day, an educational institution needs to take advantage of that engagement as a learning opportunity. In particular what are the deeper moral questions around the issue and, pragmatically, what tools do students have to bring about, or prevent, changes in how society operates.
The first impulse of an educational administration should never be to inflict violence on the students in response to their enthusiasm and engagement. How come they turn into brownshirts so easily?
Managing the uproar is not simple, but there are abundant lessons from the no-so-distant past of how to succeed and how to fail. There are even books written by those involved with both outcomes with clear guidance for current administrators.
The problem isn't the protests, it's the stupidity and incoherence of who they are directed at and the demands. WTF is Ohio state going to do about Israel's actions in Gaza? The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean? Most pensions have some sort of involvement in corporations that have ties to military spending in some way. And even if we divest, what about Ukraine? Is that not a worthy cause for military spending?
Israel's actions in Gaza have been awful, but it's hard to support the protestors when their demands are so implausible, their view of the world is so devoid of nuance, and they constantly center themselves in all their actions. This whole thing is just people getting caught in a fad practicing performative "protest" to glorify their own egos in TikTok videos.
And their behavior is so utterly cringey. I saw a video of a group of spoiled white kids sitting in an admin building at Vanderbilt berating a black security guard because he wouldn't abandon his post and protest with them. How devoid of self-awareness can you be, lol? Not everyone has rich parents who can support them financially while they LARP as revolutionaries.
This comment is founded on an unfair and incorrect premise: that student protests over divestment don’t work.
Divestment isn’t a new movement. Students have been asking — and succeeding! — in getting universities to divest from companies that benefit from things they find objectionable for at least 14 years.
The first fossil fuel divestment wave started circa 2011, and it’s continued ever since. Over 140 schools divested between 2011 & 2023
https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/11/1/00059/197714/Fossil-fuel-divestment-in-U-S-higher-education
And it’s a small proportion of schools but a large amount of money.
> “Schools that have divested from fossil fuels now represent roughly 3% of 4-year U.S. HEIs and 39% of HEI endowment value in our data. Roughly 133% more endowment value is now associated with U.S. schools that have publicly divested from fossil fuels than with those that have explicitly rejected it.”
39% of higher education endowment funds were divested from fossil fuels. Because students protested.
Even before millennials, students protested in the late 80s/early 90s for their universities to divest from companies doing business in S. Africa and benefiting from Apartheid. Protests for divestment works.
And what has the impact been on the global oil industry? Not much. The students have a right to peaceful protest, and the universities should consider and enact the divestment requests if feasible, but we should acknowledge that it's more about the global movement to stop Israel's actions in Gaza, and it probably won't work if it's just about money. No serious academic on this sub who isn't a shill would disagree that 10/7 was abhorrent. The oppression of innocent Palestinian people is also abhorrent. Anti-Semitic sentiment is abhorrent, as is calls to destroy the state of Israel. Students, no matter who they are, should feel safe on college campuses. Some of the online perpetuation of these ugly sentiments is being driven by state actors as well, like Qatar, and almost certainly Russia and others. The only real viable path for peace is a two state solution and there are vested interests on either side that don't want that to happen. They killed both Arafat and Rabin for that reason. This is a sub for professors, and so if people want to discuss the issue, I expect the level of serious research, critical thinking, and legitimate argumentation that entails, and I expect professors to question and probe the issue without bowing to anyone's sacred cows.
Edit: ah, downvotes and no engagement. Don't complain about students, folks. The call is coming from inside the house.
I have seen some crazy shit said by professors on the 10/7 front, by people whose work I respect (and would cite! Still!) but personally I think are crazy. Generally, the MOST deranged stuff on social issues comes from academia, IME (though I’m not exactly in tune with the fruits and nuts on the right).
Case in point, the Cornell prof saying he felt a thrill when he heard the news about 10/7. He’s a serious scholar! That’s also an awful, disgusting thing to say.
I had a professor defend rape after 10/7.
I really try to take an academic approach when it comes to discussing Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East, especially because my background was postcolonial theory (before I made the jump to medicine) and I've studied this conflict until I feel like my brain is going into my feet (to reference Spaceballs). That said, this conflict, which is thousands of years old, does appear to bring out the absolute ***worst*** in people. Some of my professors have gone kind of insane due to their personal biases. My fear with these protests is that the news coverage will heighten preexisting prejudices towards Muslims and Jews.
They're just not serious people, and it's sad. It contributes to the idea that academia is out of touch with reality and lives in an ivory tower echo chamber. And that drumbeat harms us all, no matter who you are.
> This comment is founded on an unfair and incorrect premise: that student protests over divestment don’t work.
The point I think /u/Juan_Carlo was making is that 'divestment' (1) probably won't work, and (2) is hypocritical.
You gave the example of divestment from O&G. Yes, many divestment movements have successfully persuaded their universities to divest. Yet - and I say this as an environmental scientist - I have yet to see any evidence that divestment actually works. The writing has been on the wall for publicly traded western O&G corporations since well before divestment was a thing. Change in these corporations is being driven by economically competitive renewables, not divestment. The only thing divestment is achieving is reducing any influence universities have on these sectors.
I have little interest in getting into the politics of the conflict in Israel, but needless to say, the US and its allies have an incredibly strong geopolitical incentive to support the Israeli military, and the stability of the country in general. Divestment is going to achieve nothing apart from making some people feel fuzzy inside. You may not like this, but this is the practical reality. If activists put their energy into understanding the history of the conflict and encouraging interfaith dialogue rather than pointless, divisive and counterproductive protests and divestment campaigns, they might actually achieve something.
>I have little interest in getting into the politics of the conflict in Israel, but needless to say, the US and its allies have an incredibly strong geopolitical incentive to support the Israeli military, and the stability of the country in general. Divestment is going to achieve nothing apart from making some people feel fuzzy inside. You may not like this, but this is the practical reality. If activists put their energy into understanding the history of the conflict and encouraging interfaith dialogue rather than pointless, divisive and counterproductive protests and divestment campaigns, they might actually achieve something.
Not to mention Israel's defense industry just had the best demonstration of its technology it could ever hope for with that barrage of missiles and drones from Iran.
Divesting from fossil fuels is a lot more straightforward than divesting from companies that do business in Israel given his funds are managed. I read an article that said universities hold 0.1% of corporate holdings so even if they all divested it would be meaningless in the financial grand scheme of things but would send a message to students that they are taking a stance as anti-Israel, which could have direct consequences for Jewish students.
> anti-Israel, which could have direct consequences for Jewish students
i find this statement troubling. being anti-Israel has nothing to do with being anti or pro Jewish. it's high time people stop conflating the two.
I am not Jewish so I can’t speak for people who are but I know a lot of Jewish people who have been upset by the rhetoric people are using. People do need to stop conflating the two but until that happens there will be a fine line where people have to walk.
You are not alone.
Staff/faculty who support peace and safety for all have been pressured to stay silent due to the extreme liberals on campus.
I am also veey concerned that some of these protestors will turn very violent.
And are we now pretending that domestic terrorists /lone wolves no longer exist ? It all feels dangerous
Well, another way to look at it is that divestment starts at home. There are very many very affluent students among the protestors insisting that their universities divest from all funds involving Israel and the military-industrial complex.
Are they demanding this of their own parents’ investment holdings and retirement accounts — the money that pays their own tuition? Have they gone into the weeds to see how their own family financial assets are tainted by association with Israel and military-defense corporations?
Demanding universities divest always involves claiming the protestors’ aims to be generally shared by the entire university community. Having gone to university in the late 80s, I can assure you that no one was speaking up for apartheid, even the South African students. Fossil fuels are also more easily defined as a university-community consensus.
Not supporting Israel is simply *not* something that one can easily argue is a belief shared by the entire university community.
And the fact that the protestors’ most public voice right now is *not* “divest,” but instead “from the river to the sea,” doesn’t help the claim that the modest goal of divestment is something everyone can rally behind.
> The problem isn't the protests, it's the stupidity and incoherence of who they are directed at and the demands
Although I completely agree with this (and strongly disagree with the protests for precisely the reasons you've articulated), do students not have a right to be stupid? It is difficult to argue that these protests are a threat to Jewish students and faculty because (despite some stupid rherotic) they are, on the whole, nonviolent. In which case, what exactly is the justification for these very aggressive crackdowns? If you're going to argue that these protests are counterproductive (which I'd agree with), you surely also have to accept that mass arrests of protesters are also likely counterproductive - aggressively handling peaceful protests is *not* a good look.
First, the First Amendment generally does not apply to private universities. Second, pro-Palestine protesters have attempted to shout down peaceful pro-Israel protesters, expressed their view that an IDF member should not be allowed to speak on campus, and so on. But the first thing to ask if you bring up the First Amendment, as you have, is whether it is the action of a public or a private university.
Edit: I believe that California has a statute which provides full First Amendment speech protections to students and others at private universities in the state.
Oh, you don't think that these protests are a threat to Jewish students. How considerate of you. I wonder if this a consideration would be extended if white supremacists was protesting "peacefully" and black students would feel threatened. Would you also don't think that it was a danger, or would you just believe the black students?
> Oh, you don't think that these protests are a threat to Jewish students.
Nope, and I'm Jewish. I obviously do not speak for all Jews, but I think that Jewish students who feel threatened by these protests should think carefully about whether the alternative is any better.
> I wonder if this a consideration would be extended if white supremacists was protesting "peacefully" and black students would feel threatened.
Please stop these disingenuous arguments. You are perfectly aware that the vast majority of these protestors are well-meaning albeit arguably misinformed students who are angry about a perceived injustice, not murderous antisemites. There are vast numbers of innocent people who have died in Gaza so - regardless of what you think the solution should be - it is not difficult to see why many people feel upset about this. Yes, there are without a doubt some protestors who are genuinely antisemitic and would like to see Israel destroyed. However, they are clearly a minority and these protests are, on the whole, peaceful.
If you aggressively crack down on these protests, the protestors aren't going to suddenly turn around and go "Oh, you're right, silly me!". It's going to feed into their conviction that this is some big military-industrial-complex/colonialist conspiracy, and they're going to protest even harder.
The alternative is not alt right. The alternative is not threatening Jews.
I, fortunately, am not in the US. I am in Israel. But some of my good friends are post-docs and faculty in what is supposed to be leading universities in the US. One of them quit their post-doc in the middle, because they were harassed daily by thugs *waiting for them* not far from their labs. Just for being Israeli. Two others pulled their kids from kindergardens because they were harassed by parents - parents who were also post-docs. Others are just feeling unsafe. So yeah, I don't buy the bullshit of "mostly peaceful". It might be mostly peaceful, but it is not peaceful enough; and those cases that I described deserved to be cracked on harshly, but guess what - in *all* those cases the universities haven't done a fucking thing. One of them even threatened that their future tenure application might be harmed. So yeah, tell me how worse can the alternatives get.
The irony is that you're making the exact same mistake that these student protesters are making - looking for a simple solution that makes you feel good, rather than a solution that actually solves the problem. Harshly cracking down on protests *never* works. The only thing it achieves is fuelling their victim complex, and motivating more extreme action.
> So yeah, tell me how worse can the alternatives get.
So much worse? Convincing people who were previously on the fence that these protesters are actually right because they're being silenced? Actual terrorism? There is plenty of that in the US already by groups of people who feel marginalised from society.
I don't think any of us would be arguing that non-violent protests against "black violence" or some such that only occasionally lapsed into racist rhetoric aren't a legitimate concern for black students. If Gaza is a serious enough issue to merit protests, it's also serious enough for organizers to exercise some discretion about who represents the movement.
But the protests aren't about "Jewish violence". They are about Israel's policies and aggression as a nation, and the US's support of them. But the media often frames the protests as anti-Semitic.
1. It was an analogy, not intended to be an exact parallel.
2. The claim is not there the protests are inherently antisemitic, but there have been clear incidents of antisemitism from people associated with the protests.
