Police suppression of protests: BLM, Gaza...

Opinion: I Was Once a Student Protester.
The Old Hyperbole Is Now Reality.
Zeynep Tufekci*| May 11, 2024

...Overreactions like this can lead to social breakdown — on both sides of the barricade.

In 2014, Hong Kong’s democracy movement was a textbook nonviolent mass protest — the organizers even named their group “Occupy Central With Love and Peace.” Their movement was crushed, and many organizers were given lengthy jail sentences or forced into exile. I was there for the second round of protests, in 2019. The new leaders were so young and so earnest. As the police kept using rubber bullets and tear gas, though, a small portion of the participants stopped talking about love and peace and started making Molotov cocktails.

You can see where all this is going in the astonishingly violent attack at U.C.L.A., where a pro-Israel mob charged at people at the encampment with sticks, chemical sprays and fireworks. (The university and law enforcement did not intervene for hours.) And these dangerous dynamics can spread beyond campuses. On Wednesday, a man in New York was charged with assault, accused of driving his car into a crowd of people holding signs and chanting.

Overreaction is dangerous in another way, too.

The University of Florida has now said that students will be suspended from campus (and employees will be fired) for offenses such as “littering,” building “chairs” and posting “unmanned signs.” I somehow doubt that’s going to be applied to undergraduates taking a nap under a tree or to tailgaters at a football game. Rather, I suspect the point is to prevent protests the administration dislikes. What kind of precedent is that? The first bullet fired at a campus protest was an accident. I worry that the next one may not be.

Around the world, authoritarian leaders and others are watching these developments. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even issued a statement condemning the U.S. for its treatment of “conscientious students and academics including anti-Zionist Jews at some prestigious American universities.” I didn’t know how to react at first. But eventually I had to admit to myself that the comparison to a police state isn’t quite as outrageous as it once seemed.

Gift article: https://apnews.com/article/psychedelic-churches-ayahuasca-5101fe47fe9a6e28de6862...

* X: zeynep tufekci zeynep {Turkish-American}
Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. Princeton professor. @NYTimes columnist. My newsletter insight http://theinsight.org

>1 margd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axpcPXNdoWw

apparently the DNC is thinking about taking their national convention online. They don't want to deal with protestors and the new Democratic Mayor of Chicago doesn't like the idea of having the Chicago PD crack heads like they did back in 1968 for Mayor Daley.....and Democratic Gov. Pritzker isn't interested in pushing him on it either.

I was telling my wife about Hunter S. Thompson's version of the events of the Police riot that took place in 1968. He was outside his hotel in front of these plate glass windows of the hotel restaurant with diners inside eating and as Thompson's watching the event unfold a surge of cops pushes a large mass of protesters and Thompson through the plate glass windows of the restaurant then preceding to club everyone--protesters, Thompson and the people having their dinner inside. Apparently the new Chicago Mayor doesn't want a repeat of that.

Just for the record the total number of "protesters" on college campuses Nation wide is something like 2,300. Some large per cent of these may have been non-students (the so-called outside agitators).

There are 15.2 million college students in the U.S.

Those of you who do not suffer from innumeracy can do the math.

And, just for the record, do any of these narcissistic students, who dream they have THE correct view and the answer to all complex political problems, really think the government of Israel will EVER give a flying fuck what they think? If they do they are bigger fools than even I imagined.

If they are true to some ideal and not just showing off for their little friends then they will buy a plane ticket and go to the Middle East and fight on the side of their heroes - Hamas - and help them drive the Jews to the sea.

I can barely remember my college years now that I am 75 years old. I pray to the Lord Buddha I was not as ignorant and arrogant back then as these motherfuckers are today.

>3 JGL53: yep, they're rewriting legislation in congress to tamp down free speech, meanwhile sending out the riot police to one college campus after another because of just 2300 protesters nationwide. All this over the top reaction for a couple thousand malcontents? If you want to believe that, well......It's also funny how some Biden supporters find themselves all of a sudden on the side of the likes of Elise Stefanik and Virginia Foxx too. All because a couple thousand nasty college protesters think they can change the world. Everybody....anybody just get them to shut up. All 2300 of them!

The point that seems to have eluded the above commenter is what these student/protesters are asking for---mainly that their colleges/universities stop investing in Israel---particularly investments/sometimes research that aid their war machine while a genocide is going on and to stop the United States govt. being complicit in the same genocide by sending weapons to their apartheid like right wing regime. I don't think it's too much to ask. It's not like I expect the United States to declare war on that country but we should be sanctioning them for their war crimes.....only the problem is we've been abetting them. These kids have a lot more moral integrity than our politicians do. I mean go back 9 months if you'd have asked people if doing a genocide was bad about 95% if not more of our population would have said Yes, it is bad. I didn't think it was such a high bar for most people. I guess it all depends who is doing it.

I agree that Israel has gone way too far with its invasion of Gaza but any call for punishment of Israel needs to take into account the atrocities committed in Israel by Hamas in October. Netanyahu's invasion of Gaza is not only inhumane, it also isn't working. Netanyahu is a terrible leader and an immoral one but the way out of this doesn't just involve Israel. It also involves terrorist organizations funded by Iran who would rather use their money for weapons than feeding their own people. We need a two-state solution. That was always the best idea and it still is.

Regarding the protesters: at least on my campus I think the police jumped in too quickly. I don't agree with divestment for many reasons but if the students want to say that, it's their right to do so.

>4 lriley: So you're assuming that extended disruptions on campuses, particularly extremely destructive ones (like at Portland State, where they trashed the library for no apparent reason) and ones that are endangering staff (like the building staff at Columbia who were effectively taken hostage for many hours) are being met with police response because they're having some political effect which nobody but you can see?

If you want to believe that, well...

It's also funny how you seem to believe that thinking that nationalism is bad in all cases is something that puts me "on the side of Elise Stefanik and Virginia Foxx". But if you want to tell me that electing Trump will somehow help the Palestinian people, or that the murderous nationalism of the bastards holding the guns is laudable when the bastards are Palestinian but horrible when they are Israeli, you're going to have to do a lot more work to convince me. Like, you're going to have to start trying to make that case, which so far you have only asserted and never defended.

Since you mentioned divestment, I wanted to try to draw you out on that a little. If you actually spell out the chain of events that divestment hopes for, it looks like this: by making an incoherent and harmful nuisance of myself, I'm going to convince my university to stop investing in some companies, which is going to make their stock marginally cheaper for a few minutes while other investors get a bargain, and then the stock will return to its market price. This will (somehow) convince the companies involved that I was right, and that they should lobby the Israeli government to change its policy and be nicer to the Palestinians. And then, the Israeli government will listen to those companies and change its policy and be nicer to the Palestinians. And then Hamas will stop murdering Israeli civilians in the (very well justified) hope that this will provoke an overwhelmingly murderous reaction, because they will stop believing, as they currently do, that the only way they can stay in power is by ensuring that the people they don't give a shit about have a much worse enemy than the ones who chose, freely and with full intent, to get them killed. (this last belief, it turns out, is also held by Netanyahu and his gang of thugs - and also, it seems to be well justified in both cases, and explains why the Hamas/Netanyahu team have managed to stay in power while murdering so many of the people whose safety they're supposedly responsible for)

The only real difference that divestment could possibly make, then, is to make some capitalist a minor windfall profit. Why is that a good thing in your view?

