100 Most Recent Comments

Does Islam claim Mecca? I believe it does. In fact AFAIK Islam claims all lands that were ever ruled by Muslims.

“ Vito” in my previous post was another spellcheck glitch.

If you read the human rights reports or the investigative reporting by 972, you know that it goes far beyond “ deviations”. The destruction and killing that has occurred are a matter of policy. So is the starvation. It isn’t honest to claim that all the destruction was committed and every bomb dropped because Hamas military actions Vito was going on at that site. That is the point of people doing detailed investigations into specific incidents.

The Israeli equivalent of the Pentagon is in Tel Aviv. And again, you miss the point regarding your home. Israel targets homes and apartment buildings because a low level Hamas guy lives there, so yes, when you were in the IDF your home was a legitimate target by IDF standards. You don’t need to have stashed weapons there. In fact, the IDF ( or the Palestinian equivalent acting like it) wouldn’t even check to see if you were there. It would be destroyed. If IDF members walk into a hospital, it is a target. If any public building has any connection with the Israeli government, it is a target.

i suspect that being retired from the IDF would still make you a target by IDF standards and if captured you would be subjected to very enhanced interrrogation to find out everything you knew about the IDF.

We all know that the IDF has deviated from legitimate targets, even killing our own soldiers, and international aid workers and Gazan civilians. I’ve never denied such events. The point is that the IDF makes an effort to reduce civilian casualties, while Hamas tries to increase civilian casualties and criminally utilizes civilian facilities.
My home is not being used as a weapons depot or a launch site.

There is none, unless Americans take control of their democracy. How can any patriotic American be ok with a foreign leader going on US TV and directing its police forces to violently take down American university students protesting for peace?

US foreign policy in the Middle East is dictated by a foreign power through donations (i.e. legalized bribery).

https://trackaipac.com/

How about these terrorists calling for genocide?

“Calling for Gaza to be bombed to rubble. Bragging that  Gaza was sent back to stone age‘Parts of Gaza sent back to Stone Age’: Gantz videos laud his IDF bona fides

Calling for the Palestinian towns to be erased.  “Israeli minister’s call to ‘erase’ Palestinian village an incitement to violence, US says

Calling for Palestinians to be put into concentration camps. An Israeli official has called for concentration camps in Gaza and ‘the conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters’.Moshe Feiglin, Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, posted the inflammatory message on his Facebook page at the weekend.  

And most recently calling for Gaza to be NUKED.Nuking Gaza a possibility’: Israeli minister.

From the LEADERS OF THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. NO SURPRISE..

The Palestinians ceded 78 percent of their historic homeland in order to achieve a semblance of justice as part of the Oslo peace accords. All Israel had to do was withdraw from the WB, Gaza and East Jerusalem. What happened? Kahanists, like those in the Knesset today, assassinated a genuine Israeli patriot, Rabin. Stop with the silly a-historical propaganda.

And Hamas woke up one morning and decided to abduct Israelis out of the blue. Because, according to genocide apologists, history began on the 7th of October. There was no barbaric 17 year siege of Gaza. No mowing the lawns. No dropping of flesh burning white phosphorus or of 2000 pound bombs prior to that date. No machine gun toting settler in the WB. No Jewish Israelis spitting on Christians in Jerusalem.

As documented by Israeli newspapers, Israel knew about Hamas’ plans over a year in advance, was warned by its own citizens of unusual activity in the weeks leading up to the 7th and by Egyptian intelligence and chose to not defend its southern border. Why?

As for “historic homeland”, it is a fact that Ashkenazi Jewish people had no genetic or DNA link to the region—unlike Jewish communities living in harmony in Palestine and broader Levant region prior to the creation of the settler state. Regardless, nothing—absolutely nothing, including fairy tale biblical passages and the Holocaust—justified the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands in the 1940s. And nothing can justify what Israel has done to 2.2 million refugees since October 7th.

Genocide is the destruction of a group. Zionist and Israeli records clearly show the plan has been to destroy the country of Palestine and rename it all Israel; destroy the nation of Palestinians and either kill them or drive them out, and if that is not genocide then what on earth is it?

The genocidal ethnic cleansing began in 1943 when Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged around Palestine preparing the way for the invasion by Zionist troops bent on genocidal ethnic cleansing. It has not stopped since, It is just the Israelis have lied about what they do and the world has gone along with the lie.

Jews are a religion and no religion has a right to someone elses country and neither do they get rights to a homeland. Jews, like any other religion, have no right to claim a grain of sand on planet earth just because some of their followers lived there for a bit.

If such a right existed it would apply to all religions and Christians could take back many places around the world, including Istanbul and a slab of Turkey which they ruled for more than a thousand years and they could fight the Muslims over India where Christians ruled for 500 years and Muslims for 600 years and the Muslims could invade and take back many parts of Europe including most of Spain which they ruled for centuries.

So, the concept that Jews, followers of Judaism, have a right to a homeland is farcical.

Why should or would the Palestinians, not Arabs, PALESTINIANS, the native people of the land invaded by Zionists in 1947, agree to the occupation and colonisation of their country? Why would they say, sure, in you come, take what you want and we will have the bit that is left of our homeland for our State? Duh.

And how is that different to the Polish and French Resistance fighters saying, Death to Germans? All brutally occupied people want death for their oppressors or at least an end to their occupation. How is that a surprise?

Yeah, everybody knows Israel can kill children in massive numbers, claim the other side is entirely 100 percent to blame and then kill some more. Israel defenders never ever have to listen or pay any attention to evidence that Israelis are slaughtering people in ways that can’t be justified or examine its constant longstanding racist brutality, because Israel is never responsible for any action it takes.

There are actual human rights investigations and news reports that show this to be nonsense, but they can all be refuted with a careful application of standard catchphrases and a helpful dose of racist bull crap as needed.

Wonder how many “false flag Hoaxsters At Campus Protests”?

