The Snug

Welcome to The Snug - a friendly place for discussions created by the community for the community. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Protests of Israeli actions in Gaza

SouprMatt

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 23, 2022
Messages
3,820
Reaction score
8,314
I started this thread as a place to separately talk about protests of the conflict.

Feel free to ignore if you think it makes more sense to just keep it in the main thread.

We‘ve discussed the Columbia protests quite a bit, but here’s another college where police response to protests turned violent. Emerson College in Boston.


One interesting thing that connected to a recently-heard SCOTUS case: The cops used an anti-homeless law as an excuse to violently disperse students that were camping out in protest. So… criminalizing homelessness is also a way to justify violence against peaceful protesters? In that case, and with these justices, it seems even more likely the Supremes will rule against homeless people!
 
A lot of student protests tend to drift from original focus into somewhat tangential issues as time goes on and these seem no different to me really. More anger now about how the universities are responding, more input from non-students with their own agendas (whether engaged in the protests / counter-protests or just muscling into the public square of online opinion) etc. It's not that the issues aren't significant, it's that they become amorphous and so let the movers and shakers in policymaking for the US and Israel off the hook, never mind give comfort to those in the crowd who actually do fancy the annihilation of Israel.

In reading an opinion from WCK chief José Andres today, however, it occurs to me that if students really want to make a difference on the ground in Gaza for the sake of Palestinians right now, the demonstrations should be more focused on getting humanitarian aid delivered and the convoys and distribution workers protected. Just shouting "Free Palestine" and "Remember the Hostages" is not going get that job done, and in the meantime as Andres points out, the IDF has promised to "do better" but delivery of humanitarian aid is clearly not top of Israeli military priorty. Maybe the placards s/b "Feed Palestine"... since physicians have been warning for months now of imminent famine and illness in Gaza due to insufficient food, water, medical assistance in fighting malnutrition.

We’re going back to Gaza to feed people. Here’s what we need from Israel (WaPo, guest opinioin, paywall lifted)

This week, we are restarting our operations at scale: We have 276 trucks, representing almost 8 million meals, ready to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing in the south. We are also sending trucks from Jordan as we push to distribute food into northern Gaza, where the situation is most dire.

But the communication failures inside the IDF continue. There are multiple reports of other convoys coming under fire since April 1, signaling that little has changed to increase protection.

The biggest challenge is the one the Netanyahu government has almost entirely failed to address. Without law and order on the ground in Gaza, there is a constant threat to civilians around any food aid. Humanitarian groups have very limited means to establish security to protect our own workers — or the civilians we are trying to help.
 
Last edited:
The reason these protests are being violently suppressed is because they are genuinely subversive. The United States has an "ironclad" relationship with Israel. University endowments have ties to Israel and the military. They say "divestment wouldn't even do much!" If it wouldn't do much, why do you need to forcibly silence anyone who calls for it? They say "let's bring in the National Guard!" Really? The NYPD, the largest police force in the nation, isn't enough? Can you think of the only other time the National Guard was called on student protesters and what the outcome was?

I applaud these students who are risking their futures to stand for an end to genocide. At this point, a ceasefire isn't even enough. Netanyahu is about to invade Rafah, the one place where Gazans were told they could go to be safe, and the U.S. has the power to stop it, and we won't.

Decades later, these universities will proudly and opportunistically claim they hosted the resistance to the war in Gaza once history has fully judged it. If you are siding with the ruling class against a student movement, well, I don't think history will be kind to you.
 
Last edited:
A lot of student protests tend to drift from original focus into somewhat tangential issues as time goes on and these seem no different to me really. More anger now about how the universities are responding, more input from non-students with their own agendas (whether engaged in the protests / counter-protests or just muscling into the public square of online opinion) etc. It's not that the issues aren't significant, it's that they become amorphous and so let the movers and shakers in policymaking for the US and Israel off the hook, never mind give comfort to those in the crowd who actually do fancy the annihilation of Israel.

In reading an opinion from WCK chief José Andres today, however, it occurs to me that if students really want to make a difference on the ground in Gaza for the sake of Palestinians right now, the demonstrations should be more focused on getting humanitarian aid delivered and the convoys and distribution workers protected. Just shouting "Free Palestine" and "Remember the Hostages" is not going get that job done, and in the meantime as Andres points out, the IDF has promised to "do better" but delivery of humanitarian aid is clearly not top of Israeli military priorty. Maybe the placards s/b "Feed Palestine"... since physicians have been warning for months now of imminent famine and illness in Gaza due to insufficient food, water, medical assistance in fighting malnutrition.