>3 JGL53: they will buy a plane ticket and go to the Middle East and fight on the side of their heroes - Hamas

No, for two reasons. First of all their criticism of Israeli war crimes does not imply support for Hamas - they are protesting on behalf of innocent civilians, and indeed for the upholding of international norms and laws. Secondly, many of the people who oppose Israeli war crimes do not believe that the solution to violence is more violence.

>5 krazy4katz: any call for punishment of Israel needs to take into account the atrocities committed in Israel by Hamas in October

No. The fact that someone has committed atrocities does not in any way give anyone a licence to commit war crimes against the perpetrators, and certainly not against the innocent civilian population. War crimes have been committed by both Hamas and the IDF, and in due course both should be held accountable in a court of international law.

>7 John5918: The fact that someone has committed war crimes against you does not in any way give you a licence to commit war crimes against the perpetrators, and certainly not against the innocent civilian population. War crimes have been committed by both Hamas and the IDF, and in due course both should be held accountable in a court of international law.

This is complicated, I think. Let me start by agreeing with what you've said.

I agree that the suggestion that criticism of Israel implies support for Hamas is not supportable, and I agree that nobody who is guilty of a war crime is exonerated by the fact of someone else's war crime. That is a fact of international law and it's a fact of any system of ethics worth speaking of: All parties accused of war crimes must be tried and punished on the basis of their actions alone, and the actions of others cannot serve to exonerate them.
And of course, I agree with your wish to see the parties responsible held responsible in an appropriate court. (Though I don't invest a lot of hope in that ever actually happening)

So in sum, I agree that in terms of trials for war crimes, we should draw a clear line around each person and their actions, and ignore any causal connections between their actions and any others.

But I do have to worry that applying these legal formalisms too heavily is likely to obscure an important truth: I think it is pretty clear that Hamas intentionally provoked this slaughter of over 30,000 people, hoping for exactly the result that they got, but it's also something that people claiming to be on the "pro-Palestinian side" would prefer not to admit, presumably because it makes it harder for them to maintain the position that the situation is a black-and-white conflict between innocence and the evil Israeli occupiers. And, indeed, it sort of calls into question the validity of their chosen label. It's hard to be "pro-Palestinian" when the side you're supporting is intentionally causing the attacks you're protesting.

I guess I want to have it both ways: I want to be able to talk about the legal truth that no war crime can be justified by citing another war crime, there is no doctrine of "tit for tat" in the Hague, and I also want to be able to talk about the reality of the situation we're seeing, and that means drawing connections between one war crime and another.

How can we manage to do this?

No, for two reasons. First of all their criticism of Israeli war crimes does not imply support for Hamas - they are protesting on behalf of innocent civilians, and indeed for the upholding of international norms and laws.

I am less certain that the protesters' silence on the question of Hamas' attacks on civilians outside of Gaza does not imply some sort of support for Hamas. Surely they are aware of these events, and of the enormity of the October 7 attack. If they are protesting on behalf of innocent civilians, they've surely missed a few, and there is a pretty obvious pattern to the particular violations of international laws and norms that they choose to decry, and those they choose to ignore.

So, yes, their criticism of Israel does not imply support for Hamas. But their silence on Hamas' actions is pretty blatant.

>6 kiparsky: "extended disruptions on campuses (are) having some political effect which nobody but you can see?"

With US presidential election coming up, Biden must fear for loss of youth, progressive, independent vote? He may have had sympathy for Gaza before, but he must feel pressure to take palpable action--while sticking by traditional ally, Israel? (What a needle to thread!) Even Israel must feel the pressure in US and Europe as translated into $$, UN & ICC actions. "But the Holocaust" will no longer be enough going forward?

Do courts allow offending American citizens to be deported from the US??

US House Bill Proposes Sending Pro-Palestine College Demonstrators to Gaza?
Taija PerryCook | May 13, 2024

The proposed bill stipulates a minimum of six months of community service in Gaza for those convicted.

TRUE
As of this writing, it is highly unlikely the bill will become a law. Even if the bill made it through the House — which currently holds a slim Republican majority — it is almost certain to die in the Democrat-controlled Senate. If passed, the bill would broadly require offenders to spend a minimum of six months doing community service in Gaza, according to U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who introduced the bill. As of this writing, no text for the bill is available...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/house-bill-palestine-protesters-gaza/

>5 krazy4katz: I don't know how much longer negotiating for the remaining hostages is even going to be a viable option. The clock began ticking for them on Oct. 7 and Gaza is in famine. That's not just food, that's clean water, sanitation, medications if they're needed. The hospital infrastructure is all but destroyed---many doctors, specialists, nurses dead. Just from watching doctor interviews on sites like Democracy Now getting sick or wounded/injured....easily treatable stuff before often leads to infections/death now because the resources to treat are no longer available. They are amputating limbs without any anesthetics and that's been going on for months. No painkillers---I heard something recently that people are surviving on average on 1/12th of the minimum for calories every day.

Unless Hamas and/or its surrogates decide just to return the hostages sans negotiation I don't think very many of them are going to survive past another couple months or so and I don't think Netanyahu and the coalition that keeps him in power really cares. What I see actually from political leaders in Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and some other western leaders as well is they don't care much either. Their real concern is the power they hold and the rest is grandstanding. The bill that margd cites in #10 is just an example of that.

>11 lriley: I agree with what you are saying. I honestly do not know what the answer is. I know that what is happening now is not a solution. Hamas did say (truthfully or not) that they would agree to a two-state solution. I know Netanyahu is against that. I think many Israelis would go for a 2-state solution. I hope they vote him out of office. I wish I knew where the Labor party went. They were much better.

How to get the hostages back and bring peace to the people of Gaza is not at all clear to me but this war will not do it. In my message above, I just wanted to make the point that Israel is not the only entity to be blamed for what is happening even though the outcome in Gaza is horrific and what is happening in east Jerusalem is morally intolerable. However Iran and its proxy terrorists must be held accountable too. I believe Barack Obama said something to the effect that neither side has clean hands. I believe that to be true and everyone suffers. So sad.

