Was I dreaming or were there thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting Netanyahu’s reaction. Palestinians are never allowed the space to hold Hamas accountable. In my opinion, U.S. students could have forged an alliance with Israeli protestors instead of throwing gasoline on the fire. In the context of why this is taking place, it’s embarrassing to see them played like that.
Israeli Jews' opposition to Bibi is quite real and heartfelt. Bibi wants Israel to become a herrenvolk autocracy. Israeli democrats cannot tolerate this. The problem: most Israeli democrats are herrenvolk democrats.
It seems to me that Bibi’s intention is to throw the U.S. election to Trump and clear the way for real estate developers. In that context, it’s at least naive to think protesting in the manner they’ve been doing will achieve anything but solidify his resolve to do just that.
I don't have much sympathy with Isaac's position. His post concerns the rhetoric used by the protesters. I don't pay it much mind. I am reminded of debates about whether the slogan should have been "One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war" or "One, two, three, four, stop the bombing, end the war." Big deal, I don't care. At the end of the day you're trying to put pressure on the government to stop the war.
While I agree mostly with Gemma Sack's response, I would add the following point that she doesn't make. Whatever the atmospherics of "From the River to the Sea", she fails to note that this is exactly the slogan that has been used by Netanyahu and his allies for decades within Israel, just with the winner and loser reversed. To me this is the key point of that. Americans by and large don't know this.
I also disagree with the tactical emphasis on demanding divestment by universities. To me it misses the point. It leads to embarrassments like settling the confrontation by the administration conceding that they will look into removing Sabra Hummus from university cafeterias. Out of such "victories", a movement cannot be built. It's too weak a foundation. It looks ridiculous. Better to have demanded something of the government, that is, an end to unconditional military aid to Israel, as Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, and other have done. The sixties' movements demands were of the government - END THE WAR - no matter how it was stated. I think today's young radicals have no faith whatsoever in the government and therefore don't even bother to demand anything of it, and so confine their targets to the "closer at hand" universities. They might want to rethink this.
Be that as it may, however convoluted the logic was, I must concede that the protests led to Biden's stopping shipment of big bombs to Israel and that's not nothing. But that wasn't what they demanded.
All the tut-tutting about pro-Palestine agitation fails to contextualize the problem. All of it.
On the hummus front, efforts to grab onto a symbolic predicate on campuses are as old as the ROTC festivities. I expect everyone involved knows the difference between small and big things. It's still much more difficult to decide skillfully what to do than to criticize what is being done.
It’s not so much a criticism as a question. I’m not at all uniting with the tut-tutters. But I still would like to know: Why did these encampment movements decide NOT to make demands of the government? Or did they not decide this at all as much as never even considering it? I suspect the latter, but I would very much like to hear from some of these activists if that’s the case.
Was I dreaming or were there thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting Netanyahu’s reaction. Palestinians are never allowed the space to hold Hamas accountable. In my opinion, U.S. students could have forged an alliance with Israeli protestors instead of throwing gasoline on the fire. In the context of why this is taking place, it’s embarrassing to see them played like that.
I'm a little skeptical of Israeli Jews opposition to Bibi. They have indulged him for decades, and dispossession of Palestinians for longer than that.
Israeli Jews' opposition to Bibi is quite real and heartfelt. Bibi wants Israel to become a herrenvolk autocracy. Israeli democrats cannot tolerate this. The problem: most Israeli democrats are herrenvolk democrats.
It seems to me that Bibi’s intention is to throw the U.S. election to Trump and clear the way for real estate developers. In that context, it’s at least naive to think protesting in the manner they’ve been doing will achieve anything but solidify his resolve to do just that.
Max your link to "Jeff Isaac's piece in Dissent" goes not there but to Gemma Sack's response to it. You can get there from the response however.
I don't have much sympathy with Isaac's position. His post concerns the rhetoric used by the protesters. I don't pay it much mind. I am reminded of debates about whether the slogan should have been "One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war" or "One, two, three, four, stop the bombing, end the war." Big deal, I don't care. At the end of the day you're trying to put pressure on the government to stop the war.
While I agree mostly with Gemma Sack's response, I would add the following point that she doesn't make. Whatever the atmospherics of "From the River to the Sea", she fails to note that this is exactly the slogan that has been used by Netanyahu and his allies for decades within Israel, just with the winner and loser reversed. To me this is the key point of that. Americans by and large don't know this.
I also disagree with the tactical emphasis on demanding divestment by universities. To me it misses the point. It leads to embarrassments like settling the confrontation by the administration conceding that they will look into removing Sabra Hummus from university cafeterias. Out of such "victories", a movement cannot be built. It's too weak a foundation. It looks ridiculous. Better to have demanded something of the government, that is, an end to unconditional military aid to Israel, as Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, and other have done. The sixties' movements demands were of the government - END THE WAR - no matter how it was stated. I think today's young radicals have no faith whatsoever in the government and therefore don't even bother to demand anything of it, and so confine their targets to the "closer at hand" universities. They might want to rethink this.
Be that as it may, however convoluted the logic was, I must concede that the protests led to Biden's stopping shipment of big bombs to Israel and that's not nothing. But that wasn't what they demanded.
All the tut-tutting about pro-Palestine agitation fails to contextualize the problem. All of it.
On the hummus front, efforts to grab onto a symbolic predicate on campuses are as old as the ROTC festivities. I expect everyone involved knows the difference between small and big things. It's still much more difficult to decide skillfully what to do than to criticize what is being done.
It’s not so much a criticism as a question. I’m not at all uniting with the tut-tutters. But I still would like to know: Why did these encampment movements decide NOT to make demands of the government? Or did they not decide this at all as much as never even considering it? I suspect the latter, but I would very much like to hear from some of these activists if that’s the case.