We’re going back to Gaza to feed people. Here’s what we need from Israel (WaPo, guest opinioin, paywall lifted)
This might be partially true. However, in watching coverage of the various protests, I have noticed one consistent demand: Divest from Israel. Students want universities to cut economic ties with Israel. The thought seems to be that protesting at a university won’t allow them to force the hand of the State dept, but at least maybe they can get their college to inflict a financial penalty on Israel.
 
I don't have a problem with the students having launched these protests. I only think they've bitten off more than they can chew by allowing the protest to migrate from demanding that Israel stop killing innocent Gazans to some less focused demands that require more long-range attention, e.g. "free Palestine" or "divest from Israel."

Divestment from a foreign government as a policy meant to alter oppressive behavior doesn't happen overnight (e.g., during the South African anti-apartheid movement). In fact calls for divestment from Israel by universities and pension funds are already an ongoing process with grassroots support and some success.

But to me, the students focusing on divestment during the Gaza-related protests are not really helping highlight the clear option Israel has before it RIGHT NOW, INSTANTLY, to show far more duty of care in the field to civilians in Gaza instead of just issuing disgustingly wordsmithed assurances that amount to "so sorry, that was a mistake."

That kind of pseudo-apology BS without a visible course correction just seems like trying to string out the time before the US feels compelled for domestic political reasons to put conditions (and possibly monitors) on Israeli conduct in Gaza. The student protests are an important part of that domestic pressure, and should be focused on readily feasible short term demands.

To the extent the protests wander off into diplomatic and economic negotiation, they only help Bibi dismiss them with a hand-wave as airily impractical at this point in his campaign to "eradicate" Hamas.

He can't eradicate Hamas, and even if he does then without acknowledgment of Palestinians' rights, there will be a poisonous rose like Hamas with some other name, so the sooner international pressure succeeds in bringing a cease-fire, the better for any Palestinians he's managed not to kill in the meantime.

And so as for "Free Palestine" - how about "Stop Killing Palestinians" for openers. That's a can-do right now...

What's going on right now is that Israel has already devastated any ability of Hamas non-military governance in Gaza, yet they have not provided any equivalent of basic government functions, e.g. law and order, provision of emergency food and water rations, protection of medical facilities.

Gazan residents have more than begun to blame Hamas for starting this ghastly conflict, so it's not like Palestinians aren't ready to work on picking better government.

They can't do it until Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire and Gazan civilians can get a chance to say "yeah ok we want different government, this no-solution vamping act of Israel letting Hamas feed us table scraps all this time sure didn't work for us". But the effectively paralyzed political capability of Gazans at the moment doesn't give Israel a free pass to keep slaughtering Gazans while it chases down Hamas fighters.

On shutting down the Columbia encampments or similar sit-ins elsewhere: I don't have a problem with the university calling the cops to break it up after it gets out of hand, which escalation is the usual goal of hangers-on including those who join any protest or demonstration that draws media attention. I think Columbia may have managed to close its campus before the too many outside protestors joined in to muddy the waters but it can be hard to know for sure.

I agree there's zero reason to call in the National Guard. The NYPD know how to clear a campus protest. Adults who have responsibilities now in a university administration are incompetent if they are oblivious of Kent State 1970. Again with respect to "other influences" I think some of the pressure to call in the Guard is extremely irresponsible and coming from Republicans angling to make political hay in advance of the 2024 conventions later this year.
 
Resisted posting this pair of images for awhile and I certainly don't mean to infer that Antony Blinken and the Gulf States are not united in their efforts to get Israel to a ceasefire in Gaza. In caving in, though, I have to say that when I first laid eyes on that photo of Blinken, that old "camouflage, ur don' it wrong" meme did flash instantaneously into my mind.

a lonely job.jpg meme - Camouflage-UrDoinItWrong.jpg

And when I think about it, Blinken's job is pretty tough. He's there to try to get an ally to adhere better to rule of law, even while also there to represent an alliance that Americans in their more settled times have defended strongly in bipartisan fashion for moral reasons related to the Holocaust --which is not to say that plenty of Jews and non-Jews haven't objected to Israeli treatment of Palestinians-- and maybe he's there too to remind Gulf States that the Gazans haven't received all that much concern over the years from their fellow Arabs in the region. In fact, "the Palestinian cause" has been a handy distraction for when Arab monarchies or dictators have got nervous over domestic dissatisfaction. Maybe the height of cynicism is Arabs watching Iran plug Hamas and Hezbollah into the territories, considering Iran is Shia and the rest mostly Sunni. But then Iran's ayatollahs have never really minded co-opting Sunnis to act as proxies, going way back to the times of Arafat.

