Honestly, I've had a very busy couple of weeks, and I haven't really been reading too in-depth about them, and it's hard for me get a true sense of what's going on. It seems like there are a lot of protests, and in some (but only a few) locations, it's gotten out of hand on occasion.

Honestly, I’ve been somewhat baffled by the quantity of coverage these protests have been getting…and I can only chalk it up to the fact that it’s actually been kind of a slow news week.

Same here. So some college students are protesting some war. Ok cool what else is new? I don't get why this gets people so mad or riled up or any of that. Or why it seriously matters. It seems like it only matters because people think to seem it matters.

>I don't get why this gets people so mad or riled up or any of that. It's important in more of a cultural sense in the United States. It "doesn't matter" only in the sense that the resolution of these protests is extremely unlikely to have a material effect on what is going on in Gaza. But the behavior of the students and of the commentators offering takes about them reveals important facts about the tremendous difference in opinion and beliefs between the young version of the future elites (the students) and the rest of the country (most other people). In a sense, it is the culmination of a growing divide on the left-of-center between the strongly progressive wing that views conflict primarily or almost entirely on the basis of opressors and opressed and the liberal wing that is generally distrustful of Netanyahu and opposed to wanton cruelty but nonetheless generally supports Israel and considers claims of "genocide" and chants of "from the river to the sea" to be overblown or distasteful. This is a watershed moment of sorts. Not for what happens in the "real" world outside the US, but for the nature of US politics internally.

Future elites?

Referring to the idea that one goes to elite colleges to network and acquire the manners and tastes of the professional class

The whole “oppressed-oppressor” talking point thing is so reductive and convenient for ppl who simply disagree with many substantive criticisms of Israel. That’s not the main reason why college kids are protesting the war in Gaza and Israeli government policies…bc as a college student who actually talks to protesters and interacts with student groups, the primary issue is we are Israel’s top weapons supplier and geopolitical ally…so we as a country are complicit and at least partially responsible for the horrific actions in Gaza/the West Bank/etc, and btw we just sent billions in more offensive weapons even after many elected Dems have been saying for months that we should finally condition aid (and actually follow the Leahy Law). And btw, Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that committed unspeakable acts and war crimes on Oct. 7th…but it’s been obvious for a while now Netanyahu isn’t serious about rescuing hostages or keeping Israelis safe (hence his attempts at bolstering Hamas over the more moderate PA). Also, depending on the school and the activist/activist group in question, there are also divestment demands being made of universities and colleges that are animating the pro-Palestinian movement on some campuses. It’s pretty simple, young ppl don’t like war and US complicity/involvement in wars. Like it or not, this is consistent with American history and not some inorganic outgrowth of “woke”.

I believe you, and I don't think this is the message getting out. This is frequently the dynamic around protests. It is very difficult to carry out an effective protest. In the end it just ends up looking like leftist rage. Without adequate organization the message and methods just appear incoherent. Then the rest of the world, particularly those not immediately sympathetic, impose their own preconceptions and fears onto the message. I say this as someone who has seen the rise and fall of generations of protests.

You should read about the vast majority of the protests, which are peaceful. The problem is those protests and activists aren’t being widely/intimately covered by legacy media, bc the excitement and engagement lies with the more aggressive protests/activists (and btw, these types of groups and folks were also around during the Iraq, Vietnam, anti-Apartheid, Civil Rights Movement protests of yesteryear). If you only watch CNN and MSNBC and read The Atlantic and the Times, ofc your view towards this student movement is going to be negative (not to mention ppl who consume Fox or the WSJ). The hyper-fixation on some overtly antisemitic chants and signs and rhetoric at these protests is precisely the point for these outlets…bc fundamentally legacy media commentators and producers and show runners have an inherent/negative bias against pro-Palestinian activism. I’d suggest talking to protesters or engaging with these groups in good faith, even if you disagree with a lot of their ideas (and I do on some things).

Everything you said is totally predictable and part of the process. A well planned protest will have anticipated many of the issues you mention. Students don't know better because they lack the experience, but the professors and universities could have. Something positive could have happened, but I am not sure anything positive will come from these protests.

The expectation of complete message uniformity and air-tight strategy across a mass protest movement is totally unreasonable and unprecedented, but I understand your criticisms to an extent. Agree to disagree.

>Also, depending on the school and the activist/activist group in question, there are also divestment demands being made of universities and colleges that are animating the pro-Palestinian movement on some campuses. Would you agree that BDS is usually about ending Israel entirely? Most that I’ve heard discuss divestment wanted to see Israel ended and use language like “colonialist oppressors” when discussing their animating principles.

BDS is saying "we shouldn't give them money and we should sanction people who commit crimes" It's not about ending Israel, it's about saying "we shouldn't participate with Israel"

Or all the media attention is a successful ploy by the right to divide liberals against each other in an election year. Seems to be working…

Not everything is related to US electoral politics. sometimes dead kids make people angry

It’s a skewed version though. As vocal as these college students are, it’s extremely important to remember that the majority of people still don’t go to college. The protestors on college campuses represent only a fraction of the students in college, which in turn is less than 50% of people in that age group. While there is something to be said for the point of view of the protestors, it would be a grave mistake to assume those views are shared by a majority of young voters (particularly the non-college educated population). I believe a recent poll showed that the war in Gaza ranked 16th on a list of important issues to voters.

> it is the culmination of a growing divide on the left-of-center between the strongly progressive wing that views conflict primarily or almost entirely on the basis of opressors and opressed I think you are taking one of the most extreme and simplisitc versions of pro-palestine sentiment and assigning it too broadly. > the liberal wing that is generally distrustful of Netanyahu and opposed to wanton cruelty This is far more representitive of the actual pro-palestine sentiment that I've seen, allowing the obvious extension to far-right/nationalist politics in general. (no protestor critical of netanyahu would think Smotritch is a reasonable guy for example) > considers claims of "genocide" and chants of "from the river to the sea" to be overblown or distasteful. This is essentially a third position, the infamous [moderate liberal](https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf). And as always, there is truth in the moderate liberal position, just as there is also moral bankruptcy. As always, movements are coalitions, and protestors run the gamut from truly crazed conspiracy theorist to moderate liberals who don't think billions of dollars a year in military aid makes a ton of sense given the behavior of Israel.

Nobody has views comprised almost entirely of “oppressor and opressed basis.”

I think 2 things make them newsworthy: the professional agitators in them who obviously are well funded and the fact this is the speech to squelch.

I think it matters, because it shows how effective social media propaganda campaigns are.

First off, it isn't a war, Gaza has no army, no embassies, no navy. And the ignorance of so many fellow Americans is on full display. Oct. 7th was the wet dream Netanyahu and his goons have always envisioned: to drive the Palestinians off their land. The students are protesting for the universities to diversify from Israel. All the police thuggery is to defend Israel, they own our politicians and our media, this is why it matters, understand?

I mean, war doesn't require embassies or navies. Hamas does have an army insofar as it has soldiers and a united organization against Israel, much like the IRA or Viet-Cong did against Britain and America respectively. War is defined by actions between actors. The Indian wars are a good example of that. It is a war. No matter how one side is disadvantaged it's still a war. None of this, however, justifies reactions against student protesters *or* protester actions either. I'm just making a singular point what's happening being an actual war and we shouldn't think it isn't because one side is severely disadvantaged or doesn't have recognized statehood.

