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Israel - Gaza - Columbia University
- Thread starter Jayhawker Soule
- Start date
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I think this letter comes off as kind of as kind of holier than thou, and some of the rhetoric she uses is obviously very deliberately manipulative. For example:
"Make no mistake; I have no problem with the keffiyehs you wear or the Palestinian flags you wave. But why is nationalist self-determination good for Palestinians and not Jews? Why is living in the Diaspora good for Jews and not Palestinians? And why do Palestinians have a right to live in security, but Jews do not? Unlike you, I do not even consider myself a nationalist. But I do believe in people’s right to live in safety, and I do not believe in double standards."
I mean, is this something the protesters are actually saying? How many of the protesters has she actually spoken to? And then she kind cinches it at the end:
"And so, if I were at Columbia today, I would not join your protests. Because now I know I do not have to choose sides. I do not even have to buy into the idea of “sides.” This is a battle between those who support violence and an all-or-nothing approach to this conflict, and those who want to find a way for us to all win out by sharing this land. It saddens me deeply that you are choosing — perhaps out of latent Jew-hatred — the way of violence and hate instead of cooperation and mutual understanding."
She literally just accuses them of "taking sides", as if the protest is somehow not actually about what the protesters see as a continuing genocide and opposing it. As if the protests themselves aren't made up of dozens of different groups including Jews. It's very telling that the only really negative examples of things she actually mentions are chants. Hey, I'd love it if protesters didn't chant "we are Hamas" too (although I can find very little evidence to suggest this happened in any significant number). From what I have read, the vast majority of division and violence are coming from outside of the protests from counter-protesters and police.
I mean, does this really look like a divisive, hate-filled protest that is about taking sides or sympathizing with terrorists?
‘I was lying on the ground beside a wall of cops’: student photographers’ best images of the campus protests
Nine photojournalists from across the US tell the stories behind their most powerful shots, as pro-Palestinian protesters face police crackdowns
I'm sure this woman is doing excellent work, and is a tireless fighter for Palestinian and Israeli rights and freedoms. But this whole letter comes off as preachy at best and deliberately manipulative at worst. She calls for understanding and cooperation while implying that anyone who joins these protests is guilty of "latent Jew-hatred".
I'm not buying it.
Clizby Wampuscat
Well-Known Member
Maybe not your selective link, but what about the chants for the destruction of israel, or the "I am Hamas chants", or "There is only one solution, intifada revolution!" or "Zionists don't deserve to live" these are hate filled and sympathizing with terrorists.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Such as?
I acknowledged that earlier, and said there was very little evidence of it.
Could you provide links to reports or recordings of these chants?
More to the point, can you provide any examples of worse things that just chants? It's one thing to say "Hey, protesters, maybe choose your rhetoric more carefully" and saying "You are motivated by latent Jew-hate and believe Jews don't deserve self-determination". I don't use scant reports of people maybe sorta possibly saying a thing that could be interpreted in a particular way to make sweeping judgement about the beliefs and motivations of thousands of students. Especially not when a large number of those students are Jews, so I am less than willing to be charitable to interpretations of the movement as a whole as motivated solely by anti-Semitism.
Israelis call for "Death to Arabs!".
Malefactors can be found on every side,
so citing the chants you dislike, & ignoring
the evil ones from your side is prejudicial
....less than honest.
Israel (with US aid) is doing far & away the
most killing, now including starvation.
Biden's increasing support for this is bound
to cause tempers to flare, & rhetoric to be
more extreme.
So the problem isn't the protesters.
It's Biden, Congress, & Israel.
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Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
There's no question these people are anti-semites who know full well of the terrorists they are supporting.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Are they taking over College buildings, destroying property , and disrupting people's education?
More to the point, why are you so focussed in covering for acts of Jew-hatred?
I read it in its entirety, and I did not get that at all. I suppose, in part, that's because it's what I've been saying all along. There will never -- ever -- be a solution to this problem that does not begin with "both Jews and Palestinians have the rights to life, liberty and self-determination -- like everybody else."