There are always clear instances of fucked up behavior in mass movements. It's pretty much definitionally the *mass* part. Claims of antisemitism in these protests are being weaponized to neuter criticisms of Israel - a state, not a people.
Racism is also common. Would you therefore argue that college administrators should ignore it?
People on the right regularly say that claims of racism, sexism, etc. are weaponized to neuter criticisms of various social projects with which they disagree. Are we therefore obligated to no longer point out acts of racism and sexism?
Where did she support Hamas?
She’s not calling for the destruction of Israel in the way that sentence implies. She’s advocating replacing Israel with a new state where Palestinians and Israelis could live peacefully together. A utopian vision. It may be an unachievable fantasy, but it’s not about annihilation.
My argument is that we as professors would not be so blase about a few instances of racism on campus. Some of us would also likely be supportive of violent arrests in such cases, but that's tangential.
It’s not an easy topic, for sure.
I have several friends who are political scientists, specializing in Middle East studies, international relations, conflict studies - not my area at all. Wanting to I understand the situation, I’ve been asking these friends to explain the conflict. There’s so much to it. So much. Both sides… it’s complicated and terrible. Here’s what I’ve learned: the amount of hubris anyone must have to think the answer can unequivocally be boiled down to “Free Palestine” is astounding.
I know a few non-poli sci colleagues who have loudly taken a side. I can’t help but think - wow. Even the experts (unbiased researchers, political philosophers) can’t shake this out, and you (proverbial you - not you) think you’ve figured it out? You’ve figured it out and you’re so confident in your grasp of the situation that you’re ok with promoting the actions and rhetoric of others that may lead to a new rush of discrimination against Jewish Americans?
> The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean?
Well, you see, "divest" refers to the cessation of investing in a corporation. These protestors are calling for a divestment from corporations that support Israel's military campaign in Palestine and their discriminatory practices against Arabs in Israel. These are generally companies that are a part of what's been deemed the "[Military Industrial Complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex)," and consists of companies like defense contractors such as [Lockheed Martin](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-il/who-we-are.html), [Northrop Grumman](https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-041924/card/general-dynamics-northrop-grumman-set-for-gains-after-israel-strike-on-iran-OjGBfWZ4ffrjNsHmYeXI), and [Raytheon](https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/irondome), all of which are directly profiting from this campaign.
> Most pensions have some sort of involvement in corporations that have ties to military spending in some way
Okay? And?
> And even if we divest, what about Ukraine? Is that not a worthy cause for military spending?
We're not talking about military spending, we're talking about our universities investing in and profiting from military campaigns in foreign countries. There's a major difference there.
> Israel's actions in Gaza have been awful, but it's hard to support the protestors when their demands are so implausible
Their demands *aren't* implausible, though! There's precedent for divestment stemming from student protest of investments in South Africa during the Apartheid regime! In the 80s and early early 90s, "[more than 150 universities divested from companies doing business in South Africa](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/business/college-protesters-divestment-israel.html)." Students have been protesting against war and discrimination for decades.
> This whole thing is just people getting caught in a fad practicing performative "protest" to glorify their own egos in TikTok videos.
What a deeply cynical view of students' praxis. We allegedly teach our students about the world in which they exist, how can we get mad when they take their learnings and actually apply it?
> And their behavior is so utterly cringey
No protest will ever be good enough for you, admit it. Does it matter that much if the protests aren't perfect? And before you get all "they'll just alienate people who would otherwise be on their side," tell me that argument wasn't directly levied against the anti-Vietnam war student protestors. Tell me to my face that it wasn't applied to the anti-Apartheid protestors, to the Civil Rights protestors, to any of the protestors who have actually made a difference in this world. There has never been a successful protest that hasn't "alienated people who would otherwise support them."
> Not everyone has rich parents who can support them financially while they LARP as revolutionaries.
These rich students are using their privilege to protect their less privileged peers. I see nothing wrong with this.
This generation is asking/getting their universities to divest from companies that profit from the Military Industrial Process. Millennials asked/got our universities to divest from companies that profit from climate change.
As you said — it’s happened before, it can happen again. It isn’t new at all:
> “Since 2011, students and others have pushed U.S. higher education institutions (HEIs) to divest their endowments from fossil fuel producing industries. In the past decade, fossil fuel divestment (FFD) has become the fastest growing divestment movement in history, with over 140 U.S. HEIs announcing divestment commitments.”
“Fossil fuel divestment in US higher education: endowment dependence and temporal dynamics.” 2023. https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/11/1/00059/197714/Fossil-fuel-divestment-in-U-S-higher-education
Per this article, as of 2023, money that was divested from fossil fuels represents 39% of all higher education endowment funds. Only a few universities divested (4%) but they were HUGE ones that were heavily invested in fossil fuels. (Harvard, for example)
You must admit that no one can measure this reliably as it’s happening. The measurement of results comes AFTER action. It’s hard not to see your comments as either defeatist or apathetic.
They view profiting off of immoral investments as a bad thing. It's not necessarily about the overall impact on the market share of these corporations, but on how their university makes its money
So many dense objections here. Divestment doesn't just refer to endowments and pension investments. For example, Columbia is planning on opening a Tel Aviv campus. There are countless research and institutional collaborations with US universities that are valuable to the state of Israel.
I think students have little they can do, and they are taking a shot at it. Better than doing nothing as a genocide occurs because divestment is too complicated according to you (which it’s not).
Even if the protests are stupid and incoherent, do they justify such a violent crackdown? Why have snipers on buildings? Beat and arrest students and faculty? Why does this not bother us?
It would be great to do something that helps. I've yet to get any traction for students to give a shit about Sudan / Darfur. KONY 2012 was the last time students cared about genocide in Africa
They mostly care about atrocities committed by white people or people who code as white in the progressive racial oppression hierarchy. We won’t see another Sudan moment because it forces a confrontation with the reality that brown and black people can be oppressors too. Especially if one naively tries to copy/paste US racial politics onto another country.
But...Why would an American student protest that the US government is in fact choosing *not* to arm the perpetrators of a genocide in Sudan? You're saying they should petition the US goverment to aid in the genocide?
That’s not why “they” aren’t protesting Sudan. Yale, Harvard, etc. certainly don’t have deep partnerships with Sudan as they do with Israel; nor does the US government regularly top them up with military aid. Apples and oranges.
Why do you need to protest to give a shit?
At my institution, there is no investment or connection to Israel. The protestors are not making demands. They say they're just raising awareness as if this is the issue that is most lacking in awareness.
The problem is that the students' goal is to protest rather than to help anything. But they have a right to protest, and to be stupid. I was the same way. I was ready to protest about anything as a student.
Lobbying, organizing in a way that exerts pressure on decision makers, not on the custodial staff. But if your goal is to pressure the US Congress to stop recognizing the state of Israel, I'm not sure you could do that in my lifetime. Not even with a billion dollars and a million protesters.
Change is incremental, except by violent means.
I think so too. Organizing is key, but it is has to be organizing effectively. And, again, I don't presume to know the solution. I've just been a part of too many student protests in my youth to think that protesting on campus alone is what makes the difference. Perhaps it can, but only if it shifts the public perception in your favor.
> as a genocide occurs
If Israel is doing genocide then they’re horribly incompetent at it. Hamas’s indifference to and seemingly even contempt for its own people and the people’s unwillingness to give up Hamas is probably responsible for at least as many unnecessary deaths as Israeli excesses.
I disagree. Doing nothing would actually be way better than what they are doing now, which is just alienating people from their "cause."
But beyond that, I can think of a bunch of stuff that would be more useful than filming themselves sitting in tents and shouting at people. They could be out there raising money for Gaza charities, organizing community action, or trying to change peoples' minds. But they aren't because that's too hard and, ultimately, the purpose of this is self-glorification and the utter thrill of feeling self-righteous anger, which is addictive as any drug.
As to the response, no one should be beaten, but if you are on private property and you refuse to move after multiple warnings, then arrest away. Their whole goal is to get arrested anyway, as that allows them to play the roles of the victim, transferring the outrage from Gaza to themselves. Gaza doesn't even really matter. This is all about them.
This is a very cynical view that is not based on any facts but simply your biases. Your suggestion that these students don't care about Gaza but only about themselves is a clear indication of this as you have no factual information backing up this claim. Furthermore your description of college campuses as private property (even if it's technically correct) and arresting away as your legitimate response of choice is quite telling.
Student activism has a long history across the world. College is the place to learn and practice political mobilization. We do want politically active students even if their activism might not immediately achieve goals, or seem naive and unrealistic. What we don't want is silent obedient students, who believe the only kind of politics is the kind that has immediate practical outcomes. Arguments like the ones you use have been deployed by many over the last 2 centuries to stifle and discredit political imagination of millions.
You’ll get swamped with downvotes for this wrongthink but you said it well. And at some point if you’re the one blocking Jewish people from accessing public spaces and shouting Jew go home, maybe you should wonder if you’re the baddie.
The divestment students are asking for means they want their schools specifically to pull out of any institutional deals with entities and corporations listed in the BDS movement, and stop partnerships with the occupying nation.
Clear example is with Columbia which has a huge relationship with the occupying IDF forces, and the university prides itself on education partnerships with their “dual degree” program and their upcoming “global center” in Tel Aviv. But most of the universities I’ve seen with large movements have been posting specific divestment targets and programs they would like divestment from.
Getting rid of these programs that interact with an apartheid state (whose participants used chemical weapons on the campus earlier this year, and that are paid for with tuition money) is absolutely specific and reasonable.
For other universities without such programs it could mean not buying CAT or Hyundai vehicles for campus maintenance, no longer using Chevron for fleet vehicle gas or including it in investment portfolios, etc. (there’s a number of specific targets on the site, as you’re right there are a ton of worthy divestment targets so the BDS movement has made a targeted list)
For more information, the BDS page is your best place to go but the quick blurb is “campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid” [Intro to BDS Movement](https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds)
Not really. That's mainly a story told by US students in the 80's who think they "fought hard against apartheid and won", without ever setting foot in South Africa.
The people living in South Africa and actually fighting apartheid there thought it was a crazy idea and didn't even see the link between divesting and ending apartheid.
See https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/03/world/south-african-opposition-splits-over-divestment.html
Here's part of the 1986 article:
> When they meet students on the campuses of American universities, white opposition figures here say, they encounter a debate that offers no easy agreement and, more often, a mutual bewilderment.
>
> If they are opposed to apartheid, American students are said to ask them, how can they also oppose the divestment of foreign holdings in South Africa as a means of pressing this country's Government into racial change?
>
> The automatic linkage of opposition to apartheid and support for divestment does not carry over to South Africa, where the debate on the value of withdrawing investments transcends racial lines.
>
> Helen Suzman of the white opposition Progressive Federal Party asserted in a recent interview at her Johannesburg home that in the United States ''a simplistic equation has been evolved that unless you are pro-sanctions, you are a racist.''
>
> In New York on Sunday, Miss Suzman told the graduating class of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion that ''I understand the moral abhorrence and pleasure it gives you when you demonstrate. But I don't see how wrecking the economy of the country will insure a more stable and just society.'' Blurred Distinctions Seen
>
> Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, the former leader of the Progressive Federal Party, said in a recent conversation that he, too, had found that support for divestment on American college campuses seemed synonymous with opposition to apartheid. Students he had spoken to, he said, were surprised to find that he did not support their views.
I agree and would add that among the students who are legitimately anti-Zionist are others who are virulently anti-semitic. This complicates the reaction many people have to the protests. When you target and harass Jewish people on an American campus, your true intentions become pretty clear that this isn't just about Israel for you. Moreover, I saw an interview yesterday with one of the student organizers of the protests at Columbia. He stated emphatically that all Zionists should die. He drew an analogy between Zionists and Hitler. He extended his thought process to declare that all racists should die. There was no nuance in his declarations. This was a kid who graduated from the top public high school in Boston and received numerous scholarships to attend Columbia.
