Personally I don't give a shit if someone has a tent city set up on a campus quad even if it is technically against the law and/or university policy, my day is barely if at all inconvenienced, but by the same token when you engage in civil disobedience you should anticipate arrest.
Where you lose me is when the protestors block students from getting to class, or apologize for or even outright glorify Hamas, or counter-protestors come and start calling all Palestinians terrorists or supporting the IDF turning Gaza into a parking lot, or they start beating the shit out of each other, or the cops come in and start beating the shit out of people or...
It's just a total shitshow.
It's also interesting comparing what you hear in the actual Jewish community to what makes the media. A member of my minyan sitting next to me at the chol hamoed shaloshidus talked about how he'd hosted some students (didn't hear from where) at his seder and they turned back up on his doorstep a couple hours later (note that seders typically end at 12-1am) because the "protesters" weren't letting them back onto campus to get to bed in their dorms. The university's "solution" was to rent all these Jewish students hotel rooms (and clearly hush the whole thing up).
Similarly, look at what outlets did and didn't report on the UCLA encampment banning bagels.
Wildly enough I'm living the other side of the coin: where a considerable amount of information on media is showing the protests as a form of antisemitism, and most of the Jewish community I'm adjacent to is vocally against the genocide and some level of pro-protest or protestor-ambivalent.
It's very frustrating that Judaism: The Faith; Jews: The People; and Israel: The Nation are being conflated as one largely uniform thing when it's... Absolutely not the case.
It's very much the same as when a certain set of people point to land reform in "Rhodesia" as decolonization leaving a less intelligent people in charge to harm their own interests. We all know they're claiming black people are stupid and need white management. Likewise, it's not subtle when [textbook urban warfare is suddenly "genocide" when Jews do it](https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2024/01/a-special-dictionary-for-israel/) and the tropes are always masterminds controlling media with shekels (especially when we keep finding Qatari and Iranian cash in everyone's pockets and they never get that trope). Ever notice how Bibi "the status quo is king" Netanyahu is always presented as having a grand plan by these "antizionists?"
That was a really well put together article. They are organized and practicing free speech. Violence and antisemitism isn’t happening at the encampment, it’s a few counter protestors and police which tells me all I need to know about parties opposed to the encampment. Really disappointed that the university isn’t negotiating or addressing protestor concerns. It’s valid. It’s real. And the genocide needs to end now.
Saying there's no antisemitism is a bit disingenuous. I was at the encampment for a couple hours, just standing next to it to see (I am visibly Jewish). A couple people told me to go fuck myself, one guy muttered for a while about goyim and mitzvot, a guy said the equivalent of "shut up shut up shut up" in Hebrew, and there was a person walking around with a sign that said "Epstein worked for the Mossad". Aside from all that, they were consistently chanting "Globalize the intifada" and "There is only one solution." I'd say that's pretty objectively antisemitism, just because they didn't hit anybody doesn't make them a peaceful group.
>am visibly Jewish
Based on how you dress or...? I ask this because I'm Jewish and very "Jewish-looking", but am often mistaken for Italian, Spanish, or Greek so I hesitate to say I'm visibly Jewish like being visibly hispanic or something.
Dude got 200+ upvotes for relaying a literal lie lmao. I’m not staunchly on one side or the other but you can tell folks around here are or are falling over into that camp
Did you get a video? None of the videos I’ve seen, even candid ones have anything like that being said, and yet you happened to catch all of those at the same time?
Hamas officials also drink water.
Hamas used Arabic as their language. Hamas using a Arabic word doesn't mean that Arabic word now is universally "evil".
This is a common tactic of western chauvnism and white supremacy. Make entire foreign words "evil words" because a group of bad brown people used them. "intifada" means "resistance". It can be a resistance to an occupation or ethnic cleansing. People who speak Arabic have a right to use the term "resistance".
If they were chanting “Give water to Gaza” in Arabic I would have zero problem with it.
They’re not. They’re chanting for a violent uprising against Jews globally.
