The Tension in US campuses seems to be rising. Some universities in Europe are also joining in the movement. This reminds me of the WTO protests in Seattle and Quebec City in 1999:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests
 
I may not be getting the whole picture from halfway around the globe. But there are some worrying elements:
 
1) These are not anti-Semite or pro-Hamas (or pro other terrorist groups) demonstrations. In fact if there are such extremists among them I think they should be kicked-out.
 
So authorities or other people in authority position should not use that rhetoric. We are humans not monsters so we don’t support people who col bloodedly butcher 1400 human beings the way they do.
 
Such rhetoric would aggravate the situation.
 
2) Where are the cops? I mean they are there and they seem to have been trained by my riot police here but that’s not what I mean. Who are these guys coming from outside the campus? These seem to me like very extremists persons who could cause real damage to themselves and others. So that’s something everyone would want to avoid.
 
3) That’s all I have to say. We don’t hate anyone. I still feel a little weird around Jewish people because I don’t really know a lot about their culture. But we are not pro- or con- anything. The war in Palestine has been going on since almost a century now. We are seriously getting tired of the whole situation. Israel (backed by western lobbyists) seems to be gradually annexing all of Palestine into its own territory. Does that really need to happen?
 
- For us who don’t know all the details and different positions etc. this looks like Rhodesia or South-Africa before April 1994. And it’s not anti-Semitic to say that.
Personally, I wrote a lot about Political Islam. I see Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as an Israeli version of Political Islam. So you can’t calibrate religiously fueled fantasies (like the IRI for instance) with reality on the ground.
 
So that’s what these young people are saying and adults should make an effort to listen. Don’t you agree?
 

Administrator Notice
Removed the second half of this post which was a verbatim repeat of the first half.

Who’s ‘we’? Muslims in general? If so, then your claim that ‘we don’t hate anyone’ is patently false. I’m perfectly willing to believe that you personally aren’t consumed with hatred for your fellow man, but the behaviour of various Muslim groups indicates that there’s a whole lotta hatred as part and parcel of Islam.

Boru

The protests did flare up, it's obvious that Zionism is declining; people allover the world are rejecting it; it's remarkable that the American youth rejected the old, outdated values passed to them by WW2's generation.

Zionism is a British-Empire's invention inherited by America after all, it's an outdated relic.

Free Palestine.

(May 1, 2024 at 6:47 pm)NeverEndingIt Wrote: The protests did flare up, it's obvious that Zionism is declining; people allover the world are rejecting it; it's remarkable that the American youth rejected the old, outdated values passed to them by WW2's generation.

Zionism is a British-Empire's invention inherited by America after all, it's an outdated relic.

Free Palestine.

All of that is wrong, except the ‘Free Palestine’ bit.

Boru

(May 1, 2024 at 7:09 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(May 1, 2024 at 6:47 pm)NeverEndingIt Wrote: The protests did flare up, it's obvious that Zionism is declining; people allover the world are rejecting it; it's remarkable that the American youth rejected the old, outdated values passed to them by WW2's generation.

Zionism is a British-Empire's invention inherited by America after all, it's an outdated relic.

Free Palestine.

All of that is wrong, except the ‘Free Palestine’ bit.

Boru

Actually, the majority of the youth are against the genocidal old generation of Biden.
But agreed on Zionism, probably it's way older.

Yeah, fuck Biden. I'm still pissed he haunted the Ankylosaurus to extinction. I also wish he didn't use his biolab to conjure up the black plague. For a senile old fool, he sure is a diabolical genius.

(May 1, 2024 at 7:47 pm)NeverEndingIt Wrote:

(May 1, 2024 at 7:09 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: All of that is wrong, except the ‘Free Palestine’ bit.

Boru

Actually, the majority of the youth are against the genocidal old generation of Biden.
But agreed on Zionism, probably it's way older.

As I understand it, Zionism started in the late 19th century. Its first noticeable advocate was Theodore Herzl, a journalist who worked in Vienna and Paris. He was a secular Jew, who didn't speak Yiddish or Hebrew, but he was troubled by the Dreyfus Affair and began a movement. Early Zionism worked for a Jewish homeland but not necessarily in Palestine -- in fact, after considering many different locations, Herzl worked for a new state in Uganda. Zionism has only been exclusively about Palestine since 1948.

I'm sure you're right that current events are pushing people away from sympathy for the modern state of Israel and the old guard that support it. Especially once you get out of the Anglophone media, more and more people associate current Israeli policies with colonialism, violent American interventions, and injustice for non-white people. 

I think that Israel's current genocide is going to have serious long-lasting effects. Netanyahu and his supporters appear to have decided to go for broke, damn public opinion, and wipe out the Palestinians once and for all. More and more they're talking openly about Amalek (a Hebrew Bible story about ethnic cleansing). For the first time ever I have heard modern people, speaking American English, declaring that Eretz Israel should go from the Nile to the Euphrates -- this is what God promised Abraham, after all. 

Supporters of Israeli policy are making a terrible mistake by conflating Zionism with Jewishness. They do this every time they say that opposition to the current genocide in Gaza can only be motivated by antisemitism. In fact this is an old antisemitic trope -- that real Jews only belong in Palestine, and if they are in Vienna or New York they are not really a part of those cities. Even Biden recently said that Jews can only be safe in Israel -- effectively declaring that they can't be safe in the US. This is very stupid. 

In the long run it serves to polarize further the whole world, in a way that is picking up speed fast. Africa, large parts of Asia, what they call the "Global South," are all sick of Western colonialism and turning to Russia and especially China. The more the US is seen as encouraging the oppression of Palestinians, the more that looks like a wise choice. I don't think this gets reported in English much, but it's happening fast.

(May 1, 2024 at 9:22 pm)Belacqua Wrote: In the long run it serves to polarize further the whole world, in a way that is picking up speed fast. Africa, large parts of Asia, what they call the "Global South," are all sick of Western colonialism and turning to Russia and especially China. The more the US is seen as encouraging the oppression of Palestinians, the more that looks like a wise choice. I don't think this gets reported in English much, but it's happening fast.

The US has no business taking sides on either side of this conflict -- except, of course, business. Doing so one way or the other harms American interests, both domestically and internationally. Biden's playing both sides of the road only makes both sides distrust him, and by extension, us.

(May 1, 2024 at 9:22 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Africa, large parts of Asia, what they call the "Global South," are all sick of Western colonialism and turning to Russia and especially China.

That's one way to distort the reality of terrorizing some of the African countries by the Russian paramilitary as it sides with dictators while robbing and massacring the locals.