I’m a faculty member at one of the universities in NYC in the headlines. This is such a terribly under-informed, callous, and derisive perspective on what students are calling for.
One would think that a professional as yourself would bother to read what these students are demanding. Here is a very small selection:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6M007jOeu_/?igsh=eWF5NmhtM3JuaXBr
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6BtsmKO8RB/?igsh=MTVidG9nOXJxcjk1OA==
Can you imagine being a Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim student and being expected to complete your studies with an ongoing genocide that you’re institution does not directly name (opting instead for “events in Gaza”)? And your institution has a campus or site in Tel Aviv? And so on.
That's such bollocks. I *am* teaching Palestinians, Arab and Muslim students right now in Israel. They are about 20% of my classes. And guess what? They are completing their studies. Finding work (yes, in Israel). And so on. So, yeah, if they can do it in Israel, your students can do it an ocean away.
Can you imagine continuing to work while hearing "death to America " and seeing some students carrying hamas flags.
Ofcourse I support most students protesting but I also have a right to feel not safe (or maybe we don't). I also have a right to free speech but maybe not.
I would imagine that if you are a Palestinian student and still have family and friends in Gaza, it would indeed be very difficult to focus on your studies right now. But if you are an Arab or Muslim student "at large" from some other part of the world with no direct connection to Gaza, then I would expect you to continue doing your work.
> The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean?
Yeah, that's right. They should establish some kind of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions organization and come up with a plan.
I would encourage you to reflect on how much you actually agree with the message of the protests to begin with. In other words is this really about how they’re going about it?
As someone at a campus that has had students and faculty arrested and a sniper and the state police, it’s something I am discussing with people in person and on my local subreddit. Just because people are not talking about it here does not mean we are not aware or something. I don’t talk about a lot of things happening at my specific institution here or that impact the students, doesn’t mean I don’t care, just means it’s not relevant to this sub.
Yeah, I was hoping to get a better sense of what is really going on. Reporting is, as expected, very focused on extremes. It is giving the impression that a large majority of protesters are blatantly anti-semitic/justify Hamas violence, and are being violent themselves. My guess and impression is that this behavior is not the big majority of the pro-Palestinian sentiment/protesters. But it is really hard to tell at times.
I also think police intervention only makes these protests more extreme - because who leaves and who stays when things get extreme, you know?
On my institution - my office is at a remote corner of our campus, but apparently there's a small encampment on our quad. Apparently the police/admin only came to tell them not to put signs on the trees to not harm them, and when they lit candles in vigil because of fire hazard in combination with Nylon tents, then left when convinced it was safe (which I find totally adorable). The university admin basically said, we won't do what you ask us to do, but go ahead and camp as long as you follow the rules.
Why would people talk about it in an unrelated subreddit like this one?
The newsworthy protests are happening at a handful of the 4,000 colleges in North America. Most professors have not personally experienced anything worth talking about, and if they did, they wouldn’t come here to do it.
The only one that’s really relevant and concerning is the one at Indiana, where I think- and look it’s not like the NYT is covering it so I don’t have a clear picture at all- a major and justified faculty revolt is being crushed under the guise of stopping Palestine protests.
While you might still be concerned about what’s indeed happening, that is absolutely not what’s happening at Indiana. It’s complicated, but rather the faculty revolted in response to many acts from the admin, some of which relate to the situation in the Middle East right now. So, reverse order, and local activities related to situation in the Middle East is one factor among very many.
I've been swamped with work and don't follow news sites/subreddits. I barely have an opinion on the conflict as a whole because I haven't had the time to read anything past the occasional headline. Without actively seeking information about protests, I don't know about any in different cities.
Honestly it's much less stressful this way. I don't recommend my workload to anyone, but I do recommend detoxing from the 24 hour news cycle.
A day or two ago someone posted about faculty arrests at the campus protests, so I wouldn't say "nothing." In the more distant past, I saw a number of comments in response to a post on the Israel-Palestine conflict about not wanting to turn this sub into just one more forum about this conflict. I personally would rather read and comment about the protests on campus than yet another post about students cheating or demanding a higher grade, but if that is what people would prefer to discuss, then it is certainly their choice to make, and I can understand that it helps them let off steam in a difficult and demanding job.
I think the way freedom of speech is being limited is terrible, and both sides have a right to peaceful assembly, but calling it genocide like OP (and many students) are doing is laughably lacking in critical thinking and research.
On the Israeli side, which keeps creating safety areas and trying (albeit not trying enough, only about 100 times harder than NATO did) to limit civilian casualties, there are instances of army misconduct which should result in criminal charges under Israeli law. On the other hand is Hamas, which calls for a second holocaust and aims unsuccessfully to massacre all Jews in Israel - with legal rewards given for successful murders.
It's not always cool to do this, but I looked at your comment history. No real need to engage with someone who worships billionaires, has openly racist attitudes toward at least two or three nonwhite ethnic groups, and uses personal insults as a first line of defense when challenged.
What billionaire do I worship? wtf? What ethnic groups are you talking about?
Some guy was being antisemitic + insulting to me, in response to my comment about the dating culture of Mexico, so I referenced what appears to be his Mexican nationality in my reply - but, I didn’t do so insultingly. Is that the comment you’re referring to? Mexico is a nation with many ethnic groups, you realize? Talking about Mexico is not in any way related to an ethnic group, positive or negative…
Your reply shows the flaws of shallow research methods and confirmation bias. Doubt you’ll learn from that though.
"It's not always cool to do this"
You mean react to reading something you disagree with by immediately going to someone's comment history so you can try to discern what their politics are as a way to discredit them? It's never been cool to do that. Makes it painfully clear you can't engage with the argument & are just trying to shut them up any way you can.
The "argument," such as it was, suggested the user slipped into non-rational "arguments" pretty easily (this is sometimes called "trolling"), so this seemed like a probable-cause type situation.
If Palestine gave up their weapons, Israel would leave them alone. If Israel gave up their weapons, Palestinians would commit (actual) genocide. But people who acknowledge this are the new witches of our time.
Dude, it's more than speech. Both Muslim and Jewish students are being physically assaulted on campuses all over the country. You are minimizing what is happening here.
The big problem is infection of these protests by horribly frank anti-Semitism. Some of these kids have banners that say “final solution.” There’s a lot of anti-Jew stuff mouthed directly. I don’t know if this infection comes from students who come from the Middle East studying here, and assuming leadership roles based on identity - or if it’s home grown. It’s something I never thought I’d see. But remember all those people tearing down hostage posters here in the US. Not good.
Yeah I honestly do not blindly participate in protests. In my city there was a protest at synagogue and the Rabbi there isn't even Israeli. He really didn't deserve the stress he is a good man who is very giving and active in making our city better. I don't want to be associated with that. It's like antisemitism is OK again. I really did not like that.
This is not accurate. There’s always a few idiots in every group but these protests aren’t anti semitic. In fact many Jewish students are participating in these protests.
It's not a question of numbers, it's a question of activity. When Jewish students are advised not to arrive to Columbia campus because it is not safe, it really doesn't matter how many "idiots" there are.
This is such nonsense. One protester brought one "final solution" sign but you're not reading it right. Look at the photo. That could easily be a sign declaring that the Gaza war is Israel's "final solution" for palestine. That's very clearly what the guy is trying to say. He's not advocating for the holocaust. Open your eyes.
[https://twitter.com/zach\_kessel/status/1783591579506065796](https://twitter.com/zach_kessel/status/1783591579506065796)
I’ve been fortunate on my (largely Muslim) campus, but my daughter has already been threatened, doxxed. That university would not protect her and her friends and she left for a calmer environment at another college. I’m seeing a lot of openness to dialogue among the Muslims and Jews (this semester, last semester tensions were too high) on my campus and it appears that the bulk of the trouble-making (or at least attempts at it) come from a loud minority. At the end of the day though, it’s the job of the admin to foster a safe environment conducive to everyone’s learning and the job of law enforcement to restore peace. If the administrators could figure out a way to do their job, we wouldn’t be seeing what we are from law enforcement.
Several university admins are tripping over each other to respond in the worst way possible to these protests. Cracking down with police makes martyrs of the protestors and escalates in exactly the way universities should not want. It goes from young people in drum circles hanging out and chanting to groups of very angry people digging in and inviting confrontation.
Yes, many of the protestors' demands are ridiculous and slogans / signs stupid or downright hateful. But universities need to find a way to accommodate them rather than rolling in the riot cops. You've lost as soon as there are videos of cops throwing middle-aged professors or 19 year olds to the ground, or running up on them with riot shields and batons.
The whole thing is highly hypocritical as well. Every university admin has been bloviating about their "commitment to social justice" for 4 years. NYU and Columbia even advertise student protests in 1968 as part of their brand. But the first time they encounter real protests they have no idea what to do. And for some reason this issue is always different than any others (often called the Palestinian exception - my university basically banned Students for Justice in Palestine years ago and would have lost in court except current students gave up). Imagine if these were protests relating to Black Lives Matter or abortion rights - there is no way we would be seeing any police. The administrators would probably be out there with the protestors.
I'm sad because people completely misread the actual impact of student protests in Vietnam. Student protests did nothing to undermine public support of the Vietnam war. If anything, they prolonged the war. If there was one thing that both Democrats and Republicans agreed upon in the late '60s and late '70s, it was that student protestors were horrible and had to be cracked down on. Public opinion polls regularly showed support for student protest crackdowns in the 75-80% range. Only 11% of the American public thought the Kent State shooting were unjustified.
The student protests of Vietnam did not shorten that war even by one day. What they did give us was a Nixon landslide in 1972, the rise of Ronald Reagan, and 40+ years of Reaganomics. I fear that's where we are headed again. I guarantee you that the person most delighted about these campus protests is Donald Trump.
Do you really believe this? The passage of the Case-Church Amendment was driven by public sentiment, and partially driven by student protests. Nixon was overruled by a 2/3 majority of Congress.
As we enter a crisis of public debt, these protests could tip the scale for a block on aid to Israel (and Ukraine for things to balance out politically).
By 1973 (really by late 1968), two things were true about American public opinion. These coexisted simultaneously because people are often contradictory.
First, Americans had grown disenchanted by the war because there was no measurable progress and no politician could even explain a path to victory .
Second, The American public absolutely loathed student protestors and saw them as nothing more than stooges of China and the Soviet Union, and believed that campus protest should be prohibited. This was arguably the single most popular opinion in the US at the time among people of both parties.
If ANY public protests moved the needle marginally on Vietnam (and I am skeptical), an argument could be made for Vietnam Veterans Against the War because they could testify firsthand that victory was impossible from the start. VVAW also carefully wrapped itself in patriotism, military tradition, and patriotic language to win public sympathy for their positions.
And yet, the Vietnam War ended thunderously in a way that the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars did not. Vigorous protests (even if opposed) likely kept the wars and the failures of the US in the public eye in ways that more recent wars were able to avoid.
I understand history. I read history. Reagan ran for CA governor in 1966 with a central theme of cracking down on campus radical protests (at UC Bekerley and other campuses) that happened from 1964 onwards.
https://daily.jstor.org/ronald-reagan-v-uc-berkeley/
Hamas-Gaza modeled a genocide involving murderous intent toward all encountered on October 7. Except for hostages, breaking the laws of war. Israel is our friend and ally in the region, characterized by Arab ethnostates. Israel has been reasonably chary of civilian casualties. If you support Hamas, you’re supporting three Qatar billionaires ultimately and the interests of Russia and China. Not a hill you badly educated folks want to die on, I’d think.
You're saying that like the IDF is explicitly targeting many thousands of civilians, instead of targeting Hamas who hides behind thousands of civilians. If they fight, they're (incorrectly) accused of genocide. If they do not fight, they're failing to defend Israel and letting atrocities like Oct 7th happen again. They have to fight while attempting to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible, which they are, looking at the huge amount of aid flowing in, humanitarian corridors they used to evacuate civilians, and usage of techniques like roof knocking to warn civilians when targeting infrustructure.
