Did you hear the new student president of Columbia U is Israeli?

I think Columbia has lost the plot.

I heard Adams on the news, telling the parents of the kids to call your kids and tell them to leave now, for their safety. News says the cops are outside but won’t go in unless requested to do so by Columbia admin. I think tensions are high and it will be interesting to see what happens.

@jca2 It’s going to get dangerous. I think they believe a lot of the people aren’t students so they want the students out for their safety more than anything. I would want to drag my kid out of there if they were being obstinate.

It’s going to be very interesting.

Good day for thieves in NYC. All of the police are at Columbia. Hundreds of NYPD strategic response. Amazing.

The NYPD really doesn’t want anyone criticizing Israel.

@Demosthenes That’s not why the police are there. First of all, they just follow orders. Secondly, probably the “protestors” breaking in windows aren’t even students.

@Demosthenes They were given days of notice that it’s time to leave.

Once they started vandalizing the building it stopped being a peaceful protest. They wanted the police to come in and they got what they wanted. The people helping to orchestrate the protests are most likely very happy about it.

Edit: they could probably still have protesting daily if they had done it with huge encampments and not all night long. Not infringing on other students. But, you know, this way they are more likely to get bigger media attention.

What this tells me is that the Columbia protests are being done by a very small group of people – probably some students, but also aided by outside agitators.

When all is said and done, this set of protests will be proven to be outsiders trying to cause trouble, not students.

I have a typo above. It should be if the protests were done withOUT encampments. I agree with @elbanditoroso It’s outsiders putting the protest together with a specific formula and in specific cities. NYC is going to have a huge police force and a ton of media.

Zionist thugs attack protesters at UCLA, sparking violent clash

@Demosthenes If you think I am ok with any thugs in protests that is insane.

@Demosthenes quotes Al_jazeera. Not exactly an objective news source.

Right, and all the mainstream American sources that have been firmly pro-Israel from the beginning are objective…

You can see video footage of non-student Zionist agitators hurling fireworks into the encampment and attempting to tear it down. Only at that point did it turn into an all-out brawl.

In a similar way, the Columbia protests were peaceful until the NYPD was brought in. It’s almost like cracking down with violent force tends to make protesters even more defiant. There are certainly no examples of this from history to learn from.

@Demosthenes The Columbia protesters occupied a building and blocked the doors. Not only is it a safety hazard that the university would ultimately be responsible for, should something happen where people couldn’t escape, but occupying a building and saying we’re not going to leave until our demands are met is not quite a peaceful demonstration. In addition, they were given days of notice to leave.

I have been in NYC during protests for the Palestinians. Protestors walking through NYC with Palestinian flags waving, chanting, and the NYPD was protecting THEM. Helping the line of protestors cross streets, through people, giving them the right of way. I had to wait while the police held other people up to let them through. I didn’t know about it, it just happen to be right in front of me.

@jca Yes, they occupied a building. After the police had already cracked down on the protests on the quad. Occupying the building was in reaction to the heavy-handed, obstinate response by the university. Calling in the NYPD is an escalation.

@Demosthenes The police were not invited (by the University) to the campus until yesterday. That’s when they went in, went into the building that was occupied and blockaded by the protesters, and cleared the encampment. Prior to that, the police were outside on the street outside the gates. I’ve been watching it on the news (my local news is NYC news) all week, and that’s what I know.

It’s also not clear to me if you think the University is supposed to let the protesters remain in the building, for weeks or months? It doesn’t seem logical that an entity, like a University, would allow that, especially since they’re ultimately responsible for the safety of the protesters.

@Demosthenes Did you see the body cam footage that was just released? The police had to go through several traps in the building to reach the protesters. The protestors caused damage to the building. This is not the fault of the police. These protestors are now no better than those during January 6. They took over and occupied a government building.

