Tensions spill across universities like Columbia and Harvard as students on each side accuse the other of a kind of bloodlust
To one side, Columbia students stood silently, wrapped in the blue and white of Israel as they gripped pictures of the murdered and abducted. Across the grass and brick divide, a slightly larger cohort of students chanted “Free, free Palestine.”
The faultline between the two ran along the claim by each that the other was pursuing a kind of bloodlust – a charge that has divided university campuses across America in the wake of the bloody Hamas attack on Israeli communities and Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza.
Reactions within US universities to the killing of at least 1,300 Israelis and the abduction of about 100 more have swung from celebration of the Hamas assault as a legitimate act of resistance to occupation to condemnation along with a demand that it not be used to ignore the deaths of Palestinians killed in Israel’s retaliation on Gaza.
Leading financial figures on Wall Street made a show of saying they would not employ Harvard students who signed the statement blaming Israel for the Hamas attack. A billboard truck drove around Harvard campus displaying the pictures and names of the students, and their addresses and other details were published on websites.
That’s some intense and coordinated propaganda.
The doxxing truck is so incredibly fucked up.
I think they believed people would jump on with the hate, rather than seeing how messed up it is.
Israel is paying for the success of Iron Dome - rocket attacks never really stopped, but the international perspective shows only Palestinians displaced and abused, while a few rockets get shot down over Israel. If Israel wades into Gaza and occupies it, the attack got what it wants, a new South Africa, with millions of un-enfranchised citizens. This outcome was warned about in the early 2000’s.
The doxxing truck should get someone slapped with attempted murder charges.
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Social consequences for an unpopular opinion are not the same as someone paying for you to be proscribed like the fucking massacres of the second triumvirate.
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On the one hand, it’s a favorite conspiracy among the right-wing to scream about the “internationalist cabal of Jewish globalist bankers who control the world!”
But then you read something like that, and it does seem suspicious. Like why would “leading financial figures” care who Harvard students support? And who would think putting their personal info on a fucking truck is acceptable?
Note: I am absolutely not saying or espousing any theory that the Jews control the world or anything. But I think that in a vacuum, absent any outside context, it seems weirdly coincidental for Wall Street to care if a bunch of college students blame Israel or for their information to be publicly broadcast.
If it’s black it’s called a gang, If it’s Italian it’s the mob, if it’s Latino it’s the cartel, BUT if it’s jewish, it’s a coincidence and should never be talked about.
That’s the problem with the right wing conspiracy theories. They all just blame the “Jews” for being elite and evil. If a group of people who happen to be Jewish are conspiring to control money and politics, it doesn’t mean the whole ethnicity is in on it. Their ethnicity and religion are irrelevant to the fact that they are just power hungry assholes.
That’s like blaming all of the Italians for everything the mafia does.
Yeah you are right, but we have to acknowledge that there’s a red of wealthy men bounded by familiar and ethnic ties, who use that money to influence events. All Jews? Off course not, it would be the same as you point out, all Latinos or all Italians or all black people.
The key here is that accountability should exist for these groups, who are practically outside the law in virtue of their wealth, and they escape any criticism, covering themselves behind their people, any valid criticism gets shut down as antisemitism, and that is by design.
It’s not really that Israel is Jewish, it’s that Israel is a strategic and financial asset to Western liberalism. And students at Ivy League schools are going to face more pressure to kowtow as they will eventually participate in executive political and financial institutions. Power doesn’t demand a grand conspiracy to maintain itself.
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The problem with conspiracy theories is how unsure one must be of another’s motives: from where you’re sitting you think I’m sealioning; from my perspective you’re painting with a really broad brush.
Perhaps my point wasn’t clear enough so let me try to rephrase it: this is the exact kind of activity that adds fuel to right-wing anti-Semitism. I fully expect to hear on next week’s Knowledge Fight Alex Jones using this to fuel his “
JewsGlobalists control the world!” narrative.I fully expect to hear on next week’s Knowledge Fight Alex Jones using this to fuel his “Jews Globalists control the world!” narrative.