The death numbers/charts/bars tell the story … The savagery of Israel’s IDF/Zionists settlers and their killing numbers is horrific. “Any honest appraisal” can’t ignore these facts … these staggering death numbers.
**************************
Israelis and Palestinians Killed
in the Current Violence

At least 45,898 Palestinians and 2,753 Israelis have been killed by someone from the other side since 2000.

(Check out the charts & hover over each bar for exact numbers)

https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/deaths.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG7k4XnaSJ0

Gideon Levy’s puzzling re Israelis.

The tragedy for Israelis as well as Palestinians is that it never needed to get this bad. If Israel had been hauled into line in 1948 and forced to treat the Palestinians with justice and decency we would never have reached this point. Israel’s supporters, mostly Jews and Christian Zionists, and Governments manipulated by Zionist/Israeli/Jewish agendas, have allowed, indeed encourages, the Israelis to get away not just with literal murder but with levels of sadistic brutality which have totally debased the society and culture of Zionist Israel.

The horror that is Israel exists because of American and Jewish support in the main, aided and abetted by deranged Christian Zionists. Israel is our creation and apart from the few, some of them Jews, who have always spoken out against the venal brutality of the Zionist State, most have not just allowed Israel to be what it is but have actively enabled it.

After Israel started the war in 1967 and took more of Palestine, in essence, all of Palestine, it should have been forced to create one state, a democracy, where the European colonisers shared the land as equal citizens with the indigenous Palestinians. The delusion of a State for Jews, a racist, elitist, undemocratic, cruelly colonial concept, should have been buried half a century ago. It was not and now its rotting corpse poisons everyone, but mostly Palestinians and Israelis.

It’s because Britain and the UN cheated the Palestinians who refused half of their land being stolen from them to be given to new immigrants from Europe.

“the point I’m making is that you appear to only value Jewish Israeli lives in this ugly slaughter.” Israel’s government and people have been begging for peace since 1949. Almost every act of violence by Israelis against Arabs or Palestinians has been a response to violence by the latter. Palestinian society is characterized to a large degree by a culture of murder, mayhem and martyrdom. One of the first things the Hamas terrorists did when they broke into Israel on the morning of October 7 was to call their families back home and say things like, “Good morning, mother, please let me talk to Dad. I just killed ten Jews and I want to tell him.” Maybe if Palestinians valued their own lives more, those would be valued more by others.

“Citing a series of genocides including the Srebrenica massacre, where 8000 Bosnian Muslim men were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces, and the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were slaughtered by the Hutus, he argued that, “in all these cases, the perpetrators of the genocide felt an existential threat, more or less justified, and the genocide came in response.”

I am not aware of any incident comparable to October 7 in either of these cases. Bosnian Muslims did not murder, rape and kidnap Serbs the was Hamas did Israeli civilians, and neither did Tutsis Hutus. If Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, then we need another term to apply to crimes such as the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Cambodian killing fields etc.

Interesting thesis and worth considering and debating. There may be something to this, although I’ve never heard or read of anyone proposing that the oppression of a given group of people leads to an increase in its birth rate. Still, a rise in living standards and the increased availability of education and health care does correlate with people having smaller families. Here’s one question that occurs to me: Have these quality-of-life indices improved or deteriorated in Gaza and the WB since 1967?

Any honest appraisal of the situation has to take into account the Hamas’ horrific atrocities of October 7, without which none of what you’re describing or alluding to would have taken place.

“It demands we reckon with our errors and recalculate our strategy to win.“
_____________________________________________________.

It is my judgment, a political plan that Western minds will embrace and students would advance, is a prerequisite for divestment or for an agreement Greater Israel doesn’t want. And for challenging the existing political order in the West. Without a Palestinian ideas around a workable future, to achieve peace with Israelis, liberation remains at risk. So do students and politicians putting their well-being on the line.

Welcome will be lines of reason that challenge this logic.

Tedious propaganda. Apart from the fact that the Palestinian Arabs were perfectly entitled to reject the 1947 UN Partition Plan which gave more than half of their country to a minority of recently arrived foreigners from Eastern Europe, there was fighting in 1947/48 because these European Jewish settlers had no intention of restricting their state to the borders envisaged by the UN Partition Plan. They wanted a Jewish state in as much of Palestine as possible with as few Arabs as possible. The Jews had attacked the proposed Arab state and expelled 300,000 Palestinian Arabs BEFORE THE ARAB ARMIES ENTERED PALESTINE. Only the intervention of the Arab armies prevented a Jewish takeover of all of Palestine in 1948.

Simha Flapan, in his 1987 book “The Birth of Israel – Myths and Realities” states that Jewish “acceptance” of partition was actually only a tactical move in an overall strategy which aimed first at thwarting the creation of a Palestinian Arab state through a secret agreement with Abdullah of Transjordan, whose annexation of the territory allocated for a Palestinian Arab state was to be the first step in his dream of a Greater Syria. Second, it sought to increase the territory assigned by the UN to the Jewish state.

You bet I am making an equivalence. Merely by having a house, if you were still in the IDF you would have made it a target, with all family members collateral damage.

Yiu keep spinning things as if Israel only hits legitimate targets and it is all Hamas’s fault and all that shows is that you aren’t being honest with yourself. There is plenty of evidence that Israel is violating the laws of war— bureaus in the US Stete Department believe it, even if Blinken refuses to endorse it.

I agree with what you say about the Biblical passages you cite. I think, unfortunately, both Christians and Jews have often been less influenced by the wisdom in those passages and more influenced by Biblical passages in both the Hebrew Bible ( OT to those of us who are Christians) and in the New Testament that can be interpreted in a more negative way.

As expected , no mention of the Hamas attack and atrocities of Oct.7. It seems that 207 days ago, Israel woke up in the morning and decided to start a genocide. And no mention of our kidnapped hostages, still being held and abused after 207 days.
Israel is not a settler-colony. Israeli Jews are living in their historic homeland, which is also the Palestinian homeland.
The writer here is the one day-dreaming of genocide (“the end of Israel”), with a touch of racism (“the flourishing white Ashkenazi “…)

In fact, the Palestinian birth rate has dropped:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/HRV/palestine/birth-rate

Quite right. There’s no need to chant that while Israel is writing its own suicide note.

