Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/04/columbia-university-protests-presidents-jewish-students-encampment.html

“Civil War” would have been more apropos of our age if it was about pundits wringing their hands over what the kids are saying about the civil war on campus rather than the war itself.

That Slate interview is great, thanks for posting that. Adding to the chorus on the Parapraxis piece (and was once again reminded I want to read No Future), though I wish everyone would refer to her as Baroness Shafik

I give shout-outs whenever I can to student journalists.

massive police presence (state troopers, not university police) on the University of Texas campus pre-emptively blocking student protests from getting anywhere near the Tower

apparently the person who was "stabbed in the eye for being a Jew" (accidentally poked by someone waving a flag in a crowd) is the same person who reported that the campus cafeteria had deliberately removed "Israeli" from their couscous description.

the Texas photos/videos are really intense

what starts here changes the world pic.twitter.com/ZV0ojR4vQu

— valkyrie (@mxmimosa) April 24, 2024

UT has a strong commitment to free speech when it's the fundamentalist preacher who screams through a megaphone at women walking past his booth wearing tank tops calling them sluts and whores, but a pro-Palestine protest is just beyond the pale and cannot be allowed

I bet things like this don't happen at Bari Weiss' University of Austin.

wonder why the protestors are wary of engaging with the media

As has been pointed out, this is not on the Columbia campus but a few hundred feet away from the gate. I was focused on the blatant antisemitism on display in a major American city. https://t.co/Hn7Y0CbfrI

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) April 24, 2024

Seems like a great time to be an anti-Semite in New York because all you have to do is take the 1 to 116th and you can get your sign shared on Twitter 15,000 times

i've seen people on FB/instagram/threads obliviously passing off this quote as justification for why Jews in NY are scared: ""We will not tolerate the existence of Jewish people on campus," said Darren Polk on behalf of the protesting students inside the encampment. "People keep trying to come up with ‘peaceful ways' to end this conflict, but there's only one way we envision this coming to a conclusion, which is all the Jews being dead."

Where did the quote come from? this babylon bee article .

The pictures from Texas are horrifying.

Here's a good thread from Deb Cowen, a Jewish academic, on her experience speaking to the solidarity encampment at NYU:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783118648242004348.html

Worthwhile pod ep from two leftist academics with Columbia/NYU history:

https://goodbye.substack.com/p/campus-crackdown-and-an-assessment

Today, we talk about everything that’s happening on campus from Columbia to NYU to Berkeley. Tyler talks about the responsibilities of faculty in these moments and what he thinks is driving a surprisingly strong faculty response to the arrests in New York City. We also talk about how to process the instances of antisemitism at these protests and Jay talks about some of the difficulties that have arisen with the leaderless activism model over the past decade or so

That pod also making the point that there are class divisions that will be showing up more in campus protests, in terms of adjunct faculty vs tenured faculty vs administration, w/r/t who calls the cops vs who protests because their students are getting arrested vs who gets arrested with their students

Go bears

there was one word that even looked misspelled to me, but no fucking way would i even think to check it, i was just “lol no way this mf gonna misspell anything in this venue, he in his space.

(and yes i learned that as an undergrad in the 90s sue me)

Faculty at @UTAustin are going on strike tomorrow to protest police and state troopers mass arresting and beating students. https://t.co/CsEscanZTI

— Writers Against the War on Gaza (@wawog_now) April 25, 2024

Xp I don't know if that was the word Hunt3r was thinking of when they said that, but it was definitely the word I was thinking of when they said that.

Interpellation is a concept that is quite useful, honestly, even if one isn’t a Marxist.

(and yes i learned that as an undergrad in the 90s sue me)

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, April 24, 2024 7:41 PM (yesterday)

How many times did you have to read that Althusser Ideological State Apparatus essay as an undergrad? I think I had it in 3 separate classes! I actually think about interpellation a fair amount tbh, especially in the context of online discourse and "callout culture"

Ha, yeah, interpellated is the term that always tripped me up.

Likewise, Took me longer than expect to learn what “reify” meant, but that was mainly because I never heard it pronounced correctly(I.e. more Latin sounding)

2020s undergrads learn interpellate now too, though not directly from Althusser but via Judith Butler

i feel like my 90's Cal education must have been deficient because I never once had to read a single one of these things. nevertheless I still know what 'interpellation' means

the guy who destroyed every single university in Gaza has some thoughts: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/netanyahu-israel-us-college-protests.html

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty.”

Fucken psycho.

Huge campus protest (Northwestern) swelled up out of nowhere directly across the street from my department office this morning. Vibes seem good, although the pigs were clearly itching to needlessly escalate from the get go (with a goddamn helicopter circling overhead for hours). But it seems like they finally took the hint and fucked off. For the time being.

The police responses are so over the top and obviously unnecessary I was wondering if any admin anywhere might get a clue and realize how fascist this makes them look (was just reading that my alma mater, Emory, sent in the state cops today)

not to mention that the movement is growing directly in response to the crackdowns, like duh??

There's protest going on right now where I am. A lot of cops are standing around but it doesn't feel like anything bad is going to go down.

xp Old Lunch - that protest at Northwestern le to a real fucking moment of whiplash on my Twitter feed this morning. i saw a tweet from the city's police department pop up saying, "we are monitoring the situation at Northwestern this morning but are not directly involved, direct all questions to Northwestern". IMMEDIATELY below that tweet was a video of the chief of police standing in front of the tents telling the students they would be arrested if they didn't disperse.

lying pigs, all the time.

christ the CPD is shameless

apparently the cops at Emory used irritant gas, tasers, and rubber bullets (https://emorywheel.com/emory-community-ashamed-after-police-detain-students-at-pro-palestine-encampment/)

or I guess the Evanston PD

yeah, it was the Evanston PD in this case.

The Daily Northwestern has maintained a solid rolling activity log throughout the day: https://dailynorthwestern.com/2024/04/25/campus/live-pro-palestinian-student-activists-set-up-encampment-on-deering-meadow/

I’m wondering about the Soviet flags at my protest. Why?

I’m going to chalk that up to the Party for Socialism & Liberation folks who have been at many of these

the famous liberty afforded to people by the benevolent soviet union

these are college students, of course they're gonna rock the hammer & sick

It’s probably PSL or RevCom related.

I have to say: I am proud of the youth.

xp
if it was the word “interpellated”

bingo-- though i know the word. and like said, i expected that space would be typo and error free haha, so i knew i had take a note.

had to

traditionally students are the shock troops for social change, which can lead to much good, but they generally are better at than capsizing the boat full of oligarchs than at navigation.

I’m wondering about the Soviet flags at my protest. Why?

― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes), Thursday, 25 April 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Friend Infected With Left Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

My ans: nothing. They are doing good

video of arrests at Emory:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/04/25/emory-university-pro-palestinian-protest-police-digvid.cnn

the professor at the end of that video who the pigs throw on the ground for speaking to them has been charged with assaulting a police officer

There’s an aspect to this that seems like inter-elite fight, where we’re watching a struggle between different class strata of faculty vs the administrators for control of the institution.