I guess that’s the difference between us: there is NO circumstance, none, no matter how outrageous, that would ever extract my willing and knowing consent to consuming Alex Jones propaganda. Seriously. I’d rather have my eyeballs fucked with a chainsaw than to watch that dehumanizing, divisive shit.
More for you, I guess. Peace out.
That was a right wing PR company.
I saw an article saying they rented the same kind of truck in Cali to drive around a campus with a picture of hitler on it.
Freedom of speech, not freedom of consequences.
The government isn’t stopping anyone from saying their piece, industry gets to make their own decisions based on your words and actions.
These university students aren’t a protected class, if Wall Street wants to say ‘get fucked, we want nothing to do with your position on this topic’, that’s entirely their choice to make… and the thing people don’t seem to want to accept, is there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. You’re not taking on Wall Street, anymore than these protestors are going to make a difference. They must feel real special about the impact they’re making!!!
Wow. Look at you. Taking a stance supporting bullying. Brave.
Supporting consequence of action. Bullying requires repetition, this will be a one and done comupence.
The boomers spent a lifetime equating blind, unconditional support of israel to benevolence, in the same way they blindly equate being anti abortion to being pro life despite supporting little to no assistance for unwanted children and unwilling mothers. Its FREE and it sounds pretty at face value so they made it their position.
I can read and see the white hot hatred of boomers in power over the fact that younger generations don’t value an Israeli life over a Palestinian life or vice versa. It literally seems to dumbfound them that we didn’t come to their same shallow from the inception conclusion. Sorry, fuck your team sports, and fuck all the imaginary friends you use to rationalize killing real human beings that exist here in reality. I would never pick a religion or a skin tone to determine who is more worthy to love.
And the fact is, neither the Israeli government or Hamas that controls the Palestinian government take care to spare civilian life. That isn’t a Hamas thing, that is a this conflict thing.
And the Israeli government is the force with more responsibility to temper their response for 2 reasons: They’re a much larger military. Something something power, something something responsibility, peter parker. Israel always gets a global pass retaliating against Palestinian civilians when Hamas attacks Israeli soldiers, which doesn’t exactly scream “keep our civilians out of this.” And 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
You can’t run the world’s largest open air prison, largely filled with people guilty of no crime, and get credibly angry when the prisoners robbed of hope turn to desparation and vengeance.
There are no heroes in this conflict, and with the blood dripping off both parties, Im inclined to be more supportive of the force less capable of defending themselves and their side’s civilians.
This is the first year in a long time that could be considered a conflict, rather than a globally sanctioned, continuous slaughter.
I support the civilians. Both governments can go slather themselves in honey and take a hike in bear country.
The Enlightened Centrist who absolutely MUST make sure others know that they are. For smugness.
I strongly believe that in this case, being on the side of the civilians in all cases is not enlightened centrism…it’s just the correct side… Do you think the civilians of one side deserve retribution?
Siding with the Israeli government is to support Netanyahu and his fascistic genocide of the Palestinian people
Siding with Hamas (Hamas =/= Palestine) is to support violent extremists.
I never took a side. I called out smugness. Not everything in life boils down to two sides that people MUST be on.
I don’t think I ever said or implied that there was only two sides to this conflict or anything else in life and if that can be inferred from my comment then I need to edit it for clarity.
But to be clear, you did take a side. It just happens to be against whatever smugness you’re interpreting from those who are only for the civilians in this conflict.
A fan of genocide has entered the chat.
I commented about smugness and nothing else. Try gathering more brain cells.
Oh no! People want other people to work things out where everyone is accounted for and taken care of. How evil. Big ick.
There’s an old proverb that goes ‘Better to be an enlightened centrist than a miserable prick’.
Not sure what reminded me of that.
