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

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/05/05/university-of-chicago-shabbat-encampment-protest/

I thought this was a very interesting and rather moving article (though I wish the reporter had noted that the UC rabbi's appalling line about Black Confederate soldiers is not just racist but also inaccurate)

My friend was attending a JVP/anti-Zionist Jewish shabbat dinner at UKansas-Lawrence, and a bunch of Christian Zionists called him and his group a bunch of Nazis. Half his family was wiped out in the Shoah.

ugh that's awful

people feel emboldened to be disgusting in so many ways over this

would the university be willing to do anything about it?

in germany you have people literally raised on nazi plundered wealth equating their own ancestors with jewish people who question the national consensus - which in theory violates holocaust minimization laws but seems to be considered a respectable way to behave

I've also been enjoying the graphic hamas hate crime fantasies that queer people are currently being bombarded with by the pro-genocide crowd

the black confederates thing is a popular lost cause talking point - interesting convergences happening

Finally! The worst response I've read:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/shibboleth-the-role-of-words-in-the-campus-protests

I haven't read that essay (and I won't), but this Twitter thread on Why Zadie Smith Is Like That is very interesting, in a depressing way. It starts here:

Let me tell you what kind of a place Cambridge is. Thread. https://t.co/YSPp528tRA

— con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) (@racheledini1) May 6, 2024

I started trying to read that Zadie Smith thing and just could not. I don't know what the world needs now, but 100 percent not that.

Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward.

Do we have to choose just one?

zadie smith becoming the exact kind of person she satirized in on beauty, hate to see it

When I got to the last paragraph on Sunday, I felt stupid -- as in, she does think she's smarter than her readers.

I think its often the case that writers do think that.

They are usually bad.

"You may have thought about this Israel/Palestine situation. But have you thought about it with my brain?"

Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward.

I'm your hell, I'm your dream I'm nothing in between

Unperson, thanks for sharing that Twitter thread, sums up a lot I've been feeling about my adopted home (though my life here only very rarely intersects with the university)

I will eventually read it because the title infers it is about semantics but so far she has devoted paragraphs to climate change and seems to want to discuss “tactics” in re protest but has not used the word “tactics” when it is kinda the most obvious term due to being concise and related to the history of leftist protest / activism

McSweeneys darling and alumnus turning out to be spoiled narcissist, story at 11

timely push notification from the NYT today

BREAKING NEWS
Speaking at the Capitol, President Biden said there has been a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

an earlier version noted that this speech was part of a holocaust remembrance day ceremony

Salaita on the Z. Smith piece:

Smith speaks of activism that can lead to arrest or other forms of punishment, concluding that it “represents a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.” This royal “us” betrays Smith’s position as outsider and poseur. In reality, sacrifice is eminently imaginable to the countless people who have chosen to act on their conscience and subsequently languished in prison, lost jobs and careers, or suffered exile and ostracism. It is eminently imaginable to the very students on whom Smith lavishes so much scorn. They are being punished in horrible ways and yet they keep going. Sacrifice isn’t unimaginable to “many of us.” It is unimaginable to Smith and her cohort of frivolous lickspittles. This she confirms a few sentences later with what is supposed to be a droll anecdote about her inability to give up travel to New York for the sake of the environment. “What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)!” she laments. This singular (and parenthetical) flash of self-awareness, meant to be ironic and thus venial, is the only aspect of the essay worth the reader’s attention.

https://stevesalaita.com/our-your-pitiful-ethics-a-response-to-zadie-smiths-shibboleth

Years ago, a friend of mine once told me she was on the subway reading the New Yorker, and a man with a French accent sort of accosted her and said "This magazine -- what is it supposed to be about? It seems to me it is about nothing." More and more I think that is apt.

Thanks for that. xpost

Nah, The New Yorker still publishes first-rate reporting. Then they'll publish an issue like last week's that I threw in the trash, it was so content-free.

Yeah, it's spotty enough that I just look at the stack whenever I visit my parents and take one or two home with me for toilet reading.

FWIW, the Zadie Smith essay -- like several other recent New Yorker articles that went viral (Clare Malone on Hasan Minhaj, Agnes Callard's "The Case Against Travel") -- was not published in the print magazine; it's online-only.

man with a French accent sort of accosted her and said "This magazine -- what is it supposed to be about? It seems to me it is about nothing."

I have a French friend who has been subscribing to the New Yorker since he was a kid in the 1980s and still bemoans that France has no real equivalent to it

President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city of Rafah, administration officials said on Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between the United States and Israel over the conduct of the war.

The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge, the officials said. The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.

The decision to delay the delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack that Mr. Biden has used his power to curtail arms as an instrument to influence Israel’s approach to the war that followed. A number of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies in Congress have for weeks urged him to limit or halt arms shipments to Israel, something he had refused to do until now because of his strong support for the effort to destroy Hamas.

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Israeli officials disclosed the weapons pause to Axios earlier this week, but U.S. officials refused to confirm it either at briefings or privately until Tuesday night. The fact that they finally did so was a clear indication of how much frustration is growing among administration officials that their Israeli counterparts are not heeding U.S. warnings against a major operation in Rafah that could lead to extensive civilian casualties. Confirmation of the arms pause came just hours after Israel sent tanks into the city in southern Gaza.