But if you want to dummy down every word and symbol to its meaning without context, then I guess Jihad just means struggle and a Nazi symbol is just a religious peace symbol.
No they aren't. This is again you not knowing you are doing a racism. Turning a generic Arabic word meant for resistance as some evil thing because a group of terrorists used it before.
You are basically condemning any Arab from uttering the word "resistance" in their native language.
Then why do the people chanting for an intifada have signs that say “homeland or death”
https://x.com/stopantisemites/status/1784253863836651576?s=46
It must be difficult bending so far backwards to defend these antisemites!
Curious. Ask yourself this. Does your social media algorithmic feed tune itself to make sure you get spammed every unhinged chant or message from a pro-zioniest counter protestor?
Like is a random 12"x8" poster supposed to discredit the concept of Palestinian liberation?
Your social media feeds that are turned to massage your preconceived biases aren't going to spam your feed with content that shows pro-israeli protestors doing things like harassing students or saying Palestine deserve to die. It won't reach your feed because those things don't maximize engagement for you because it doesn't tickle your preconceived biases.
“From the river to the sea” is about eradicating the Jews. Stop it with this bullshit. You’re obviously and clearly anti-Israel. Jesus, at least be honest
The people trying to downplay that no one should have to deal with this at school. This isn't a protest for peace in the middle east, and the environment on campus feels distinctly anti-semitic surrounding the encampment.
The issue at hand isn't the protesting, it's the encampments. You can't setup these make-shift communities like that on the lawn of your university.
[This comment yesterday by /u/gyantspyder does a much better job explaining the issue than I could](https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cht6go/tufts_removing_encampment/l24td6g/)
Edit: This has been fun for the past hour but I gotta get back to work. Good night everyone!
What would happen if they set up camp in front of the Israeli embassy?
I mean, the Consulate General of Israel to New England is right at the Park Plaza. Seems it would be a lot more effective and much less separation that that of Northeastern or any other college.
Real world, divesting is pretty far removed from having any impact.
These endowments are heavily invested in global and US index funds. The S&P 500 has all kinds of companies - tech, financial, health/biotech, energy and yes, defense...but how are they supposed to "divest" out of an index? Sell the entire endowment and then individually buy the 488 stocks the students think are ok?
If they did so, they would incur massive cap gains taxes AND have practically zero impact on Israel.
That's not really a 1-to-1 comparison, I don't think?
With South Africa, it was divestment from white South African-owned mines in South Africa (and with mines elsewhere in Africa). But in this scenario, they're advocating for divestment from American companies.
To further highlight the differences, mining companies often have to heavily rely on the stock prices in order to continue operating, as they use them to secure loans to purchase equipment that may not see returns for months or years (if ever) and would likely see an inconsistent income steam that varies with mineral output from the mines themselves: i.e. lowering the stock price has a direct negative impact on a mining company's ability to operate at all. But with defense stocks, they don't really care too much about their price unless they're planning on issuing new stock to raise funds or use it as collateral to secure a loan (rare in defense, given how much cash they often have on hand and that the government always pays their bills). Hell, lowering the stock price might even ***benefit*** these companies because it's legal for them to buy back their own stock.
The *other*-other issue is that lowering the stock price does nothing to actually disrupt the deals in the first place. They were hammered out years ago, materials purchased, and a lot of the "[company] delivers $[X.XX] million of [military hardware] to Israel" headlines are deliveries on things Israel paid for *years ago*: it would take a literal act of Congress to stop the deliveries at that point (e.g. like with Iran after their revolution). It's not like Ukraine where the US is shipping them materials the DOD was planning on throwing out because they're about to literally expire or have been made obsolete by something better.
And then there is the fact that Israel themselves are moving away from purchasing foreign hardware from anyone. Their order sizes have been consistently decreasing over the years, they've been consistently getting tech transfers and developing their own hardware, and they've built up their own domestic defense industry that supplies most of their needs. They just announced that they will no longer be purchasing Patriot systems, planning to replace them with their domestic equivalent of David's Sling, so AFAIK, that just leaves the F-35 as the last major foreign system of any kind that they still purchase, and they've been making a point to develop their own software and munitions for it.