Can you comprehend this is about having to announce yourself? People have an incessant NEED to point out what enlightened centrists they are. Its up there with vegans always letting you know they are.
Hint: some of us also may hold similar views as you, but we don’t go around announcing it at every opportunity.
The only one here running around announcing themselves here is you.
Don’t worry Bud, we all know you’re a moron. You can stop telling us.
I’M A MORON!
Fuck off with your pompous ass.
Can’t both sides be driven by bloodlust? It’s all horrific and a never-ending cycle of pain and rage.
Both governments (Israel and Hamas) are driven by an urge to seek more power by claiming land and killing their “enemies”. The populace are witting and unwitting pawns of that. I am not surprised people back the Israeli government with the amount of propaganda being put forth and I’m not surprised that people who have been murdered and had their homes destroyed for decades are willing to tacitly support the only group that seems like it can fight back. Desperate people don’t make rational decisions.
Yes, there are no good guys in this conflict. Israel has spent decades commiting low level offences against Palestine and her people, and Hamas has spent the same amount of time launching small attacks against Israel. They both have legitimate grievances with each other, but it’s the civilians on both sides that suffer for it. Unfortunately there’s no good solution to the problem, there’s too much bad blood between them at this point that any hope for peace would be short lived. Even if Israel and Hamas agreed to stand down some other group on one side or the other would start things up again.
Israel has spent decades commiting low level offences against Palestine and her people
“Low level”… Yeah no.
Low level as in murdering a dozen people there, evicting and bulldozing a bunch of houses over there, that sort of thing, as opposed to like, rolling tanks into the middle of Gaza and opening fire, dropping bombs on them, or like what they’re planning on doing now where they’ve ordered them to evacuate in 24 hours before they presumably march in and most likely just start murdering people. Israel tends to keep up a constant low level attack. It’s not one big thing, but thousands of small offenses happening nearly constantly. Hamas on the other hand tends to do less, but what they do is bigger. Bombs that kill or injure hundreds, launching indiscriminate rockets into Israel, that sort of thing.
For better or worse, Hamas attack is exactly what Netanyahu wanted. It’s an excuse for Israel to escalate things even further. In many ways Hamas played right into his hands. To be clear, they were absolutely provoked into it, but there’s still an inbalance of power at play. Now Netanyahu is going to use that attack to justify even more atrocities, and there’s not much Palestine or Hamas can really do about it. It will get very ugly over there before too much longer and both Palestinians and Israelis are going to suffer, but I fear the Palestinians are going to suffer a lot more before this is over. There’s a distinct possibility that this is going to result in Israel completely occupying Palestine and them effectively ceasing to exist as an independent state.
“low profile” I think would have been better phrasing
Oh that makes sense.
Less flashy, low profile
Thanks for pushing back against this neutralizing narrative.
Fucking great! That’s what universities are for. Debate.
It’s gotten worse than debate in quite a few places. People protest memorial services saying that the murder of civilians was justified. This is some real WBC-level shit.
What a shame. These “smart” people should be leading by example and coming together in solidarity against violence on all sides. What a great image that would have been to see both groups protesting the war together. Fools.
You know that only Israel can stop the violence, right? If Palestine stops fighting, Israel continues the violence until they are eliminated. If Israel stops, then Palestine doesn’t have to fight back. It’s really very simple.
I have to disagree. If this was like the Russia Ukraine situation and one side was destroying and killing people in the other while the other was just defending their country then yes. If Russia stopped today, the war would be over as Ukraine has no history and is not attacking Russia or its people.
In the Israel / Palestine situation they are both attaching each others countries and people and have been doing so for years so if only one side stops, they will be in the same situation Ukraine is in with another still attacking them. Both sides need to stop if this is to end and I had hoped the smart people at Universities would have supported this versus taking a side.
I would take a side if only one was attacking but both are and have been doing so for a long time. I know it is all much more complicated than that,but it really does not have to be. If both sides stopped today, I mean really stopped and let each other just be, it would finally be over. If only one side stops, it will be another Russia / Ukraine Situation which is barely better.