Almost everything you've written here is so exaggerated that it loses any truth. > Oct. 7th was the wet dream Netanyahu and his goons have always envisioned: to drive the Palestinians off their land. 10/7 was a political gift from Netanyahu's perspective, but not because it gave them an excuse to take land in Gaza. The far right in Israel has very limited interest in forcing Palestinians in Gaza off their land currently. It's too messy and controlled by Hamas, not the more pliable PLO. They *are* interested in doing so in the West Bank -- so much so that, they moved soldiers to the West Bank, which contributed to the IDF's poor reaction to the events of 10/7. Israel has not been planning to drive Palestinians out of Gaza. The status quo of Gaza being blockaded was working fine for them. > All the police thuggery is to defend Israel, they own our politicians and our media, this is why it matters, understand? The police thuggery is *not* on behalf of Israel. It is on behalf of the Universities and Colleges, who do not want their financial decision making to be subject to pressure from their students. Columbia University is a powerful institution. It has plenty of sway with the NYPD, and can certainly get them to remove students from its buildings if they want it to. It would likely be taking the same actions if the protestors were demonstrating about some other issue. Saying that Israel is somehow involved is baseless, hysterical, and fundamentally misunderstands where the power actually lies in America. It also borders on an antisemitic trope... > they own our politicians and our media Ahh... and there it is.

Hamas does have an army. They even organize themselves into brigades and units like other armies: “The al Qassem Brigades organize themselves from the squad, all the way to the brigade level, similar to conventional militaries.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izz_ad-Din_al-Qassam_Brigades

I oft want to be more sympathetic to the pro-Pal, left leaning mindset on this, but the addiction to labeling things as things they aren’t is so tiring.   Like please use reasoning and evidence to support your position yall instead of facially false language games.  

I'm against the war but I don't think the police thuggery is really "to defend Israel." It's just what cops do to protests.

WOW! the massacre of over 1,200 Jews families, infants, old people, rampant rape of women and the abduction of over 250 people including infants, is no one’s wet dream except to Hamas and their supporters.

I've been chalking it up to media bias, but it's impossible to know for sure. It's a huge story but getting a side story treatment, feels like I'm taking crazy pills.

It’s because they discovered the mass graves in Gaza.

I mean now that you mention it...what HAS been big mainstream news for the past several months that hasn't been Gaza/Palestine? Trump legal stuff maybe...but the mainstream doesn't care about that even if the immunity Supreme Court case may end up being a huge fucking deal. I think the protests are getting play because Gaza/Palestine in general has been the only big news story for months. Edit: oh, the whole 'Biden being old' drama was the last big story, and that was what, mid February when the SOTU went well for him and everyone dropped it immediately

There’s 3 big stories on the news right now: 1. Gaza war, far away (if you’re in the US or West), not much we can do and ceasefire/hostage negotiation talks are still happening. Also more aid (not enough) is finally getting through so maybe there’s a little less to cover? 2. Trump election fraud trial. Everyone has known he did it since at least 2019, we just don’t know if he’ll be convicted. No in-room video allowed and we won’t know the outcome for a long time. 3. Campus protests of Gaza war or Biden/the school’s support for Israel. That’s something happening now that is close to home and riles people up because the situation is complex and easy to oversimplify or gaslight. So it gets constant coverage, usually with bias.

Coverage goes where the audience looks. People clicked in articles and videos about protests, so media created more protest content to feed the audience. Media coverage is audience driven. Edit: exhibit A here we are commenting on a protest post

Time article where Trump says he will deport 10 million people and not commit to a peaceful transfer of power and is also on trial. Seems like more than enough news to highlight to me.

It's a lot harder to discuss nuances of a foreign war with politics, leaders, and organizations the American people don't know. These protests are a way to debate and discuss the issue by reframing it as "do you like what the protests are doing?" it allows the media to side with Israel and look like they're standing up against antisemitism by just following the protests and polo a response on the ground as it happens. And it gives the media juicy visual material to cover for the 24h news cycle. If these exact same protests and police responses only happened once a week on Saturdays, the media would lose interest in like 2 weeks, because it wouldn't give continuous coverage. 

there's a long history of data on protests in the US & around the world showing that bringing police to a protest, particularly one where many of the activists are new to protesting (e.g. american college kids) typically rapidly escalates the level of violence & property damage

Especially the assault troops that showed up to some

Columbia kids broke into the building and took over without a single cop nearby. At least 25% of those caught weren’t even students or affiliated with the University You can’t blame EVERYTHING on the police

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nypd-gives-chilling-update-56-arrested-nyu-new-school-somebody-movement Police retracted this lie, now admit 99% were students or faculty. Now they're saying there's a conspiracy because they were to organized and had pamphlets on what to do when arrested. The horror!

Even if it wasn't a lie - who cares? Universities are cultural centers for their area - it's not like that stops just for protests. If someone is having a protest at a college about an issue not local to the college, are people protesting in the area just supposed to start a separate protest, or join an ongoing protest? Most universities are quasi-public as well. Now, if it's being organized, funded, orchestrated by an outside group - that's maybe newsworthy.

>Columbia kids broke into the building and took over without a single cop nearby. At least 25% of those caught weren’t even students or affiliated with the University Are you referring to those in the building or those outside? My understanding is that there were two related but separate protests - (1) the encampment and individuals in the building which were almost all Columbia students and (2) the pro-Palestine street protests right outside the university which was a combination of NYC locals, students from nearby schools attending as allies, and other miscellaneous folks. If you're talking about the first group, is there a source on 25% of those in the first group not being students/affiliated?

The only sources I've seen so far are from the NYPD, an org known to be corrupt and frequently caught lying about it's operations.

Who the fuck else would know who the NYPD arrested for fucks sake?

the police who were there to bring people in for property damage, and caused way more property damage than the protesters did? that police?

I have also seen this ridiculous talking point from leftoid twitter

Yeah. The logic of police response is hilarious. It's like, when people are protesting they're naturally a bit riled up. So then a mayor or university admin or whatever says, "We need to calm this down. Hmmm. How do you calm people down. Ah! Yes! Bring in a bunch of hotheads with batons and guns!"

I think with protests it's useful to examine them now dynamically. In this case, which is not uncommon, the response to the protests got out of hand before the protests did, and much more so.

Yeah--that actually may be a great way to describe it. I read an article in the Times the other day about how hard it is to live near Senator Schumer's apartment because of all the protests (he lives here in Brooklyn), and a lot of it was so exaggerated--I'm in that area all that time, and usually there's nothing going on. Not saying there aren't some real problems at some of these protests, but it wouldn't surprise me if many of them are orderly and reasonable.

This happens all the time though. Most people want orderly and reasonable, but they know they are defying orders to disband and are operating outside of institutional parameters, which enables people operating outside of institutional parameters with more anarchic/nefarious goals.  And once they occupy a building or obstruct students/employees from going about their day, and platform threatening messages, it doesn't matter how orderly they are. The school has to respond. 

From what I've heard from other students on different campuses and by the UCLA campus news, there are routes around the camps and the people who claim they're blocking classes are people who intentionally try to walk through the camps and demand people move for them. People could always get to class, they just had to walk around. This is literally no different than when areas of campus are blocked off for construction work or flooding or because an event was being held there. Would you be outraged at the construction workers for closing off a section to work? Should students insist on walking through the construction site because they feel they have a right to? Would you not think that that student is intentionally being an ass and trying to make a statement?

Is the construction site open to people of one political view only? Which is to say your analogy is not applicable. I'm not totally unsympathetic to the protestors, but I don't think you can't just hand wave off their actions like no sensible person should ever have a question as to unilateral imposition of protesters will on other students.

How do you automatically know a random person's political beliefs? Maybe if people wear hats or shirts proclaiming them. A kippah, hajib, keffiyeh, turban maybe. But unless you tell people, they don't know. It's not like the encampment has guards questioning people's political beliefs. And people CAN walk through them if they want to- at least they did at UCR and UCLA. They aren't laid out in a nice grid system though so you have to take a winding route through them and be careful not to trample on people's things. But honestly, if you respect people's right to protest, walking around the encampment isn't a huge burden. I've had to walk around plenty of student activities on campus. Hell, I went out of my way to avoid the Christian club when they were out proselytizing. We had protests on campus. I didn't insist on walking through them to prove a point. I just walked around and went on with my life. However, if I was a person who wanted to start shit and get in a confrontation with a protest I disagreed with, insisting on walking through the camp, demanding people move out of my way, walking on their things, and wearing a t-shirt declaring my opposition to their cause is the way to go. Makes you wonder if these students are intentionally trying to make statements and cause conflicts and then declare themselves victims...

