Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

Maybe. Until then, stop reading posts on X, they are x-rated as a warning.

I agree and I regret my post though it wasn't meant as a rebuke to you. I have genuinely felt quite awful about Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza. I can't imagine having a loved one be killed in the kinds of carpet bombings Israel has engaged in and this has taken place for six brutal months. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there is nothing a person can say that could compare to having a limb amputated without anesthetic or disfigurement and pain that will afflict thousands of Palestinians for the rest of their lives. That's all still in my mind when I see these protesters and yet I am still agitated by some of them because frankly, some say things that are meant to threaten and intimidate people who do not have any sort of control over Israel's brutal conduct and haven't condoned it either. But I've actually avoided it for the most part and oddly it's people I know who have never been online who are panicking and sending me videos. It has a distorting effect because people use it as a sample of public perception when it can represent outliers.

When Israel ends its bombardment of Gaza, there will be thousands of innocent people without homes and with life-altering injuries there, among the tens of thousands dead (about half children). That the bombardment ends and soon is my most fervent hope.

[filghy2]

No doubt this war has brought out more anti-semitism (and Islamophobia), but I'm not sure how much what is happening on campus is really a reflection of anti-semitism rather than the sort of black-and-white 'anti-Western' posturing that has always been a feature of leftist student politics. It's difficult to assess this dispassionately when most of those complaining the loudest about anti-semitism seem to be doing so in bad faith - using it as a device to discredit and suppress opposition to Israel's conduct.

[broncofan]

It's difficult to assess this dispassionately when most of those complaining the loudest about anti-semitism seem to be doing so in bad faith - using it as a device to discredit and suppress opposition to Israel's conduct.

The best way to assess who is using the protesters to discredit opposition to Israel's conduct is to observe who claims there is no merit to criticism of Israel because of the excesses of some protesters. There are people who do that and yes, it's dishonest and disingenuous. But it's not like there are not people acting in bad faith who have attached themselves to the protest movement. On October 7th, I was called a"genocidaire" for simply saying that it is wrong to assert the people killed at the Nova Music Festival were not settlers and had clear civilian status. Does speaking out against the killing of 1,200 civilians before there has been any response mean I support any response? Of course not. Does condemning Israel's response mean one is a Hamas supporter? Of course not. But posting pictures of paragliders does mean that.

It's not really just the student response though. Because I will hear people say that they just want to be able to criticize Israel or condemn atrocities and then I will see thousands of people saying that support for a two-state solution is genocidal, that Palestine can only be free when Israel is gone, and the "Europeans" living there are sent back to Europe. I will see people in the pro-Palestine movement post lists of Zionists that include many people who are Jewish but have not stated much if any view on the conflict at all. Sometimes their culpability is framed in terms of their not speaking out or them one time appearing with someone and so and so.

What I kind of resent is that perfectly reasonable views about International Law, even views that fit within the mainstream, are characterized as bloodthirsty. The guy who runs the Columbia encampment, for instance, said that Zionists should not live and that Zionism necessitates genocide. I don't have any reason to try to characterize his views as the consensus but they are not that rare. And if it's not antisemitic, it does very nearly justify violence against me or others simply for not saying on demand that Israel should cease to exist. I don't see how this is much different from saying any supporter of Palestinians loves Hamas or is a terrorist sympathizer. I would identify that as bigoted. That kind of Islamophobia is done frequently enough but I personally have not argued that that kind of stupidity should be sanctified.

I agree with you that there is black and white anti-western posturing that might not be antisemitic. But it does end up putting a lot of Jewish history into the bin of "European history" which certainly makes more sense than considering Palestinians European but is not exactly the most equitable and accurate way to describe Jewish history.

[broncofan]

It's difficult to assess this dispassionately when most of those complaining the loudest about anti-semitism seem to be doing so in bad faith - using it as a device to discredit and suppress opposition to Israel's conduct.

I don't disagree with you here which is why I have personally tried not to say anything about what is selectively put before me. I think I always have had a problem with people deciding that they will resist any limits to how they protest. Or those who view any calls for limits to the acceptable means of protest as hiding a secret desire to see their cause fail (in this case, I suppose it depends on the goals but I don't wish any harm to anyone). People frequently want to invoke something exceptional about their current circumstances to justify extreme actions, but in recent memory most protests that have spilled into violence or vandalism have had harmful consequences. Most. I'm not saying all and I know there are noteworthy counter-examples.

When Nick Danger tried to compare protests against police brutality to the insurrection, there were a ton of problems with the comparison. One is that police brutality is a real problem and the insurrectionists manufactured their claims. The second one is that while arson is very bad in my view, it is not an imminent threat to ordered liberty the way invading a capitol building to prevent certification of a lawful vote is. But I didn't go for defund the police, whatever its proponents claimed it meant and I've always thought that wantonly damaging property tended to be the actions of someone acting out of personal angst rather than for their cause. Do I think "From the river to the sea" means genocide as some pro-Israel people have claimed? No. I don't. I do think the paraglider stuff is closer to a red line for me. For me because I think it's sadistic.

I also recognize the enormous hypocrisy of free speech absolutists wanting to punish speech. It is many right-wing people and a decent percentage of vocal supporters of Israel who claimed this maximalist position and now want to censor speech in centers where expression and debate are most valued. You know, they are idiots. And I think there is too much I don't know about college political movements but I think I probably wouldn't like some of it even if I had 1000 percent alignment with the cause.