It doesn’t work that way. The number of your casualties does not prove the justice of your cause.

Meanwhile leaders in Israel call Palestinians human animals and amalek.

Population increases over time are a lot more complex than “recovery” from catastrophe or simple birth-rates. A major factor is increasing life expectancy due to medical advances. Mortality rates for mothers in childbirth, and for young children have fallen dramatically in all but the most deprived societies. Diseases that once killed people in midlife can now be treated and held in remission even if they cannot be fully cured. Birth-rates fall as societies become more wealthy and women no longer have to produce kids in the expectation that one or two will survive into adulthood to look after their parents in old age.

While the subject is complex, one might ponder the notion that, had Israel not kept its captive Palestinian population in poverty, their birth-rate would likely have dropped and presented less of a demographic “threat”. It might even have even prompted secular Israelis to face up to the threat to their way of life from the rising numbers of Ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Can you provide some hard evidence to back up that claim?

“however, after a shout of “Kill the Jews” was heard. The only problem? It was a pro-Israel counterprotester who shouted the offending phrase.”

Have wondered about all of the main stream media’s claims about anti semitic slurs being common. Have never heard one recorded and then played on main stream outlets. On the UCLA campus it was easy to see that the pro Israel crowd waving Israeli flags and being super aggressive with newscasters,following the news host, forcing themselves into screen shots. ALL of these people were older individuals. Never ever heard the news outlets refer to them as agitators, infiltrators, not students. In fact not labeled at all.

Three days ago all coverage of students on main stream outlets showed students sitting around talking, yes, some circled up locking arms. Coverage of the police on ALL campuses (well Madison a bit different) campuses in riot gear, almost all being super aggressive, hostile, intimidating. Purposely provoking. Know this statement is superficial,however, why are so many police officer so over weight, out of shape. Guess they figure no need to be healthy and in shape because you can always use your taser or gun in a moments notice

Only student leaders, media people I have heard interviewed were on PBS/April 30th/Tuesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvoQV_1WwoE

“… how many more dead bodies of innocent Palestinian children, men, and women do the international community want to see in order to act?
____________________________________________________

We have seen the uprising in the West due to seeing dead bodies of innocent Palestinians.

What is the vision for a workable future this uprising can embrace and successfully advance?

Such a shame that the Arab world did not choose to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel after the partition. So many lives and so much destruction could’ve been avoided.

jrg-
One can argue about definitions of genocide all day long, but the point I’m making is that you appear to only value Jewish Israeli lives in this ugly slaughter.
Look at how many people have died in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7th. Less than 2,000 Israeli Jews (including IDF combatants) have been killed. While more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Since 1948, this has never been a fair fight for the Palestinians because the occupying power (Israel) has limitless support form the United States.

Yeah, right. Let’s also have an article from this author about when the United States and Canada will go away and become Turtle Island.

Whatever you want to say about Hamas I’ll sign on to,. I want to know if you believe Palestinians = Hamas = Palestinians, because if you believe that then it’s open hunting season.

Hamas mouthpiece says “Death to Israel”. What a surprise.

Sad reading, but thanks for reporting.

Fascinating and important information. I hope to see this information discussed in the MSM I consume. But I’m not holding my breath.

Thanks for this good, albeit depressing, report. We know that sometimes settlers do win, as they did throughout the Americas and in Australia. Overwhelming power overwhelms. It seems that in the US and in Palestine the Zionist forces are overwhelming. The US offers “ironclad” guarantees of support to Israel, sending vast quantities of weapons. Blinken says that Israel’s offer of a temporary cease fire is “extraordinarily generous” and that “only Hamas is to blame if there’s no Gaza cease-fire.” (I have not seen any discussion in the US media of why or whether this offer is actually generous, but it does not seem so to me.)

At home, politicians from both parties say police must crack down on “terrorists” and anti-semites among college demonstrators, and call words like “intifada” hate speech and antisemitic. (See today’s essay by Juan Cole at JuanCole.com). The news media that are consumed by most Americans, at least those of us over 30, seem to be “cracking down” as well. (See, e,g. The Atlantic under Goldberg’s guidance, as well as NYT, CNN, et al, et al.)

In Gaza, Zionist power is exercised with bombs and bullets. In America, with expulsions from college, “Canary Mission” smears, and careful control of the MSM narrative. Mondoweiss and a few other exceptions exist, of course. Those who want to know more, and make an effort, can learn.

With The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal to discuss the university’s shocking defense of cracking down on protesters.

“Boston’s Northeastern University is among the dozens of schools that have recently experienced student protests over Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza. University authorities recently had the campus “cleared” by police, however, after a shout of “Kill the Jews” was heard. The only problem? It was a pro-Israel counterprotester who shouted the offending phrase.”

Apr 30, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_haodkKvQWM

“Never mind, that’s only a problem when “Zionists” do it.”

How many Israelis “Zionists” died as a result of attacks from West Bank/Jerusalem Palestinians since Oct 7th, 2023?

How many West Bank/Jerusalem Palestinians died as a result of attacks from “Zionists” settlers/IDF since Oct 7, 2023?

Can you compare & give us the rate/percentages of killing numbers from both sides?

Which side exceeds … way exceeds … in its killing/murder numbers? Which side’s savagery scale has gone through the roof?

I predict we are about to engage in a vast and stupid debate about vocabulary – is ‘genocide’ the right word? Let’s compare numbers with other genocides!

Some scholars of genocide think it’s appropriate** , – I prefer Baruch Kimmerling’s phrase ‘politicide’ to describe what’s happening to Palestinians. But if you don’t like ‘genocide’ let’s use Tom Friedman’s phraseology with regard to apartheid:

If it’s not exactly genocide it’s genocides ugly cousin.

**
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-undoubtedly-committing-genocide-holocaust-scholar-amos-goldberg

“Recent Settler Violence In The West Bank” – that’s the title of the piece. Are you denying that there’s violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank?