It is easy to destroy, but really solves nothing and worse fosters hate and more destruction.
The worst part about your comment, is that I see the exact same comment but flipped in that it would all stop if Palestine stopped the violence. If both sides feel this way, then both sides are entrenched and committed to more of the same. Unfortunate as I hate seeing the destruction and deaths on both sides including children. Can we please just stop it.
Like in Ukraine, it is not enough for one side to stop the violence, they must also reverse the occupation.
Reversing the occupation would be wonderful for the Palestinians people- unless Hamas take over, since their charter explicitly states that they want to establish an Islamic State in Palestine, which would also oppress the Palestinian people. Which is why both Israel and Hamas must be denounced for the sake of the Palestinian people.
Absolutely. Likewise corruption and social issues in Ukraine must be denounced, although in denouncing aspects of both sides, it must not be implied that the current situation is created equally by the actions of both sides.
I’m sorry, but that is not in any way the same thing. I’m not in favor of corruption in any country, but you’re not talking about two different types of severe oppression there.
I agree, the problematic issues within Ukraine are trivial compared to the problems with the way Russia or Hamas operate. However, it’s also the case that the actions of Hamas are not comparable to the actions of the Israeli state, most especially in the long term.
Both sides in any conflict must be held to account for their actions or inactions, but in doing so care must be taken not to suggest that both sides are equally the orchestrators of the situation.
Boy there’s a lot of smug in the air in here.
You need to vent your place. Open some windows.
Even if you sympathize with the colonizers, how is the seige of Gaza an appropriate response? Murdering over a million innocents for what?
It’s not and they know it. They’re just grasping at anything hoping to mollify the indignation they feel for Israel’s government. They’re digging in their heels, because the propaganda of, “Israel good,” is dissonant with the reality that their manufactured beliefs were wrong.
A million? What on earth are you talking about?
Bazillions
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Well shit, by your statement, 9/11 was a mere couple thousand deaths. Why everyone get so worked up about it?
You are right that Palestinian civilians deserve to be able to live in peace and safety but Hamas is the one taking civilians hostages and using them as human shields. Either Israel has a right to defend its borders against its neighbors who hate them and wish to kill their innocent citizens or it has no right to exist.
I see you’re already counting people as dead before they’re killed. If so, how do you feel about Hamas murdering 9.3 million Israelis? They haven’t done it yet, but they want to. Israel of course doesn’t want any civilian deaths, but Hamas builds terror tunnels under their homes, launches rockets from their schools and hospitals, and uses the civilians as expendable meat shields.
“They do not want us to live” is a catch phrase. Anyone else notice that? Like its a meme for this event but like it does something.
How do these phrases catch on so fast now. Its crazy.
They’re also very well crafted to force the narrative down one narrow, black-and-white path.
Accurate for both sides too
What a mess
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I wonder if it’s possible to have a well informed, polite, nuanced, and empathetic debate on this, that recognizes the complexity of the situation, existing grievances, and existing hurt.
Given the level of comments you always read on contentious subjects like this one, it’s almost impossible on the internet. People have gotten so used to being rude to each other, shouting at each other, not actually listening, the kind of behaviour that would get you punched in the face in real life.
Except now people are taking this style of ‘debate’ to the real world. People screaming at each other without listening. What’s the point? Is it fun? Does it convince anyone? Does it actually solve anything?
Maybe it helps alienated people feel like they belong. Even if in the long term it actually means you end up becoming increasingly radicalised and ultimately even more alienated from your actual friends, family and neighbours.
I don’t think people understand that life isn’t black and white. These days you cannot even begin to discuss nuance before you’re identified by either side as an enemy. I hope it can change
Why does every American feel the need to take a stance and vomit their opinions? It’s ok to just be quiet and observe.