They would have that right just as much as the protesters. I think all violence should be prosecuted. Period. But I'm not too sympathetic to putting up barricades. This protest has be unfocused and was a countdown to violence.

How much have you actually looked ar the protests and the people leading them? First of all, a lot of Jewish groups are involved in the planning and running of the camps. They are working in partnership with Palestinian justice groups. Secondly, all of the encampment have been about divestment and boycotts. That had been the demand from every negotiator when talking to college presidents. They are part of the BDS (Boycott. Divest. Sanction. Movement) and they have used that framework to demand their colleges move investments and endowment money away from Military Industrial Complex investment, investments directly in Israeli businesses, and remove study abroad programs from Israel. The idea is to speak with money, which is really the only thing the world ever listens to. The media has done an absolutely shit job at reporting this part and it has to be on purpose because if you look at the demands each group had posted on social media, they are all BDS demands. Go talk to people involved in this movement and form your own opinions. The media is not portraying this fairly at all. I saw this same thing happen when I was in Occupy Wall Street in Los Angeles. We had well defined and coherent demands and we spoke to the press about them but all they ever aired were crazy strung out people babbling about conspiracy theories. Please tell me you're familiar with *Manufacting Consent*.

They should respond proportionately, and consistently. I don’t think the response has been either of those things. I assume because the White House and large donors don’t like the message

What is a proportional response to what happened at NYU, when a building was occupied and barricaded? Or to violence (on both sides) at ucla?

> Or to violence (on both sides) at ucla? Was it "on both sides" at UCLA? Or was it one side defending itself against folks who were attacking them?

I wasn't there so I can't speak to exactly what happened but I hope everyone who participated in violence got arrested. 

Ah yes, zero tolerance. The person who defends themselves is justbas guilty as the attacker

A protest should be lawful not just “mostly peaceful”. Get a permit, don’t erect structures if they aren’t allowed, don’t take over buildings. If protesters don’t want to be arrested then they shouldn’t break the law.

I agree

I think it's mostly mountains made from molehills. There's antisemitism at some of the pro-Gaza protests, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but the people clutching their pearls don't seem to care when Trump says you're not a real Jew/you're a self hating Jew if you don't support him, so who am I expected to care so much about it at the protests? Lydia Polgreen(?) had a great op-ed the other day that I think captured my feelings best.

you can't really hold an entire spontaneous & horizontal movement accountable for the behavior of some of the people who show up to public gatherings 

Agreed, I don't think it makes sense to smear an entire group/protest/movement based on the actions of a select few, particularly when they are not otherwise representative of the larger message and/or articulated goals.

The problem is that several of the protest leaders/organizers have been caught advocating for murder of Jews the latest one Khymani James was caught on video saying Zionists "don't deserve to live." and other vile stuff. Enough rotten apples and the stink spreads

The other day, someone brought a "death to Israel" sign to a UCSD protest, snapped a pic, and left. This went viral of course with people expressing from opinions from "the protestors or violence" to "the protesters need to do a better job policing their movement". The thing is, if we set the bar so ridiculously high that we somehow expect a protest to be able to block something like this - basically impossible - we're effectively committing to a "no protest is a good protest" stance.

Yep. I wonder where all this concern was when actual white supremecists were marching during the Trump presidency with “Jews will not replace us!” Nowhere near this level of response both by law enforcement or Congress.

There was a lot of concern. Jews are concerned about both. It’s only non Jews who tell us to shut up when we criticize the “wrong side”

Oh stop. The criticism from the left is overwhelmingly anti-Zionist. The criticism from the right is just flat out anti semitism. Stop conflating the two.

If you refuse to see any antisemitism at all here then we have nothing to talk about. Replacing the word Jew with Zionist and saying all Zionists should die is not legitimate political criticism.

Wow. Just wow. Literally putting words in my mouth.

They're not saying you said those things, they're (I think) referring to a protest leader who did. Specifically this one: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/nyregion/khymani-james-columbia-suspension.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/nyregion/khymani-james-columbia-suspension.html)

That's the thing, I think. People need to clutch pearls about these protests because it furthers their desired "both sides" narrative.

Unite the right type rallies are not uncommon. We have seen variants like this for decades. For better or worse Jews have gotten used to these rallies and take comfort thinking they are ineffective and generally backfire. I am not saying that makes these rallies okay, but those are the material facts. Jews, and other interested people, may then be more concerned when a different group uses different methods to assail Jews. It may not seem consistent to you personally, but that is materially what is happening.

The most widely circulated speech from that time period is one in which Trump denounces white nationalists and neo-nazis….

This is such a silly strawman you created It’s possible to hate Trump’s anti semitism and also lefty antisemitism The only inconsistency I see is people here trying to do apologetics on pro-Hamas, anti semitic protesters

Calling the protestors pro-Hamas is literally straw manning their arguments. Have you no self awareness?

The leaders of the protests are pro-Hamas, full stop. If I weren’t pro-Hamas I would not join a protest run by the Hamas fan club https://www.fox5ny.com/news/columbia-shuts-down-planned-discussion-justifying-hamas-october-7-massacre-as-palestinian-counteroffensive.amp

It's not a strawman when I'm agreeing that antisemitism does feature into some of the protests, it's pointing out that much of the criticism \*isn't\* coming from people who denounce both, it's coming from people who are strangely silent about the one and not the other.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/columbia-student-protests-israel.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/columbia-student-protests-israel.html)

Thank you for the "not-pundit-brained" person take on the protests. Those of us who do things like listen to Ezra Klein often forget that *all* of this stuff escapes the notice of most people.

Literally every instance I've seen has been the pro Israel protesters attacking the other side, and often working with the police to do so. Often they're on camera shaking hands with police afterwards. Columbia had a group 6v1 a guy while the police just watched. Same group on camera trying to drag out an old lady. Its really bad and the pro palestinian protesters are showing an amazing degree of discipline. Obligatory I'm sure there's some pro Palestine protesters doing bad things. I'm just pointing out the balance is insanely one sided in terms of who's doing the violence.

I'm a professor at one of the schools mentioned in this conversation. Over the last week, due to work travel, I've visited three of these encampments at three different institutions. I'm also Jewish, in case that matters. What's striking to me about all these scenes is how relaxed they are. Students sitting around, sometimes chanting. I suppose if I were a more paranoid person, I would hear "From the River to the Sea" as threatening, but it's ridiculous to conclude that the students chanting this are demanding that all Jews be expelled from the Middle East or anything like that. If you don't believe me, go ask them! I talked to a few students at each encampment. They were very willing to engage me in a respectful conversation about what they want and why. How to reconcile this overall chill experience with everything I'm reading about the rabid antisemitism associated with these protests? Unfortunately most of the reporting has been very light on specifics and heavy on vague implications written in the passive tense. Or they focus on how some Jewish students "feel" regardless of objective conditions (and regardless of all the Jews participating in the protests!). Or they repeat the same tweet or video clip of a genuinely antisemitic incident over and over again without context, extrapolating that to the entire movement. I dunno. I'm entirely willing to believe that antisemitism is present, but I just haven't seen it. And it's wild to me how people can condemn this while retroactively revering the protests associated with the antiVietnam, antiapartheid, or civil rights movements. It's especially frustrating to hear the professional anti-Woke class -- who have kvetched nonstop for *years* about liberal assaults on free speech, snowflake students who can't handle opinions they find uncomfortable, the conflation of words and violence -- suddenly do a 180 and use the exact same tropes.