As for the word ‘genocide’, I refer to another post:

“Israel ‘undoubtedly’ committing genocide says Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg…Israeli researcher from Hebrew University argues that what is happening in Gaza does not need to resemble the Holocaust to qualify as genocide…”

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-undoubtedly-committing-genocide-holocaust-scholar-amos-goldberg

Donald, Looking out my window: there’s a synagogue across the street , a school a bit further down the street, a hospital not too far away, and, naturally, lots of civilian residences. If the IDF was using the synagogue and the school as weapons depots and was using the hospital as an operational hq and using civilian apartment houses as launch sites …well, I would be outraged.
Once again, you’re trying to create an equivalence between a criminal terrorist organization and a legal army of a democratic country. That said, war crimes should be investigated, whoever the perpetrators.
Finally, you made a good point as to the problem of a victimized ethnic group becoming oppressors themselves, a problem actually addressed in the Biblical narrative of the Passover story. A formerly powerless community of slaves are to enter the promised land  – and become powerful rulers. The Biblical author seems to be acutely aware of the potential danger of transforming from powerless to powerful , and admonishes again and again : don’t forget that you were slaves. In Exodus (22:20): And you shall not mistreat a stranger, nor shall you oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
And again: (Exodus 23:9): And you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Also in Deuteronomy (10:19): You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
 

It’s a start:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/brown-becomes-first-us-university-to-consider-divesting-from-israel/#:~:text=Brown%20University%20reached%20an%20agreement,institution%20considering%20divesting%20from%20Israel.

Clearly Southers selective choices to focus on what he considers or has been convinced is extremism is biased, inhibiting and dangerous. Not being able to even consider Zionism as extremism manifest in Israel’s apartheid methods and those who fully support violence against Palestinians is dangerous and deadly denial. Sad and shameful.

When individuals in a group of people who have historically been oppressed, abused, killed can recognize that same horrific system being enforced on another group of people growth, justice and redemption has a home. Southers and USC have a huge problem only made worse by Southers commitment to exclusion and militarism.

Dr. Gabor Mate’s enlightened thinking has had me captivated for over a decade. Jewish, a Holocaust survivor a former devoted Zionist woke up and recognized the illness in Israel’s apartheid system.

If I had any power I would place Dr. Gabor Mate right down in the middle of any negotiations between Palestinians and Israeli’s etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph9XF39yjgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WJM9RfRD8

I wonder if ‘Foreign Minister of Israel, not America: TONY herded the Settlers into LA to beat-up UCLA college kids protesting slaughter??

‘Violent, vigilante attack’ on pro-Palestine students at UCLA

Rob Reynolds

Reporting from Los Angeles

This is the largest manifestation of the pro-Zionist, pro-Israel group of counter-protesters, many of whom, in my observation, are from off campus.

They are attacking the pro-Palestine encampment on campus. It’s been maintained by students who are protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and calling for the divestment of the university’s financial ties to Israel.

This is the most violent, vigilante attack against these students that I’ve seen.

There was definitely what you could call hand-to-hand combat between the two groups. There were a lot of objects thrown and chemical irritants used. I see smoke, I see fireworks … people beating on the boards that separate the camp from the rest of the campus. I would be surprised if someone hasn’t been injured in the melee tonight.

The people who are attacking are the counter-demonstrators, who are aligned with pro-Israel, pro-Zionist organisations. They are carrying a yellow flag with a crown on it with a word that means “messiah” in Hebrew.

The important thing to note is that there seems to be absolutely no police intervention whatsoever. AlJazzera

Settler tactics using skunk spray and beating-up UCLA student protesters…Ben Gvir tryna work out how to get the rifles BACK IN THE USA.

“I guess these lost Palestinian lives are an inconvenient truth because they disprove your denial of displacement and genocide.” So any loss of Palestinian lives is indisputable proof of genocide? That dilutes the definition of the word to the point where it is meaningless. By your reasoning, the Hamas attacks of October 7 are even clearer proof of the Palestinians’ genocidal intent. And you accuse me of “dehumanizing” them.

The Holocaust ended in 1945, 79 years ago, which is plenty of time for the Jewish population to recover, although, as Yonah Friedman states below, even that is questionable. Around 60% of the European Jewish population in fact did die in the very short time, around 5-6 years, when the Holocaust was under way (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jews-killed-in-the-final-solution). Nothing like that has happened to the Palestinians in the OTs, despite the fact that the Israelis have controlled those areas for 57 years.

Now, we wouldn’t be indulging in whataboutery, would we? Never mind, that’s only a problem when “Zionists” do it.

“The explosion of Anti-Semitism is ominous and scary.”

Do we have to wonder about what Palestinians/Arabs/Christians/Muslims have to go through and endure the vicious Israeli apartheid system and its brutal occupation?

Do we have to wonder if Palestinians/Arabs/Christians/Muslims get harassed, cursed, spat on, punched, tortured under Israel’s apartheid/IDF systems?

Do we have to wonder if Palestinians/Arabs/Christians/Muslims get “scared” of being shot, maimed and cold-blooded murder from your IDF killers?

“Oh, you mean he was kidnapped and murdered, I get it! For a minute, thanks to Mondoweiss’ “
************************************

And these death numbers (below), vigilante attacks /details are from 2023 …
Israeli settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians have escalated since Oct. 7, UN says

Nov 20, 2023

“Overnight, the territory was closed off. Towns were raided, curfews imposed, teenagers arrested, detainees beaten, and villages stormed by Jewish vigilantes.
With the world’s attention on Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, the violence of war has also erupted in the West Bank. Israeli settler attacks have surged at an unprecedented rate, according to the United Nations. The escalation has spread fear, deepened despair, and robbed Palestinians of their livelihoods, their homes and, in some cases, their lives.”

“In six weeks, settlers have killed nine Palestinians, said Palestinian health authorities. They’ve destroyed 3,000-plus olive trees during the crucial harvest season, said Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas, wiping out what for some were inheritances passed through generations. And they’ve harassed herding communities, forcing over 900 people to abandon 15 hamlets they long called home, the U.N. said.”

“It has to stop,” Biden said last month. “They have to be held accountable.”

