Palestine college student protest megathread

[Horus]

Gets outsized attention because its an important site for 3 world religions.

This. And we're funding the more morally questionable side, unlike Ukraine.

[Horus]

Everyone blaming "disinfo" and Tik Tok is off their rocker.  The Israel-Palestine discourse is so evergreen because it maps neatly onto left-wing narratives about imperialism, racism, "settler" colonialism, etc., etc.  These have been big debates in Western democracies for decades, not anything the youth have recently invented.

Most campuses have also long had chapters of various pro-Palestinian organizations, often for the above reasons, in a way that no other cause does. There was never a major pro-Ukrainian or pro-Yemeni or pro-Armenian structure on campuses - maybe the closest are the Free Tibet movements and anti-apartheid organizations. As the conflict in Gaza blew up, these pro-Palestinian organizations gained sympathy and were able to seize upon the rising salience of the conflict.

Israel also has organizations on virtually every campus.

[Horus]

Everyone blaming "disinfo" and Tik Tok is off their rocker.  The Israel-Palestine discourse is so evergreen because it maps neatly onto left-wing narratives about imperialism, racism, "settler" colonialism, etc., etc.  These have been big debates in Western democracies for decades, not anything the youth have recently invented.

Most campuses have also long had chapters of various pro-Palestinian organizations, often for the above reasons, in a way that no other cause does. There was never a major pro-Ukrainian or pro-Yemeni or pro-Armenian structure on campuses - maybe the closest are the Free Tibet movements and anti-apartheid organizations. As the conflict in Gaza blew up, these pro-Palestinian organizations gained sympathy and were able to seize upon the rising salience of the conflict.

Israel also has organizations on virtually every campus.

That is irrelevant. The comparison was to other atrocities and genocides across the world that garner less attention. I don’t think anyone is asking “Why don’t left-leaning young adult support Israel?”

Fair, but maybe the reason the pro Palestine cause is so big on campus is because pro Israel orgs are also big on a lot of campuses. If there were "Saudia Arabia on campus" orgs like there are "Israel on campus" orgs maybe we'd see more pushback against their atrocities.

More to the point - three religions find Israel important, the media is obsessed with it, and the United States plays a key, unique role in guaranteeing Israel's security that we do not for any other country.

[Horus]

I saw it on social media people with Ukraine flags in the bio and being anti-Russian aggression. About the only segment of pro-Russian and pro-Putin Americans are MAGA Trumpers who hate Zelenskyy.

Patently false. The far-left is even more rabidly pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine than the MAGA idiots.
Unless of course Greenwald, Tracy, Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, etc. are considered MAGAs.

I would consider Glenn Greenwald to be MAGA.

Whatever the US foreign policy consensus is, Greenwald opposes it. If Biden and the establishment suddenly became Corbynites, Greenwald would turn into Ben Shapiro the next day.

[Horus]

"why are so many young people so obsessed with Palestine?"
"its due to all the pro_Jewish groups on campuses!"

<admit it's about the racism without admitting it's about the racism>

Why are you conflating pro Israel with pro Jewish?

[Horus]

Gets outsized attention because its an important site for 3 world religions.

This. And we're funding the more morally questionable side, unlike Ukraine.

Israel is more morally questionable than Hamas?? I guess that’s technically true since Hamas is just pure evil

Really hope that Horus responds to this. I think he just worded his post poorly, but I’d really like to verify that he doesn’t actually think Israel is more morally questionable than Hamas

I mean, I thought it was extremely obvious that I was referring to the Palestinian cause as a whole. But I'll spell it out for you very plainly. Hamas is bad, but I have far more sympathy for the average Palestinian than I do the averages Israeli.

[Horus]

Gets outsized attention because its an important site for 3 world religions.

This. And we're funding the more morally questionable side, unlike Ukraine.

Israel is more morally questionable than Hamas?? I guess that’s technically true since Hamas is just pure evil

Really hope that Horus responds to this. I think he just worded his post poorly, but I’d really like to verify that he doesn’t actually think Israel is more morally questionable than Hamas

I mean, I thought it was extremely obvious that I was referring to the Palestinian cause as a whole. But I'll spell it out for you very plainly. Hamas is bad, but I have far more sympathy for the average Palestinian than I do the averages Israeli.

Why though? Even if your average Israeli supports the IDF, your average Palestinian supports Hamas, which is worse than the IDF.