@Demosthenes I just watched an interview of a Jewish student who was blocked by protesters that wouldn’t allow him to get to class. This is why your so called “Zionist thugs” attacked the encampment. They were yelling in the video “you are going to block Jewish kids?” Then they attacked. The video just aired on CNN at 7:15 EST. These weren’t random “thugs.” These were people standing up for the student who was denied access to his classroom.

@jonsblond Absolute bullshit. Those Zionist pigs, most of whom were older than the protesters and clearly not students, came into the encampment with the purpose of disrupting it and stopping it, using fireworks, tear gas, and beating the protesters with sticks. It was very much a planned assault on the protest that then quickly devolved into both groups brawling with each other. Initially, the police stood by as the agitators assaulted the encampment, because that is what they wanted to happen.

Occupying buildings is a common protest tactic and was done in the 1980s during the protests against South African apartheid; Columbia has even proudly displayed a photo from one such occupation online. Nonetheless, my point is not that the building be allowed to remain occupied, but that building occupation likely could’ve been avoided if there hadn’t been such an aggressive attempt to rid of the campus of the original protest. Other universities have allowed encampments to remain, others have talked about voting on divestment. There are ways to handle these things without mass arrests of students. But without that show of force, the state doesn’t get to hammer in that vocally opposing Israel and universities’ relations with it will not be tolerated.

The “outside agitator” smear has been used against every organic protest movement in history, from civil rights to Vietnam to BLM, because the idea that this is actually organic, that this is what many students actually believe and want terrifies the living shit out of establishment bootlickers. If this were decades ago, those same people would be defending the police spraying civil rights protesters with hoses and siccing dogs on them. Because some things never change.

This isn’t going to go away. Support for Israel is less popular than ever among the younger generations. I can only hope that the ironclad relationship’s days are numbered, but it likely won’t matter in the context of the current conflict. Rafah will be invaded, thousands more Palestinians will die, and people like you will continue to insist that the real problem is that college students are being too uppity. If you are siding with the ruling classes and the police state against a student movement, you are wrong. Every single time.

The one silver lining here is that this is a movement that can’t be so easily co-opted and watered down as so many others have been. There’s a pro-Israel cognitive dissonance among mainstream liberals and centrists that will take decades to erode, if it ever does. Though I would argue that it is fraying now; even more politically apathetic young people I know don’t have that inherent support for Israel that many older Americans do. They’re not going to be the ones protesting, but the idea that they should simply support Israel because it’s a “democracy” or whatever doesn’t resonate with them. The lopsided nature of the current Gaza conflict and the reality of the numbers and what American support for Israel leads to is effecting a change. These protests are the more extreme result of that change, but the change is there for more than just the most outspoken students.

Anyway, for something more uplifting, here’s a story about Gazans showing support for student protesters: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/middleeast/gaza-children-thank-us-protesters-intl-latam/index.html

@Demosthenes While I was writing you posted your link. I am glad the children in Gaza feel supported. My GUESS is many Gazans know nothing about the attack on Oct 7th and think Israelis just want to kill them for no reason. I would assume the people, the adults who do know are split about Hamas tactics. Some probably gave out candy, and some probably don’t support the violence.

Below is what I was writing before your link was posted:

I saw recently when US young adults are surveyed for their most important issues this coming election Gaza is not near the top of their list, so I doubt what is happening in Gaza will affect many of their votes, except maybe in Michigan. Young people don’t vote as much as older groups anyway, but every vote counts, especially in the swing states. The protests also have the possible fall out of helping Trump become president, do you think he will make things better for the Gazans?

In the end I don’t think the Palestinians or Israelis care very much about what Americans think, maybe I am wrong about that. I do think raising awareness in the US about the Palestinian and Israeli situation is actually a good thing. I think most of America is clueless. Whether there is some disagreement on the history, it would be nice to have peace there and stop the pain. Pressure for a resolution and peace treaty of some sort would be better than pressure to stop funding the IDF because war has broken out, meaning preventing war, I don’t mean while this war is currently happening. Pressure for both the Palestinians and Israelis to come to a compromise. It might not be exactly the treaty you think is just, but this continual horrible situation makes no sense to me. Right now the powers in the ME are talking about who will control and occupy Gaza. I cannot imagine being Gazan and knowing other countries are deciding these things. Countries that have not been very nice to them.