Anyway, the USA could have sat back and issued press releases saying yeah gee Israel should take more care about civilians. Instead the Biden administration put Blinken to the globe rounding up support for cessation of hostilities in Gaza. He's not there to claim turf for the USA or Israel. He's there to help broker return to a state of nonviolence as prelude to peace and consideration of an Israeli-Palestinian future, a move that many may have felt the US would never be able to make in good faith again in that part of the world.

How the US efforts are viewed privately by Arabs (or, by Iran) is anyone's guess. Camouflaged supporter of Israel or camouflaged supporter of a two-state solution or merely a camouflaged supporter of the US defense industry? Or just joining in to try to end the war in Gaza? To me it has a better look than treating Israel and its territories as a series of bilateral Israeli-US maneuvers to enable potential real estate deals for the private sector. That is basically what was going on during the Trump administration. And those guys and Bibi didn't really even make any efforts at camouflage of their intentions, much less ask Palestinians for input. In the end Hamas took that as an excuse to roll out its incursion.
 
I am concerned.

The media seems to think student protests are worse than 35,000 dead in Gaza. Many Democratic politicians are jumping on the same bandwagon. And, of course, Ilhan Omar is having a statement that was actually positive towards Jewish students twisted into an accusation of antisemitism. And (AGAIN) multiple Democrats are chastising her instead of staying out of it or defending her.

Meanwhile, civilians are sheltering in Rafah, but Israel is dead-set on invading anyway. Will they be satisfied with 100,000 dead Palestinians? 200,000? What will be enough payback for Oct 7?

And the US is backing Israel’s defiance of the International Criminal Court.

I guess everybody forgot about the emotional impact of innocent people, bringing food to the starving, being mercilessly wiped out with 3 separate missile strikes. As with “just another mass shooting” every day in the US, we now have “just another war crime” every day by the IDF.
 
I am concerned.

The media seems to think student protests are worse than 35,000 dead in Gaza. Many Democratic politicians are jumping on the same bandwagon. And, of course, Ilhan Omar is having a statement that was actually positive towards Jewish students twisted into an accusation of antisemitism. And (AGAIN) multiple Democrats are chastising her instead of staying out of it or defending her.

Meanwhile, civilians are sheltering in Rafah, but Israel is dead-set on invading anyway. Will they be satisfied with 100,000 dead Palestinians? 200,000? What will be enough payback for Oct 7?

And the US is backing Israel’s defiance of the International Criminal Court.

I guess everybody forgot about the emotional impact of innocent people, bringing food to the starving, being mercilessly wiped out with 3 separate missile strikes. As with “just another mass shooting” every day in the US, we now have “just another war crime” every day by the IDF.

The media think the story of the protests will resonate with people favoring cessation of hostilities in Gaza, with people who think that either Jewish students or pro-Palestinian students might be getting treated unfairly, with people who think student protests are the same as street crime, with people who think cops knocking heads is exactly what Donald Trump would have done days or weeks ago, with people who think that the longer the protests go on, the more the political climate will favor, um... pick a fantasy outcome.

In short, for media editors the story has plenty legs, with potential to retain readers as well as the risk of subscription cancellations. Re that risk, the longer the protests go on, the more we'll see media trying to round up every possible opinion. Something for everone.

Yeah I'm feeling cynical about the coverage. I realize I'd be cynical AND furious if the protests were being covered on page A7 below the fold

You can tell though that the papers are getting nervous about how and how much to cover of both the protests and "the trials of Trump" lately..

All the metro papers are sprinkling at least a few decidedly not-about-that-stuff stories on page one or in sidebars about what to read next etc. For example the NYT offers "What Happens to My Body When I Eat Spicy Food?". Yeah, page one today in an internet edition. Well it's below where the fold would be in a paper rolled out in newsprint.
 