I don't believe it's possible to accurately poll Gaza, and the median age there is 18.

[Horus]

For decades, countless politicians, religious leaders and regular people have claimed our relationship with Israel is special. If it is as special as they say, they shouldn't be surprised that the media focuses much more heavily on that part of the world. Can't have it both ways

[Horus]

For decades, countless politicians, religious leaders and regular people have claimed our relationship with Israel is special. If it is as special as they say, they shouldn't be surprised that the media focuses much more heavily on that part of the world. Can't have it both ways

Why are you basing your political ideology off of what the establishment and State Department say you neolib.

What on earth are you talking about? I never said I agreed with their definition. Do you deny that several presidents, and countless members of Congress and faith leaders have called Israel special and our "best ally"? This is the result, an intense focus on that part of the world. Plus what Oregon Eagle said.

Why don't you try to respond to my post with logic instead of sniping at me.

[Horus]

I mean look at this:


It looks the same as Gaza.

Where were the riots? Where was the increase in anti-Saudi American sentiment? Where were the mass protests on college campuses?

Where were these students back then?

Both of these were funded by the US government, so don't even try to use that deflection.

Said this in the other thread, but Israel/Palestine gets more attention as a religious site for 3 world religions. No one cares about other countries like Sudan, Somalia, etc. in comparison.

Also, it’s not a surprise that Americans are protesting American actions in the Middle East, rather than Saudi actions which is both not their own country and a totalitarian absolute monarchy.

That's the point- Saudi Arabia's Yemen adventure was also funded by US weapons sales.

No one is calling the Saudis our greatest ally. Biden never tells Saudi Americans that he cannot guarantee their safety without the existence of Saudi Arabia, but he has told Jewish Americans several times that he cannot guarantee our safety unless we "have" Israel, which is incredibly insulting.

[Horus]

GMac sure has a way of ignoring the posts that call him out. I'm by no means a saint either but at least I'll go down fighting and then take the L. Crane completely wrecked you and you're still droning on and on, proving his point.

[Horus]

Lol, you're doing it again

[Horus]

Lol, you're doing it again

Do all Zionists deserve to die, Horus?

That remark was referring to what Crane very correctly stated about GMac's mentality. Nothing more, nothing less.

Besides, no matter how I answer you've already made up your mind up as to how you think I feel. So I'm not going to play your game.

[Horus]

Lol, you're doing it again

Do all Zionists deserve to die, Horus?

The mod council isn't sending their best.

I've never actually seen a problem with Britt's moderation, he's just a drama queen. Mr. X, otoh...

[Horus]

Revealing.

I live in Capitol Hill only a few blocks away from CHAZ.  This is a 100% accurate description of what it was.  You can find my posts on the subject at the time to confirm it (although knowing you, you probably already have most of my posts bookmarked).

We've glorified the hippies and student protest movements of the 60s so much that everyone 18-25 longs to recreate them.  They all want to get together and make a political statement for peace and love and harmony and justice and equity.  But they don't really want to do anything more than chant some slogans and do some marches, and they don't want to have to spend time actually learning about the subject.

So you just offer them a little street party for the cause, and say, hey come get drunk/high and laze about all day with your buddies, listen to some live music and feel the energy of a place where things are happening, maybe wear a little costume and take some photos of yourself looking like a civil rights leader, join in some chants when we tell you, and you'll get to tell your grandchildren you were part of the grand social justice movement of 2024.  That's like catnip.

If you were in 1968 would you have been much of a fan of student protests either?

Student Protests were not entirely a good thing. There were student protesters protesting desegregation in the American South in the 1950s and 60s.

Protesting in favor of the current system rather than in favor of changing it. Big difference.

BUT, constantly protesting to change the system, while being the benficieries of that very same system, is very hypocritical and it has a bit of a dissonance, don't you think ?






if these protesters get arrested, guess who's going to bail them out ? Probably their affluent parents, who probably work in the very same System, that they claim to hate. And once these guys graduate, and start getting jobs, they will probably have access to, and work in the very same system they claim to hate.

In 20 something odd years, we will probably see these guys getting cushy jobs at Wall Street, Big Tech,




The moment their parents cut off their credit cards, funding, I bet my 5 cents, we will never see these kids protesting again.

You want to bet ?