Maybe the chance for peace is Palestinians in Israel who don’t hate Israel. That seems to me a way out. I am not talking about the whole region being Israel eventually, I only mean a way towards a solution. There are youth programs that bring Israelis and Palestinian-Israelis together, and plenty of Palestinians in Israel who have some status.

@JLeslie If young people don’t vote, it’s because they don’t think anything fundamental will change if they do (a promise that Biden made after being elected, ironically). To people who are really invested in this issue (and I can’t blame them, given the scale of the carnage and our involvement in it), the promise that Trump wouldn’t be any better means nothing. Biden has been a committed Zionist his whole life. To those who want the killing to end, Biden is not the answer, and they’re even gravitating toward weirdos like RFK Jr., because at least he’s vocally anti-war (even if he is ultimately an Israel supporter himself—few older Americans aren’t). I don’t think most Israelis and Palestinians care what Americans think, but surely many of them are aware of the role that the U.S. plays in the conflict and has played for decades. So what we do matters. It’s just that this coming election is not likely to have an effect on the situation there. And knowing that, and knowing that we (the U.S. government, the universities) are complicit makes young people want to do something. Protest is how. This isn’t coming out of nowhere.

Whatever change I predict will not be coming soon. But there are ways in which this current conflict is different from previous ones, and I’m sure Israel knows it.

@Demosthenes I think people come out and vote when they are very uncomfortable or afraid. Most young people are comfortable. Sure, we hear they worry about getting jobs and affording a house, but young adults often have their parents to help, or they don’t understand how politics affects their lives, or they are busy being self-absorbed with getting their lives started as adults. Gaza doesn’t affect their day to day. High prices, abortion rights, climate change, I think those issues feel more real to the majority of young people than a war on a different continent.

I would say geo-politics is really the most important part of politics, but most young people focus on domestic issues in my experience, I don’t know if my experience represents the majority or not. I think you are in a situation where the young people around you are not like most young adults or not in the same situation as most young adults. If I remember correctly you work for a university.

During Vietnam young adults were afraid of the draft. We changed the national voting age to 18 to add in those young votes against the war. Young Americans were afraid of literally dying.

The “far left” encourages people not to vote in my opinion, so that can backfire. Protest vote or protest no vote.

I just saw an interview of a journalist who spoke to Hamas leaders. I thought you might be interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFQyVJeogbg

Any time there is a large presence of people there needs to be police presence for safety reasons. You can not blame the police for any aggression that has happened. Especially when warnings have been given multiple times.

@Demosthenes I’ll try to give an analogy, but admittedly it’s not exactly apples to apples. Being Jewish in America is similar to being white and gay in America. I can tell white gay people, “you pass as white. If a group of white men wearing confederate flags and crosses show up where you are they don’t know you’re gay.”

Do you like being in a city that is very LGBT empathetic? Lots of gay people live there and the majority of straight people are fine with it.

If ⅔’s of gay people were murdered in the US by the government and haters over the next 5 years, and additional mass murders across the Americas and then afterwards a safe place was created for gay people to live, would you care if that place was under attack?

My experience is most Jewish people care about the Palestinians and understand why they feel land was taken from them, but we/they also see a lot of Arab countries and they are allowed to exist, people aren’t questioning that. Why is a Palestinian country acceptable and not a Jewish country? Why is Iraq or Jordan ok? Most Jewish people want to work out an answer for peace, there are extremists who want Israel to have all of the land, but that is not the majority. Some US evangelicals might not care what happens to the Palestinian people as long as Jews can stay in Israel, I don’t really know exactly what they think.

