Article is very interesting and talks about the mix of goals in regards to the protests, and how speech negatively and positively helps accomplish those goals.
Those are some very well spoken college students representing the protests.
I’d also really like media to start demanding evidence of the claims of bald antisemitism. There are cameras everywhere, and these slogans are supposedly being shouted. You’d think they’d be pretty well documented and not just something you need to trust a claim on. A Jewish girl getting harassed in a corridor, sure, that just has to go on trust, but protesters chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab” should have some video of it. Don’t just trust an Israeli professor who was with the counter protesters will relay totally accurate protest quotes.
I’d also really like media to start demanding evidence of the claims of bald antisemitism
This is the worst part about reading/hearing about these stories in the news. Really early in this cycle, I heard a story on NPR where they interviewed a student at Columbia who talked about the pain and death happening in Gaza, and then they said, “but some people say the protests are anti-semitic,” and they proceeded to interview a woman who was not a student and had not been to campus who said “I feel attacked.”
There was absolutely no follow up on what was anti-semitic about what was happening, it was just taken at face-value that that woman saying it was anti-semitic made it so. I actually cancelled my $5/mo NPR contribution after that story
For real, I’ve heard some recordings, and the only similar thing I heard was “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
I think it’s important to note as well, nearly ALL chants in most protests rhyme, so “… sea, Palestine will be Arab” just doesn’t sound like something anyone would be saying.
Most of the media works for war. They want to see flags and make enemies. They don’t want to report on people speaking up for basic rights in solidarity with other people against the machinery and “inevitably” of war.
Btw, I support the Guardian with a small monthly donation, and if you have the means I ask you to consider it
I couldn’t agree more with the quotes in the article from Jamil Mohamad and Jared. As I was reading them, in my head I was saying: THIS
Antizionism isn’t antisemitism, The premise is false.
Being against Zionism is not the same as being anti-Semitic, anti-Semitism is a type of racial/religious discrimination, and anti-Zionism is being against the Jewish fascist elite not because they are Jews but because they are fascists.
The American media is deliberately confusing the population with the term anti-Semitism referring to anti-Zionism. mainly because mentioning the term anti-Semitic has a strong reaction from the American audience. and because obviously the American elite and the Jewish elite are very good friends.
Netanyahu is the primary source of that, before it even gets to western media. He repeatedly uses antisemitism as a defense of any criticism of his actions, or the actions of the IDF, and he’s been doing it for a long time. I know many American Jews that resent him for it.
The existence of Israel as a state has an antisemitic history. Britain, created Israel so Jews would have a place to go. So Britain wouldn’t have to take them. The reaction should not have been let’s create a place where Jews can be expelled to. We should have ensured refugees of all kind had places to go no matter where they came from. We should have made societies that Jews could feel safe in. Instead we created a people without a land.
But doesn’t this article also say that some Jewish people liked the idea of being near “their” holy land? I guess what I’m saying, wasn’t this an option convenient for both sides? Britain doesn’t want a lot/any Jewish people, but also, many Jewish people want to have their own land in current day Israel. Britain’s reasons are antisemitic, but they also didn’t force Jewish people to live in current day Israel. Correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s clear to me reading this that if people really want to further humanitarian concerns over the Palestinian civilians they should avoid the literal tribalism around the topic and the false dichotomy of ‘sides.’
It would be a lot harder to criticize a protest branded as a “pro-civilian” protest that simultaneously called out the human rights abuses on the Palestinian people and the Israeli hostages.
That asked the university to divest from any investments funding either Hamas or Likud as long as either were carrying out war crimes against civilians. Yes, in one of those two cases it’s a moot request, but by requesting both it furthers the comparison and similarities between the two and their extremist methods.
It would also give no cover to extremist voices calling for the destruction or harm of civilians on the “other side” of the conflict (as sampled in the article). It’s no safe space for pro-Palestinian voices calling for the killing of Israeli citizens nor for pro-Israel voices calling for (or turning a blind eye to) the bombing of the Palestinian civilians. True antisemites or Islamophobes would have no safe harbor there.
It takes the conversation from being about two opposing political sides to the ‘sides’ of “protect civilians” or “kill civilians” which is a position that’s incredibly hard to justify being on the other side of no matter one’s political beliefs.
And as has been discussed in various literature about the importance of reconciliation, it creates the space for victims of violence against civilians and secondary trauma in this conflict to feel their trauma can be heard without facing minimization to justify the trauma of the other political side - something that’s been happening far too much on both of the current sides of this discussion.
Disavowing violence against civilians should not be a political statement, and it being packaged as such is clearly a huge factor in how that message is being subverted and suppressed. Even the way Finkelstein straight up gave a messaging shift that would have improved the success of the core message he’s been supporting for years before this and then immediately had someone lead a chant of the very message he pointed out as undermining the narrative was ridiculous. Polarizing messaging might find solace in either a “pro-Palestinian” or “pro-Israel” protest, but wouldn’t be a good fit for a “pro-civilian” protest.
It would also be nearly impossible to brand a counter-protest to. What the hell do you call yourself if you are protesting against “pro-civilians”? The “pro-authoritarian” protest?
As long as the call for humanitarianism is wrapped up and divided into political sides and literal ethnic tribalism I have a feeling that the call is going to continue to get ignored and suppressed while local tribalistic tensions and conflict becomes more and more center stage instead. It might be smart to rebrand the messaging where the focus on humanitarianism is center stage and the only ‘tribe’ being championed is ‘human.’
