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

Glad he was alone, the videos from UCLA that I've seen are really scary

Had to unfollow a prominent cookbook author because he was both sidesing the shit at UCLA.

On a professor beaten by police and hospitalized:
https://merip.org/2024/05/merip-statement-on-the-arrest-of-steve-and-sandra-tamari/

Read something today and it isn't special but also gets at something I have been thinking about in recent days:

The students were correct about Viet Nam, they were correct about the first gulf war and the embargoes, they were correct about the WTO and "free trade," they were right about the second Gulf War and the "War on Terror," they were correct about the stakes in Occupy, and they were correct in 2020 around BLM. And they are correct now.

While the demos do provide a distraction for the MSM to latch onto instead of actually reporting on the genocide occurring right now with our tax dollars, there's also no helping the demos and encampments being overwhelmingly correct in their assessments of the situation.

Absolutely. Columbia's hypocrisy on this has been esp notable.

I would push back against the "distraction" piece though -- for one, I don't think media attention to Gaza has deterred Israel in any way thus far, though of course it's impossible to test that theory.

More broadly, on the negative side: I think the violently over the top response to these protests has been grimly instructive in terms of how brutally dissent is and will be repressed in the US (no matter which party is in power), how police have accrued more power and evaded accountability in the last four years, how fierce the right wing's antagonism to higher education is, how brittle liberalism is when it comes to defending its institutions, and so on. Baroness Shafik flatly stating that Columbia will not divest from Israel no matter what is also illuminating.

On the positive side, we need global solidarity and resistance to deal with fascism, climate change, etc. I'm heartened that young people recognize this.

Seeing on BlueSky that the UC system academic workers union is calling a strike vote in response to UCLA police watching while fascists attacked students and faculty. So another potential positive is organized labor getting pissed off

sorry to reference the NYT but there was a pretty good opinion piece there this week about the student protests being right:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/columbia-student-protests-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n00.H9EM.7niiAQglNBkl

There is a somewhat sad hierarchy of labor unions in the UC system… academic workers union is basically who you’d expect to be sympathetic… like it’s not a big deal imo

Basically the faculty and staff that are already out there supporting encampments etc

I had that same thought, like, tell me the time the anti-war protesters were wrong. All I can think of is the 1930s America Firsters, who weren't so much "anti-war" as "pro-Nazi." (But of course anti-war protesters are usually right, because most wars are bad and terrible!)

What a fucking monster

If you don't understand why people are mad at Biden today I honestly don't know what to tell you https://t.co/u1GcGVcmXX

— Erik Baker (@erikmbaker) May 1, 2024

Easier to stomach if you convince yourself they’re all RUSSIAN agitators.

Honestly he has lost the college vote on this, good luck USA

I've been reading Al-Arian for a while, but the passive voice ("will be involved") is weird; so is the conditional "may be." If the Biden White House ordered the prosecution of the students, it would probably cost them the election, and FOX News would be happy to promote it. Does anyone have other links?

Not sure how closely they're linked to begin with, but this might be the first of many

BOGOTA, May 1 (Reuters) - Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday he will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its actions in Gaza.
Petro has already heavily criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
"Here in front of you, the government of change, of the president of the republic announces that tomorrow we will break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel ... for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal," Petro told cheering crowds in Bogota who marched to mark International Worker's Day and back Petro's social and economic reforms.

^^^ excellent

Today's WH press conference transcript: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/05/01/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-59/

I see a lot of the usual press secretary banalities and an incoherent one about Charlottesville vs now but nothing about prosecuting students.

look this is definitely gonna hurt him amongst college students and Muslims but I somehow doubt it's going to drive them to vote for a guy who pretty much openly says Israel should just massacre all the remaining Palestinians and that US citizens should be free to murder anyone who protests

They don’t have to… they just have to not show up at the polls.

TBF, college kids aren't the most reliable voting block anyway

That's a usual coping response but the youth vote is important - when you don't get them to turn up, Democrats have a habit of losing. 1992, 2008 and 2020 were all high youth turnout elections, 2000 & 2016 not so much. (2004 was also a high turnout election but didn't quite get Sen. Lurch over the line)

What’s the point in voting if the end results are the same? Are those in Gaza any less dead because Joe Biden’s in blue not red? So much sneering over the choices of the young but nothing to say about how the lack of choice is as damaging to democracy as anything else that gets far more attention.

Killing civilians is bad, maybe start from there instead of “What are you going to do, vote for the fascist?” None of these people will vote for Trump. They’ll stay home.

xxp yeah, I don't mean to be dismissive... it's just that a lot of college students don't always update registration to be able to vote in fall elections, more of a technical failing than one of motivation

I don't know about the rest of America or even Florida, but the students I address in South Florida as a local activist care most about (in order): affordable housing, legal weed, sea level rise, Gaza, abortion access. We have amendments on the ballot in November re legal weed and abortion.

Typically you'd say that a candidate who needs voters under 25 and/or Muslim voters to win isn't going to win anyway, since they're such small parts of the electorate. But we've had back to back elections decided by small numbers of votes in a handful of states, so either/both could hurt in key places (thinking about Dearborn and Madison).