“That hasn’t happened, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din. Since Oct. 7, one settler has been arrested — over an olive farmer’s death — and was released five days later, the group said. Two other settlers were placed in preventive detention without charge, it said.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-settler-attacks-on-west-bank-palestinians-have-escalated-since-oct-7-un-says

Actually the numbers that I’ve seen indicate there were 18 million Jews in 1940 and 15 million Jews today.

The Jewish population is greater now than in 1940, so I guess that shows that anti-semitism doesn’t exist and the Holocaust never happened?

By the standards of Israeli behavior that you defend, you and your house would be a legitimate target when you were in the IDF. The same would go for anyone who is a member of a racist pro settler party. I’m getting tired of trying to get through to you about your double standards and don’t expect to succeed , so this will be the last post in this thread anyway.

I don’t defend Hamas. I don’t really trust the ICC to follow through— they let the US off the hook some years ago. But I hope it is true that they are planning to indict both Israeli and Hamas leaders. That would be fair. Go after all the war criminals. Israelis can’t seem to see themselves as living in a country guilty of massive war crimes but I suppose that sort of narcissism is fairly common. It is made worse since Jews have been the targets of abuse for centuries, so it might be hard to step back and realize that once given power, it turns out that any ethnic group, including one often victimized, can commit atrocities on a very large scale.

Alas, USC probably has some large pushy donors with close Israeli ties.
As for Erroll Southers, he has obviously made a profitable career for himself as an Islamophobe. He is an anti-Palestinian racist who is an embarrassment to a university that educated one of my children.

These thuggish Jewish settlers, with unlimited support from the IDF, have killed more than 500 Palestinians since October 7th. I guess these lost Palestinian lives are an inconvenient truth because they disprove your denial of displacement and genocide.
At least you are consistent in dehumanizing the Palestinians.

Also:
https://forward.com/opinion/607894/columbia-protests-jewish-student-campus/?utm_source=The+Forward+Association&utm_campaign=cea89b8f1a-AfternoonEditionNL_%2A%7CDATE%3AYmd%7C%2A_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-878b15fee9-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

I think the answer to your last question is an emphatic “yes.”
Unfortunately, Israel has useful idiots like Joe Biden and Tony Blinken who just endlessly repeat Israeli talking points.

“Student protestors at the University of Southern California, not a place usually known for its campus activism, have thrown the school into crisis. Administrators cancelled the commencement speech of their Muslim, Pro-Palestinian valedictorian after a pressure campaign from Zionists threatening the speaker…”

This might be a good place to contrast the chaotic response of the U of Southern California to the protests to Northwestern U outside Chicago:

“Officials from Northwestern University reached an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators on Monday afternoon following a days-long protest and tent encampment at the university’s Evanston campus….The agreement requires the removal of all tents and unapproved loudspeakers from the Deering Meadow and states that all demonstrators must comply with university policies. In exchange, the university will allow peaceful demonstrations to continue on the meadow through June 1, which marks the end of spring quarter classes….As part of the agreement, officials said the university will support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk by “funding two faculty per year for two years; and providing full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers.” 

https://wgntv.com/evanston/northwestern-reaches-agreement-with-pro-palestinian-demonstrators-to-end-tent-encampment-on-campus/

“The Israeli teenager went missing near al-Mughayyir and was later found dead in the same area.” Now, how did that happen? Oh, you mean he was kidnapped and murdered, I get it! For a minute, thanks to Mondoweiss’ “honest reporting on Palestine”, I thought it was just one of those things.

The Palestinian population of the West Bank is around 2,000,000 today, about double what it was in 1967. Let’s hear it for Israeli displacement and genocide!

Not all Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, but I read an account by a student at Columbia U who says that she can’t walk through the campus wearing signs of her Jewish identity without being harrased and spat on.
The explosion of Anti-Semitism is ominous and scary.

I agree : the Confederacy and Apartheid SA were , indeed , eliminated without a genocide. In our case, the genocidal agenda of Hamas (and Iran) is clear.
In your second paragraph you got things backwards (or upside-down). Our present government certainly is a disgusting bunch. We need to get rid of them as soon as possible. But opposing the government doesn’t mean that we can’t defend ourselves. And you shouldn’t create an equivalence (“killers on both sides”) between Hamas killers rapists and kidnappers, members of a criminal terrorist organization,  and IDF soldiers. (Disclosure: I served in the IDF. Not something I’m ashamed of…) Of all the commenters on MW, you accuse me of not imagining a future of peace? I’m the one with the most at stake: I live here, my grandchildren are growing up here. For many years I’ve tried to do my modest part in the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian co-existence.

Thanks

Being repeated on NBC, ABC, MSNBC: “most protesters not affiliated with the universities.”

Being repeated by NBC, ABC, MSNBC: “Hate speech, anti-semitic speech. Never producing any hard evidence to back up those claims.

Very little being said that many of the pro Israel protesters on UCLA’s campus were/are older people. Clearly not students. Will they be referring to those people as outside agitators or infiltrators?

No mention that Netanyahu has said the IDF will be going into Rafah whether there is a deal made or not.

No mention that Netanyahu has said no to a Palestinian state.

Thank you bringing this up, we all know what’s happening in Gaza not much gets told about Settler Violence in the West Bank. It sure has ramped up after Oct 07 including more Palestine Land is stolen to erect more settlements. Is the West Bank meant to have more Settlers than Palestinians at this rate it sure looks like that is going to be the case and the Palestinians will end up being 3rd grade citizens…

Considering themselves the ‘exceptional’ nation…why should israel abide by any international laws.

The hypocrisy is sickening. Can you imagine the hysteria if Muslims were doing to Jews what Zionist Israelis/Jews are doing to Palestinian Christians and Muslims? Can you imagine the hysteria if Christians or Hindus were doing to Jews what Israel is doing to the people it crushes under military colonial occupation rule?

Can you imagine the hysteria if Russia were doing to Ukraine or China was doing to Taiwan, what Israel is doing to the Palestinians?

Do the Israelis and their supporters think people are idiots?