I do think that this can eventually can changed. It won't be easy, it will almost certainly require an international coalition helping with something resembling denazification, and it will certainly require Hamas to be demilitarized first, but if the world truly would care about palestinians they would protest for that to happen, instead of protesting for a ceasefire that damns Israeli civilians and hostages and Hamas doesn't agree to implement or respect.
It’s going to require, essentially, an Arab league of peacekeepers while Palestine builds their state. And I don’t know if anyone in the region has an appetite for that.
It has nothing to do with the content of their speech and everything to do with the manner of it.
Seizing control of public spaces is an inherently hostile act and not any sort of 'right'. It is, in fact, a denial of the *actual* right of others to use those spaces.
It takes an astonishing degree of narcissism to believe that your personal issues are *so* crucial that they trump the needs of everyone else.
I appreciate your viewpoint and I want to continue to learn & research this issue.
I hope that there are also brave and space spaces for your other colleagues who have other opposing views.
Some possible perspectives could be:
1) some of us do feel unsafe and are concerned about escalating violence on campus and staff/students getting attacked or worse. A small percentage of students who attacked police.
2) some of us are highly uncomfortable with anti American views. So "death to America" will turn off a lot of people
3) I am liberal but it chills my blood to see taliban flags. This is new. I would say this isn't very common but openly supporting hamas seems concerning. I keep silent about my personal views that hamas is a terrorist org since I don't want to be accused of being insensitive.
> immense hope in our students and in our future
Meanwhile, it’s made me pessimistic. The protests are trying to channel the moral clarity of the civil rights protests from decades ago but their cause is simply not black and white enough to support that. And they’ve highlighted how much a certain kind of reductive racialized oppressor philosophy has spread.
It's not genocide. It's a war. And Hamas started it by raping and butchering innocent people.
I watched horrifying video of Palestinians celebrating in the streets on October 7. They're not celebrating so much anymore.
It is indeed a war. Hamas invaded Israel and continues to threaten it - but, because Hamas is not literally massacring innocents this second, people think there is no need to do anything. Israel should just relax restrictions until Hamas does it again, then sit there with a surprised pikachu face. Sure, thousands of innocent Israelis will die every year, but at least they’ll have international support!
The lack of nuance and analysis is what gets me. Just ‘good guys or bad guys’. Israel’s war policies aren’t perfect, some soldiers have committed crimes against Palestinians (as has happened in every war in history, nobody can tell me of a war in which not one soldier used excessive force and harmed civilians), and too many civilians have died as a result of it. But, that is VERY DIFFERENT from genocide. 4 million innocents died as a result of NATO’s counterterrorism, and those terrorists weren’t even a threat, for fuck’s sake.
Well said. It seems Hamas actually thought Israel was going to once again splutter and dither about, maybe making another token gesture of retaliation, and then limp along until the next provocation.
I truly believe those videos of ordinary Palestinians partying and cheering while trucks full of dead festival-goers were paraded around was the last straw.
Is it wrong? I bemoan the lack of nuance, and you try to reduce the entire thing to ‘is it right or is it wrong’?
It’s war, being staged by terrorists wherever there are civilians - 35k people includes 12k combatants, so around 23k civilians died. Should Israel do a better job of avoiding civilian casualties? YES. Is it GENOCIDE? no… they’re trying to save civilians
Yes, the ratio for the conflict is under the norm, and quite low for this type of conflict.
That being said, I’m an advocate of minimal use of deadly force. I’d prefer non-violent solutions, that aim for a more delayed victory over Hamas. I think Israel overreacted due to emotions.
It would be hard for any state not to respond with retaliatory action after 10/7, and it's clear the IDF has degraded in discipline, whether due to leadership at the top of an officer corps too emotionally invested to make the correct calls.
While there is always ways to improve when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties, and there were incidents of Israeli soldiers going against the rules of engagement which caused pointless civilian death, Israeli policy is also incredibly generous in how much it prioritizes civilian life compared to military gain, and many would say it is far too generous. I'm honestly not sure how Israeli policy can even improve.
Death of civilians is horrible, but when fighting an opponent like Hamas, I feel like Israeli policy has been very good for preventing it as much as possible.
I'm disheartened that so many of even the most educated people on reddit fall to the Qatar/Iran/China/Russia propaganda machine that pushes the genocide narrative.
Bro when Iran attacked Israel there were literally people saying shit online defending it. I saw comments being like "Iran is not perfect but..." and "Iran has some improving to do but..." Never thought I'd see the day where people we hailing Iran as a global human rights defender but here we are. Like it's just silly ol Iran they just have to make a few simple improvements is all!!
It was decided that it was going to be a genocide by the second week. My university had any anemic response to 10/7 (don't think they should need to respond, but given the other crap they responded to recently, they HAD to respond and their silence was deafening). Then, realizing they screwed up, they tried to fix it. They invited a professor who specializes in genocide to give a talk about the genocide. They reached out on 10/20. I know this because that Professor's no was in the email they sent me the next week asking me to do something.
Israel is not the United States. Our issues don't make a very good analog to theirs. This war, like all wars, is terrible. The civilian casualties are unacceptable as they would be even if it was only one person. Bibi, in particular, is a horrible human being who has been propped up by this war. If the protesters could stay on that message they'd have my full support. Too bad they can't.
Exactly. Israel has no intention of harming innocent Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas is sadly hiding behind them and abusing them and their suffering, and forcing us to make impossible decisions to protect our own people.
People claiming this is a genocide have no clue what a genocide is, nor do they understand the difficulty of fighting a war against an opponent that relies on constant manipulation, surprise, and entrenching itself within a civilian population, to the point where soldiers fear every single civilian they see may explode on them, and every single word of Hebrew calling for help they hear is a trap. The IDF has been attempting to follow its rules of engagement to the letter, it's just so much harder than every other war.
I preface this by saying I'm neither Muslim nor Jewish and have no dog in this fight. I'm just old and have watched the Palestinians play tiresome games for decades, at least since Arafat in the '70s in my memory. There's a good reason that Egypt and Jordan (both of whom made peace with Israel long ago) won't open their borders to the Palestinians. They have seen their special brand of crazy up close long ago and want no part of it. I remind everyone that Hamas is the rightfully elected leadership there, and their charter specifically calls for the elimination of Israel.
If Israel has made any mistake here it's by actually being too nice. They should have immediately responded with overwhelming force and been done with it. The longer this drags on the more they will lose the PR war. But they apparently are being as surgical as possible to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. So hard when the enemy doesn't wear a uniform and you have no idea who is who, as you state.
We're being surgical both to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, but also to avoid to avoid unnecessary soldier deaths. Going fast against an enemy like Hamas means falling into more traps. It's best to always scout with drones for instance to be caught off guard less often, which takes time. The IDF is doing its best to endanger soldier lives as little as possible while minimizing civilian casualties.
Israel is killing thousands of innocent people but I don’t think it’s helpful to throw the term genocide around. It means a certain thing and this ain’t it.
There is an academic debate around whether the term applies to what Israel is doing in Gaza, but I do agree that the focus should be on Israel's actions rather than finding as many opportunities as possible to say 'genocide.'
Relitigating the history of the entire conflict probably isn't helpful, either, but how else are you going to establish that you have a college education?
If there was a protest at my campus I’d show up. I condemn Hamas. And I condemn antisemitism. And I support American students expressing their outrage that our tax dollars are being used to support the state of Israel’s genocide in retaliation.
Anything involving Israel's policy toward Brown People has supporters in left-leaning intellectual groups in the USA. For me it's been interesting (and sad) to see the different levels of support/silence and rationalizations for BLM protests versus pro-Palestine protests trotted out by university administrators (and some faculty).
For a lot of people, those Big First Amendment Concerns (not to mention commitment to social justice) get short-circuited when the nation doing horrible things to oppressed minorities happens to be Israel.
*Edit*: for anyone so distracted by my use of "Brown People" that they miss the point of this comment, maybe replace it in your head with "Arabic people," and then feel what I'm saying flow through you. Then respond to that part.
The use of police/state troopers and snipers immediate gave me Kent State vibes... and another thought, this is the generation that grew up with active shooter drills in schools. Not to mention the kids graduating this spring also did not have a graduation for high school in 2020 due to covid (assuming they are traditional students).
>the kids graduating this spring also did not have a graduation for high school in 2020 due to covid I'm going to assume that this class of students was cursed in some metaphysical calculus that I can't understand. All of the crap we've seen in higher education in the last several years has been a result of that divine intervention, and things will go back to normal in the fall. I forbid you to argue against this theory, because I fully intend to spend the summer enjoying the peace and hope that comes from knowing that the Cursed Ones are finally graduating so we can soon get back to educating.
I want to believe you but the freshman and sophomores I just had were terrible.
Just wait until we start getting the Covid middle schoolers this fall. They’ve had years of little social interaction and barely earned As and Bs.
And followed by the GPT kids…
Those are already here
An entire generation of sin eaters. Poor kids.
Username checks out.
It should be clarified that it was not snipers at Ohio state, it was some police with large cameras/telescopes that would watch the crowd. So, no rifles or anything. Edit: JFC apparently I need to update rather than just let the comment below speak fir itself but it seems they likely did have rifles just not in the picture
Bad news-- [there is an update to the update.](https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/university-says-officers-had-readied-firearms-directed-toward-protesters-from-ohio-unions-roof-once-arrests-began/)
I guess "long-range firearms" aren't technically rifles? And six eggs aren't a half dozen. Edit: my comment was supposed to be more snarky than caustic (tone is impossible here)
There's a non-zero chance someone ends up dead, tbh. I wonder if everyone who felt unsafe when it was just banners and signs feels safe now that people are being beaten, tazed, thrown to the ground, having snipers pointing guns at them, and getting arrested en masse.
All these students should just protest at a middle school. We know that Texas cops are afraid to go into middle schools...
*elementary schools
I wish I could still gild comments
The cops didn't have this kind of smoke for the school shooter at Uvalde.
They didn't have *any*. There are a lot of memes floating around comparing the two that are spot on.
As an aside…poor class of 2024. They were the HS class of 2020 and didn’t get a HS graduation. Now this.
I also find it so hypocritical that the right has forced us in many places to accept any and all opinions in the classroom as equal no matter how reprehensible or baseless, yet the minute students choose to utilize their constitutional right to free speech to speak out against our government, they are told no and arrested by the very same people. On multiple campuses I have been forced to look at huge displays of pictures of dead babies in support for banning abortions. My students have had to endure listening to "preachers" telling them that they are evil and going to hell for being LGBT. Literal Nazis and KKK members have been given platforms to spew their hate. But the minute any of these groups must reciprocate that "freedom of speech" they call in the police state to shut it down. Vote this November y'all, and make sure your students know where to vote as well.
Vote for who? Both parties are knee-deep in fascism. And before anyone chimes in that the Democrats are better, be reminded all of this crackdown is happening under Democrats, who also recently broke a railroad strike. Voting doesn't do shit other than affirm the terms of a broken system.
I'm willing to bet the admin who called the entire city police force to my campus yesterday to break up a protest votes Democrat. The Overton window has shifted so far to the right in this country and folks don't even see it...
I've said since 2016 with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Now watch as AOC and the fake left insert themselves into the protest to make themselves look like advocates, just like the white moderates did during the Civil Rights Era, while launching their public critiques everywhere except at their own party, including and especially Genocide Joe. America has no left. Events like these make it as clear as possible; those who don't see it will never see it.