My father escaped the Holocaust in Austria at the age of 18 in 1938 so Israel meant a lot to me as a place where Jews could go because no other place would take them. My father was extremely lucky to get support from a very wealthy person to come to the US (long story). Jews have been thrown out of or persecuted in almost every country in Europe and many other countries as well. That makes the behavior of Israel in this situation so painfully intolerable because they should know better. They are recreating the past with others as the persecuted. However the behavior of Hamas and the other terrorist groups is partly the reason this has happened and they also need to be held accountable.

Best wishes to you.

>12 krazy4katz: I'm curious about the "two-state" idea. How would that work, considering that the two sections of Israel that the Palestinians are in are not contiguous? I mean, I just keep coming back to "East Pakistan", which didn't really work out spectacularly well for anyone.

I mean, I'm not a believer in either theocracy or nationalism, so the idea is a tough sell for me, but it's not up to me, so whatever. But I'm curious how people come to think this is an idea worth considering.

>13 kiparsky: You are correct. The two-state solution was always going to be composed of noncontiguous regions. If everyone gets along, it would be OK. Kind of like crossing in and out of Canada. Or, in principle, in and out of different parts of the European Union. However, that is obviously not what happened in Palestine.

In 1948, when Palestine was controlled by Great Britain, there was a map drawn up by the UN that was accepted by the political leadership of the new state of Israel. You can google it. What you would find is that the regions were not contiguous on that original plan, but maybe there were corridors to pass from one part to the other. I don't know. Interestingly, in that plan, Jerusalem was in the middle of a Palestinian part, but it was supposed to be an international city — not run by either an Israeli or Palestinian state. Anyway, that never happened because the new state of Israel was immediately attacked by the 5 surrounding Arab nations. Because the Jews had illegally smuggled weapons into Israel, they were able to fight back and ended up with more territory than the UN had given them. That is where things stood (with some occasional violence) until 1967 when, in another war (interesting story about that but too long to tell) Israel ended up with more land, including, I think, all of Jerusalem—not exactly sure if that is when it happened — East Jerusalem is definitely Palestinian but Netanyahu has allowed Jewish settlements there which is against international law. The plan that Biden proposed would give the Palestinians Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which I think are the 1967 borders. I read in the newspaper that Hamas said they would accept a two-state solution. Of course they can say that safely because Netanyahu won't accept it. However that was the original plan.

The other problem is the issue of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon etc. I have some historical knowledge of that but I am not sure it is entirely accurate so I won't discuss it here. But it is another problem that needs to be solved.

Best wishes...

Another example of how peaceful protests do not need to end with police violence. Other examples mentioned in the main "Israel" thread include the UK's Newcastle University and Ireland's Trinity College Dublin.

Harvard’s Gaza encampment ends after administration agrees to meet (Guardian)

Harvard’s Gaza solidarity encampment has peacefully ended after university administrators agreed to meet with protesters about their demands surrounding divestment from Israel. After nearly three weeks, students protesting against Israel’s invasion of Gaza voluntarily dismantled their tents at the Ivy League college in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

>14 krazy4katz: Thanks, I feel like that pretty much tallies with my understanding of the history. (I'm no expert, but I'm also not entirely ignorant - probably should find the time to drink deep of that Pierian spring one of these days...)

My next question is about Palestinian internal politics. As I understand it, the factions governing the two halves of the proposed Palestinian statelet haven't had good relations in about twenty years - presumably somewhat more, since they were in armed conflict in 2006 and one imagines that the breakdown in relations took some time. So as far as I can tell, the region of Israel known as "Palestine" comprises two scraps of land separated by about twenty miles of Israel and governed by two factions which have been at odds and/or at war for approximately the lifetime of the people protesting at our colleges and universities - or, according to wikipedia, approximately the lifetime of half of the people living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Is this approximately correct?

I only ask because, if anything about this is true, then it seems to me that there are two Palestinian states at the moment, so a "two-state solution" is not even on the table. We're talking about a three-state solution, and if history is any guide, an immediate war between the Palestinian states limited only by the fact that the two forces would have to cross over Israeli territory to attack each other.
Or maybe I'm missing something here. Probably I am, I usually am. Anyone want to try to enlighten me?

The Oslo Accords that Hilary Clinton likes to misrepresent these days was a deal pushed by Bill Clinton on Yitzhak Rabin--Israeli Prime Minister and Yasser Arafat--head of the PLO. There are a variety of reasons why a Palestinian state didn't emerge out of that. One of the main ones was getting other regional Arab states on board which in the often combustible world of Middle Eastern politics was complicated. It wasn't just as simple as saying Yes to everything....there were still issues for that statehood to have to work out. In the meanwhile Israeli hardliners---including a much younger Benjamin Netanyahu were aghast and Rabin to them was a traitor and he was not so shortly afterwards assassinated and soon after the Israeli hardliners took over and pretty much since then it's been Netanyahu as Prime Minister. One of the strategies of the hardliners was to fund an opposition to the PLO on their own Palestinian side that more or less would want the same thing that the Israeli hardliners a religious ethnostate. By doing that they would split the opposition on the Arabic side of the equation and could muddy the waters forever into the future. That's why all the money from Israel brokered in by the Qataris to Hamas. The PLO (or Fatah) also had corruption issues. Well all the actors--the Israeli state and Palestinian political parties had and have corruption issues then and now. They apparently weren't expecting when put to referendum in Gaza that Hamas would win the election in 2006 but much of that was driven by Fatah's corruption issues. After that the Israelis pulled all of their illegal settlements out of Gaza---which is still a sore point for the hard right in Israel and fenced the entire population in. 2006 was the last election. Look at other Arab/Middle Eastern states---they don't tend to do elections either. Gaza became an open air prison---Hamas became the defacto government and security force. The Israelis lined the perimeter of their fence from north to south with towers and armed guards.....the Israeli Navy started patrolling the waters off of Gaza and harassing/sometimes killing Palestinian fishermen who ventured too far out and the IDF Air Force flying overtop of it all. The food going in controlled....very few Palestinians ever allowed out even for medical emergencies.....the water and electric controlled. Water inside was always bad. The entire strip overcrowded and when this shit began on Oct. 7 50% of the population was under 18 years old.

>17 lriley: Yes. All this was very frustrating and tragic. I think Arafat was also concerned about the deal on splitting Jerusalem. I vaguely remember him saying he would be killed if he agreed to that. And, as you mentioned, Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli.

>18 krazy4katz: Whose ideological heirs now run the joint.

>19 davidgn: I know. It is sad. It’s like having Trump for a decade. I want the Labor Party back. I don’t know what happened to them.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. I am most impressed by the idealism expressed here by my moral betters. What wonderful people you are. Too bad you folks are not in charge of the world. Why don't you run for office? Give us your lessor fellow citizens a real choice. LMAO.

As the cliche goes, here's the bottom line:

l. The morally superior yet Jew-hating students (i.e., harassing and threatening Jewish students is somehow constructive regarding moral ends?) have all struck their tents now and gone back to pretending to be normal humans. Good bye and good riddance, shit-brained motherfuckers.