Clizby Wampuscat
Well-Known Member
‘Hamas, We Love You!’ A List of the Chants, Statements From Columbia University’s ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ - Algemeiner.com
Anti-Israel activists at Columbia University in New York set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in the middle of campus last week. Protests accompanying the encampment — both on and off campus, including students and others from the surrounding community — have included pro-Hamas and antisemitic...
Shocking video captures moment protester near Columbia University yells, ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’
The clip shows a female protester with a keffiyeh covering her head and face loudly banging on NYPD barricades erected near the university’s Morningside Heights campus.
nypost.com
So when they chant we are hamas you interpret that as not sympathizing with terrorists?
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
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ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I'm not. I make no excuses for anti-Semitism. But I also need a lot more to dismiss thousands of students than a few scant reports of very little veracity and some clearly very bad faith interpreting of them. Again, a lot of the protesters are Jewish, and the majority of reports of violence at these protests turn out to be the result of counter-protesters and the police.
Why are you focused on disparaging protesters through disseminating obvious misrepresentation and hyperbole?
Clizby Wampuscat
Well-Known Member
That was not what my post was about. Of course saying death to Arabs is wrong too.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Eh, some bad optics. But some obvious exaggerations in there. It gives a couple of examples of isolated incidents, then suddenly and rapidly descends into individual students, individual accounts, and things that were just "stated" at the protest that have no reasonable human would assume were threatening or anti-Semitic.‘Hamas, We Love You!’ A List of the Chants, Statements From Columbia University’s ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ - Algemeiner.com
Anti-Israel activists at Columbia University in New York set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in the middle of campus last week. Protests accompanying the encampment — both on and off campus, including students and others from the surrounding community — have included pro-Hamas and antisemitic...www.algemeiner.com
Literally, one person.Shocking video captures moment protester near Columbia University yells, ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’
The clip shows a female protester with a keffiyeh covering her head and face loudly banging on NYPD barricades erected near the university’s Morningside Heights campus.
How many did that? Got any numbers?
Meanwhile, here's opinions and experiences from Jewish people who are actually part of the protest:
Jewish student protesters say Columbia’s pro-Palestine protests aren’t antisemitic
“There has been this discourse that Columbia is this hotbed of antisemitism, but it’s just a bunch of nerds sitting on the ground praying, chanting and doing homework,” said one student who has been at the college protest camp.
I'm not saying there isn't bad optics, and some bad actors. What I am saying is that saying that this goes any way towards demonstrating that the entire protest is based on anti-Semitism is clearly and brazenly false.
We ought to focus on the actual issue that the protest was clearly intended to highlight: Israel's war crimes in Gaza and American institutions complicity in those acts.
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They mostly aren't. ( Although pro-Israel demonstrators
are disrupting education with their assault of pro Palestinian
demonstrators.)
However, you might've noticed that Israelis are waging
genocide & starvation against Palestinians (using US bombs)
to destroy hundreds of thousands of Palestinian homes.
This is arguably far far far worse than de minimis property
damage by demonstrators in USA.
Sure, disruption & vandalism are bad things. But what's
wonderful is that these wrongs serve to stop the far
greater evil of US government & Israel.
Is this yet another rhetorical question to make the
point that nothing matters but the singular fact that
Hamas attacked Israel?
But if you really don't know, my question has the
answer embedded within.
I notice that you didn't address this part of my post...
"Israel (with US aid) is doing far & away the
most killing, now including starvation.
Biden's increasing support for this is bound
to cause tempers to flare, & rhetoric to be
more extreme."
Are you OK with this....denying
it...or disagree with it?
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I know what I believe and I also know you still haven't answered my question. But never fear! I am not holding my breath.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I believe that Israel has the right to persevere and I also believe that Hamas asked for it - begged for it in fact - and that the timing is not accidental. I also notice that you have not answered my question.
This directly addresses your post, which used the ad
hominem to demonize pro Palestinian demonstrators.
When applied to Jews in Israel & USA who chant such
hideous things, it shows the fallacy of making wrongful
chants writ large.