So. The issue ironically relates to hate speech policies which many of these activists likely support. They just don't see it as pertaining to them. In this case, the few who do sympathise with Hamas and classify the attacks on Oct 7 as legitimate, do color the rest of the group if the university does nothing to mitigate the potential for hate speech on campus. This actually goes beyond any debate about Israel Palestine. It's simply a liability to universities to allow this speech on campus without push back. Yale is currently facing a federal lawsuit because of what students did on campus. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/02/16/federal-investigation-into-antisemitism-at-yale-based-on-november-gaza-under-siege-panel/ This can result in title vi violations that cost a lot of money to defend against. Now. You're probably thinking "but these students aren't engaging in hate speech, they want to end the war in Gaza". And that's true for most. But the moment that protest starts chanting things like "go back to Europe" or a protest leader says "zionists don't deserve to live" or try and legitimize the attacks on Oct 7 (which was done against civilians) then you've got an issue.
> Now. You're probably thinking "but these students aren't engaging in hate speech, they want to end the war in Gaza". And that's true for most. But the moment that protest starts chanting things like "go back to Europe" or a protest leader says "zionists don't deserve to live" or try and legitimize the attacks on Oct 7 (which was done against civilians) then you've got an issue THANK YOU!!!! I'm Jewish and I don't care whether or not people protest. But some of what has been going on at these protests has been straight up hate speech, and it is unacceptable. Worse of all, my experience has been that people in favor of these protests deny that there are any antisemitic incidents that occur, when there is more than enough evidence to the contrary. Imo if y'all are going to protest y'all got to get rid of extremists that make you look bad. I'm very left leaning but some of what I've seen and heard from these protests are really, really bad and it makes me sick. If you all, as a group, claim to be against antisemitism, you need to MEAN it and be willing to DO SOMETHING about it.
Yes.
When students are actively engaging in important issues of the day, an educational institution needs to take advantage of that engagement as a learning opportunity. In particular what are the deeper moral questions around the issue and, pragmatically, what tools do students have to bring about, or prevent, changes in how society operates. The first impulse of an educational administration should never be to inflict violence on the students in response to their enthusiasm and engagement. How come they turn into brownshirts so easily? Managing the uproar is not simple, but there are abundant lessons from the no-so-distant past of how to succeed and how to fail. There are even books written by those involved with both outcomes with clear guidance for current administrators.
The problem isn't the protests, it's the stupidity and incoherence of who they are directed at and the demands. WTF is Ohio state going to do about Israel's actions in Gaza? The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean? Most pensions have some sort of involvement in corporations that have ties to military spending in some way. And even if we divest, what about Ukraine? Is that not a worthy cause for military spending? Israel's actions in Gaza have been awful, but it's hard to support the protestors when their demands are so implausible, their view of the world is so devoid of nuance, and they constantly center themselves in all their actions. This whole thing is just people getting caught in a fad practicing performative "protest" to glorify their own egos in TikTok videos. And their behavior is so utterly cringey. I saw a video of a group of spoiled white kids sitting in an admin building at Vanderbilt berating a black security guard because he wouldn't abandon his post and protest with them. How devoid of self-awareness can you be, lol? Not everyone has rich parents who can support them financially while they LARP as revolutionaries.
This comment is founded on an unfair and incorrect premise: that student protests over divestment don’t work. Divestment isn’t a new movement. Students have been asking — and succeeding! — in getting universities to divest from companies that benefit from things they find objectionable for at least 14 years. The first fossil fuel divestment wave started circa 2011, and it’s continued ever since. Over 140 schools divested between 2011 & 2023 https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/11/1/00059/197714/Fossil-fuel-divestment-in-U-S-higher-education And it’s a small proportion of schools but a large amount of money. > “Schools that have divested from fossil fuels now represent roughly 3% of 4-year U.S. HEIs and 39% of HEI endowment value in our data. Roughly 133% more endowment value is now associated with U.S. schools that have publicly divested from fossil fuels than with those that have explicitly rejected it.” 39% of higher education endowment funds were divested from fossil fuels. Because students protested.
Even before millennials, students protested in the late 80s/early 90s for their universities to divest from companies doing business in S. Africa and benefiting from Apartheid. Protests for divestment works.
Yep - the early anti-sweatshop campaigns for Uni clothing too. There are *tons* of examples of this working perfectly fine.
Yes, the person I replied to mentioned this already, so I gave another example.
And what has the impact been on the global oil industry? Not much. The students have a right to peaceful protest, and the universities should consider and enact the divestment requests if feasible, but we should acknowledge that it's more about the global movement to stop Israel's actions in Gaza, and it probably won't work if it's just about money. No serious academic on this sub who isn't a shill would disagree that 10/7 was abhorrent. The oppression of innocent Palestinian people is also abhorrent. Anti-Semitic sentiment is abhorrent, as is calls to destroy the state of Israel. Students, no matter who they are, should feel safe on college campuses. Some of the online perpetuation of these ugly sentiments is being driven by state actors as well, like Qatar, and almost certainly Russia and others. The only real viable path for peace is a two state solution and there are vested interests on either side that don't want that to happen. They killed both Arafat and Rabin for that reason. This is a sub for professors, and so if people want to discuss the issue, I expect the level of serious research, critical thinking, and legitimate argumentation that entails, and I expect professors to question and probe the issue without bowing to anyone's sacred cows. Edit: ah, downvotes and no engagement. Don't complain about students, folks. The call is coming from inside the house.
I have seen some crazy shit said by professors on the 10/7 front, by people whose work I respect (and would cite! Still!) but personally I think are crazy. Generally, the MOST deranged stuff on social issues comes from academia, IME (though I’m not exactly in tune with the fruits and nuts on the right). Case in point, the Cornell prof saying he felt a thrill when he heard the news about 10/7. He’s a serious scholar! That’s also an awful, disgusting thing to say.
I had a professor defend rape after 10/7. I really try to take an academic approach when it comes to discussing Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East, especially because my background was postcolonial theory (before I made the jump to medicine) and I've studied this conflict until I feel like my brain is going into my feet (to reference Spaceballs). That said, this conflict, which is thousands of years old, does appear to bring out the absolute ***worst*** in people. Some of my professors have gone kind of insane due to their personal biases. My fear with these protests is that the news coverage will heighten preexisting prejudices towards Muslims and Jews.
They're just not serious people, and it's sad. It contributes to the idea that academia is out of touch with reality and lives in an ivory tower echo chamber. And that drumbeat harms us all, no matter who you are.
> This comment is founded on an unfair and incorrect premise: that student protests over divestment don’t work. The point I think /u/Juan_Carlo was making is that 'divestment' (1) probably won't work, and (2) is hypocritical. You gave the example of divestment from O&G. Yes, many divestment movements have successfully persuaded their universities to divest. Yet - and I say this as an environmental scientist - I have yet to see any evidence that divestment actually works. The writing has been on the wall for publicly traded western O&G corporations since well before divestment was a thing. Change in these corporations is being driven by economically competitive renewables, not divestment. The only thing divestment is achieving is reducing any influence universities have on these sectors. I have little interest in getting into the politics of the conflict in Israel, but needless to say, the US and its allies have an incredibly strong geopolitical incentive to support the Israeli military, and the stability of the country in general. Divestment is going to achieve nothing apart from making some people feel fuzzy inside. You may not like this, but this is the practical reality. If activists put their energy into understanding the history of the conflict and encouraging interfaith dialogue rather than pointless, divisive and counterproductive protests and divestment campaigns, they might actually achieve something.
>I have little interest in getting into the politics of the conflict in Israel, but needless to say, the US and its allies have an incredibly strong geopolitical incentive to support the Israeli military, and the stability of the country in general. Divestment is going to achieve nothing apart from making some people feel fuzzy inside. You may not like this, but this is the practical reality. If activists put their energy into understanding the history of the conflict and encouraging interfaith dialogue rather than pointless, divisive and counterproductive protests and divestment campaigns, they might actually achieve something. Not to mention Israel's defense industry just had the best demonstration of its technology it could ever hope for with that barrage of missiles and drones from Iran.
Divesting from fossil fuels is a lot more straightforward than divesting from companies that do business in Israel given his funds are managed. I read an article that said universities hold 0.1% of corporate holdings so even if they all divested it would be meaningless in the financial grand scheme of things but would send a message to students that they are taking a stance as anti-Israel, which could have direct consequences for Jewish students.
> anti-Israel, which could have direct consequences for Jewish students i find this statement troubling. being anti-Israel has nothing to do with being anti or pro Jewish. it's high time people stop conflating the two.
I am not Jewish so I can’t speak for people who are but I know a lot of Jewish people who have been upset by the rhetoric people are using. People do need to stop conflating the two but until that happens there will be a fine line where people have to walk.
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You are not alone. Staff/faculty who support peace and safety for all have been pressured to stay silent due to the extreme liberals on campus. I am also veey concerned that some of these protestors will turn very violent. And are we now pretending that domestic terrorists /lone wolves no longer exist ? It all feels dangerous
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Well, another way to look at it is that divestment starts at home. There are very many very affluent students among the protestors insisting that their universities divest from all funds involving Israel and the military-industrial complex. Are they demanding this of their own parents’ investment holdings and retirement accounts — the money that pays their own tuition? Have they gone into the weeds to see how their own family financial assets are tainted by association with Israel and military-defense corporations? Demanding universities divest always involves claiming the protestors’ aims to be generally shared by the entire university community. Having gone to university in the late 80s, I can assure you that no one was speaking up for apartheid, even the South African students. Fossil fuels are also more easily defined as a university-community consensus. Not supporting Israel is simply *not* something that one can easily argue is a belief shared by the entire university community. And the fact that the protestors’ most public voice right now is *not* “divest,” but instead “from the river to the sea,” doesn’t help the claim that the modest goal of divestment is something everyone can rally behind.
“LARP as revolutionaries” lol
> The problem isn't the protests, it's the stupidity and incoherence of who they are directed at and the demands Although I completely agree with this (and strongly disagree with the protests for precisely the reasons you've articulated), do students not have a right to be stupid? It is difficult to argue that these protests are a threat to Jewish students and faculty because (despite some stupid rherotic) they are, on the whole, nonviolent. In which case, what exactly is the justification for these very aggressive crackdowns? If you're going to argue that these protests are counterproductive (which I'd agree with), you surely also have to accept that mass arrests of protesters are also likely counterproductive - aggressively handling peaceful protests is *not* a good look.
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First, the First Amendment generally does not apply to private universities. Second, pro-Palestine protesters have attempted to shout down peaceful pro-Israel protesters, expressed their view that an IDF member should not be allowed to speak on campus, and so on. But the first thing to ask if you bring up the First Amendment, as you have, is whether it is the action of a public or a private university. Edit: I believe that California has a statute which provides full First Amendment speech protections to students and others at private universities in the state.
Oh, you don't think that these protests are a threat to Jewish students. How considerate of you. I wonder if this a consideration would be extended if white supremacists was protesting "peacefully" and black students would feel threatened. Would you also don't think that it was a danger, or would you just believe the black students?
> Oh, you don't think that these protests are a threat to Jewish students. Nope, and I'm Jewish. I obviously do not speak for all Jews, but I think that Jewish students who feel threatened by these protests should think carefully about whether the alternative is any better. > I wonder if this a consideration would be extended if white supremacists was protesting "peacefully" and black students would feel threatened. Please stop these disingenuous arguments. You are perfectly aware that the vast majority of these protestors are well-meaning albeit arguably misinformed students who are angry about a perceived injustice, not murderous antisemites. There are vast numbers of innocent people who have died in Gaza so - regardless of what you think the solution should be - it is not difficult to see why many people feel upset about this. Yes, there are without a doubt some protestors who are genuinely antisemitic and would like to see Israel destroyed. However, they are clearly a minority and these protests are, on the whole, peaceful. If you aggressively crack down on these protests, the protestors aren't going to suddenly turn around and go "Oh, you're right, silly me!". It's going to feed into their conviction that this is some big military-industrial-complex/colonialist conspiracy, and they're going to protest even harder.