In the end I am more loyal to the US than Israel. I feel and am American. I am not out protesting for Israel. I also think about researching what I need to do to become Israeli and want my husband to renew his Mexican passport, and can he get Spanish citizenship or me get Latvian or Austrian citizenship or where can we go on a tourist visa if it gets bad in the US.

I don’t see @jonsblond supporting what Israel is currently doing, she is commenting on students being able to go to class and that police are at protests all of the time keeping peace not disrupting it. This situation police become part of chaos, because protestors won’t be reasonable or follow the laws. People have the right to peaceful protest, but there are lines. It is a difficult balance to protect the rights of protestors snd the rights of others.

I don’t support pro Israel protestors (I would say they are rioters) being violent or threatening just like I don’t support that in any protest. Usually those people purposely come to make mischief. During BLM protests I supported reasonable curfews for example.

Or it’s a deliberate effort to silence dissent because the state does not want anyone criticizing the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. So from the beginning even the most peaceful protests were demonized as anti-Semitic, bad faith claims about “safety” (really just discomfort with opposing views) were made to portray the protesters as more aggressive than they were (despite the fact that many protesters have been Jewish themselves), and peaceful encampments were violently dismantled and torn apart, needlessly escalating the situation. I’m well aware of what happened and none of it was happenstance or the result of poor, exasperated administrators caught between a rock and a hard place. It was a deliberate effort to stop an anti-Zionist movement in its tracks.

safe place was created for gay people to live

And how was it created, @JLeslie? Was it created with the help of colonial powers by displacing thousands of people and maintained by an ongoing apartheid and sporadic outbreaks of violence? Because that’s what makes all the difference.

@Demosthenes How was the US created?

Jordan? Jordan has a lot if Palestinians, but their history is pretty shitty too. Didn’t they throw a lot of Palestinians out too and deny them citizenship. They are basically the same people divided by a river.

In a similar manner. And just as sinister. The difference is, with Israel, we are actively funding their settler-colonial project and seeing its deleterious effects in real time, and we can do something to stop it.

@Demosthenes I’m ok with making it much better, I don’t think you and I will agree on how to solve it. I don’t remember if you are ok with two states. I don’t see one state working. I don’t think the people there will agree to it. I would be ok with one state if Palestinians would stop thinking and saying that Jewish people from other countries don’t belong there and if they stop thinking and saying it’s their land. Both people are from there.

This continuation of violence makes it impossible for them to trust each other. Imagine if Hamas asked for a peace treat over and over again rather than death to Israel.

Or, suggest another place for the Israelis or Palestinians to go to have their own country. Do you prefer that?

@JLeslie Realistically I don’t think two states will work. Palestine can’t exist as two non-contiguous pieces of land, one of which has already been heavily settled by Israelis. One state is really the only option: a single state that is not a Jewish or Arab ethno-state, but a secular state with no apartheid. Do I think that’s anywhere even close to happening? Not at all, but I see either that or the current unstable situation as the only real options. The current situation is likely to continue for quite some time, and could eventually result in complete Israeli annexation of Palestine and the expulsion of Palestinians. That is what is currently happening in Gaza (and has been very gradually happening with the West Bank settlements) and that has been my point this entire time.

I think two disconnected states for the Palestinians doesn’t and won’t work, so why not make one Palestinian state? Gazans move north and Israelis give up some land and move south and then a total cease fire and peace treaty.

@JLeslie that’s been on the table since the 70s. When Israel give up land (2005 – Gaza) the Palestinians brought Hamas to power. No Israeli is going to trust a Palestinian state run by hoodlums.

@elbanditoroso For sure Hamas has to be out of power and significantly weakened.

I assume no one person or group can speak up to say they are interested in being the new leader and representative of the Gazans without risking their own life. I really don’t know the politics or why there hasn’t been elections.