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing.”
lol you act like posting on Facebook does something. Narcissistic assholes the lot
Which is exactly why the IDF will root out and destroy the terrorists who are holding Gaza.
Because it’s our right. I don’t need to justify my speech.
Or you actually don’t have to choose sides at all about a conflict on the other end of the world you know very little about.
Let’s all slow clap for every person going out of their way to say that humans/civilians deserve to live peaceful lives. Good job. Good for you. Here’s your fucking cookie for your good deed for the day by stating the obvious on the internet to feel better about yourselves.
A fucking lot of good this comment does.
Just like every comment that says the obvious so the commenter can feel like a good person.
I don’t give a fuck what their reasoning is, I don’t root for people that take civilian hostages.
Or groups that #Trump supports.
Not do I root for murdering thousands of children over decades and committing crimes against humanity against millions as they’re colonised.
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You can support the Palestinians and their right to end occupation and not support Hamas. You can be an advocate of Palestinians’ rights and not endorse Hezbollah or Iran’s regime. You can be pro-Palestinian without being anti-semitic. You can support Ukraine’s sovereignty and decry Israel’s human rights abuses. You can condemn terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians and still believe in one’s right to resist.
These stances are not mutually exclusive.
End the genocide of Palestinians.
Do you root for people stealing stealing peoples land and killing people for decades?
No.
But that in no way justifies killing a thousand or so people, injuring several thousand more, and kidnapping and threatening to execute hundreds (including children) in an orgy of violence. Both sides are in the wrong here.
You can support the Palestinians and their right to end occupation and not support Hamas. You can be an advocate of Palestinians’ rights and not endorse Hezbollah or Iran’s regime. You can be pro-Palestinian without being anti-semitic. You can support Ukraine’s sovereignty and decry Israel’s human rights abuses. You can condemn terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians and still believe in one’s right to resist.
These stances are not mutually exclusive.
End the genocide of Palestinians.
I agree, this is the part I don’t understand. Why do people want to force others to pick a side? They are both wrong and treat each other horribly. Cant we condemn both? Civilian death is completely unnecessary for both sides. Just lay down all the weapons and end apartheid.
The problem is you have two right wing governments that only know violence. The civilians are the victims.
I’ll tin foil hat for a second. It really feels like there’s a coordinated effort to push this as a really divisive event where you either completely support Israel or you’re a monster. Is that actually happening? Probably not, but it sure does feel that way.
You’re not wrong: that’s what propaganda is all about. If you keep people angry, they are not going to be thinking critically or using higher cognitive skills – and they’re also not going to much notice or care that the rights they want taken from others are also being stripped from themselves.
That is absolutely what is happening, and exactly why I do not watch video news, and why I select my written news very, very carefully. Even WaPo is taking an obvious pro-Israel side. So far I go with BBC News and a select few others that seem to be able to report without obvious calls to emotional response.
Because American and western politics are obsessed with explaining the world in terms of good vs bad instead of material conditions. Liberalism has rotted the brains of the western populace such that all events are viewed through the lens of marvel movies. Le epic wholesome Israel Captain America vs evil Thanos Hamas.
Fuck yes they are both in the wrong, maybe criticize both instead of giving passive carte blanche to one.
That blade cuts both ways.
Look at my comments, I am very clear on where I stand Israel and hamas are both wrong and innocents are paying the price.
Very impressive making a take that in no way addresses the status quo, which is, and has been, extremely violent with a massive power imbalance.
I think he’s explicitly saying the status quo is shit
What side do you think i am on here?
Fuck off with your strawmanned whataboutism, terrorist symp.
Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Yeah! Fuck the Israeli terrorists and terrorist sympathizers!
I am glad you stand for the freedom of Gazans against the Israeli errorists, thieves and occupiers
👏👏👏
Your petulant reaction is entirely appropriate for someone trying to defend the indefensible.
Words have definitions. Read them.