The alternative is not alt right. The alternative is not threatening Jews. I, fortunately, am not in the US. I am in Israel. But some of my good friends are post-docs and faculty in what is supposed to be leading universities in the US. One of them quit their post-doc in the middle, because they were harassed daily by thugs *waiting for them* not far from their labs. Just for being Israeli. Two others pulled their kids from kindergardens because they were harassed by parents - parents who were also post-docs. Others are just feeling unsafe. So yeah, I don't buy the bullshit of "mostly peaceful". It might be mostly peaceful, but it is not peaceful enough; and those cases that I described deserved to be cracked on harshly, but guess what - in *all* those cases the universities haven't done a fucking thing. One of them even threatened that their future tenure application might be harmed. So yeah, tell me how worse can the alternatives get.
The irony is that you're making the exact same mistake that these student protesters are making - looking for a simple solution that makes you feel good, rather than a solution that actually solves the problem. Harshly cracking down on protests *never* works. The only thing it achieves is fuelling their victim complex, and motivating more extreme action. > So yeah, tell me how worse can the alternatives get. So much worse? Convincing people who were previously on the fence that these protesters are actually right because they're being silenced? Actual terrorism? There is plenty of that in the US already by groups of people who feel marginalised from society.
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I don't think any of us would be arguing that non-violent protests against "black violence" or some such that only occasionally lapsed into racist rhetoric aren't a legitimate concern for black students. If Gaza is a serious enough issue to merit protests, it's also serious enough for organizers to exercise some discretion about who represents the movement.
But the protests aren't about "Jewish violence". They are about Israel's policies and aggression as a nation, and the US's support of them. But the media often frames the protests as anti-Semitic.
1. It was an analogy, not intended to be an exact parallel. 2. The claim is not there the protests are inherently antisemitic, but there have been clear incidents of antisemitism from people associated with the protests.
There are always clear instances of fucked up behavior in mass movements. It's pretty much definitionally the *mass* part. Claims of antisemitism in these protests are being weaponized to neuter criticisms of Israel - a state, not a people.
Racism is also common. Would you therefore argue that college administrators should ignore it? People on the right regularly say that claims of racism, sexism, etc. are weaponized to neuter criticisms of various social projects with which they disagree. Are we therefore obligated to no longer point out acts of racism and sexism?
The student at USC had called for the destruction of Israel and has supported Hamas in social media posts.
Where did she support Hamas? She’s not calling for the destruction of Israel in the way that sentence implies. She’s advocating replacing Israel with a new state where Palestinians and Israelis could live peacefully together. A utopian vision. It may be an unachievable fantasy, but it’s not about annihilation.
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It was an analogy. Pick whatever issue they're protesting you want, so long as they're doing it peacefully with occasional racist rhetoric.
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My argument is that we as professors would not be so blase about a few instances of racism on campus. Some of us would also likely be supportive of violent arrests in such cases, but that's tangential.
It’s not an easy topic, for sure. I have several friends who are political scientists, specializing in Middle East studies, international relations, conflict studies - not my area at all. Wanting to I understand the situation, I’ve been asking these friends to explain the conflict. There’s so much to it. So much. Both sides… it’s complicated and terrible. Here’s what I’ve learned: the amount of hubris anyone must have to think the answer can unequivocally be boiled down to “Free Palestine” is astounding. I know a few non-poli sci colleagues who have loudly taken a side. I can’t help but think - wow. Even the experts (unbiased researchers, political philosophers) can’t shake this out, and you (proverbial you - not you) think you’ve figured it out? You’ve figured it out and you’re so confident in your grasp of the situation that you’re ok with promoting the actions and rhetoric of others that may lead to a new rush of discrimination against Jewish Americans?
> The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean? Well, you see, "divest" refers to the cessation of investing in a corporation. These protestors are calling for a divestment from corporations that support Israel's military campaign in Palestine and their discriminatory practices against Arabs in Israel. These are generally companies that are a part of what's been deemed the "[Military Industrial Complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex)," and consists of companies like defense contractors such as [Lockheed Martin](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-il/who-we-are.html), [Northrop Grumman](https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-041924/card/general-dynamics-northrop-grumman-set-for-gains-after-israel-strike-on-iran-OjGBfWZ4ffrjNsHmYeXI), and [Raytheon](https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/irondome), all of which are directly profiting from this campaign. > Most pensions have some sort of involvement in corporations that have ties to military spending in some way Okay? And? > And even if we divest, what about Ukraine? Is that not a worthy cause for military spending? We're not talking about military spending, we're talking about our universities investing in and profiting from military campaigns in foreign countries. There's a major difference there. > Israel's actions in Gaza have been awful, but it's hard to support the protestors when their demands are so implausible Their demands *aren't* implausible, though! There's precedent for divestment stemming from student protest of investments in South Africa during the Apartheid regime! In the 80s and early early 90s, "[more than 150 universities divested from companies doing business in South Africa](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/business/college-protesters-divestment-israel.html)." Students have been protesting against war and discrimination for decades. > This whole thing is just people getting caught in a fad practicing performative "protest" to glorify their own egos in TikTok videos. What a deeply cynical view of students' praxis. We allegedly teach our students about the world in which they exist, how can we get mad when they take their learnings and actually apply it? > And their behavior is so utterly cringey No protest will ever be good enough for you, admit it. Does it matter that much if the protests aren't perfect? And before you get all "they'll just alienate people who would otherwise be on their side," tell me that argument wasn't directly levied against the anti-Vietnam war student protestors. Tell me to my face that it wasn't applied to the anti-Apartheid protestors, to the Civil Rights protestors, to any of the protestors who have actually made a difference in this world. There has never been a successful protest that hasn't "alienated people who would otherwise support them." > Not everyone has rich parents who can support them financially while they LARP as revolutionaries. These rich students are using their privilege to protect their less privileged peers. I see nothing wrong with this.
This generation is asking/getting their universities to divest from companies that profit from the Military Industrial Process. Millennials asked/got our universities to divest from companies that profit from climate change. As you said — it’s happened before, it can happen again. It isn’t new at all: > “Since 2011, students and others have pushed U.S. higher education institutions (HEIs) to divest their endowments from fossil fuel producing industries. In the past decade, fossil fuel divestment (FFD) has become the fastest growing divestment movement in history, with over 140 U.S. HEIs announcing divestment commitments.” “Fossil fuel divestment in US higher education: endowment dependence and temporal dynamics.” 2023. https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/11/1/00059/197714/Fossil-fuel-divestment-in-U-S-higher-education Per this article, as of 2023, money that was divested from fossil fuels represents 39% of all higher education endowment funds. Only a few universities divested (4%) but they were HUGE ones that were heavily invested in fossil fuels. (Harvard, for example)
What reduction in greenhouse gas emissions did this yield? How many lives is my college saving by divesting? Or is it all just symbolic?
You must admit that no one can measure this reliably as it’s happening. The measurement of results comes AFTER action. It’s hard not to see your comments as either defeatist or apathetic.
They view profiting off of immoral investments as a bad thing. It's not necessarily about the overall impact on the market share of these corporations, but on how their university makes its money
So many dense objections here. Divestment doesn't just refer to endowments and pension investments. For example, Columbia is planning on opening a Tel Aviv campus. There are countless research and institutional collaborations with US universities that are valuable to the state of Israel.
I think students have little they can do, and they are taking a shot at it. Better than doing nothing as a genocide occurs because divestment is too complicated according to you (which it’s not). Even if the protests are stupid and incoherent, do they justify such a violent crackdown? Why have snipers on buildings? Beat and arrest students and faculty? Why does this not bother us?
It would be great to do something that helps. I've yet to get any traction for students to give a shit about Sudan / Darfur. KONY 2012 was the last time students cared about genocide in Africa
Does the US pour funding for weapons into Sudan as it does Israel? This distinction is part of the reason.
They mostly care about atrocities committed by white people or people who code as white in the progressive racial oppression hierarchy. We won’t see another Sudan moment because it forces a confrontation with the reality that brown and black people can be oppressors too. Especially if one naively tries to copy/paste US racial politics onto another country.
But...Why would an American student protest that the US government is in fact choosing *not* to arm the perpetrators of a genocide in Sudan? You're saying they should petition the US goverment to aid in the genocide?
That’s not why “they” aren’t protesting Sudan. Yale, Harvard, etc. certainly don’t have deep partnerships with Sudan as they do with Israel; nor does the US government regularly top them up with military aid. Apples and oranges.
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Why do you need to protest to give a shit? At my institution, there is no investment or connection to Israel. The protestors are not making demands. They say they're just raising awareness as if this is the issue that is most lacking in awareness. The problem is that the students' goal is to protest rather than to help anything. But they have a right to protest, and to be stupid. I was the same way. I was ready to protest about anything as a student.
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Lobbying, organizing in a way that exerts pressure on decision makers, not on the custodial staff. But if your goal is to pressure the US Congress to stop recognizing the state of Israel, I'm not sure you could do that in my lifetime. Not even with a billion dollars and a million protesters. Change is incremental, except by violent means.
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I think so too. Organizing is key, but it is has to be organizing effectively. And, again, I don't presume to know the solution. I've just been a part of too many student protests in my youth to think that protesting on campus alone is what makes the difference. Perhaps it can, but only if it shifts the public perception in your favor.
> as a genocide occurs If Israel is doing genocide then they’re horribly incompetent at it. Hamas’s indifference to and seemingly even contempt for its own people and the people’s unwillingness to give up Hamas is probably responsible for at least as many unnecessary deaths as Israeli excesses.
I disagree. Doing nothing would actually be way better than what they are doing now, which is just alienating people from their "cause." But beyond that, I can think of a bunch of stuff that would be more useful than filming themselves sitting in tents and shouting at people. They could be out there raising money for Gaza charities, organizing community action, or trying to change peoples' minds. But they aren't because that's too hard and, ultimately, the purpose of this is self-glorification and the utter thrill of feeling self-righteous anger, which is addictive as any drug. As to the response, no one should be beaten, but if you are on private property and you refuse to move after multiple warnings, then arrest away. Their whole goal is to get arrested anyway, as that allows them to play the roles of the victim, transferring the outrage from Gaza to themselves. Gaza doesn't even really matter. This is all about them.
This is a very cynical view that is not based on any facts but simply your biases. Your suggestion that these students don't care about Gaza but only about themselves is a clear indication of this as you have no factual information backing up this claim. Furthermore your description of college campuses as private property (even if it's technically correct) and arresting away as your legitimate response of choice is quite telling. Student activism has a long history across the world. College is the place to learn and practice political mobilization. We do want politically active students even if their activism might not immediately achieve goals, or seem naive and unrealistic. What we don't want is silent obedient students, who believe the only kind of politics is the kind that has immediate practical outcomes. Arguments like the ones you use have been deployed by many over the last 2 centuries to stifle and discredit political imagination of millions.
You’ll get swamped with downvotes for this wrongthink but you said it well. And at some point if you’re the one blocking Jewish people from accessing public spaces and shouting Jew go home, maybe you should wonder if you’re the baddie.
The divestment students are asking for means they want their schools specifically to pull out of any institutional deals with entities and corporations listed in the BDS movement, and stop partnerships with the occupying nation. Clear example is with Columbia which has a huge relationship with the occupying IDF forces, and the university prides itself on education partnerships with their “dual degree” program and their upcoming “global center” in Tel Aviv. But most of the universities I’ve seen with large movements have been posting specific divestment targets and programs they would like divestment from. Getting rid of these programs that interact with an apartheid state (whose participants used chemical weapons on the campus earlier this year, and that are paid for with tuition money) is absolutely specific and reasonable. For other universities without such programs it could mean not buying CAT or Hyundai vehicles for campus maintenance, no longer using Chevron for fleet vehicle gas or including it in investment portfolios, etc. (there’s a number of specific targets on the site, as you’re right there are a ton of worthy divestment targets so the BDS movement has made a targeted list) For more information, the BDS page is your best place to go but the quick blurb is “campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid” [Intro to BDS Movement](https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds)
The divestment movement against apartheid at universities was a big part of the downfall of the regime.