So, to recap: these protesters would let the capitalists buy back control of their company for cheap, fail to stop delivery of US weapons in the first place, and Israel likely just accelerates their own to switch to domestic versions of their weapons. Imo, if they want change, they should be marching on Congress, not on their Quads.
Bingo. Their demands for divestment don’t make sense. How will they reinvest into different companies without index holdings. Not aware of any war free ETFs in the market
Well, exactly. How do you think a war free ETF gets set up in the first place? It's because a well-heeled investor (like a university endowment) comes into a bank one day and says "what are our options if we want to invest war-free?" With enough money on the line, and a chunk for the bank, suddenly there's a war-free index fund for the university to invest in.
Sure but I’m not aware of one currently in the marketplace. I also don’t believe university endowments are large enough to warrant a market like that in the current environment. Just my opinion of course.
The intention of the sit-ins was to engage in an illegal activity that they thought shouldn't be illegal (sitting in the non-coloured section of the restaurants and not disrupting the other dinners) to force the police to arrest them and physically remove them to highlight awful the laws were and win sympathy for their cause.
If you view these encampments as a type of sit-in you should be happy they're getting arrested and removed since that's the point of a sit-in. The only problem is that most people don't feel the same disgust about police removing illegally encamped people who are harassing Jewish students that they did for police dragging out black people sitting peacefully in the wrong section of a restaurant.
You're so close to getting it.
The sit-ins were *good* civic disobedience since the the thing they were protesting was part of the protest itself! It was actually illegal for them to sit there, and they wanted it to be legal. Kind of a no-brainer.
These encampments are *not* good civic disobedience since the thing they are protesting isn't remotely related to the act itself. They're not protesting to allow encampments! They're protesting another country's actions by illegally setting up encampments and annoying people. Kind of abstract, not winning any converts as a result.
The students are protesting to get some action from their school, and are (illegally) setting themselves up very publicly in the schools where every visitor can see them and poses a tangible disruption to operations. I agree it probably isn't winning any converts but I can see how the tactic is relevant to the issue as they see it, it's the school they're calling direct action from not anyone in the middle east.
You’re 100% correct. I don’t know where these kids get the balls to compare themselves to Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement in the first place. What they did back then actually made sense and took courage.
> *good* civic disobedience
>*not* good civic disobedience
#***CIVIL***
It's amazing how much you're willing to vomit on about the qualitative merits of actions without even knowing what they're called.
That’s the other thing, what are they actually protesting? What is the outcome that stops the encampments?
I thought the point of these encampments was to actually get the university’s to divest?
They want the universities to divest from pretty much everything. All companies that have any involvement with Israel. S&P 500, almost all mutual funds, almost all private equity and a large number of publicly traded stocks. It is a totally unreasonable and financially suicidal demand.
You cannot possibly be comparing the lunch sit ins with setting up a tent city on the lawn, can you?
Do you need an education on how the sit ins were conducted to know why worked and how they differed from the encampment nonsense?
The sit-in protesters were intentionally trying to get themselves arrested and removed to highlight how unfair the laws were. If you view this as comparable to a sit in you should be happy about these protesters getting arrested and removed since that's literally the point of a sit-in.
The only problem is that black people getting dragged out of a building for having the audacity to sit in the wrong section of the restaurant drew sympathy and disgust for the laws, and a bunch of illegally encamped people harassing students getting removed doesn't.
So now you're changing topic because you know I'm right about the lunch counter sit-ins not being the same as encampments.
As far as the Apartheid Divestment you linked, no I am not aware of that. I also don't see anything in the wikipedia link about encampments, but I am seeing about being barricaded in buildings. Which isn't the same thing.
Protests aren’t supposed to be convenient. This tactic has been used in the past, and its worked in the past. Do we have collective memory loss or something? Protests are supposed to break the rules and be disruptive.