2. There will be no disinvestment regarding Israel. Such action would mean the dissolution of the university who committed such a self-destructive act.

3. There is no two-state solution. That is impossible. Hamas does not want such and will not have such. Ever. (E.g., ya think Hitler at some juncture would have ever accepted the equivalent of a two-state solution?) Everyone in the Wests should wake the fuck up and smell the coffee.

Killing all members of Hamas and similar terrorist organizations - THAT is the only solution. Everyone who is not a terrorist should get on board with supporting that solution and quit wasting time, money, energy, blood, sweat and tears on god damn pipe dreams.

>21 JGL53: So yadda yadda yadda to you too and hope you are having a good day. :-)

Regarding the practical realities of destroying the terrorist groups:

1. Are more terrorists being created by Israel's understandable but ill-advised strategies (in my opinion) in Gaza and East Jerusalem?
2. Will they have to go to war against Iran to succeed? Syria too?
3. Is there precedent for succeeding in such an endeavor? For example, did we succeed after 9/11 in getting rid of the terrorists who flew airplanes into buildings? Not sure that turned out very well as evidenced by Afghanistan's culture/environment today. And Iraq...
4. I agree that divestment from Israel is not possible and will do nothing useful. The students are naive but they have the right to grow up at their own pace.

Best wishes & all that.
k4k

>22 krazy4katz: Yes, that.

I'll refrain from further comment, but yes to all of that.

How is genocide "understandable"?

Israel is committing to a genocide of Palestinians, in world's full view of that commitment and that genocide. Israel has gone full fascist, and not over a decade. As a youth Rabin was involved in ethnic cleansing and killings of Arabs. He gave permission to other such actions. Yes, presumably he had changed some of his ideas by the time of Oslo and it was to be a new beginning. (Actually, even this much isn't certain, given that the settler strategy that broke up Palestinian lands had started in the 1970s and was going on not just unabating but ever more intensively!) Except, as we saw, the right wing was already mobilised to the extent that Rabin's assassination worked FOR it, not against. Netanyahu (it was his pal Ben "shoot Palestinian children and women" Gvir who called first for Rabin's head) was ready to jump in. Israel was never "left" (it had some commendable moments and people of the left, but they never held power) and for the last 30 years it only sank deeper right.

Just look at the list of neo-Nazis that sucked up to Netanyahu and vice versa. Every single one of them! Geert Wilders visited Israel so may times the Dutch investigated him as a possible spy.

As for "getting rid of terrorists"... this is the sort of bullshit that people who only worry about their own peace, and everyone else be damned, propose as if the phrase has any meaning whatsoever. Like, everything would be lovely, if only it weren't for Hamas. Well, murdering the fuck out of Palestinians en masse may get rid of the Hamas, but the bottom line is still this: as long as the Palestinians are being treated like less than cattle, there will be resistance. The problem isn't Hamas, it's what was done and keeps being done to the Palestinians, all the way from 1948.

And that, by the way, is also why there isn't, won't be, and can't be a "left" Israel.

Because it finally became crystal clear even to naive idiots like myself... the whole notion of modern Israel, built as it was from the start on injustice, is cockeyed and insane. No left worthy of the name can deal with the situation. For the longest time we naive idiots (and hypocrites, that comes easily to Europeans) thought we could deal with the Nakba, make it all better, and clutched the fetishes of two-state solutions and whatnot.

But it's all bollocks. To think that anyone should put up with what the Palestinians had done to them... the only reason anyone thought it could be OK, is racism. And just once I'll give this to the Nazis--especially Israeli Nazis--at least they don't obfuscate the issues appealing to morality. They would, and will, kill and expel Palestinians until they achieve an Israel they want, and the rest of the world, submissive to Israel's big American brother, will eat shit and stay mum.

>24 LolaWalser: Israel is committing to a genocide of Palestinians, in world's full view of that commitment and that genocide.

And Hamas has openly committed to a genocide of Israelis. To quote the 1988 Hamas Covenant:

Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes. ... The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. ... Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. ... The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim.

In 2017, they backed away from some of the more explicit religious wordage, but

"Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. ... Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people."

> murdering the fuck out of Palestinians en masse may get rid of the Hamas

Will murdering the fuck out of the Israelis in masse get rid of the Zionists? When it comes down to it, I don't see any end to this besides the Palestinians being completely removed from the area. It's not a moral answer, but a solution involving two groups that both believe they have a divine right to the land really comes out well. Unless the Israelis roll over and submit to people who believe that "death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes", they're going to continue having violent attacks. A two state solution can only work if the Palestinian state is willing to actively suppress violent attacks on its neighbor.

> the only reason anyone thought it could be OK, is racism.

So the only reason we don't have to side with the people who are hijacking airplanes and murdering Olympians and slaughtering concertgoers is racism.

>24 LolaWalser: It's pretty much as you say exactly.

As far as the resistance in Gaza it goes quite a bit further than just Hamas....numerous other groups besides and the genocide is feeding that resistance and will for a long long time. How could it not? Not only is the genocide on full view but for those who want to look so is the resistance. Electronic Intifada is one site that is telling that story.....and one of the things that can be learned is that the IDF has no problem killing women and children, unarmed civilians and murdering doctors and nurses in hospitals but they don't have much stomach for taking on the resistance. They're not clearing buildings or tunnels---you don't see them outside protecting tanks or armored vehicles. From a military standpoint it's been amateur hour for them and that's why they're being picked off and ambushed so effectively. Hezbollah in Lebanon are also keeping residents in northern Israel returning to their towns and villages.

On Israel's so called right to protect itself---for anyone else that kind of logic would mean against an invading force from some other nation. What this is is trying to destroy the half of their own population they don't want and have been systematically subjugating and destroying for the past 75 years so they can turn it into an ethnostate. It's been steal and kill all along.

......and really it's the United States particularly that is keeping this murder campaign going with an assist from our other friends we call western democracies. It is evil. Watching Democracy Now a lot for the interviews with doctors and nurses from the United States, Britain, Ireland and Canada and all over is another real eye opener. These people are modern day saints. Working round the clock with hardly any food or clean water for themselves and with little or no medical equipment or medicine trying to save as many lives as they can. I don't how many times I've heard one of them say that within two/three weeks they've treated more people than they have in their entire careers and for the worst kinds of devastating injuries and without anesthetics for burn victims and amputees many of which are children. I really don't know how someone who could live with themselves after killing or severely injuring a child. Looking at our two major political parties I pretty much have given up on the canard that the United States stands for anything remotely concerned with human rights.

>25 prosfilaes: So here we have it. The quiet part out loud. A frank defense of genocide on the grounds that (to put it in Thatcherite terms) "there is no alternative."