The UCLA encampment has been dismantled and the protesters arrested. This happening after the previous night when non-student Zionist agitators stormed the encampment, beat protesters with sticks and hurled fireworks at them as the police stood by and did nothing until it turned into an all-out brawl between both groups.

Make no mistake: the heavy-handed crackdown was a deliberate attempt to stop an anti-Zionist movement in its tracks. From the very beginning even the most peaceful protests were demonized as antisemitic (despite the fact that many protesters were Jewish themselves), bad faith claims about "safety" were made (really just discomfort with opposing views) to portray the protesters as more aggressive than they actually were, and peaceful encampments were forcibly dismantled, needlessly escalating the situation. This was not the result of exasperated administrators carefully navigating a difficult situation, this was an attempt to silence dissent in the face of wealthy donors and corporate ties that are very much pro-Israel. Young people don't care when liberals tell them "well, Trump would be even worse!" Biden has been a committed Zionist his entire life and we are seeing the results of his policies. Young people feel they're given no real chance for change by "democracy". But I applaud them for protesting and willing to be arrested for the cause of putting an end to the killing, which this country will continue to fund.

The days of the "ironclad" relationship between Israel and the U.S. are numbered. It won't matter for this current conflict, but many young people see through it and they don't have that inherent support for Israel that many older Americans have. Change will come.
 
The UCLA encampment has been dismantled and the protesters arrested. This happening after the previous night when non-student Zionist agitators stormed the encampment, beat protesters with sticks and hurled fireworks at them as the police stood by and did nothing until it turned into an all-out brawl between both groups.

Make no mistake: the heavy-handed crackdown was a deliberate attempt to stop an anti-Zionist movement in its tracks. From the very beginning even the most peaceful protests were demonized as antisemitic (despite the fact that many protesters were Jewish themselves), bad faith claims about "safety" were made (really just discomfort with opposing views) to portray the protesters as more aggressive than they actually were, and peaceful encampments were forcibly dismantled, needlessly escalating the situation. This was not the result of exasperated administrators carefully navigating a difficult situation, this was an attempt to silence dissent in the face of wealthy donors and corporate ties that are very much pro-Israel. Young people don't care when liberals tell them "well, Trump would be even worse!" Biden has been a committed Zionist his entire life and we are seeing the results of his policies. Young people feel they're given no real chance for change by "democracy". But I applaud them for protesting and willing to be arrested for the cause of putting an end to the killing, which this country will continue to fund.

The days of the "ironclad" relationship between Israel and the U.S. are numbered. It won't matter for this current conflict, but many young people see through it and they don't have that inherent support for Israel that many older Americans have. Change will come.
Yeah. And all thanks to Dr Shafik. The more they crack down, the more widespread and "sexy" these protests will get. It's fascinating to see how a single weak university president can take a movement to the very next level.
 
Yeah. And all thanks to Dr Shafik. The more they crack down, the more widespread and "sexy" these protests will get. It's fascinating to see how a single weak university president can take a movement to the very next level.
Yep, look at Brown, Northwestern, Minnesota, and others. They met with students and found peaceful solutions.
 
Yep, look at Brown, Northwestern, Minnesota, and others. They met with students and found peaceful solutions.
Relevant:


Especially the point about the "outside agitator" smear that has been used against every protest movement in history.
Again, i'm blaming Shafik who should have known better, especially as an economist. I can't think of any better way to validate a protest against disproportionate use of force, than with using disproportionate force. Being arrested and beaten for protesting will solidify this kind of resistance for at least a whole generation. Now they made sure that the movement will definitely outlast the present conflict.
 
Relevant:


Especially the point about the "outside agitator" smear that has been used against every protest movement in history.

It figures Eric Adams would be on the wrong side of the protests. "Professional" agitators, my ass.

Seems those cops left someone out, though. In a WaPo article I read about protests, the comments section was filled with dark references to George Soros. Yeah, Soros did this. 🙄
 
It figures Eric Adams would be on the wrong side of the protests. "Professional" agitators, my ass.

Seems those cops left someone out, though. In a WaPo article I read about protests, the comments section was filled with dark references to George Soros. Yeah, Soros did this. 🙄
If archeologists from a distant future dug up our media from this era, they could easily conclude that in our polytheism, Soros is the deity of chaos😀
 
Yeah, tell me again about how the heavy-handed reaction to these protests is just about the tactics and the inconvenience the students are causing, and not about the message being one that the state doesn't approve of. 😒
 
Back
Back
Top