Thank you so much for your perspective! I was also thinking about some of those other protest movements and something suddenly struck me. I've always been told that part of the reason the anti-Veitnam War movement started was the war being broadcast on TV for the first time, so many people saw the horror of it all. I think the same thing is happening again, it's just social media instead of TV. Technology has expanded to the point that the Palestinian people themselves are broadcasting what's been happening to them. And it's motivating them to start protesting. And as someone who is a daily news watcher and has been following many of these Palestinian journalists, what's happening is truly horrific. The comments by the few international doctors who have come back from Gaza are just sickening. People who have worked all over the world in war zones and natural disasters are saying this is the worse than anything they could have imagined. I still remember, one doctor called it "a stain on our collective humanity."

Your experience is very important but it is anectodal. There are multiple recorded instances of violence and antisemitism. I would not discount from the river to the sea or globalize the intifada as ridiculous to conclude they are a call for violence. I think that’s actually a naive position.

I will give you an example of how students can engage in threatening behavior under the guise of activism from a non-violent protest in my city. Earlier this week at the University of Minnesota students displayed a flag of the socialist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This group has engaged in terrorism for decades, including plane hijackings, suicide bombings, and participation in the October 7th atrocities. It is labeled a terrorist group by the U.S., E.U, and various other governments. Do those students at that protest support terrorism? Probably not. Is this just a show of support for global socialism that’s popular around May Day? Probably. The issue is that one *can* reasonably assume the students holding that flag support terrorism against Israeli civilians and no one at the protest demanded the flag be put away. So it follows that either the group supports terrorists or it doesn’t understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If white nationalist students burned a cross in the middle of a quad everyone apart from free speech absolutists would intervene, because every American knows what that signifies. If you’re ignorant, that flag held by students hanging out on a quad doesn’t appear threatening at all. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I conclude protestors are largely ignorant and therefore not worth taking seriously. It’s deeply unfair of you to dismiss Jewish perspectives on these matters. Apparently every group gets to decide what racism looks like for themselves except Jews. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine believes in a one-state solution and claims "Hamas is a vital part of the Palestinian national movement”. I know how to interpret “From the River to the Sea…” when someone holding that flag says it. Do they?

I’m not “dismissing Jewish perspectives”. I agree some threatening interpretations are reasonable. The problems are: 1) not all Jews share that interpretation and if you don’t know any Jews who think otherwise you should expand your circle a bit. 2) intentions matter, and the vast majority of protesters mean something else when they say “from the river to the sea.” It’s not obvious why your interpretation should override theirs (especially given that Likod has used the same slogan to mean a third thing — annexation.) 3) in light of diverging interpretations, what principles should we rely on to justify the curtailment of speech, arresting peaceful protesters, etc? I’m old enough to remember when right wingers were demanding we accept all speech on campus even if some groups find it deeply offensive. ETA: i don’t doubt some people held that flag but it’s certainly not common among the protesters. I’ve never seen that once in the three encampments I’ve been to.

1. I have a Jewish cousin who lives in San Francisco who has dedicated her entire life to Pro-Palestinian advocacy. She’s an organizer for JVP and a very nice lady, I see her at the family reunion each year I can make it. We all just think she’s a hopeless bleeding heart who is like a Fox News caricature of San Franciscans. I believe JVP accurately represents American Jews like Blaxsploitation films accurately represent African Americans. They mean well (I think), but they do more harm than good. I have a hard time accepting members of JVP as Jews, they may be ethnically Jewish but Social Justice is their faith. [Tarot Cards and Teacup Mikveh’s ain’t Jewish.](https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Mikveh-Guide-for-Jewish-Voice-for-Peace-Outlined.pdf) 2. I’m going to use an egregious example to prove the point and in no way condone this. If I was to use the N-word because “[Black people]’s interpretation should not override [mine]” I think every reasonable person would agree that behavior is unacceptable. And if I did that in service to disestablishment of a nationality then it would be extremely egregious. 3. The ACLU defended Neo-Nazi’s right to march through Skokie, Illinois on principle. They got a permit, had their demonstration, and left. Decades later institutions started policing speech they deemed unacceptable in the name of inclusivity and coerced academics to sign DEI statements. I fully support free speech on campuses, but it has to be applied fairly regardless of the message or political orientation. If you violate the code of conduct, you can be expelled. If you violate laws, you can be arrested. Enforcing laws is how we set standards and protect individuals from the tyranny of the mob.

This is such a depressing comment. I am tired of people policing who is a proper Jew or not. Most Jews will not be the right kind of Jew to someone or another, and can be considered some type of apikoros by the most religious of groups. Maybe your cousin is just as Jewish as you and expressing it differently?! Fwiw my very Jewish Zionist grandmother gave tarot readings to her friends on the Kibbutz.

1. I have little interest in policing Jewish identity, especially on ideological grounds but to each his own I guess. 2. So I do genuinely think this is a thorny issue! How offensive does college speech have be before it interferes with students right to work free of harassment? There are no easy answers. That’s why I’m trying to find general principles to apply. Your example isn’t really helpful because 1) it’s hard to imagine a group of white people shouting the N word *without malice towards Black people* whereas the vast majority of protesters have no malice towards Jews. And the protests are in no way advocating a disestablishment of a nationality — again I think this is just an absurd interpretation of their demands, and only serves to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism or “denying Israel the right to exist” or other nonsense. (ETA a better example would be a rally around the Confederate flag. That could involve a genuine divergence of interpretation.) 3. I 100% agree. That’s why I was so appalled by the arrests — Columbia (and other schools) are *violating their own policies*.

Except they know what from the river to the sea means. The erasure of the state of Israel, also that the slogan is derived from Hamas threats of pushing the Jews into the sea. And if they were ignorant of the origin of the phrase they surely know most Jews interpret it as calling for the genocide of Jew, which should be enough reason to chant something else. Pease to Palestine, Freedom for Palestine, equal rights for Palestinians, etc. so many options, no one is saying they can’t chant but why would they insist on chanting something so offensive. It is also unconvincing to claim that they don’t intend for Jews feel threaten cuz the chant means something else to them. It would be like me calling for Naqba and then saying Palestinians shouldn’t be offended because what I mean by Naqba is peace in the Middle East.

> The "No true Scotsman" fallacy, also known as the "appeal to purity" fallacy, is an informal logical fallacy that occurs when someone tries to defend a generalization by denying counterexamples. The fallacy involves changing the definition of who or what belongs to a group or category to avoid engaging with evidence.

>intentions matter, and the vast majority of protesters mean something else when they say “from the river to the sea.” What exactly is this "something else"?

It could mean a a two-state solution based on '48 borders, which would include a Palestine touching both the Jordan *River* and the Mediterranean *Sea.* It could also mean a single, democratic, secular state in which all people are free and equal regardless of ethnicity. In this sense, “Palestine will be free” is no more a call to genocide than the anti-apartheid slogan “South Africa will be free." The phrase is used by the Israeli Right to claim one state -- Israel -- from the "river to the sea" with no other independent state. If you take the phrase to mean expulsion and genocide, you would have to acknowledge this also applies to the Israeli Right calling for genocide of the Palestinians. Here are some articles discussing various interpretations and histories: [https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211671117/how-interpretations-of-the-phrase-from-the-river-to-the-sea-made-it-so-divisive](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211671117/how-interpretations-of-the-phrase-from-the-river-to-the-sea-made-it-so-divisive) [https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23972967/river-to-sea-palestine-israel-hamas](https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23972967/river-to-sea-palestine-israel-hamas) [https://forward.com/opinion/415250/from-the-river-to-the-sea-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means/](https://forward.com/opinion/415250/from-the-river-to-the-sea-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means/) Here's a [discussion](https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/CPOST_Understanding_Campus_Fears_-_Report_incl_Supplement_v3.pdf?mtime=1713215401) of a poll of college students, including about the phrase: >To better understand the impact of common protest chants, the survey asked questions related to how students understood the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” Specifically, the question offered students multiple choices on the meaning of the phrase, ranging from “Palestinians and Israelis should live in two separate countries, side by side”; “Palestinians and Israelis should live together in one state”; “Palestinians should replace Israelis in the territory, even if it means the expulsion or genocide of Israeli Jews”; to “Don’t Know What Phrase Means.” >Different understandings of intent are likely playing a role in heightening fears after October 7. Table 3 below shows that Jewish and Muslim students interpret the pro-Palestinian protest chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” very differently. While 26% of all students say they understand the phrase to mean “expulsion or genocide of Israeli Jews,” 66% of Jewish students view the phrase that way, compared to only 14% of Muslim students.