Well, I applaud your honesty. You seem to have thought yourself into the kind of corner that only genocide will get you out of. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Unfortunately, if views such as yours prevail, the entire moral framework of the post-WWII order will lie in irretrievable ruin. In the age of universal surveillance, tyranny will soon be made complete. The new age of barbarism is already upon us. Resist, or don't.

Israel Descends Into Barbarism
States with Israel’s apartheid status — one hopes — have no long-term future in the modern world, says Lawrence Davidson.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/15/israel-descends-into-barbarism/

The Occupation comes home - Max Blumenthal at UMass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjNd2kMAXI

>25 prosfilaes: So here we have it. The quiet part out loud. A frank defense of genocide on the grounds that (to put it in Thatcherite terms) "there is no alternative."

Well, I applaud your honesty. You seem to have thought yourself into the kind of corner that only genocide will get you out of. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

Unfortunately, if views such as yours prevail, the entire moral framework of the post-WWII order will lie in irretrievable ruin. In the age of universal surveillance supercharged by AI, tyranny will soon be made complete. The new age of barbarism is already upon us. Resist, or don't.

Israel Descends Into Barbarism
States with Israel’s apartheid status — one hopes — have no long-term future in the modern world, says Lawrence Davidson.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/15/israel-descends-into-barbarism/

The Occupation comes home - Max Blumenthal at UMass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjNd2kMAXI

------------------------
To all: if you haven't read your Zygmunt Bauman, now is the time.
"The Duty To remember -- But What?" Afterword to the 2000 Edition of Modernity and the Holocaust

"This is by far the most important lesson of the Holocaust which needs to be learned and remembered. If Orwell is right that control of the past allows control of the future, it is imperative, for the sake of that future, that those who control the present are not allowed to manipulate the past in a fashion likely to render the future inhospitable to humanity and uninhabitable."

https://www.scribd.com/document/28279086/Zygmunt-Bauman-Modernity-and-the-Holoca...

>24 LolaWalser: Thanks, Lola.

>25 prosfilaes: And Hamas has openly committed to a genocide of Israelis

Whether or not Hamas has expressed a genocidal intent does not under any scenario give Israel the right to commit genocide against Palestinians.

>26 lriley: On Israel's so called right to protect itself---for anyone else that kind of logic would mean against an invading force from some other nation

Arguably Israel can claim the right to protect itself from armed Hamas fighters, although so far it has proved itself to be remarkably inept at doing so, whether on 7th October or during the following months of conflict. It has no right to kill and maim civilians (most of whom have no connection with Hamas), destroy health and education facilities, level civilian infrastructure, obstruct (and attack) humanitarian aid efforts, etc, indeed quite the opposite - it actually has a duty to protect all of these.

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show
Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton | May 16, 2024:

A WhatsApp chat started by some wealthy Americans after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack reveals their focus on Mayor Eric Adams and their work to shape U.S. opinion of the Gaza war.

...some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters”

...The chat group formed shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and its activism has stretched beyond New York, touching the highest levels of the Israeli government, the U.S. business world and elite universities. Titled “Israel Current Events,” the chat eventually expanded to about 100 members, the chat log shows. More than a dozen members of the group appear on Forbes’s annual list of billionaires; others work in real estate, finance and communications.

Overall, the messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor...

...From the start of the chat, members sought guidance and information from officials in the Israeli government.

Some of the WhatsApp chat members said in the chat they attended private briefings about the Gaza war with Israeli war cabinet member Gantz, former prime minister Bennett and Herzog, the ambassador. The chat log shows Zoom invites for these meetings.

“Most appreciative for the behind the scenes briefing by Naftali Bennett,” Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, wrote to the group on Oct. 16. “Quite extraordinary!”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eri...

So what is the way forward? This is what I struggle with. Palestine has not been self-governing since I don't know when. The Romans, the Ottoman Empire, the British, who held it briefly and decided to let it go. Jews and Arabs have lived on this land for centuries. I agree that what is going on in Gaza is genocide. Hamas and Hezbollah have also committed genocide. If Iran is sanctioned/government leaders arrested for decades of financial aid to terrorists to commit genocide that would be entirely appropriate. If Netanyahu is arrested for genocide that is fine with me. This was not the original path in 1948 but now what? I really don't know.

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show
Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton | May 16, 2024

...A group of billionaires and business titans {~100} working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University

...a WhatsApp chat {titled “Israel Current Events"} ... former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother to Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

... messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor.

...{Chat originator} Sternlicht...was also concerned about security. Anonymity, {his} staffer wrote Oct. 12 on Sternlicht’s behalf, “is a practical need and concern for safety of my family in an increasingly complex world.”...all contributions to the media campaign would remain anonymous. “I’m sensitive to concerns about being less effective if it appears that this is a Jewish initiative,” the staffer wrote, speaking for Sternlicht.

...Some of the WhatsApp chat members...attended private briefings about the Gaza war with Israeli war cabinet member Gantz, former prime minister Bennett and Herzog, the ambassador. The chat log shows Zoom invites for these meetings...

...In the chat, discussion turned to the fact that Columbia had to grant Adams permission before he could send city police to the campus. One member asked if the group could do anything to pressure Columbia trustees to cooperate with the mayor. ...

...The evening after the call, {Joseph Sitt, founder of retail chain Ashley Stewart and the global real estate company Thor Equities, who offered to hire private investigators to work w NYPD} shared the ActBlue link for donations to Adams’s 2025 committee...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eri...

>31 krazy4katz: To my mind, the only way forward is a pluralistic democracy in Israel - one state, for Palestinians and Israelis alike. Anything else, as far as I can see, i endless war.

This will be hard for both sides to accept, since Israelis have been subjected to decades of propaganda claiming that without a fascist state, they will all be murdered and Palestinians have endured decades of violence and disposession, but there are reasonable people on both sides, and those reasonable people, living in that place and committed to that future, must do that work. We can't do it, though reasonable people everywhere can support it.

The alternative is not a two-state solution, because no two-state solution exists. The alternative is not the mass murder of Palestinians suspected of belonging to Hamas as suggested above, for obvious reasons (show me a mass murder anywhere in history that has solved anything!) or some fantasy about claiming Israel "from the river to the sea".

We're told we have to take sides. Okay, I have. I'm taking the side of the people who want to live in peace with their neighbors - all of them, not just the ones that share their identity. And I'm taking the side opposed to violence and oppression and endless revenge. I know that side exists.

>33 kiparsky: Thank you!
I know there are Palestinians and Jews who work side by side in Israel. It is not all confrontation and war. I would love to support them.

>29 John5918: It has no right to kill and maim civilians (most of whom have no connection with Hamas)

All of whom have a connection with Hamas. In war, nobody cares about your personal affiliations; you're a citizen of your country.