One U.S. official said the administration began reviewing arms shipments last month when it became clear that Israel seemed to be reaching a decision on a Rafah operation. Mr. Biden initially took the position that Israel should not attack Rafah without a plan to effectively minimize civilian casualties, but in recent weeks the White House has increasingly indicated that it did not believe such a plan was even possible.

However:

The administration is not halting all weapons to Israel and, at this point, has not made a final determination on how to proceed with the bombs withheld last week. In fact, officials said the administration had just approved the latest tranche of aid amounting to $827 million worth of weapons and equipment. The administration intends to send “every dollar” of the money just appropriated by Congress, the officials said.

“we didn’t send this out of concern, instead we’re sending this because we actually don’t give a fuck”

Wait who is being punished in horrible ways and sacrificing unimaginably? … college students camping out on campus? The Palestinian people certainly are. Idk about the students tbh.

Students are being expelled and suspended, having healthcare and housing taken away, as well as being beaten by cops and fascists

They’re also being stalked by fascists like the Canary Mission and etc

Obviously this doesn't compare to the oppression of Palestinians, but I thought this piece on arrested students experiencing jail in Texas was interesting: https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2024/05/what-my-students-and-i-learned-in-jail-after-protesting-on-the-ut-dallas-campus/

That said, I think a salient feature of these protests that gets overlooked quite a bit is that some of the students & organizers are in fact Palestinian

Sacrifice isn’t unimaginable to “many of us.”

I would take issue with this statement.

I agree with the point being made, I just think it’s a bit over-the-top, especially considering Smith seemed to struggle with being slightly inconvenienced for the sake of a cause

Smith speaks of activism that can lead to arrest or other forms of punishment, concluding that it “represents a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.”

So the article's not equating US college students with, like, lifelong political prisoners or populations under wartime - but the idea that attending a Palestine rally at US college campuses might at this point lead to "arrest or other forms of punishment" doesn't seem hyperbolic to me?

...Smith and her cohort of frivolous lickspittles

okay this is pretty good

The Philly police raided the Upenn encampment this morning.

As a Philadelphia native and a West Philly resident as well as an observer of the world at large, I can say with conviction that UPenn is one of the most evil, nefarious institutions in the entire United States.

(that obviously was true before this morning, but the school loves driving the point home)

UPenn vs Oakland PD?

Though I am assuming UPenn is more intelligent by a country mile

Wharton grads don't have the best rep these days, that's for sure.

I hear one is going to be our next President though

From Adam Johnson:

https://open.substack.com/pub/thecolumn/p/why-does-the-nyt-keep-lying-about

The stakes of this lie—or, at best, wishful thinking based on vibes and assumptions of White House necessary doublespeak—could not be higher. It’s not a small fact. Because if the Biden team can paint themselves as good-faith peacemakers “trying to end the war” simply running into headstrong Hamas and Israeli negotiators, then they morally and optically wash their hands of the on-going carnage. If they can show good intention, if not results, they can stem off the ever-growing anger of their arming, funding, and supporting Israel’s campaign of de-population and mass killing. When a 1,500-word article about Arab and Muslim anger over Biden begins by asserting that they’re mad despite “the president piling new pressure on Israel to end the war,” it makes those refusing to back him seem hot-headed, irrational and unmovable, which is entirely the point. But they have no reason to believe he’s actually trying to end the war, because—despite assertions made by the New York Times over and over again—the White House doesn’t claim it is. And if it is, indeed, secretly fine with Israel calling it, and leaving Hamas in Gaza, then this would be an explosive, 180-degree shift in policy the Times should probably dedicate a few reporters to clarifying and laying out. Absent this actual news reporting, their reporters and editors should probably stop making up peace-loving White House policy goals that we have no evidence exist.  

NEW: The Biden administration just announced that it has accepted the Israeli government’s assurances that it is not violating U.S. or international law in its prosecution of the war in Gaza, a conclusion at odds with assessments made by the UN and international aid groups

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) May 10, 2024

lol cmon what

Regular accused criminals outta try this new defence out in the US courts I reckon

Guys it's OK, they checked and they're not war criming. But good question!

And if it is, indeed, secretly fine with Israel calling it, and leaving Hamas in Gaza, then this would be an explosive, 180-degree shift in policy

It ... wouldn't, though? The line that Israel will have "lost" or "surrendered" if Hamas remains in power, even with its military capability in ruins and the hostages freed, is purely a Netanyahu thing, not as far as I know a Biden thing. Where Biden has been consistent is in saying that Israel has the right to defend itself and will continue to get US support in doing so. But Biden has never committed himself to "any amount of destruction counts as self-defense."

An incredible essay from one of the teenagers shot in Burlington in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/opinion/politics/i-was-shot-in-vermont-what-if-it-had-been-in-the-west-bank.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU0.59aZ.dBBiIdBepEBZ&smid=url-share