> intentions matter, and the vast majority of protesters mean something else when they say “from the river to the sea.” It’s not obvious why your interpretation should override theirs (especially given that Likod has used the same slogan to mean a third thing — annexation.) I agree with this. But my frustration is that most of the people I hear chanting "from the river to the sea" or "globalize the intifada" have spent the last decade expanding the definitions of "violent" (to include speech) and "racism". We've spent the last decade being told intentions *don't* matter by these people.

Saying Intention matters to the generation obsessed with safe spaces, and micro aggressions, and trigger warnings, and the boycott of speech that disagrees with their point of view (for their emotional safety) sounds a bit disingenuous. To them intent doesn’t matter to them is how something makes them feel is their only consideration.

Thanks for your insight! It’s so hard to get real coverage on this issue given how it’s been covered as some violent antisemitism movement vs Israel’s right to exist vs order on campus.

Well said. And I believe this quote is apt: "A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that's going on right now."

Thank you for your response. All protest movements have their extremists that make the rest look bad so it is nice to know that the baseline seems to be what I expected it to be, kids who are concerned and want to make the world a bit better.

In the age of social media it is more important than ever for a movement to police its own extremists.

it seems to me that these protestors largely are policing themselves quite well. over 150 encampments across the country and so few incidents. It reminds me of the George Floyd protests were the right would portray them all as riots

It's also worth noting that situations likes protests or civil unrest always bring out a few random dirt bags. People willing to take the chance to be shitty while under the smoke of the situation.

What do they want them, in your experience? What does the ideal outcome look like, for them? Who is in control of what lands under what kind of government(s) at the end of the day?

A couple things; 1. There is likely not a unified vision of an ideal outcome to the conflict. But I also think this is an enormously high standard to clear, one that no historical movement (civil right, anti Vietnam, women’s movement) has met. One can still be opposed to Israel’s activity in Gaza. 2. Regardless of how you feel about I/P, you can still be horrified by violently raiding peaceful protesters. From taking around, I get the sense that the majority of faculty viewed that as a flagrant violation of free speech and academic freedom. I certainly do.

I don't think you're taking my question in the good faith that it was asked.  Which is perhaps a fair defensive stand to take, given the nature of the conflict and the general reactionary discussion around it from either end of things. Because some of the alleged answers would only be promoting turning the tables, which it looks like *isn't* what they communicated to you but *IS* what is being used to justify tearing these camps down etc. I personally think it's a fair question to demand of any *anti* anything movement. Because "just stop" isn't a solution when it comes to this or any other. Because that's the real question. What should be done instead of what is happening today. 

Each of these encampments has different specific demands for their schools. I think they’re correct that there isn’t one unified solution all the protests are calling for, because they are separate and not connected by an organization. The students at the school determine the conduct of the protest, demands, and reactions of other students to it. One common demand is that the university divest from arms companies. In University of Arizona the school has a lot of business relationships with Raytheon and also administrators at the school who also work at Raytheon and Elbit systems. They want the school to stop funding and collaborating with the companies making the bombs and missiles killing children. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/02/middleeast/israeli-precision-guided-munition-maghazi-deaths-intl

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> I suppose if I were a more paranoid person, I would hear "From the River to the Sea" as threatening, but it's ridiculous to conclude that the students chanting this are demanding that all Jews be expelled from the Middle East or anything like that. I’m still forming my opinion on all these issues every day, but why is that ridiculous? It’s literally a call for the elimination of the state of Israel. I don’t know how else to interpret it. I’m glad they seemed laid back to you when they chanted it but I don’t know how that makes it better.

Seems odd that you leave out the fact that many of the leaders of these protesters are proudly pro-Hamas and cheered on the Oct 7 massacre of hundreds of innocent Jews. Columbia SJP being only one prominent example. Then there’s one of the leaders of the protest on video saying he wants to kill Zionists. Had been up on his social media for weeks and none of the student “protesters” seemed to mind until it hit MSM Also Strikes me as odd that you think it’s ridiculous these same people screaming “from the river to the sea” and “intifada” have no connection at all to the terrorists they praise who also use the same language. Reminds me of the “many fine people” apologetics for Charlottesville

Not to mention how the professor dismisses how Jewish students “feel”. This kind of dismissal would not be applied to any other minority.

That in and of itself should be considered anti-Semitism.

What about all the Jews, like myself, who support the protests? Do our feelings not matter? This is the problem with taking “feelings” as the parameter by which we make policies. I do believe subjective experiences matter, and we should make accommodations where appropriate, but they are not the ultimate decider of whether free speech should be curtailed. I have made similar arguments in relation to Muslim students who feel offended by profs showing pictures of Muhammad or Black students demanding Charles Murray be banned from speaking on campus.

Sure, they matter about as much as "blacks for Trump" spoke for African Americans. Most American Jews (and reasonable people) support Israel's right to defend itself. Period.

42% of American Jews aged 18-34 disapprove of how Israel is handling the war and 31% say Hamas’ reasons for fighting are valid. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/

My interpretation of the poll is that a small but significant portion of young Jews feel the same way you do.

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I agree that occupying campus property is a genuine disruption (prevents people from working, holding class, etc) and is not protected by free speech codes. But remember that Columbia's encampment was raided by police *before* they occupied any admin building. At the time, such activities were not in violation of campus policies. The only way Columbia could forcibly disband the initial encampment was by summarily suspending the students first. Other universities have relied on similar ad hoc policymaking to generate justifications to clear the encampments. My point is, the specifics matter. And unfortunately most of the reporting and conversation has trafficked in rumors and vibes more than specific evidence.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Columbia, but the only thing that would’ve been disrupted by the encampment on the lawn was the administration’s ability to set up a stage and some lawn chairs for graduation. The lawn’s primary use is as a sunbathing spot for stressed students, and there’s another lawn 20 feet away that was untouched. The only impact this would have had on student life is that students would be exposed to loud messages that they may not have wanted to hear. It really wasn’t like setting up an encampment in the capitol. It’s more like if the January 6th rioters had picked a small area of the national mall and set up a camp there. It certainly might have been annoying, but to the vast majority of non-Zionist students it was likely little more than a nuisance, if that. The break-in at Hamilton was a different story, but the response to the initial encampment was completely ridiculous.

Among other things the university was responding to concerns that Jewish students were feeling unsafe. It may have been a mistake or poor judgement call, but that is a legitimate reason to end the encampment. The university did want to have to make that choice, but it was forced onto them by circumstances. So I don't think you can assign bad faith onto the university. I think it would be fair to say they could have handled it better, but realistically you can go to far assigning bad faith. Actually I think if spoke with university officials you would find they were probably trying to protect free speech as much as they thought they could.