Whether or not Hamas has expressed a genocidal intent does not under any scenario give Israel the right to commit genocide against Palestinians.

But it does mean that it's hard to support the Gazan Palestinian side, which is the Hamas side. It also means it's hard to buy "if Israel would just..."; no matter what Israel does, Palestine is run by people who don't recognize its right to exist, and who have dedicated themselves to violence against Israel.

>31 krazy4katz: Exactly.

>35 prosfilaes: In war, nobody cares about your personal affiliations

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. International law cares very much about your "personal affiliation" in the sense of whether you are a combatant or a non-combatant, and it has clear rules as to how non-combatants must be treated and protected.

it's hard to support the Gazan Palestinian side

It's not about supporting a "side", unless that "side" be civilians and non-combatants who are "supported" by international law, and thus one supports their rights under international law. By the same token both armed "sides" should be held accountable under international law.

>24 LolaWalser: And that, by the way, is also why there isn't, won't be, and can't be a "left" Israel

What's it called when you assert things that you know not to be true because they don't fit in with your ideology? I forget...

anyway, there is, and will continue to be, a left in Israel. Sorry, but facts is facts, despite what you've decided ahead of time to believe.

>24 LolaWalser:, >25 prosfilaes: You two both seem to be missing the simplest thing about all of this: this is not about Palestinians versus Israelis, it's about power versus people. Get on the side of people, and see if things get easier to understand...

>35 prosfilaes: All of whom have a connection with Hamas
I do believe I've heard that song before somewhere. This might be it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8384lBaN3a0

When 50% of Gaza are under 18.....when we're talking also about some young mothers and elderly people there are going to be plenty of people who were not connected to Hamas......and again also Hamas isn't the only resistance group. And even having a cousin or a brother in Hamas doesn't mean you are actively Hamas supporting.

But we should also say that when a people are put in a cage for a long period of time and are being brutalized for decades by what they see as an occupying force there are going to be people who fight back......and saying or claiming they're terrorists without any other context as the Israelis have is just a how to avoid the reasons why they exist and also a way of exonerating themselves of any blame for a situation they more than just a little helped to create. We also know that people in Likud and particularly Netanyahu himself helped to bankroll Hamas's existence because they didn't want to negotiate with Palestinians---their fears over giving Palestinians equal citizen rights or statehood so they divided their perceived enemies into two groups with the idea of playing the groups off against each other while they continued the project of stealing land and the abuse of Palestinians has never let up and it's a game that had gone on for a long time until Oct. 7 upset this status quo.....and since it's been something the Israeli govt. has used to keep the hatreds stoked and a chance they see to push even harder with their ethnic cleansing project.

To see a tower block full of people taken right down to the ground---men, women, kids because the IDF says there is maybe one Hamas fighter living in a building that might house hundreds is not even something worthy of arguing over. It's just fucking wrong. Shit like that is happening for months and pretty much every day.
It's funny how hot and bothered are politicos got over the several World Kitchen workers that were murdered by the IDF but the thousands and thousands of others haven't mattered at all. Pretty much blatant racism from most all of our elected from both parties.

>38 kiparsky: it's about power versus people.

It's a way to slice the issue to make it feel more palatable, but it's simply not a helpful model in this situation. There's people on both sides, powerful and not, that believe all of Israel belongs to their group, and the other side must be expelled or at least controlled, and are willing to use violence to make their aims.

A perspective from a war expert. Just putting it out there. I have to finish reading it and think:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/opinions/israel-gaza-hamas-war-us-arms-spencer/in...

>42 krazy4katz: Seems pretty standard order pablum. I'm cognizant of the credentials. If I had my druthers, I'd have you listen also to Mearsheimer.
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/why-israel-is-in-deep-trouble

>41 prosfilaes: I have to disagree. It's the only model that makes sense. Any solution based on nationalism and theocracy just means more of this, forever.

Yes, there are people who have learned the wrong lesson from years of conflict - too long a sacrifice has made a stone of the heart - but they are not as common as you might think, based on my conversations with people in and from the region. (Mostly Israelis, I admit, and also probably a biased sample, but it's what I've got to work with)

Basically, my impression is that there is a kill-em-all-and-take-their-land contingent, but most Israelis do not agree with them and in fact think they're crazy, dangerous, and the main reason why things are so bad, so they wish they'd stop. I also get the sense that the "Israel protects us from another holocaust" idea that we hear so often is much more common among US jews than among those in Israel. Again, this is my impression from anecdote, and I'm not saying I've got a responsible poll, but that's what I have heard when I've spent time listening.

But okay, maybe I'm wrong, and a pluralistic democracy is an impossibility in the region. What then?

Do you have a scenario that you think is worth aiming for? If so, what does it look like?

>43 davidgn: Thanks. I will listen to it.

>42 krazy4katz:

Thanks for that. It's written from a very militaristic and one-sided viewpoint/worldview, as can be seen by some of the type of language used. There are other viewpoints/worldviews. The description of Hamas as a "terror organisation" in the first sentence sets the scene, and it is to be noted that his on-the-ground experience was "as an embed with the IDF", not with Palestinians. He speaks about "Israel’s ability to win the war"; many would argue that there is no "winner" in war - everybody (including humanity as a whole, as well as our fragile environment) is the loser. He believes that war is "deeply engrained in human nature"; that may be true, but so is peace. He claims that "when democracies are attacked, as they inevitably will be, they must conduct wars in ways that quickly bring victory in order to achieve lasting peace". He thus ignores a huge amount of recent evidence-based research showing that there are ways of responding to violence without creating more violence, and that wars generally do not bring "lasting peace". I would also question the "democracies" and "inevitably". Is Israel a democracy in any real sense? How many European democracies which are not violently occupying someone else's territory have been "inevitably" attacked since World War II?

>44 kiparsky: my impression is that there is a kill-em-all-and-take-their-land contingent, but most Israelis do not agree with them and in fact think they're crazy, dangerous, and the main reason why things are so bad, so they wish they'd stop

I've had some limited contact with Palestinians through the Pax Christi peace network, and my impression is that most Palestinians feel the same. The actions of both warring parties are being driven by a minority of extremists, not by the majority of Israelis or Palestinians.

Not sure how Spencer thinks we've held the IDF back. Really Israel's response started off with holding back food, water, electrical, medicines, medical supplies--a kind of enforced boycott into Gaza of practically everything that people would need for survival in this day and age. Then we had the systematic destruction of residential areas, hospitals, schools, cultural sites, mosques, churches, wide spread killing of civilians including thousands of women and children. The forced movements of population in which often people were targets to be bombed, drone struck or shot at. If one thinks that somehow the IDF was being held back one has to wonder what more death and destruction they could have done. We've continued to send them more bombs and war material even if now and again someone wagged a finger at the IDF there was never any serious recrimination. it's obvious to me that this Spencer is some kind of a pathological maniac and we'd be better off committing him to a mental institution or finding him a private island or planet with no other living habitation to terrorize.