Gaza Shows Us The Difference Between Evil Autocracies And Free Democracies
Caitlin Johnstone

Apr 30, 2024

“We’re always hearing international conflicts framed as a battle between Free Democracies and Evil Autocracies. What is the difference between a Free Democracy and an Evil Autocracy? Well, let’s look at the situation in Gaza to help us understand the distinction.

In Evil Autocracies the leaders commit genocide for hateful and racist reasons, whereas in Free Democracies the leaders commit genocide for noble and righteous reasons.

In Evil Autocracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the government, whereas in Free Democracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the students.

In Evil Autocracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress dissent, whereas in Free Democracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress “antisemitism”.

In Evil Autocracies the government controls the media and ensures that it only reports information which serves their interests, whereas in Free Democracies it is billionaires who do this.

In Evil Autocracies they imprison journalists who report inconvenient facts, whereas in Free Democracies they do this also, but mostly they just kill them with airstrikes.

In Evil Autocracies they massacre civilians with bullets and blades, whereas in Free Democracies they massacre civilians with military explosives and siege warfare, like civilized people.

In Evil Autocracies political speech is heavily restricted by the government, whereas in Free Democracies political speech is heavily restricted by Silicon Valley in collaboration with the government.”

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/gaza-shows-us-the-difference-between

You have to wonder why, despite these many reports, the US continues to ignore its own findings, and sends billions of dollars and the bombs, to this rogue nation.
US State Department has called the illegal settlers “terrorists”, yet sends them the guns and the funding, unconditionally We are supporting and funding terrorists and a genocide.

There’s another document on human rights issues in Israel produced by the U.S. government – in April the State Department released its 2023 country report on human rights practices for Israel:

“Human rights organizations raised concerns over reports of systemic torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment of Palestinian detainees in prison facilities after October 7. One of the six Palestinians who died in Israeli custody during the period was Thaer Abu Assab, a Palestinian from the West Bank who died at Ketziot Prison on November 18. Abu Assab was arrested in 2005 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. According to local press reports, authorities carried out an autopsy without notifying the family, stating they had difficulties in contacting his family, and that by year’s end, a final opinion on the cause of death had not yet been received. On December 1, a prisoner who alleged to be Abu Assab’s cell mate claimed Abu Assab was beaten to death by the prison service’s Keter unit, according to press reports. Press reported 19 prison guards were detained for questioning on suspicion of assault and causing injury. The Jerusalem Post reported a media gag order had been in place since the incident and expired by December 21. In response, the domestic NGO Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) stated the case “raises serious suspicion that the IPS [Israeli Prison Service] is being transformed from a professional incarceration body to a vindictive and punitive force.”

There’s 100 pages of this stuff you can read:

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/528267_ISRAEL-2023-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf

Ayelet Waldman, who traveled with Rabbi Alisa Wise of Rabbisforceasefire to try and get food-aid into Gaza Strip said on DemocracyNow! that the new settler trick, is to photo herd of sheep on their phone; show the pic to IDF and say, “look, Palestinian farmers stole our sheep, give our livestock back….and the IDF herds the stolen sheep back to the loser settlers. https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/29/rabbis_for_ceasefire_erez_crossing

We demand full disclosure and sanctions on Zionist US nonprofits hiding their generous US taxpayer funding to the settlers for rifles, ammo, weapons, gear and stolen land used to terrorize the Beduin and Palestinian farmers.

There is no getting around America is a system of competing interests where coalition building is required for success. It does not do the right thing because it is right. Opinions are based on selective facts.

Certainly you do not think there are not serious ramifications for a sizeable percentage to think the Palestinian motive is the destruction of Jews. You, and many at Mondoweiss, do no favor to a peaceful future letting this fester and not recognizing the political harm.

The media has clearly made major strides of late on this issue, providing unprecedented opportunities for peace for those who desire it.

A giant problem has been that both sides, and their intellectual bases, view themselves as the victim and therefore no obligation to account for behaviors or lack thereof. Few from either side have a sense of responsibility to the whole. Sadly, this is not uncommon in our world today, including America.

This is all part of Israel’s decades-long monetizing of their ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. How much money has been spent by US municipalities for this “crowd control anti-terrorist” training of their police departs by Israel? It is s big controversy in states like Georgia.
Look at Israel’s weaponizing of AI in the Gaza War. This is just the latest example of Israel using the Palestinians as the guinea pigs for the testing of Israeli weapon systems that are then sold to eager authoritarian regimes around the world.

Goldberg’s paper in The Palestine Project:

The fact that the military allowed, for example, the killing of 300 innocent people and the destruction of an entire residential quarter in order to take out one Hamas brigade commander shows that military targets are almost incidental targets for killing civilians and that every Palestinian in Gaza is a target for killing. This is the logic of genocide…..Yes. I know, they are all antisemites or self-hating Jews. Only we, Israelis, whose minds are fed by the IDF Spokesperson’s announcements and exposed only to the images sifted for us by the Israeli media, see reality as it is. As if interminable literature had not been written about the social and cultural denial mechanisms of societies committing serious war crimes. Israel is really a paradigmatic case of such societies, a case that will still be taught in every university seminar in the world dealing with the subject....In the way we normally understand such concepts, Palestinian Gaza as a geographical-political-cultural-human complex no longer exists. Genocide is the deliberate annihilation of a collective or part of it — not all of its individuals. And that’s what’s happening in Gaza. The result is undoubtedly genocide.

https://thepalestineproject.medium.com/yes-it-is-genocide-634a07ea27d4

The US Department of State in an occupied territory! They work for their beloved apartheid regime’s national interest.

CT … Just wondering how US police departments have received/continue to receive training “in Israel and in the US”? Who makes these decisions for such training to occur … US Governors, mayors, police chiefs?

Many Americans are unaware that their police departments are receiving training from an apartheid regime. A regime that has a brutal record for massacres and cold-blooded murders.