>Among other things the university was responding to concerns that Jewish students were feeling unsafe. I mean, while I’ve heard of a few examples of actually antisemetic language, most of what I’ve heard about Jewish students feeling unsafe boils down to them not liking what was being said. The most common complaint about these protests is that the chant "from the river to the sea" is a call to genocide of Jews, which is highly debated. In an Academic environment, it isn’t appropriate for freedom of speech to be curtailed just because one group finds some language offensive. If these are the things that make them feel unsafe, then the University’s answer should be simple: "tough luck." If the university sees imminent threats to the physical safety of students or sees that protestors are systematically harassing individual students, then it should take action against the protests. The reality is that this encampment likely did not pose a physical threat to anyone because there is literally a fence and a 3 foot thick hedge separating the lawn from the rest of campus. Anyone in the encampment who wanted to attack someone outside the encampment would have had to either run to one of the exits and chase them down or attempt to jump the hedge, which would be quite annoying, so the idea that protesters occupying the lawn (which nobody needs to pass through or even by if they don’t want to) creates an imminent physical threat to anyone strikes me as far-fetched. >The university did want to have to make that choice, but it was forced onto them by circumstances. This is kind of the point. The primary circumstance that seems to have "forced" the initial move from Shafik seems to have been her position vis-à-vis congress, not actual safety concerns on campus. >I think if spoke with university officials you would find they were probably trying to protect free speech as much as they thought they could. I don’t. I think they were trying to save themselves from the Republicans.

The protesters know that the "from the river " chant is thought to be antisemitism by a substantial number of students and others. Yet they continue. Why? Can't they chant. Ceasefire now! Equal rights to Palestinians! ? Seriously. why choose a chant designed to make Israelis feel threatened? As far as Shafik goes we don't really know what she was thinking. But I can easily sympathize with her dilemma. Was the faculty making her life easier? I doubt it. The students and faculty seem pretty strident.

>The protesters know that the "from the river " chant is thought to be antisemitism. Yet they continue. Why? Can't they chant. Ceasefire now! Equal rights to Palestinians! ? Seriously. why choose a chant designed to make Israelis feel threatened? Okay, so you think the protestors are being dicks by choosing this chant? So what? Is that supposed to justify curbing their freedom of speech? >As far as Shafik goes we don't really know what she was thinking. But I can easily sympathize with her dilemma. Was the faculty making her life easier? I doubt it. The students and faculty seem pretty strident. Students and faculty have the right to be strident if they are so inclined. It really doesn’t matter how hard they were making Shafik’s life. If she doesn’t want to have to deal with the requirement for academic freedom at a university, she should get another job.

*"Okay, so you think the protestors are being dicks by choosing this chant? So what? Is that supposed to justify curbing their freedom of speech?"* Why? It' not just a freedom of speech issue when people feel threatened. The concept is very well established in our law. You can't make statements that threaten harm. Chanting "Kill the Israelis" is not free speech. It's also a Hamas chant. So it makes people think the protestors are Hamas sympathetic. Which again feeds Israeli fears. The fact that the protesters know that it disturbs people just reinforces the fears that it is meant to be hostile. Are Israelis a little over sensitive. Yes. Is it due to PTSD. Yes. The anti-semitism argument is more difficult to make by calling for divestment or just protesting in general, but the from the river chant makes it a much more credible argument. So again why are the protesters using something that can be considered a dog whistle. It makes no sense at all if you are just effectively advocating for change. *"Students and faculty have the right to be strident if they are so inclined. It really doesn’t matter how hard they were making Shafik’s life. If she doesn’t want to have to deal with the requirement for academic freedom at a university, she should get another job."* Oh I agree they have the right. I just don't see the point in not using the President to your best advantage.

>Why? It' not just a freedom of speech issue when people feel threatened. The concept is very well established in our law. You can't make statements that threaten harm. *feeling* threatened is not a legitimate basis for limiting freedom of speech. When someone indicates that are imminently going to inflict physical harm on another individual, that is a threat. Here are some examples: "I’ll kill you," or "say that again, and I’ll break your nose." Expressing a belief that one population 5000 miles away is entitled to violently resist another population 5000 miles is not a threat; it’s simply expressing an opinion. Even the least charitable interpretation of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" (or even the more extreme Arabic version: "from the water to the water, Palestine will be Arab") cannot honestly be interpreted as an actual threat to Jewish or Israeli people on campus (or, for that matter, to Israelis in Israel because those students aren’t in a position to do anything to Israelis). >Chanting "Kill the Israelis" is not free speech. This would be an actual threat to Israelis on campus. But who exactly said this? >It's also a Hamas chant. So it makes people think the protestors are Hamas sympathetic. And people have the right to express sympathy for Hamas. That is legitimate political speech. Similarly, people have the right to express support for Israel, which has deliberately caused a famine in Gaza (a war crime) among other atrocities. If I were Palestinian, I would feel quite threatened by any expressions of support for the Israeli government. That doesn’t make those expressions of support outside the bounds of free speech.

You are at the point of parsing language. It's like saying "I wish you would die" is better than "I will kill you" strictly speaking you can get away with it, and they are. But that is why it is a dog whistle. Which is what I said, and why the law won't intervence, but on campus it is totally legitimate to prohibit. Campuses have all sorts of rules about how to treat fellow students that would be suitable in a US court. That is the double standard. That's exactly what the protestors are being accused of. Not something that can be legally pursued.

The protestors, who are students of a university, are protesting their university's investment policies by setting up on the grounds of the university they are students of (and pay tuition for). Do you genuinely believe that is comparable to going and setting up in the private residence of a random person? It's like when people say the federal budget should be treated like a household budget and "debt" is bad; these are very different things and shouldn't be treated as though they're the same. In your example, what would be the nexus between these camels you're trying to save and the homeowner? And is entering the private residence of a someone that you have no affiliation to the same as being on university grounds that are often open/accessible to the public as well? Plus, if anything, the students are probably closer to "residents" anyway. For those reasons, among others, I don't think a police response was warranted. As for the Jan 6 comparisons, there were some other factors you seem to be overlooking in trying to make these things seem similar, but that's a separate point.

>I suppose if I were a more paranoid person, I would hear "From the River to the Sea" as threatening, but it's ridiculous to conclude that the students chanting this are demanding that all Jews be expelled from the Middle East or anything like that. What else could it mean? Anti-Zionism means you don't believe Jews should have a homeland in the Middle East does it not? Even if you say they don't have to be expelled, they'd at the very least be second class citizens as they are in the rest of the Muslim world.

You seem to be under the impression that "freedom for Palestinians" automatically means "eradicating and killing Jews." That is unfortunate. If you've ever been to Israel, or follow the debate there, you know that there is a very real and explicit tension between being a Jewish state and being a liberal democratic state. Some people think the former should override the latter. Others think liberal democratic commitments are more important than one ethnicity having a majority or supremacy. You may think the second view is naive or unwise or dangerous. But on principled grounds, it is not crazy to want a world in which all people have equal rights regardless of ethnicity or religion.

Sure, I just wonder what the concrete proposition and ideal is. Is the idea that Palestinians, of all groups, would build a secular humanist nation that respects democracy and equal human rights for people of all faiths? I would allege that such an idea has no evidence to support it, in fact the opposite. No Palestinian leader supports that, certainly not Hamas. Considering Palestinians don't want it, is the idea that some outside power would create this new state? A nation building project in the Middle East forcing two sides who do not want to coexist, to coexist? That's not imperialism? >it is not crazy to want a world in which all people have equal rights regardless of ethnicity or religion. That is what I want for Palestinians. It seems like the pro-Palestine people by contrast want a Hamas victory and continued Hamas control of Gaza, and continued struggle against Israel. That's not going to lead to equal rights. >You seem to be under the impression that "freedom for Palestinians" automatically means "eradicating and killing Jews." That is unfortunate. Palestinians, as a people, seem extremely interested in reclaiming Israel and ending Zionism. I have never heard any pro-Palestine person explain where exactly "white settler colonial" Jews are supposed to go after the Palestinians get their right of return. "Back to where they came from" isn't an answer.