>33 kiparsky: kiparsky and I are in broad agreement on this point, at least. I'm already on record:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/355917#8323982
https://www.librarything.com/topic/355642#8373599

The New Assault on Academic Freedom

Professors across the country are being targeted by the right in order to score political points. During the wave of campus protests opposing the U.S.-backed war on Gaza and calling for divestment from Israel, students weren’t the only demonstrators to face arrest—supportive faculty members were also caught up in the crackdown...

The Chilling Effect of Equating Criticism of Israel to Antisemitism

Broadening the federal definition of antisemitism is a disingenuous attempt to quash dissent. Campus protests against U.S.-backed wars have a long history, and so do campaigns for ethical investment policies. As much as college and university administrators, corporate interests, and Washington policy-makers may have wanted to suppress such student initiatives, the principles of free speech and the cultural role of institutions of higher learning have made that difficult. Opponents of the current protests on college campuses targeting U.S. support for Israel’s war are, however, attempting to reverse that tradition through the disingenuous application of Civil Rights legislation...

Both by Professor Stephen Zunes in The Progessive Magazine.

>50 John5918: Part of it is that it seems most heads of colleges are more towards being technocrats than academics. They curry the favors of wealthy alumni and are more about corporatizing academia. The ones who have been brought before congress for these stupid show trials have just cringed and debased themselves before their scoldings and have either quit or gone back to their schools with a new mission in life to suck up to our establishment politicos. They turned on their own students but that doesn't mean their professors will do the same and that's become clear in the last several months.

For me it's just another sign of how far capitalism has become for us a failed economic system. It's a system more and more devoted to dividing the population into winners and losers and the biggest winners our billionaire class have pretty much bought both political parties lock, stock and barrel.

>50 John5918: Just an observation on one of the articles. The second article showing a photograph of a protestor with the words "From the river to the sea…" does not seem to fit the author's description of a desire for a democratic state consisting of a mixed population of Palestinians and Israelis. I base this on the flag that the protestor is carrying, which has a Palestinian flag. There is also the "end apartheid" sign. Israel is not an apartheid state any more than the US. There are places in Israel where Jews and Palestinians live and work together and places where they do not. The problem is with the present Israeli government's invasion into areas that are supposed to be part of the Palestinian state — the obvious egregious example being east Jerusalem.

On my campus, I was not aware of any anti-Semitic chants, but I am on the other side of campus so I did not personally witness the protests. However there were Jewish students that walked by the protests and said they were personally yelled at — don't know the details. Considering that there are many Jews who do agree that the violence in Gaza is wrong and that the present Israeli government is wrong, targeting someone that one knows to be Jewish just because they walk by a protest is anti-Semitism.

Many Jews and Israelis are hoping/praying that Netanyahu will be voted out of office and will finally (!) stand trial for the many charges of corruption of which he has been accused.

A perspective from Haaretz — a left-leaning mainstream newspaper in Israel:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-14/ty-article/.premium/amid-the-gaza...

Another one that perhaps only a Jewish newspaper could say. It hurts but I have to face it.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/what-happ...

>52 krazy4katz: I'm afraid that most human rights groups (including B'Tselem) would disagree with your characterization regarding the character of the Israeli state.
https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid

Also, you might find the following useful regarding the most salient significance of the phrase you cite:
https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean

As well as the following on its polyvalence:
https://revdem.ceu.edu/2024/03/27/from-the-river-to-the-sea-one-slogan-many-mean...

ETA: And please be honest: if you object to the use of the Palestinian flag in conjunction with that slogan, exactly what flag would you suggest that protestors use?

>54 davidgn: words that are not slurs or that have no particular insult or malicious intent attached within are not provocative unless someone decides to make them provocative/significant for their own ends. I watched the comedian Sammy Obeid use this phrase in a way of telling someone how to get from one place to another.

>54 davidgn:

Thanks. I haven't seen those particular links before, but I have read many opinions and analyses suggesting (a) that "the river to the sea" phrase has different meanings to different people, not only the violent and exclusive one, and (b) that in practice many Palestinians experience Israel as an apartheid state, despite the fact, as noted in >52 krazy4katz:, that "there are places in Israel where Jews and Palestinians live and work together" - just as in apartheid South Africa there were places where blacks and whites lived and worked together. These people who buck the trend and live and work together are part of the hope that the dysfunctional systems may one day be dismantled.

>54 davidgn: I understand what you are saying. I guess I cling to the values that I thought were in place before the Likud party and those ultra-right wing groups took over the Parliament and Netanyahu became prime minister. You are looking at what has happened since then. Perhaps that reflects my age. As regards to the flag: to me it means that the Israeli Jews need to be gone. Perhaps I am wrong. If it means a unified country where everyone has equal rights, as some people here have suggested, that would be wonderful and I apologize for my interpretation.

Bottom line: what solution should we as world citizens work towards in the Middle East? I am Jewish and I come from a family that partly escaped the Holocaust. So I admit my bias. My father was able to come to America because of a very kind wealthy man. His parents came separately thanks to a different person. Jews were generally turned away from the US during WWII unless they had a financial sponsor. It has been clear for centuries that no one wanted Jews to live in their countries (presently reading The Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean). I appreciate that the UN tried to create a Jewish and a Palestinian state from the British-dominated territory because the survivors of the Holocaust had no where to go and there were Jews in Palestine already.

I can't help wondering what would have happened if the surrounding countries hadn't invaded the UN-partitioned state in 1948? Would we be where we are now, which is hatred on both sides and oppression of Palestinians? And where do we go from here? I want peace for both Jews and Palestinians. I know that will not happen under Netanyahu. I also know there are many Israelis and Arabs who want peaceful co-existence and some of them have it. Tel Aviv and Haifa are supposedly examples -- I don't really know. If that could happen in a single state, that would certainly be great. I want a solution for both people. I am just not finding one. Again, interference by outside countries such as Iran and Syria also plays a role.

That is everything -- everything that I feel right now.

Regarding the "correct" meaning of the phrase "from the river to the sea", I find it disingenuous at best to read the sort of logic chopping and contortionism that's being undertaken to explain that it can't be offensive because the person using it doesn't mean for it to be offensive.

I think in the last few years it's been made abundantly clear that when someone tells you that your language is offensive and you keep using that language, you're being intentionally offensive and indeed provocative. This has been a case made quite strongly by exactly the progressive, anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-colonialist left which is out reciting a slogan which they have been told is heard as meaning "death to Jews". So when I see folks on the left using that phrase after being told in no uncertain terms that it is taken as not only offensive but actually threatening, I can only assume that they remember saying those words, and therefore that they do indeed mean to be offensive and threatening. I can't assume that they don't understand what they're doing, because they're the ones who told us exactly what they're doing.