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“It’s about standing with the people of Gaza, and reminding the world that these are humans who deserve to live in dignity, to deserve to live free from occupation, free from colonial brutality, free from the violence that Israel constantly is constantly throwing at them,” she said.
“Since Saturday, a little over 1,500 people have already died in Gaza, and a third of them are children. And yet that level of violence against Palestinians is very rarely discussed. Entire families have been killed.”
Avila Chevalier said she did not regard the protest as celebrating killing but that the violence against Israelis did not happen in a vacuum.
“No one wants violence, right? What people who are engaging in these protests are trying to get across is that this violence didn’t start five days ago, this violence started with Israeli occupation of Palestine,” she said.Desperate people being the victims of genocide and colonial atrocities for decades side with desperate people. More at 11.
If Trumpers said you should use the toilet would you opt to shit your pants?
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What flag do I wave for “both sides are terrible and neither deserves the religious sites, just nuke the entire area”? /s
How the fuck did Jerusalem became the epicenter of all major monotheist religion in the first place? Delete the fucking city if nobody wants peace
Jews and Arabs share common ancestry in the Canaanites and the original Christians were a heretical Jewish sect. It’s all the same religion.
Jews build temple, Romans come in and raze it, Muslims decide to move in, Christians simping. That’s how.
Papal decree
Jerusalem has been a significant city of the eastern Mediterranean world for thousands of years, so multiple religions with eastern Mediterranean roots sharing significance for that city is hardly surprising.
IIRC a similar coincidence has formed in SEA where a particular mountain has gained religious significance for local Christians Muslims and Buddhists, although with much less international controversy over it.
The case of the temple mount in particular is especially weird since it’s a part of zealous Christian and Jewish prophetic narratives (despite revelations saying getting the rapture to happen by checking a list is a fool’s errand and non zionist consensus among jews agreeing that the “third temple” is the state of internationalization and diaspora which the destruction of the second temple initiated) and also being a major site of religious history to Muslims, with the site apparently being where Mohammed ascended to heaven at the end of his life.
There’s a church in Jerusalem with a ladder still left up there from the 1800s because all christian denominations that share control over the site can’t agree to remove the ladder, so you can imagine how hard the squabbling goes when not even the base religion is held in common.
A bunch of dudes realized they could gain power, land, wealth, and sexual access by peddling fairy tales to the masses. Not surprising that this happened many times, in many places, over the early historic record, primarily at population centers located relatively close to the river deltas that gave rise to the first cities. You know, just human shit. Same as it ever was.
You’ll be called a asshole by the “Free Palestine” folks for not supporting them.
The “Support Israel” people never say shit to me.
I’m surprised, both have pretty loud online cheerleaders
…and I’m pretty sure “nuke all of ‘Holy Land’ so hard the desert becomes a large, flat lump of glass” would not go over well with them. Not with the Muslims, either.
Might be best in the long run tho
Yeah, religion is a plague and makes Middle East a hotbed of conflict… I added the “/s” to avoid hate speech reports; I would obviously first depopulate the area (migrate both nations very far apart) before using WMDs. Neither nation deserves the Holy Land if they cannot coexist and behave in it.
I’ve been called an evil monster by both sides
Let’s definitely get into an uproar over the opinions of teenagers
College campuses are filled with more than just 17-18 yos.
The average undergrad is 22.
And call it what you will, but these folks are the future of the nation.
As a 35 year old, I’d feel a lot better about 25 year olds running the country than I do about the current geriatric shit show we’ve got.
As a 50-something year old I feel the same.
Still not a great option, 25 year olds are pretty dumb
Better than 85 year olds, yes, but still not great
At what age does someone’s opinion start to hold any value for you?
Your brain is fully developed at age 25. Sometime around then I’ll start to give a fuck what you think… depending on your life experience up to that point.
Please state your age and life experience.
More experienced and wiser than you.
Thanks, my suspicions about you are confirmed. You’re an idiot.
Your inexperience has led you to making another stupid comment. Hardly surprising.