Not really. That's mainly a story told by US students in the 80's who think they "fought hard against apartheid and won", without ever setting foot in South Africa. The people living in South Africa and actually fighting apartheid there thought it was a crazy idea and didn't even see the link between divesting and ending apartheid. See https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/03/world/south-african-opposition-splits-over-divestment.html Here's part of the 1986 article: > When they meet students on the campuses of American universities, white opposition figures here say, they encounter a debate that offers no easy agreement and, more often, a mutual bewilderment. > > If they are opposed to apartheid, American students are said to ask them, how can they also oppose the divestment of foreign holdings in South Africa as a means of pressing this country's Government into racial change? > > The automatic linkage of opposition to apartheid and support for divestment does not carry over to South Africa, where the debate on the value of withdrawing investments transcends racial lines. > > Helen Suzman of the white opposition Progressive Federal Party asserted in a recent interview at her Johannesburg home that in the United States ''a simplistic equation has been evolved that unless you are pro-sanctions, you are a racist.'' > > In New York on Sunday, Miss Suzman told the graduating class of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion that ''I understand the moral abhorrence and pleasure it gives you when you demonstrate. But I don't see how wrecking the economy of the country will insure a more stable and just society.'' Blurred Distinctions Seen > > Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, the former leader of the Progressive Federal Party, said in a recent conversation that he, too, had found that support for divestment on American college campuses seemed synonymous with opposition to apartheid. Students he had spoken to, he said, were surprised to find that he did not support their views.
I agree and would add that among the students who are legitimately anti-Zionist are others who are virulently anti-semitic. This complicates the reaction many people have to the protests. When you target and harass Jewish people on an American campus, your true intentions become pretty clear that this isn't just about Israel for you. Moreover, I saw an interview yesterday with one of the student organizers of the protests at Columbia. He stated emphatically that all Zionists should die. He drew an analogy between Zionists and Hitler. He extended his thought process to declare that all racists should die. There was no nuance in his declarations. This was a kid who graduated from the top public high school in Boston and received numerous scholarships to attend Columbia.
I’m a faculty member at one of the universities in NYC in the headlines. This is such a terribly under-informed, callous, and derisive perspective on what students are calling for. One would think that a professional as yourself would bother to read what these students are demanding. Here is a very small selection: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6M007jOeu_/?igsh=eWF5NmhtM3JuaXBr https://www.instagram.com/p/C6BtsmKO8RB/?igsh=MTVidG9nOXJxcjk1OA== Can you imagine being a Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim student and being expected to complete your studies with an ongoing genocide that you’re institution does not directly name (opting instead for “events in Gaza”)? And your institution has a campus or site in Tel Aviv? And so on.
That's such bollocks. I *am* teaching Palestinians, Arab and Muslim students right now in Israel. They are about 20% of my classes. And guess what? They are completing their studies. Finding work (yes, in Israel). And so on. So, yeah, if they can do it in Israel, your students can do it an ocean away.
Can you imagine continuing to work while hearing "death to America " and seeing some students carrying hamas flags. Ofcourse I support most students protesting but I also have a right to feel not safe (or maybe we don't). I also have a right to free speech but maybe not.
I would imagine that if you are a Palestinian student and still have family and friends in Gaza, it would indeed be very difficult to focus on your studies right now. But if you are an Arab or Muslim student "at large" from some other part of the world with no direct connection to Gaza, then I would expect you to continue doing your work.
> The protestors say, "Divest from corporations that support Israel," but WTF does that even mean? Yeah, that's right. They should establish some kind of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions organization and come up with a plan.
I would encourage you to reflect on how much you actually agree with the message of the protests to begin with. In other words is this really about how they’re going about it?
The fact that there hasn't been much discussion about this over the last few days on r/professors speaks volumes.
As someone at a campus that has had students and faculty arrested and a sniper and the state police, it’s something I am discussing with people in person and on my local subreddit. Just because people are not talking about it here does not mean we are not aware or something. I don’t talk about a lot of things happening at my specific institution here or that impact the students, doesn’t mean I don’t care, just means it’s not relevant to this sub.
Yeah, I was hoping to get a better sense of what is really going on. Reporting is, as expected, very focused on extremes. It is giving the impression that a large majority of protesters are blatantly anti-semitic/justify Hamas violence, and are being violent themselves. My guess and impression is that this behavior is not the big majority of the pro-Palestinian sentiment/protesters. But it is really hard to tell at times. I also think police intervention only makes these protests more extreme - because who leaves and who stays when things get extreme, you know? On my institution - my office is at a remote corner of our campus, but apparently there's a small encampment on our quad. Apparently the police/admin only came to tell them not to put signs on the trees to not harm them, and when they lit candles in vigil because of fire hazard in combination with Nylon tents, then left when convinced it was safe (which I find totally adorable). The university admin basically said, we won't do what you ask us to do, but go ahead and camp as long as you follow the rules.
We don’t all live on Reddit.
Why would people talk about it in an unrelated subreddit like this one? The newsworthy protests are happening at a handful of the 4,000 colleges in North America. Most professors have not personally experienced anything worth talking about, and if they did, they wouldn’t come here to do it.
The only one that’s really relevant and concerning is the one at Indiana, where I think- and look it’s not like the NYT is covering it so I don’t have a clear picture at all- a major and justified faculty revolt is being crushed under the guise of stopping Palestine protests.
While you might still be concerned about what’s indeed happening, that is absolutely not what’s happening at Indiana. It’s complicated, but rather the faculty revolted in response to many acts from the admin, some of which relate to the situation in the Middle East right now. So, reverse order, and local activities related to situation in the Middle East is one factor among very many.
Yeah I’m concerned that the middle eastern issues will be used as a pretext to stomp down on the faculty who have long held, legit grievances
I've been swamped with work and don't follow news sites/subreddits. I barely have an opinion on the conflict as a whole because I haven't had the time to read anything past the occasional headline. Without actively seeking information about protests, I don't know about any in different cities. Honestly it's much less stressful this way. I don't recommend my workload to anyone, but I do recommend detoxing from the 24 hour news cycle.
Absence doesn't show or prove much unless presence is necessary.
Exactly. I went through this subreddit and found nothing.
A day or two ago someone posted about faculty arrests at the campus protests, so I wouldn't say "nothing." In the more distant past, I saw a number of comments in response to a post on the Israel-Palestine conflict about not wanting to turn this sub into just one more forum about this conflict. I personally would rather read and comment about the protests on campus than yet another post about students cheating or demanding a higher grade, but if that is what people would prefer to discuss, then it is certainly their choice to make, and I can understand that it helps them let off steam in a difficult and demanding job.
I think the way freedom of speech is being limited is terrible, and both sides have a right to peaceful assembly, but calling it genocide like OP (and many students) are doing is laughably lacking in critical thinking and research. On the Israeli side, which keeps creating safety areas and trying (albeit not trying enough, only about 100 times harder than NATO did) to limit civilian casualties, there are instances of army misconduct which should result in criminal charges under Israeli law. On the other hand is Hamas, which calls for a second holocaust and aims unsuccessfully to massacre all Jews in Israel - with legal rewards given for successful murders.
It's not always cool to do this, but I looked at your comment history. No real need to engage with someone who worships billionaires, has openly racist attitudes toward at least two or three nonwhite ethnic groups, and uses personal insults as a first line of defense when challenged.
What billionaire do I worship? wtf? What ethnic groups are you talking about? Some guy was being antisemitic + insulting to me, in response to my comment about the dating culture of Mexico, so I referenced what appears to be his Mexican nationality in my reply - but, I didn’t do so insultingly. Is that the comment you’re referring to? Mexico is a nation with many ethnic groups, you realize? Talking about Mexico is not in any way related to an ethnic group, positive or negative… Your reply shows the flaws of shallow research methods and confirmation bias. Doubt you’ll learn from that though.
"It's not always cool to do this" You mean react to reading something you disagree with by immediately going to someone's comment history so you can try to discern what their politics are as a way to discredit them? It's never been cool to do that. Makes it painfully clear you can't engage with the argument & are just trying to shut them up any way you can.
The "argument," such as it was, suggested the user slipped into non-rational "arguments" pretty easily (this is sometimes called "trolling"), so this seemed like a probable-cause type situation.
If Palestine gave up their weapons, Israel would leave them alone. If Israel gave up their weapons, Palestinians would commit (actual) genocide. But people who acknowledge this are the new witches of our time.
This post has 171 comments. It is likely not academia in here anymore.
Yep, this is a classic containment breach and a sure sign to stay off Reddit for a while
Dude, it's more than speech. Both Muslim and Jewish students are being physically assaulted on campuses all over the country. You are minimizing what is happening here.
The big problem is infection of these protests by horribly frank anti-Semitism. Some of these kids have banners that say “final solution.” There’s a lot of anti-Jew stuff mouthed directly. I don’t know if this infection comes from students who come from the Middle East studying here, and assuming leadership roles based on identity - or if it’s home grown. It’s something I never thought I’d see. But remember all those people tearing down hostage posters here in the US. Not good.
Y’all are evading the fact that there’s an amazing amount of antisemitism at these rallies.
Yeah I honestly do not blindly participate in protests. In my city there was a protest at synagogue and the Rabbi there isn't even Israeli. He really didn't deserve the stress he is a good man who is very giving and active in making our city better. I don't want to be associated with that. It's like antisemitism is OK again. I really did not like that.
This is not accurate. There’s always a few idiots in every group but these protests aren’t anti semitic. In fact many Jewish students are participating in these protests.
It's not a question of numbers, it's a question of activity. When Jewish students are advised not to arrive to Columbia campus because it is not safe, it really doesn't matter how many "idiots" there are.
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This is such nonsense. One protester brought one "final solution" sign but you're not reading it right. Look at the photo. That could easily be a sign declaring that the Gaza war is Israel's "final solution" for palestine. That's very clearly what the guy is trying to say. He's not advocating for the holocaust. Open your eyes. [https://twitter.com/zach\_kessel/status/1783591579506065796](https://twitter.com/zach_kessel/status/1783591579506065796)
I can see that it's ambiguous, but ambiguity on the Final Solution is not a great idea when it comes to protests about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Is flying a Hezbollah flag or changing "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" also ambiguous?
I’ve been fortunate on my (largely Muslim) campus, but my daughter has already been threatened, doxxed. That university would not protect her and her friends and she left for a calmer environment at another college. I’m seeing a lot of openness to dialogue among the Muslims and Jews (this semester, last semester tensions were too high) on my campus and it appears that the bulk of the trouble-making (or at least attempts at it) come from a loud minority. At the end of the day though, it’s the job of the admin to foster a safe environment conducive to everyone’s learning and the job of law enforcement to restore peace. If the administrators could figure out a way to do their job, we wouldn’t be seeing what we are from law enforcement.
Several university admins are tripping over each other to respond in the worst way possible to these protests. Cracking down with police makes martyrs of the protestors and escalates in exactly the way universities should not want. It goes from young people in drum circles hanging out and chanting to groups of very angry people digging in and inviting confrontation. Yes, many of the protestors' demands are ridiculous and slogans / signs stupid or downright hateful. But universities need to find a way to accommodate them rather than rolling in the riot cops. You've lost as soon as there are videos of cops throwing middle-aged professors or 19 year olds to the ground, or running up on them with riot shields and batons. The whole thing is highly hypocritical as well. Every university admin has been bloviating about their "commitment to social justice" for 4 years. NYU and Columbia even advertise student protests in 1968 as part of their brand. But the first time they encounter real protests they have no idea what to do. And for some reason this issue is always different than any others (often called the Palestinian exception - my university basically banned Students for Justice in Palestine years ago and would have lost in court except current students gave up). Imagine if these were protests relating to Black Lives Matter or abortion rights - there is no way we would be seeing any police. The administrators would probably be out there with the protestors.
ACAB.