Your logic may sort of apply to Columbia, but it certainly doesn't apply to UT, OSU, and hundreds of other state schools with huge pro Palestine movements doing the same thing right now.

[Horus]

https://twitter.com/edenxmm/status/1784285668895515108

Most sane 'I'm afraid for my life because of these protesters' type.

We need reopen the asylums. What a freak.

[Horus]

GMac would be the one person under age 50 to still call weed "pot" lmao

[Horus]

GMac would be the one person under age 50 to still call weed "pot" lmao

Very weird post to make.  It's what it was called in the 60s, which is the image I'm writing about.

This is like the 100th time in the last week that you've bounced into a thread where I wasn't talking about you at all to make some weird personal attack about me and I wish you would stop, it's rather annoying.

You can't make posts like this and then screech when someone makes a lighthearted joke about how uptight you are.

Young people are guided mostly by peer pressure and will hop on whatever the latest trend is.

Of the 80% of young people who disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, I bet only 30% of those could point to Gaza on a map.  In fact I bet most of them couldn't even tell you the difference between "Palestine" and "Gaza".

This is just blatant elitism. You are barely in your 30s and already hate Gen Z  so much that you make wild, obviously false and really just silly remarks like this. If you had even the tiniest shred of self awareness people wouldn't pick with you as much, but you don't. And you have shown no willingness to reflect. Not a good way to go through life.

[Horus]

Anyways, the solidarity is great to see. This movement transcends class, race, culture, religion and so much more. While we all know this will end (with the cops violently dispersing people, hopefully no one dies) the dam has clearly broken in regards to Israel.

https://twitter.com/OmarJimenez/status/1785015962997284993?t=Q3yFsxjFkkaZZNtsMUL...

[Horus]

Really inappropriate for the faculty to get involved in this.

Having to work with Shai Davidai probably played a role in this. Two seconds listening to that guy could make a hardcore Zionist rock a keffiyeh.

[Horus]

Also, this entire movement showed its true face when it organized mass rallies immediately after 10/7 celebrating the slaughter, before Israel had struck back. No matter what they say their demands are, they showed their cards on day one and they will never be allowed to cover that up.

Support for Palestine is still low. But Israel, after having suffered the second worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust (the worst was in Argentina during the dirty war, where tens of thousands of socialists, 12% of them Jews, were killed with weapons bought from the IDF) has lost an incredible amount of goodwill and the polls reflect that too. Pre 10/7 the average American was probably a soft Israel supporter, now the average American says screw em both.

[Horus]

To Horus:

Huh? That's not true. Gallup's February poll found that 58% of Americans continue to have very/mostly favorable views of Israel, versus just 18% for the PA: https://news.gallup.com/poll/611375/americans-views-israel-palestinian-authority-down.aspx

This is down from 75% in February 2021, but it is essentially level with Israel's February 2004/2002  ratings (59%/58%) and substantially up from Israel's 1989 and 1992 polling. The long term trend remains upwards and even if these numbers do not recover a strong majority of Americans (larger than any Presidential % since Reagan) will continue to hold favorable views of Israel.

The polls on this issue are rather schizophrenic. If you combine them altogether, you get the picture that Americans think Israel is a habitual human rights abuser and that makes them like the country more. It largely all comes down to leading questions, but the overall picture that emerges is far from grim for Israel.

I mean, a drop from 75 to 58 is nothing short of huge, and when you consider that something like 80% of boomers approve of Israel, and many of them are starting to die, it is clear support is heading towards a cliff.

[Horus]

The anti Americanism has always been my biggest problem with the modern left. It is so, so easy to frame a pro America/anti Israel worldview but I guess these guys would rather leave it to Gen z neckbeards. A shame. "not one more cent for Israel" could unite forces from across the spectrum, putting a keffiyeh on George Washington will not.

[Horus]

The anti Americanism has always been my biggest problem with the modern left. It is so, so easy to frame a pro America/anti Israel worldview but I guess these guys would rather leave it to Gen z neckbeards. A shame. "not one more cent for Israel" could unite forces from across the spectrum, putting a keffiyeh on George Washington will not.

I'm glad that Horus is finally seeing my point.

I have always seen your point and have complained before about this self defeating attitude. I still think the reaction to these protests has been incredibly overblown.

[Horus]

Also at UCLA. So brave. So moral.

https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1784711628312768780?t=AuX8me36Z3bESvEMxCPMaA...