uncle bernard

i don’t think it would end the horror. maybe the current war in Gaza, but not the horror. and it’s not realistic either. nice fantasy sure, but people are more concerned with not dying right now to make brave democratic stands against their authoritarian government. hamas doesn’t control the West Bank and they are still under violent occupation and having their land seized by illegal settlers. How do you account for that if this is only about Hamas? as for the protestors “shaming hamas” sure that would be nice but what’s the point? our gov isn’t supporting hamas. the public doesn’t support hamas. so what would they be protesting against? that’s the part you all keep missing. nobody in this country needs to be educated that an islamist terror group is bad. also there are palestinians who criticized hamas for 10/7. they could all come out and do it and it’s not going to change that hamas has the weapons and is in the tunnels and Israel is is going to keep bombing Gaza in retribution.

so much easier said than done. autocratic governments are hard to overthrow for a reason. and as bad as hamas is, they’re not the ones killing Palestinians right now no matter how anybody tries to twist the logic. right now they’re more concerned with just trying to survive the next run of air strikes.

update on your frat boy freikorps

Yes, ethnically cleansing Palestine is not a long term sustainable solution because it only empowers groups like Hamas. It would make Israel and the rest of the region less safe. Thank you for adding this context.

for those concerned about violence on campus

what makes you say that? you can assume it, but it doesn’t make it true.

why?

this random 19 year old has a better understanding of the world than most of the people on here

I think you're missing the point of the response which is that Israel will always come up some sort of excuse using extremely exaggerated claims not backed by reality to do what they want to do. They wanted to bomb the hospitals, so they claimed there was an elaborate command center in each one, something that was very obviously not true. Now @Offthemat is claiming they don't care about getting hostages released because they're either dead or pregnant (interesting disregard for pregnant women here coming from someone I assume is "pro-life"). There is zero evidence for this being the case as of now. The fact of the matter is that Hamas has offered the remaining hostages in exchange for withdrawal from Gaza. Israel said no because it doesn't care about the hostages. We already knew this. If Israel's top concern was the hostages, it wouldn't have spent the last 6 months bombing the area they were being held. They want to destroy Gaza. That's what they're going to do. 10/7 was the greatest gift the hardliners could have ever received. They would have never been able to accomplish so many of their goals without it. Here's a good question: Why isn't Israel letting independent investigators and journalists into the country to verify their claims? If they were true, showing the world would only solidify Israel's support.

from your own article: “But it fell far short of proving that Hamas used the hospital as a primary command and control node for its operations, an assertion both Israel and the US had repeatedly made before the IDF reached the hospital. Israel went as far as to publish a 3D graphic illustration of a Hamas command hub extending underground directly from the hospital buildings. Neither Israel nor the US have published evidence that fully matches up with the claims.”

just like the giant command centers under the hospitals and schools. oh wait…..

refreshing

they’ve offered. israel said no. this isn’t about hostages.

2) There a range of opinions within antizionism. I think the best way to look at it is that it *is* against Israel *as it currently exists,* but a different version of Israel, one that respects the sovereignty of a neighbor Palestinian state would be acceptable. Same thing apples to "from the river to the sea." "Palestine will be free" could come in a variety of forms, from two sovereign states to one state with a different government. In this second case, both Israel and Palestine would no longer exist in their current form. All the people would still be there living under one set of laws. I imagine many of Hamas' members imagine a theocratic state where they reconstruct Israel in muslim form. This would be a disaster, but I feel pretty confident that there is no scenario where this would ever happen. 3) My local protest has a mini library, art station, volleyball and hula-hooping. Not very Hamas-ian to say the least lol. The targeting of civilians is unacceptable in all forms by all parties. As an occupied people, Hamas has the right to strike Israeli military targets. That's war. Civilians are off limits and the organizers of 10/7 should be held accountable for those crimes.

The bashing of humanities and arts degrees is going to look silly in 15-20 years when AI replaces STEM, CS and business jobs. People with humanities degrees already perform very well against non-humanities degrees over the long term. It's only going to get worse for STEM, CS and Business degrees as AI expands. The CS market is already cratering. If you have college-aged kids or will in the future, I highly recommend pushing a humanities minor at the very least. The skillset you learn from that is extremely valuable for advancement beyond your introductory position.

I'm sorry, you think the frat boys are the good guys here? I'm begging you to go back and look at the student movements of the past and ask how well the behavior of the counter-protestors aged. These frat boys have their picture in a history book one day just like the guys in the south protesting integration.

Sorry, I've been slammed the last few days. The full demand goes beyond that, yes. 1) The demand of the college protests specifically is for divestment. Most of these universities invest money or provide support to Israeli Military Operations or companies that do. Students don't want their tuition dollars invested in things they find evil. This is built on the tradition of the South African divestment movement back in the 80s. One student at the protest I attend has lost over 10 family members, mostly women and children, in the last 6 months. He doesn't want his tuition dollars supporting that. 2) Antizionism is the core of the overall protest movement. There's a lot of slippage in the coverage of what that means and chants that are against Israel's "existence." We certainly don't support the state of Israel's existence as it *currently exists.* That does not refer to the existence of Israeli's as individuals. Every person has the right to live peacefully with equal protection under the law. That is an American value. There are a range of opinions on what that might look like, from a two state solution where Israel ends the blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank and Palestine receives official statehood to a one state solution where the Palestinian and Israeli populations are integrated under one secular government with equal rights for all "from the river to the sea." 3) I can't speak for everyone in the movement. Every protest movement will have people within it with bad opinions. I will say for certain, if you talk to most of the people involved, they will strongly decry the murder of civilians on 10/7 along with the murder of civilians by both sides before and after. I have not seen a lick of pro-Hamas sentiment in my protest, which involves hundreds of people, yet coverage of us routinely describes that sentiment is present. I can't speak to every protest but the gap between the media coverage of us and what is actually happening is insane. I suspect that applies to most locations too.

i’ll respond later. don’t have time now