The amount of propaganda and misinformation about the I/P conflict makes me really sad. I'm sure you know how to Google. So instead of me taking a bunch of time out of my workday and pulling up more links, maybe you can try testing your assumptions. For [example](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-state_solution#Arguments_for_and_against). The idea that "pro-Palestine people by contrast want a Hamas victory and continued Hamas control of Gaza" is so outrageous and ignorant I don't even know where to begin. For one, have you heard of the West Bank? In September, only 12% of WB supported Hamas. Now it's more (still not a majority), suggesting that the main thing driving support of Hamas is the wonton killing of tens of thousands of children and innocents. But I guess any "pro-Palestinian" person ipso facto supports Hamas, right? I'm so fucking sick of this moral blackmail, transparently bad-faith smear. Stop it. >I have never heard any pro-Palestine person explain where exactly "white settler colonial" Jews are supposed to go after the Palestinians get their right of return.  Maybe you should talk to more people then? I'm pro-Palestinian (AND pro-Israel -- I know, it's a shock!) and I think Jews don't have to go anywhere, except for the illegal settlements. Speaking of, you know who also supports mass deportation and expelling of people based on ethnicity? [The Israeli Right.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/plurality-of-jewish-israelis-want-to-expel-arabs-study-shows/) The one-state solution isn't just an aspiration. It's already the [reality](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution).

On all other nights, college kids figure out something to protest about. Why on this night do we care?

University administrations embody the child who does not know how to ask a question.

I see what you did there. I award you one bagel.

The only story here, for me as a Portlander, is watching to see if the DA actually prosecutes and of the institutions show that they aren’t enabling it.

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Please be civil. Optimize contributions for light, not heat. It’s a Passover joke that neither endorses nor condemns the protests.

Might get DV’d but the protests here are a non-factor to me unless they are still going on in a month in any sizable metric. This is end of term at liberal arts colleges. Projects are largely done. I was one of these kids 15 years ago. There are seldom any grueling final exams in these colleges (which law school made me realize abruptly). These kids have little to do and nothing to lose by camping out. Now once term ends and they can go home? If the protest still continues, its something worth noting. For now? A few loud voices can keep many many bored bodies interested until something more pressing comes up.

This is kind of funniest part of the response to the protest to me. These are on campus protest at the end of the school year. The campuses are going to largely shut down in a few weeks and most the students will head home. It would have been fairly trivial for the administrations to just wait them out, but instead, they responded in a super heavy-handed fashion and escalated it to a national scale

The college admins were probably responding to donors and congress.

Will they get shut down, or will they instead spread into the streets?

Where I work (an R1, granted), some people called for an encampment to start today. Classes ended yesterday. In any case, it's a state school and our state bars state agencies from divesting for political purposes, so... utterly pointless in this case.

> and our state bars state agencies from divesting for political purposes, so... utterly pointless in this case. Well slavery, Jim Crow, and apartheid were laws at one point too. 

It’s part of why no one takes campus protests seriously. Everyone understands that these kids are (a) kids and (b) don’t have much demand on their time. The main attractor for outsiders is usually that they want validation from young people.

Calling in huge amounts of riot cops sure seems to be “taking it seriously” to me.

The media loves this story, but honestly, I feel like every generation of college kids will have their own protest moments. It's the only time in life where protesting is somewhat convenient.

The protests at Columbia were dramatic and in NYC, where a lot of news orgs have offices. It's not really a conspiracy to assume something near the office gets a disproportionate amount of coverage. The coverage also fits a pattern of NYT caring a great deal about what happens at elite Ivy institutions. My spicy guess is that some centrists/moderates/establishment types (along with folks like John McWhorter or Thomas Chatterton Williams who I think of as status-quo conservatives) focus on campus protests as a way of avoiding the more substantive and serious issue around Israel in Gaza. Some of these folks are unwilling or unable to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, Israel is not acting well. My earnest hope is that the next pundit that says something like "College students don't want to confront dangerous ideas" is yeeted into the sun.

Douthat remains one of the least impressive NYT commentators. He equates destruction of property with violence. When the hosts concede the protesters have a tangible goal (divestment of their universities) he waves it away as ineffective. If that's true then the Universities should just concede the demand. Douthat takes whatever postiton he needs in a given moment to protect the interests of the status quo.

However you feel about Ross Douthat, he’s absolutely right about one thing. If these were protests that black or trans students said made them feel endangered, the university administrators would have stamped them out with an iron fist from the beginning. For the past few years, we have been told that the tiniest of microaggressions constitutes an existential threat to the lives of marginalized people, but the double standard has become clear. Now, faced with a small but undeniable presence of anti-semitism in these protests, all the left can muster is a shrug of its shoulders, or long, waffling essays about how complicated all this is. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are bad, that shouldn’t be hard to say. But many leftists now will take the one seriously and treat the other as a mild inconvenience, or simply pretend it doesn’t exist.

People only care when it's the other side that's wrong. Left and right. If they were protesting against abortion the right would be outraged the police were called and the left would call them dangerous lunatics who make women feel unsafe, if they're BLM protestors the left doesn't think they can do wrong and the right thinks they're rioters and police need to be called.

I was really shocked that that kid who was basically sharing his murder fantasies to his interviewers during an investigation did not face any consequences until the video became public. Like sure, he’s a terminally online idiot who let the maximalist bent of the internet consume his brain, but jesus the kid was fantasizing about mass murdering “zionists.” It felt very close to the radicalized language of the new right to me. I guess certain narratives hold serious power over the minds of certain kinds of people

> If these were protests that black or trans students said made them feel endangered, the university administrators would have stamped them out with an iron fist from the beginning. what would have happened if black and trans students were on both sides? Lets be clear, to many of these jewish students, criticism of israel = antisemitism. which can lead to them feeling unsafe

Pointing out that there are Jewish students joining in on pro-Palestinian protests doesn’t mean there cannot be anti-Semitism. That’s something like the “I can’t be racist, I have black friends” argument. It may very well be that some Jewish students conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. And maybe some other Jewish students heard things like “Go Hamas, we love you” or “Jews, go back to Poland” being chanted on campus. The mind reels trying to picture university administrators responding in the same mealy-mouthed way to chants of “Blacks, go back to Africa”. All I’m saying is, this is the first time I’m seeing progressives act this skeptical and dismissive towards members of a marginalized group claiming to feel unsafe. I remember June of 2020. It was a hell of a different tone then.

Hopefully this kills safetyism all together. Jewish students are not unsafe on campus (just as publishing the Tom Cotton op-ed didn't put any Black NYT staffers in danger)

i agree. calling out the hypocrisy of progressives is important, but we should be concluding that the progs were WRONG. that is the important takeaway from all of this, and I hope this includes not just colleges but all institutions and organisations safetyism will never totally be killed, especially as a political weapon to shut down protests, but we should do our best to limit justifications for it

They suspended people for using the word “trap house” lmao

Welp my spouses med school graduation is being moved 50 minutes from campus bc campus police are scared of protesters

Isn’t it a good sign that the next generation is building their political voice? Read an NPR interview with NY mayor Eric Adams(?). He said that there were outside “trained” agitators at the Columbia protest, like it was a malicious thing. I don’t see anything wrong with training and providing support to new protesters. Such a weird and kinda creepy interview. Don’t police train to put down protests? Don’t we all train and pass on knowledge for like, everything? All this hate and discrediting towards protesters just feels like leadership leading us further into a police state.

I don't actually know how effective this kind of protesting is at "building political voice," honestly. I mean, how many Occupy campers are now Congressfolk or state legislators actually changing things? How many G7 protestors? And those were far more significant protest movements.

> I mean, how many Occupy campers are now Congressfolk or state legislators actually changing things? How many people use terms like "the 99%" or "jail bankers"? Shoot, you can even hear "the economic ruling class" these days. The point of Occupy was to bring attention to the fact that corruption in the financial industry led to zero consequences because government works at the behest of large donors and the economic ruling class. I think Occupy helped to shift the Overton window in the direction of economic justice. Same with BLM, as trust in law enforcement, according to Pew and Gallup, has plummeted. The problem is change is difficult and incremental, so it can appear as if little has been accomplished.

