Israel - Hamas War October 2023

The protests that i am seeing broken up are being broken up because the university wants to use the space for other purposes. There hasn’t been any violence that I’m aware of, nor is there any overt antisemitism.

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But do you really know that those protests ae in no way connected to the ones that are violent or antisemitic elsewhere?

/red

As I said earlier, peaceful <> legal. The universities have rules in place for protesting, and many of the encampments are violating those rules. Blocking Jewish students from getting to class, while it may not be violent, is still not ok.

The protests i know about from second hand information are not blocking Jewish students. Some of them are blocking everyone from getting into a parking garage.

I imagine that’s easier said than done. What do you do when someone tells you they are a student but they don’t have their ID on them?

So what’s the solution then? Let Jewish students continue to be harassed and threatened?

illegal <> immoral

Many protests I’d call moral are not legal, and people get arrested for their beliefs, and that’s part of the whole deal.

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This is true. But it has to be on the protest organizers to keep the bad apples out or kick them out when they reveal themselves.

If you as a protester choose to cross the line between legal and illegal then you should be prepared to face the consequences of doing so. Those include arrest and removal, possible prosecution, expulsion (for students), and reputational harm. You should not whine about the university not feeding you, or providing bathrooms, or amnesty, or how you shouldn’t be required to take exams after such a “stressful” time.

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With all due respect, you are burying your head in the sand. Or you have a very different definition of antisemitism than I do.

A student at Harvard was attacked, according to a letter from Harvard alumni to the administration.

A Cornell professor called the October 7 Hamas attacks “exhilarating”.

A person was arrested for threatening to shoot rape and murder Jewish students at Cornell and calling for others to do likewise.

A Stanford professor claimed the Hamas attacks were justified and downplayed the Holocaust.

Jewish students filed a lawsuit against Penn for violating the Civil Rights Act for failing to address the hostile environment Jewish students face there.

A Columbia professor called the October 7 attacks a “resistance offensive” and “awesome”.

A different Columbia professor had called to ban all veterans of IDF from Columbia, which is effectively calling for a ban of all most Israeli Jews, since service in IDF is compulsory for most.
(edited as people felt like nitpicking my blanket statement)

There have been so many calls for the destruction of Israel it’s hard to keep track. First hand accounts of rocks being thrown at Jewish students. Swastikas.

“Go back to Poland”
“October 7 is going to be every day for you.”
“You’re a dirty little Jew.”
“Hitler was right.”

This is what’s being said to Jewish students.

Columbia had to have finals remotely because they acknowledged that they could not protect Jewish students from violence. Brandeis (a historically Jewish college although they are of course open to everyone) extended their transfer application deadline because they wanted Jewish students from other universities who felt unsafe to be able to finish at Brandeis if they wished.

It’s astonishing to see you say that you’re unaware. Do you just not want these things to be true? Do you not want to be aware?

Just to nitpick:

  • Not all Israelis are subject to conscription (details and a few stats shown in Wikipedia
  • Draft evasion is a thing.

Yes, I was only commenting on what I discussed. The legality of protests barely registers to me in discussing their value or morality. Illegal clearly means consequences are possible.

Seriously… that’s the bit you’re going to pick?

Ok fine, it would effectively be a ban on law-abiding Jewish Israelis.

Better?

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This is not correct.

Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox) are exempt from Military service and they are now 15% of the population.

For @Lucy

https://www.adl.org/campus-antisemitism-report-card/harvard-university

https://www.adl.org/campus-antisemitism-report-card/massachusetts-institute-technology

:roll_eyes:

What percentage of them are applying to Columbia?

Also, arguing that it only blanketly discriminates against 85% of law-abiding Jewish Israelis on the basis of their religion and nationality is not really a significantly better look than discriminating against 100% of them.

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He was just pointing out the error in your blanket statement. Just chalk it up to TIL that noT all Israeli’s are subject to the draft. Granted I don’t think the antisemitics have a lot of love for those folks either as they are exempt to study Torah as I understand it. That exemption is also a point of contention in Israel right now and the exemption recently expired and hasn’t been extended, some vehemently want to extend the exemption, others strongly want the exemption to go away.

Anyway, I’m sure you can find lots of examples of antisemitism at a pro Palestine rally I don’t think that’s to surprising and you’ve list quite a few anecdotes to support that.

No, I was aware that there are exceptions, but it’s close enough to a blanket ban that it didn’t seem worth nitpicking.

Regardless it’s pretty incredible to say that you are not aware of antisemitism in pro-Palestinian protests. I had to stop myself from providing more examples because I have things I need to get done today and I’m sure I could spend the whole day compiling examples from credible sources if I felt so inclined.

Much.

Often overlooked is that there are quite a few citizens of Israel who are not Jewish. The number of such folks is large enough to make any sought ban be quite a bit less than “blanket”.

How the protesters are or “should” think about Muslim or Christian Israelis in such a way as to be logically consistent could be a whole 'nother tangent.

EDIT: Actually, to further poke at the logic problems – should the protesters seek to ban Israelis who are in search of overseas education at least in part because their conscience obliges them to seek the expat exemption from conscription, due to some perception that conscientious objector status is insufficient?

Plus

We Are Hamas
By Any Means Necessary
From The River To The Sea

are all calling for Jewish extermination - while protesting genocide.
I do believe many of the students are ignorant and being used as pawns

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