And of course the next thing that will happen is that someone will jump in to say that I have no right to criticize someone's language given Israel's actions, so let's just deal with that now:

If you are interested in seeing peace - that is, if you want a cease-fire, if you want an end to attacks, if you want a just solution to this unholy mess, if you want justice for Palestinians - then it is essential to find your allies, particularly those on "the other side", and to work with them to make common cause for peace. The way to make common cause with potential allies is to listen to their reasonable requests and work with them, for example by modifying the slogans which have been identified as offensive so that they are inclusive.
If the goal is peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike, from the river to the sea, activists identifying as "pro-Palestinian" should work with the Israeli peace community to find a rhyme to express that aim, and then chant that together.

Divisive rhetoric only aids the ruling elites who seek to use division among the people to perpetuate their hold on power. When the people are divided, the rulers sleep easy.

>57 krazy4katz:

Thanks for that thoughtful and personal reflection. I would add only one thing, that "interference by outside countries" must also include the USA and, if looking back to 1948, the Cold War and anti-colonial dynamics which influenced many conflicts of that era.

>58 kiparsky:

I partially agree with what you're saying, and certainly we need to look very carefully at language which causes offence and division. But one of the means of ending divisiveness is to examine narratives and language and find (or create) different and common meanings for them, rather than to allow one particular ideology to abrogate particular phrases to itself. It's complex.

Fair enough on 'the river to the sea' language but then why does the Israeli govt. use that same phrase for the same reason they purport that the Palestinians mean....when they the Israelis say it? Seems it's okay for them to envision their Jewish ethnostate without any Palestinians and not the other way around and it's questionable whether most Palestinians desire a Muslim ethnostate. Fact is there are many Palestinians who live in both Gaza and the West Bank who are Christians and not Muslims or even some of whom identify as both Palestinian and Jewish.

I'd also question this another way. One might/should expect an oppressed people to find their own language of resistance. We all should know that slang is in and of itself a language that comes from an underclass point of view and when we're speaking of an oppressed population and their oppressors are suggesting racism from the oppressed community it just doesn't carry the same kind of weight because the real power dynamic is almost always in the hands of the oppressors as it is in this case.

>58 kiparsky: "antisemitic" is another loaded term that should be retired, at least for some uses? Too often used to protect Israel the state and its politicians, not just innocent individual victims of hate crimes.

>61 margd: It can't be retired if it still happens. Of course one has to correct misuse of the term. And people do have different perspectives. Removing words is not the solution. The solution is explaining and justifying it when used.

>62 krazy4katz: ...people do have different perspectives. Removing words is not the solution. The solution is explaining and justifying it when used.

Yes. On both counts ("antisemiticism", "from the river to the sea")... You can't allow one side or the other to unilaterally favouritize / ban /define our terms or to misuse them.

The Concerned Jewish Faculty is correct, I think, when it "...urge{s} our political leaders to reject any effort to codify into federal law a definition of antisemitism that conflates antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel. This includes ongoing efforts to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been internationally criticized for conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel." (https://concernedjewishfaculty.org/)

Interesting coming from Canada, where free speech is written into Rights & Freedoms, yet hate speech is banned, to see US Congress now trying to define "antisemiticism", while Rs at least appear to have have thumbs on scale when it comes to pro-Palestinian protests. (Years ago, a HS teacher in Alberta got off on a hate speech charge because the court reasoned he wasn't denying the Holocaust, just questioning the numbers killed! If Senate passes House bill below, US courts will be clogged for years?)
--------------------------------------------

H.R.6090 - Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 118th Congress (2023-2024)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090/text

What to Know About US 'Antisemitism Awareness Act'
The bill received support and criticism from both parties as it headed to the U.S. Senate.
Jack Izzo | May 13, 2024

On May 1, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6090, the "Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023." If passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden, it adopts a definition of antisemitism created in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and directs the Department of Education to use that definition when "reviewing or investigating complaints of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance."...

...The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance consists of 35 countries, including the U.S. and Israel. In 2016, its delegates met and created the following definition of antisemitism: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

But what critics worry about is the list of examples the IHRA provides under its definition:
Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel...

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/05/13/antisemitism-awareness-act-explain/

>61 margd: I agree with >62 krazy4katz: on this. Antisemitism is a real and serious issue, and we can't stop talking about it - but neither can we cede the definition of the term to those who, while often disturbingly antisemitic or at least tolerant of antisemitism themselves, try to equate it with the perfectly sensible objections to nationalism and theocracy, or to the behavior of the Israeli government.

>63 margd: Hmmm... I do appreciate this, but... I think if they are going to do it, it would be better to pass a broader bill that reflects the stereotyping, harassment, etc. of people of color, religious preference and ethnic heritage rather than a bill just about anti-Semitism. This all exists in our country and it would be better to aggregate them into one bill calling for listening to everyone and understanding their circumstances rather than stereotyping an entire population based on a few examples. We are all Homo sapiens and our DNA proves that we are more alike than we are different (speaking as a biological scientist).

Rather (I know I may get trouble here because this is not the topic of the thread), they should spend their time on practical gun reform!! Why don't they listen and THINK??

Yours in eternal frustration,
k4k

So sorry to see this happen--hopefully not due to pressure from Congressional Rs... Snowflakes!

{Michigan?} Police break up pro-Palestinian camp at the University of Michigan
MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and ED WHITE | May 21, 2024

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Police broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Michigan before dawn Tuesday, citing a threat to public safety and coming less than a week after demonstrators stepped up pressure by placing fake body bags on the lawn of a school official.

Officers wearing helmets with face shields cleared approximately 50 people from the Diag, known for decades as a site for campus protests. Video posted online showed police using what appeared to be an irritant to spray people, who were forced to retreat.

At least four people were arrested, which caused protesters to shift to the Washtenaw County jail where they marched outside in support of their allies...

President Santa Ono ... said in a statement that the encampment had become a threat to safety, with overloaded power sources and open flames. Organizers, he added, had refused to comply with requests to make changes following an inspection by a fire marshal...

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-campus-protests-michigan-335...
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U Michigan President Ono was apparently not at Congressional hearing today, per earlier "invitation". Elise Stefanik--what a joke... :
https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/5.23.24_chair_foxx_fc_hearing_callin...

>66 margd: Some of the excuses for breaking up demonstrations are really weak. I was surprised at the reason the police came to my campus. The protests had been peaceful, although there had been some name-calling between rival groups. Then someone took down an American flag and put up a Palestinian flag in its place. Even with my acknowledged bias, I thought that bringing the police to campus for that was an overreaction. Then, of course, there actually was some violence, people were arrested and tents removed.

On graduation day "bloody" handprints were painted over the main administrative building and several other places. Fortunately graduation was peaceful.