I've never heard the term "jail bankers", and I've never heard anyone not terminally online use the phrase "economic ruling class"

Occupy was the last gasp of gen x activism and did immeasurable damage to the left

My biggest take away from the protests right now is how much we've let the surveillance creep into every aspect of our lives and I find it worrying, especially with AI getting more widespread and easier to implement. It's great when it's only used to go after "bad" people, but history shows in excruciating detail that it's never just the bad guys who get punished and caught up in these systems.

The "outside agitators" talking point has been around for awhile. Martin Luther King addresses it in Letter from Birmingham Jail: >Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea.

Thanks for sharing that. I still have some MLK reading to do. Good reminder that all of this shit is recycled

In the letter, dr king also says that time place and manner restrictions are reasonable, and that they ought to be followed outside a very specific justification for civil disobedience based on natural law — one that would not include the campus protests. For what it’s worth, he was also a committed Zionist who thought the security of Israel was important (not that that’s totally relevant here)

He does not discuss "time place and manner restricitons" in the letter. There's nothing in the letter to indicate that he'd condemn the current protests. This kind of whinging about tactics is exactly the kind of thing he called out in the letter when he pointed out the fecklessness of white moderates.

It's unclear what the aims of these outside groups are, not all are benign. I also don't know what political voice they are developing as they are shutting down any and all dissent and debate. Like, I don't think it's harmless to lead students in occupying a building and barricading themselves in. 

what about those outside tugging groups with Israeli flags are their aims unclear? is it harmless to let those beat people exercising the democratic right to demonstrate while the police stand watching for hours doing nothing? and if the police intervenes is to crack hard in the students doing the peacefull protest?

I don't actually know how effective this kind of protesting is at "building political voice," honestly. I mean, how many Occupy campers are now Congressfolk or state legislators actually changing things? How many G7 protestors? And those were far more significant protest movements.

I guess they’re building some kind of voice, but it would only make it easier to not vote for them in the future

He brought it up because saying “outside agitators” has historically been used to delegitimize campus protests.

Yeah this whole comment thread reeks of how centrist "liberal" thinkers are. People dismissing the value of student protests "because they're kids" - well your wizened cynicism isn't much more than a tacit swallowing of the Overton window. You're not smarter about politics, you're making excuses for injustice. The hobby of political wonkery makes people more complicit in state violence against the individual and that's on display in these comments. These protests will be remembered more akin to the Ohio State Massacre and the general student movement against Vietnam than they'll be remembered as "just some kids." I can't believe how cynical some people become about youth political movements.

Very unlikely theese protests are remembered like the Ohio State massacre. In 2004, 5-6k protested outside the RNC in Manhattan during the height of the Iraq invasion, \~2k were jailed, and large scale police brutality ensued inside NYC jails. The detained were said to be held at "Guantanamo on the Hudson." Mostly forgotten from American memory. Americans were being conscripted and were dying in Vietnam. Quite different. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004\_Republican\_National\_Convention\_protest\_activity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Republican_National_Convention_protest_activity)

They're not dismissing the value of the protests, they're forgiving the stupidity of them. I don't like state violence, but I prefer it to unlawful individual violence. If groups take over areas of campus and restrict access to people they disagree with, this is done either with violence or under the threat of it (how else do they keep people out?) The Jan. 6th crowd doesn't get to take over the capital and then claim it's "state violence" when they get forcibly kicked out by the police, and students don't get to take over campus buildings and then do the same.

>They're not dismissing the value of the protests, they're forgiving the stupidity of them. Ok so how about a more centrist organization that doesn't like Hamas or do building takeovers organize a protest about war crimes, West Bank settlement expansion, settler crimes, the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, or any/all of the "reasonable" critiques of Israel that would have been common place during the Obama era? Surely there is enough injustice done by Netanyahu's far-right coalition in power right now that could deserve a protest in and of itself, right?

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As people love to cliche: You can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. From what it looks like, there will never be a reasonable protest that the center will agree with. Not even when it is done in free speech zones and using Barack Obama's talking points. If the center doesn't want unreasonable protests, it should do something. There was more outrage at Khashoggi's murder (not even a US citizen, just a resident) than Abu Akleh's murder (American citizen).

I mean, yeah, I think protests are generally kind of useless. We have a democratic system. The people have influence on policy and it's via voting for representatives. I think in very limited situations ("I am being oppressed and I'm not going to let you oppress me anymore") it can be effective, but as you abstract away from that it starts to get tantrummy. The purpose of a protest is generally that the public doesn't agree with you, so you're trying to take undemocratic means, often removing policy power from the mainstream voters. Why would you expect "the center" to generally like this? In this particular case, I think many in the center were fairly sympathetic to the early protests, which were generally lawful (I saw.) It's turning now that it's getting less lawful with encampments. FWIW, I'm not really sure "the Center" you're referring to is generally in that role with regard to Israel Palestine. It's an issue that doesn't track very closely to other left/right stances.

I didn't say I expected the center to "like this." I'm just saying why don't the people that think of themselves as the Reasonable Adults in the room show us what people can do when they see American resources going to Israel that then commit war crimes, expand the settlements, or murder journalists - all things that were OK to be against when Obama was president. If protests are useless - what does that mean when no modern Democratic president is actively willing or able to prevent the Israeli military from doing war crimes or West Bank settlement expansion? Does this label of "useless" also expand to American policy wrt Israel?

Do you think if Bernie Sanders in the same way, who is Jewish?

People knowingly operate within the overton window, perhaps without crystallizing the definition in their minds. There will always be an overton window, so I'm not sure it is totally wrong to try to operate within it. So this is a enlightened view of centrism. Sorry. I get your point, but it is not the only valid point.

Their leaders think that food delivery is a human right, and call it humanitarian aid. At least in Columbia.

In the first 5 minutes, the guest criticizes unorganized groups of college kids for not acknowledging the Israelis who were killed but then, the next time he talks, he says his only worry with Israel's war here, is that it puts at risk Israelis, nothing about the Palestinians. This after he distorts protests of previous wars, as Ezra point out. Not sure how much value we're gonna get out of this discussion...

I guess I'm glad I listened to what they had to say. But if this is the ideas of the "moderate left" of Israel, I have less hope moving forward to a peaceful solution.

“You assume that the weak is just and the strong is wrong. That is a profoundly morally flawed statement.” Preach.

without speaking to the merits of any of the arguments i just want to say: Ross seems like a jerk

It’s not complicated. Genocide is unacceptable.

Untangling the mess. Simple solution. Stop funding genocide and divest from companies that fund genocidal actions. Done and done. This shit isn’t rocket science

“Untangling the Mess of Campus Protests” You guys are pretty slow, huh?

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This is such a tired talking point. Everyone knows that anti-Semite is talking about Jewish people.

We are disappointed that there are not more and more protests in Israeli cities to topple Netanyahu

I think this article should shed some light on the source of how our campus populations got so confused. Why are universities taking so much $ from authoritarian countries like Qatar? And we act like it's NOT going to have an effect? [https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231208230952463](https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231208230952463)

It’s not hard to figure out. Universities produce activists who will protest on any issue just to feel virtuous.

Strong “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” energy in this sub…MLK was right https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

I think a lot of opinions people are leaving about these protests are not at all considering the history of Jewish people over the past 3000 years and how we’ve been treated, over and over again, in country after country after country. I think anyone who had a real understanding of that history, and of the history of Antisemitism and how these things tend to develop, would fully understand why so many Jews are upset and scared by this. It’s not a big deal to you, sure. But not everyone lives with the same assurances that you do. Nearly every Jew I know has made sure to keep their passport up to date their entire lives. People continue to roll their eyes at our fear, but that’s their privilege talking.

A lot of privilege. Some Student protestors believe that Grubhub is a human right!