And another Holocaust scholar charges Israel with genocide –

Israel ‘undoubtedly’ committing genocide says Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg…Israeli researcher from Hebrew University argues that what is happening in Gaza does not need to resemble the Holocaust to qualify as genocide…In an opinion piece published by The Palestine Project, he argued that the scale of killing and destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza, constitutes a “deliberate crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza”….“It’s so difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that… we can no longer avoid this conclusion. Jewish history will be henceforth stained,” Goldberg said….Citing a series of genocides including the Srebrenica massacre, where 8000 Bosnian Muslim men were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces, and the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were slaughtered by the Hutus, he argued that, “in all these cases, the perpetrators of the genocide felt an existential threat, more or less justified, and the genocide came in response.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-undoubtedly-committing-genocide-holocaust-scholar-amos-goldberg

Goldberg’s website at Hebrew University:

https://en.jewish-history.huji.ac.il/people/amos-goldberg

I remember writing to the Guardian in 2003 when it reported that US troops were being trained by the IDF in crowd control, etc., prior to invading Iraq. I said it was a crazy idea, but the letter wasn’t published.

Meanwhile, in Riyadh, Antony Blinken also waffled on about Iran being the greatest threat to Middle east security. Presumably he’s trying to get various Arab dictators and monarchs to side with Israel at a time when their citizens are taking to the streets in support of the Palestinians Israel is currently bombing.

Is there anyone at the Department of State with working brain cells?

We should never forget that many US police forces have been trained in Israel and in the US on Israeli tactics for suppressing peaceful demonstrations. Let that sink in. American police are taking instruction from an Apartheid regime that is currently killing and torturing doctors, nurses, poets, professors, teachers, writers, priests, imams, janitors, electricians and everyone in between—including 1 day old babies. They are holding thousands in so called administrative detention where human rights organizations have verified torture is taking place. All this while mass graves are being discovered.

Sorry, NYT has no credibility. “But the truth is that a majority of Americans have qualms about Israel’s pitiless war to root out Hamas…”. Israeli propaganda. The Israeli objective has nothing to do with rooting out Hamas and everything to do with genocide. Without the excuse of Hamas—which they helped to give birth to and supported financially—their wicked genocidal project would unravel. Israel knew of Hamas’ plans one year in advance. They were warned by their citizens and Egyptian intelligence. They chose to not defend their southern border on the 7th of October. Why?

Really? And what about Irgun? Indeed, what about the IDF and its child murderers and torturers. Have the courage to read the investigations done by Israel’s own human rights organization, B’tselem.

It doesn’t matter what the Palestinians say, how they say it or what they do. They will be drowned out or misrepresented or demonized by a mainstream media that gets its marching orders from Israel or Zionist organizations. And, of course, an army of war crimes apologists that sometimes comment on this site who are unable to see the wickedness of their precious “only democracy in the Middle East” even as it’s committing genocide on a defenceless refugee population. A population that is likely composed of Jews of old who converted or were forced to convert to other religions in centuries past.

This article, like many others on MW’s website, is long on ranting, unsupported accusations and heated, self-righteous rhetoric and short on evidence and reasoned argument. The NYT ran plenty of articles offering counter-arguments against going to war with Iraq in 2002-03. I’m sure that Donald Trump and the MAGA crew would endorse this piece.

The police across the nation seem to be so militarized. Dressed in riot gear from the start where there appears to be no real threats. So extremely aggressive with the mostly peaceful students. These students are a far cry from the Jan 6th crowd.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kent-state-sister-militarized-police-college-protests-israel-gaza_n_662aa18de4b09d8df9d5e1b0

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/27/israel-hamas-war-campus-protests-arrests/73462872007/

“Papachen and thousands of other student protesters around the nation have seen an unexpected side of their colleges: what they consider a militarized response to basic civil rights and free speech”.

I have wept several times witnessing the students on campuses across the nation. Reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement, Anti Vietnam, anti apartheid/South Africa movement. So many have worked so hard over the decades trying to take the lid off of the silence keepers embedded in universities staffs. Groups like Campus Watch.

No need to even think you were first. Mondoweiss came to be in 2003. Many before Mondo, although Mondoweiss has been a huge plus in breaking through the wall of silence. So many came before. When Edward Said in the 70’s Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, all of James Zogby’s efforts Paul Findlay,Allison Weir, Former President Jimmy Carter, Ilan Pappe, Chomsky Mearsheimer and Walt Norman Finkelstein in the 80’s and forward. Hanan Ashwari made the rounds on several college campuses here in Colo in 2002. Amy Goodman, Medea Benjaman have all been in last 20 years Ilan Pappe, Chomsky. So many have been persistently dismantling the wall of silence blocking the facts from getting through. A concerted group effort. No need to even consider you were first…ego dance.

However, now with the students protest sweeping the nation it feels like the dam has really broken. Awareness, outrage, taking action the dam has broke and there is no way Israel and the I lobby can shut this massive thirst to witness justice in that conflict down.

Have not seen any violence being perpetrated by students. Police dressed in riot gear perpetrating the violence I have seen. Clips (on MSNBC) of cops in Bloomington Indiana holding up and pointing I believe are stun guns pointed at students heads. The coverage of many older adults on UCLA’s campus following reporters waving Israeli flags screaming in the news host face. Following her, aggressively getting on camera. Will these older adults carrying Israeli flags aggressively trying to dominate space in front of cameras be referred to as infiltrators ?

History of Civil Disobedience: Amazing how many claim there are anti semitic slurs, abuse taking place. Phil did you see or hear any such thing at Penn? I have not heard any anti semitic remarks being made. Greenblatt redefining what remarks or comments are anti semitic seem to have taken hold somewhat. Can’t say anything about Zionism etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh5QWcduZQA

Palestinians = Hamas = Palestinians?

Ethnocentrism can cause people to go blind. Lose any sense of morality.

Naomi Klein: Zionism is a false idol that betrayed every Jewish value
‘Too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again.’

By Naomi Klein

“But there is a less literal way of understanding this story. It is about false idols. About the human tendency to worship the profane and shiny, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.

That false idol is called Zionism.

Zionism is a false idol that has taken the idea of the promised land and turned it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba.“

https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/04/25/naomi-klein-zionism-is-a-false-idol-that-betrayed-every-jewish-value/10/

That these tropes are not effectively addressed, corrected or criticized by the political support system, has huge implications for the Palestinian people.