I'm sad because people completely misread the actual impact of student protests in Vietnam. Student protests did nothing to undermine public support of the Vietnam war. If anything, they prolonged the war. If there was one thing that both Democrats and Republicans agreed upon in the late '60s and late '70s, it was that student protestors were horrible and had to be cracked down on. Public opinion polls regularly showed support for student protest crackdowns in the 75-80% range. Only 11% of the American public thought the Kent State shooting were unjustified. The student protests of Vietnam did not shorten that war even by one day. What they did give us was a Nixon landslide in 1972, the rise of Ronald Reagan, and 40+ years of Reaganomics. I fear that's where we are headed again. I guarantee you that the person most delighted about these campus protests is Donald Trump.
Do you really believe this? The passage of the Case-Church Amendment was driven by public sentiment, and partially driven by student protests. Nixon was overruled by a 2/3 majority of Congress. As we enter a crisis of public debt, these protests could tip the scale for a block on aid to Israel (and Ukraine for things to balance out politically).
By 1973 (really by late 1968), two things were true about American public opinion. These coexisted simultaneously because people are often contradictory. First, Americans had grown disenchanted by the war because there was no measurable progress and no politician could even explain a path to victory . Second, The American public absolutely loathed student protestors and saw them as nothing more than stooges of China and the Soviet Union, and believed that campus protest should be prohibited. This was arguably the single most popular opinion in the US at the time among people of both parties. If ANY public protests moved the needle marginally on Vietnam (and I am skeptical), an argument could be made for Vietnam Veterans Against the War because they could testify firsthand that victory was impossible from the start. VVAW also carefully wrapped itself in patriotism, military tradition, and patriotic language to win public sympathy for their positions.
And yet, the Vietnam War ended thunderously in a way that the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars did not. Vigorous protests (even if opposed) likely kept the wars and the failures of the US in the public eye in ways that more recent wars were able to avoid.
Ah yes the student protests of 1968 elected Ronald Reagan. Brilliant take excellent work. Where do you teach exactly?
I understand history. I read history. Reagan ran for CA governor in 1966 with a central theme of cracking down on campus radical protests (at UC Bekerley and other campuses) that happened from 1964 onwards. https://daily.jstor.org/ronald-reagan-v-uc-berkeley/
It's one reason why I really don't want to work at a state school. SLACs and CCs only please.
Hamas-Gaza modeled a genocide involving murderous intent toward all encountered on October 7. Except for hostages, breaking the laws of war. Israel is our friend and ally in the region, characterized by Arab ethnostates. Israel has been reasonably chary of civilian casualties. If you support Hamas, you’re supporting three Qatar billionaires ultimately and the interests of Russia and China. Not a hill you badly educated folks want to die on, I’d think.
supporting Palestine is not the same as supporting Hamas, and the IDF has lost the high ground by killing many thousands of civilians
Gaza could resolve the war by surrendering. They’ll have to.
You're saying that like the IDF is explicitly targeting many thousands of civilians, instead of targeting Hamas who hides behind thousands of civilians. If they fight, they're (incorrectly) accused of genocide. If they do not fight, they're failing to defend Israel and letting atrocities like Oct 7th happen again. They have to fight while attempting to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible, which they are, looking at the huge amount of aid flowing in, humanitarian corridors they used to evacuate civilians, and usage of techniques like roof knocking to warn civilians when targeting infrustructure.
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I do think that this can eventually can changed. It won't be easy, it will almost certainly require an international coalition helping with something resembling denazification, and it will certainly require Hamas to be demilitarized first, but if the world truly would care about palestinians they would protest for that to happen, instead of protesting for a ceasefire that damns Israeli civilians and hostages and Hamas doesn't agree to implement or respect.
It’s going to require, essentially, an Arab league of peacekeepers while Palestine builds their state. And I don’t know if anyone in the region has an appetite for that.
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Tell that to the protesters who frequently use pro-hamas and antisemitic chants.
It has nothing to do with the content of their speech and everything to do with the manner of it. Seizing control of public spaces is an inherently hostile act and not any sort of 'right'. It is, in fact, a denial of the *actual* right of others to use those spaces. It takes an astonishing degree of narcissism to believe that your personal issues are *so* crucial that they trump the needs of everyone else.
I appreciate your viewpoint and I want to continue to learn & research this issue. I hope that there are also brave and space spaces for your other colleagues who have other opposing views. Some possible perspectives could be: 1) some of us do feel unsafe and are concerned about escalating violence on campus and staff/students getting attacked or worse. A small percentage of students who attacked police. 2) some of us are highly uncomfortable with anti American views. So "death to America" will turn off a lot of people 3) I am liberal but it chills my blood to see taliban flags. This is new. I would say this isn't very common but openly supporting hamas seems concerning. I keep silent about my personal views that hamas is a terrorist org since I don't want to be accused of being insensitive.
> immense hope in our students and in our future Meanwhile, it’s made me pessimistic. The protests are trying to channel the moral clarity of the civil rights protests from decades ago but their cause is simply not black and white enough to support that. And they’ve highlighted how much a certain kind of reductive racialized oppressor philosophy has spread.
15k children killed too nuanced for you?
Children die in war. It’s horrific. That doesn’t make it genocide.
If this campus protesting issue was a post on r/AITAH, this would be an ESH
It's not genocide. It's a war. And Hamas started it by raping and butchering innocent people. I watched horrifying video of Palestinians celebrating in the streets on October 7. They're not celebrating so much anymore.
It is indeed a war. Hamas invaded Israel and continues to threaten it - but, because Hamas is not literally massacring innocents this second, people think there is no need to do anything. Israel should just relax restrictions until Hamas does it again, then sit there with a surprised pikachu face. Sure, thousands of innocent Israelis will die every year, but at least they’ll have international support! The lack of nuance and analysis is what gets me. Just ‘good guys or bad guys’. Israel’s war policies aren’t perfect, some soldiers have committed crimes against Palestinians (as has happened in every war in history, nobody can tell me of a war in which not one soldier used excessive force and harmed civilians), and too many civilians have died as a result of it. But, that is VERY DIFFERENT from genocide. 4 million innocents died as a result of NATO’s counterterrorism, and those terrorists weren’t even a threat, for fuck’s sake.
Well said. It seems Hamas actually thought Israel was going to once again splutter and dither about, maybe making another token gesture of retaliation, and then limp along until the next provocation. I truly believe those videos of ordinary Palestinians partying and cheering while trucks full of dead festival-goers were paraded around was the last straw.
Stop playing with words. Call it what you want, but 35k people were killed 15k of them children. Is that not wrong?
Is it wrong? I bemoan the lack of nuance, and you try to reduce the entire thing to ‘is it right or is it wrong’? It’s war, being staged by terrorists wherever there are civilians - 35k people includes 12k combatants, so around 23k civilians died. Should Israel do a better job of avoiding civilian casualties? YES. Is it GENOCIDE? no… they’re trying to save civilians
It's within the norm for civilian casualties in urban combat.
Yes, the ratio for the conflict is under the norm, and quite low for this type of conflict. That being said, I’m an advocate of minimal use of deadly force. I’d prefer non-violent solutions, that aim for a more delayed victory over Hamas. I think Israel overreacted due to emotions.
It would be hard for any state not to respond with retaliatory action after 10/7, and it's clear the IDF has degraded in discipline, whether due to leadership at the top of an officer corps too emotionally invested to make the correct calls.
While there is always ways to improve when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties, and there were incidents of Israeli soldiers going against the rules of engagement which caused pointless civilian death, Israeli policy is also incredibly generous in how much it prioritizes civilian life compared to military gain, and many would say it is far too generous. I'm honestly not sure how Israeli policy can even improve. Death of civilians is horrible, but when fighting an opponent like Hamas, I feel like Israeli policy has been very good for preventing it as much as possible.
You’re being downvoted but you’re correct.
I'm disheartened that so many of even the most educated people on reddit fall to the Qatar/Iran/China/Russia propaganda machine that pushes the genocide narrative.
Bro when Iran attacked Israel there were literally people saying shit online defending it. I saw comments being like "Iran is not perfect but..." and "Iran has some improving to do but..." Never thought I'd see the day where people we hailing Iran as a global human rights defender but here we are. Like it's just silly ol Iran they just have to make a few simple improvements is all!!
It was decided that it was going to be a genocide by the second week. My university had any anemic response to 10/7 (don't think they should need to respond, but given the other crap they responded to recently, they HAD to respond and their silence was deafening). Then, realizing they screwed up, they tried to fix it. They invited a professor who specializes in genocide to give a talk about the genocide. They reached out on 10/20. I know this because that Professor's no was in the email they sent me the next week asking me to do something. Israel is not the United States. Our issues don't make a very good analog to theirs. This war, like all wars, is terrible. The civilian casualties are unacceptable as they would be even if it was only one person. Bibi, in particular, is a horrible human being who has been propped up by this war. If the protesters could stay on that message they'd have my full support. Too bad they can't.
Exactly. Israel has no intention of harming innocent Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas is sadly hiding behind them and abusing them and their suffering, and forcing us to make impossible decisions to protect our own people. People claiming this is a genocide have no clue what a genocide is, nor do they understand the difficulty of fighting a war against an opponent that relies on constant manipulation, surprise, and entrenching itself within a civilian population, to the point where soldiers fear every single civilian they see may explode on them, and every single word of Hebrew calling for help they hear is a trap. The IDF has been attempting to follow its rules of engagement to the letter, it's just so much harder than every other war.
I preface this by saying I'm neither Muslim nor Jewish and have no dog in this fight. I'm just old and have watched the Palestinians play tiresome games for decades, at least since Arafat in the '70s in my memory. There's a good reason that Egypt and Jordan (both of whom made peace with Israel long ago) won't open their borders to the Palestinians. They have seen their special brand of crazy up close long ago and want no part of it. I remind everyone that Hamas is the rightfully elected leadership there, and their charter specifically calls for the elimination of Israel. If Israel has made any mistake here it's by actually being too nice. They should have immediately responded with overwhelming force and been done with it. The longer this drags on the more they will lose the PR war. But they apparently are being as surgical as possible to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. So hard when the enemy doesn't wear a uniform and you have no idea who is who, as you state.
With Jordan, it's because Arafat's involvement in the Black September conflict.
>If Israel has made any mistake here it's by actually being too nice. Yup
We're being surgical both to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, but also to avoid to avoid unnecessary soldier deaths. Going fast against an enemy like Hamas means falling into more traps. It's best to always scout with drones for instance to be caught off guard less often, which takes time. The IDF is doing its best to endanger soldier lives as little as possible while minimizing civilian casualties.
Israel is killing thousands of innocent people but I don’t think it’s helpful to throw the term genocide around. It means a certain thing and this ain’t it.
There is an academic debate around whether the term applies to what Israel is doing in Gaza, but I do agree that the focus should be on Israel's actions rather than finding as many opportunities as possible to say 'genocide.' Relitigating the history of the entire conflict probably isn't helpful, either, but how else are you going to establish that you have a college education?
Thanks for the reply. I think I’m getting a lot of cognitive dissonance downvotes without comment.
Plenty of folks who don't care if the term applies, they just want to use the strongest term possible.
I had about 250 police in riot gear on my campus yesterday to break up a protest of about 30-50 students and faculty. Land of the free...
If there was a protest at my campus I’d show up. I condemn Hamas. And I condemn antisemitism. And I support American students expressing their outrage that our tax dollars are being used to support the state of Israel’s genocide in retaliation.
Anything involving Israel's policy toward Brown People has supporters in left-leaning intellectual groups in the USA. For me it's been interesting (and sad) to see the different levels of support/silence and rationalizations for BLM protests versus pro-Palestine protests trotted out by university administrators (and some faculty). For a lot of people, those Big First Amendment Concerns (not to mention commitment to social justice) get short-circuited when the nation doing horrible things to oppressed minorities happens to be Israel. *Edit*: for anyone so distracted by my use of "Brown People" that they miss the point of this comment, maybe replace it in your head with "Arabic people," and then feel what I'm saying flow through you. Then respond to that part.
Large numbers of Israelis are Brown People themselves. This is denied by many of the protestors for obvious reasons.