Of course Trump would be worse on everything that people are mad at Biden for, but y'know.

What’s the point in voting if the end results are the same?

Well the end results aren't the same on a lot of fronts. For those of us living in Republican-occupied territories already, having a Democratic administration in Washington vs. a Republican one makes a pretty big difference! We already live under aspiring autocracies/theocracies, having an autocracy/theocracy-friendly administration in DC makes lots of things worse for lots of people, especially every single class of marginalized/vulnerable people. But this isn't the thread for that anyway.

I still have strong feelings about (in theory) voting for the lesser of two evils - even if there's one issue that the evil isn't lesser on, there are plenty of others. However, I live in NY so it doesn't matter who I vote for, and I also don't think browbeating others to do so is effective. People have the right to be one-issue voters, and, in fact, it's probably one of the more effective ways of using voting power to get concessions when done well.

as far as turnout, maybe the abortion rights thing can somewhat negate the Gaza mistrust? IDK

Eighteen hours ago Florida illegalized access to abortion, and it's pretty clear who's responsible.

its just a shit situation for Dems, like yes Biden needs to be a lot better on this and has a lot of blood on his hands but I feel like a lot of actions he *could* take to retain youth/Muslim voters would wind up pissing a different faction off, which is what happens when you're forced to be a "big tent" party because the other one is so uniformly committed to being pure evil.

even if there's one issue that the evil isn't lesser on, there are plenty of others

And you're not just voting for a single person - you're voting for an administration, cabinet secretaries and appointees, ambassadors, the whole crew

"Hope they stop caring about genocide and their peers being beaten by cops in defense of genocide because of X" is definitely a strategy.

I think people attach way too much moral weight to their vote. It's just a strategic decision, and one that only goes so far. It's completely independent of whether you continue to protest or take other actions. I get that some people feel like checking a box next to Joe Biden feels like they are personally sanctioning what Biden does, but I don't see it that way, I feel pretty dispassionate about it.

^^^spoken like a Biden voter

Trump voters feel like they're voting for God in a battle against Absolute Evil

I'm voting for a flawed hack in q battle against Absolute Evil.

That cuts both ways - if you're a stoic (potential) voter and realistic about the value your individual vote actually carries relative to millions of other votes (if you cast for Joe Biden you didn't make him sell missiles to Israel) but you feel no strong commitment to Joe Biden or the Democrats ... then why bother?

Convincing people that their votes do matter, that they do have moral weight because their individual decision helps determine the path of the entire country is pretty important. You can't rely on millions of people making the jerkoff motion with one hand and voting for your candidate with the other. (If there wasn't some moral weight attached to a vote, would people shame non-voters or those who vote incorrectly?)

Meanwhile Republicans and too many Democrats voted for this repugnant thing

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-protests-columbia-congress-df4ba95dae844b3a8559b4b3ad7e058a

Making it a violation of federal civil rights law to criticize the actions of a foreign government, just batshit stuff. I'm tempted to say it's clearly a 1st Amendment violation, but as with so many things related to free speech these days who the hell knows. Infuriating regardless.

yeah, that's one of those safe knee-jerk votes that absolutely violates 1st Amendment rights

thread is moving too fast for me

What’s the point in voting if the end results are the same?

Gaza/Israel aside, I don't believe that the end results are the same. That Time magazine interview with Trump makes the stakes very clear. (I'll try to make this a gift article, but I'm not sure how it works):

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/trump-time-migrants-election.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o00.TgLa.8ACA6rwnAaHS&smid=url-share

As man alive said, if you want any say in the matter of elections, it's just strategy and you vote accordingly. Milo, I don't believe it's about a moral imperative at all, unless you don't really care about the outcome but just your own voice

If you think it's important to vote in accordance with your strategy to achieve a desired outcome, that is a moral imperative!

Yes, but what is the strategy? "If Biden is no longer the president, then Biden will no longer be sending weapons and money to Israel"?

Or is it a longer-term strategy? "If Trump is re-elected to the presidency, the United States will collapse, and eventually be unable to continue sending weapons and money to Israel — victory!"

It's just framing the act in such a way that it's all positive (we beat Trump/the Republicans!) without sharing in any of the negative (they voted to criminalize criticism of Israel and actively aided genocide).

Do you ever get tired having this same argument? Do anyone’s opinions change as a result of it?

I'm voting for Biden to make sure what's going on doesn't happen.

— Sridhar Ramesh (@RadishHarmers) April 25, 2024

this is legit how all of you sound to me, fwiw

:)

cool, I'm voting for Biden to make sure what's going on doesn't get far worse

this is legit how all of you sound to me, fwiw

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table),

has he been on SNL yet?

Sridhar? No, but he is fucking hilarious

its kind of a silly argument to me, yes Biden blowing this particular issue, but even if you're a one-issue voter I still think you would prefer what's going on now over the party who is currently writing bills to allow drivers to mow down protestors if they feel inconvenienced by them. even if they are somehow "equally bad" here there are dozens of other issues in which Biden is clearly better, including "should this country be a democracy or a monarchy"