If only they were effectively addressed, corrected or criticized by the Palestinian people.

“Zionism” should be capitalized.

Revolt in the Universities
The student protesters demonstrate moral and physical courage, shaming major institutions, and exposing their complicity.

By Chris Hedges

“PRINCETON, N.J. — Achinthya Sivalingam, a graduate student in Public Affairs at Princeton University did not know when she woke up this morning that shortly after 7 a.m. she would join hundreds of students across the country who have been arrested, evicted and banned from campus for protesting the genocide in Gaza.

She wears a blue sweatshirt, sometimes fighting back tears, when I speak to her. We are seated at a small table in the Small World Coffee shop on Witherspoon Street, half a block away from the university she can no longer enter, from the apartment she can no longer live in and from the campus where in a few weeks she was scheduled to graduate.
She wonders where she will spend the night.

The police gave her five minutes to collect items from her apartment.
“I grabbed really random things,” she says. “I grabbed oatmeal for whatever reason. I was really confused.”

Student protesters across the country exhibit a moral and physical courage — many are facing suspension and expulsion — that shames every major institution in the country. They are dangerous not because they disrupt campus life or engage in attacks on Jewish students — many of those protesting are Jewish — but because they expose the abject failure by the ruling elites and their institutions to halt genocide, the crime of crimes. These students watch, like most of us, Israel’s live-streamed slaughter of the Palestinian people. But unlike most of us, they act. Their voices and protests are a potent counterpoint to the moral bankruptcy that surrounds them.”

https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/04/26/revolt-in-the-universities/13/

“God bless the students. You carry the future on your shoulders, you have the power to bring killers to account. Let us make way.”
_________________________________________________________

The “Warriors for Greater Israel” strategy has long been to keep Palestinians politically divided and unable to develop a consensus on political goals with which to gain political support in the West.

Imagine if Columbia students were able to reinforce a Palestinian consensus for full, equal human and civil rights. That would put an end to uninformed comments like from Texas Senator Cornyn yesterday. “We need to support Israel against those who want to wipe them off the face of the planet.” Similar to Speaker Johnson’s comment at his press conference at Columbia. We hear this daily…. as does millions of Americans.

Yesterday’s News Hour had a critical perspective on how Palestine’s support system could better serve the Palestinian people. See for one minute beginning at 9:15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FSncZ3Jn1g&t=48s

Good to see that the students at Manchester are as feisty as when I was one of them, fifty years ago.

Thank you for this very informative article. I’d like to add some context, as I’ve had some very peripheral involvement in this issue.

Greg Smith is my MP (constituency of Buckingham, his predecessor John Bercow, former Speaker of the House of Commons). I’ve met and spoken to him on one occasion. (He was opening the community café in our village, so it was not a time for political confrontation, so our conversation was limited to pleasantries about covid, which had just reached the UK, and how were he and his wife coping with their new baby.) Politically, he is one of the new generation of very right-wing Tory MPs who attained their seats in the 2019 general election. Buckingham is one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, so, even with new changes to its boundaries, he is likely to survive the likely heavy defeat in the next election. I took him to task a couple of times via his Facebook account over his support for Israel, reminding him that he was elected to represent the people of Buckingham, not the citizens of Tel Aviv. He blocked me (along with several other constituents who are friends of mine). It is noticeable in that video clip of him that he quickly gets off the subject of the Hamas attack on Sderot and starts spouting standard hasbara about Hamas receiving weapons from North Korea and China. Clearly his minders did a good job during his trip. NB, GB News, the channel interviewing him, is a right-wing broadcaster that has been reported no less than eleven times for breaches of the UK equivalent of the defunct US “fairness doctrine”. Many of its presenters are sitting or former Conservative MPs. It has a small audience and loses money, but I suspect the objective of its owners is to wreck what’s left of even-handedness in UK broadcasting.

The other issue that Hamza Ali Shah raises, of which I have some personal knowledge, is the Board of Deputies’ actions to stop the University and College Union boycotting Israeli universities. I was a member of the UCU executive at the university where I worked at around that time, and one of the things we wanted to do was to extend contacts with Palestinian academics. Enter no less a shyster than Alan “I kept my drawers on” Dershowitz. He was at the height of his power then and threatened to use Thatcher’s anti-union legislation against us, by commencing legal actions that could bankrupt and destroy us. Sadly, since his seedy private affairs were not public knowledge at the time, we backed down.

On the whole topic of the student demonstrations this NYT article in today’s paper is worth reading. A few excerpts – the emphasis is mine:

The Student-Led Protests Aren’t Perfect. That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right….As the protests have spread to dozens of campuses and counting, competing viral clips on social media paint vastly different versions of what’s happening inside these pro-Palestine camps….I tried to figure this out the only way I know how: by reporting. I happened to have been on campus on April 18, the day Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, decided to call in the New York Police Department to clear the protesters from campus, and I returned a week later to spend the day reporting on the protests and the mood on campus….What I saw were moving, creative and peaceful protests by people seeking to end the slaughter in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died, the majority of them women and children…. I also saw things that left me quite troubled, and heard from Jewish students both inside and outside the camps navigating a campus fraught with emotions. But while reporting on the protests up close gave me insight into how unsettling some aspects of activism can be, it doesn’t mean the protesters’ actions are misguided. These young people seek a worthy cause: to end what may be the most brutal military operation for civilians in the 21st century….There are clear signs that Israel is prosecuting a war just as brutal, and unwinnable, as the United States did back then [in Vietnam] . Some people might not like the slogans, tactics or proposals of today’s pro-Palestine protesters. But the truth is that a majority of Americans have qualms about Israel’s pitiless war to root out Hamas, whatever the consequences for civilians. As politicians send riot police onto campuses to try to smother a new protest movement, we’d do well to keep in mind why we’ve forgotten the ugliest aspects of the Vietnam protests: Those memories have been replaced, instead, by an enduring horror at what we did.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/columbia-student-protests-israel.html