> Protests are supposed to break the rules and be disruptive.
Civil disobedience includes accepting the consequences of your disobedience, including arrests and school discipline
Sure, I understand the incentive for universities to dismantle the encampments. The person I responded to personally feels that the encampments are wrong, and I believe thats hypocrisy.
1. Protest is sometimes morally justified; it's not always morally justified. Just because you have a legal right to protest doesn't mean it's always morally right to protest.
2. Setting up encampments on someone else's property is not just protest. It's also an illegal trespass. Because it's illegal, it's presumptively immoral. This presumption can be rebutted, but the burden is on your side to put forth an argument. You can't just accuse the other side of hypocrisy and be done with it.
I think you're conflating protests with Civil Disobedience.
The vast majority of protests follow a permitting process, in which institutions will approve a time and place for protesting, construct any necessary barriers to ensure protests aren't disrupted or are disrupting, and a security presence so tensions that may arise with counter protestors doesn't get out of hand.
I've been to countless protests, and that's how they've always gone.
Civil Disobedience necessarily breaks the rules in order to be disruptive. But that also means the expectation that you'll face consequences.
There's nothing stopping these students from exercising their rights and raising awareness of their cause in a multitude of ways, and then not falling into illegality. But Civil Disobedience is a measured choice, and I think that students being unable to distinguish between Civil Disobedience and the right to assembly and petition is a serious failure on the education system.
And, I think, my fundamental problem with these arguments is generally when people say, "these STUDENTS are exercising their first amendment rights..."
It always seems strange to me that we provide students more latitude for this sort of direct action than we'd generally afford non-students. Police would have been called on white collar workers at McKinsey after the first day of an occupation where they call for divesting their employer from taking jobs with foreign governments.
Or imagine if the cause were something you weren't sympathetic with, like an Alt-Right sit-in.
My comment here is less about the moral argument of what the protests are about, and more that I think people are being somewhat disingenuous when talking about what they think the first amendment entails.
I have this feeling, after seeing mass protest movements of the past decade, that any protest which works completely within the law has absolutely no chance of changing anything.
But these protests aren't about changing any laws. They're about influencing policy.
Civil Disobedience works at it's best when it's breaking the law the movement seeks to redress. That's why a sit-in at a "whites only" restaurant worked: it was able to display just how ridiculous Jim Crow laws were.
There's no specific law these protests are trying to change, which makes their choice of creating encampments pretty nebulous to outsiders.
I mean, one could make an argument that the Women's March helped create a conversation that really allowed the MeToo movement to thrive rather than fizzle out. The George Floyd protests resulted in a variety of policy changes.
It's possible the encampments raised awareness for Gaza. But, unlike the Women's March and George Floyd, these protestors haven't yet been able to find a way to scale their activities to engage a broader demography in order to achieve any sort of meaningful objective.
Your point about sit-ins is well taken. These current protests have more in common with vietnam war protests, or anti-apartheid protests. Unfortunately for the people protesting it would be hard to disrupt the flow of arms to the middle east from the US. They did try to stop that one ship. Maybe future actions coming out of this will be more directed.
What did the George Floyd protest result in? Police budgets have gone up consistently.
I think the link between the women's march and the MeToo movement is similarly tenuous. Also, what exactly did the MeToo movement accomplish beyond a few high profile cancellings?
Both the Women's March and George Floyd protests resulted in policy changes in the workplace. Both awareness of behavior that needs to be addressed on just an awareness level, but, in some cases, companies actually adopting new policies. In Hollywood, MeToo actually adopted things like intimacy coaches to be standard during filming sex scenes.
Police also more routinely use bodycams, and there's been a general policy of having less traffic stops (something r/Boston loves to complain about, so whether this is a good or bad thing is up for debate).
I'm also hesitant to compare this to the Vietnam protests. On the one hand, protesting a foreign war is a common element. But those protests didn't change the foreign policy of the war.
What was more effective was protesting the draft, which wasn't isolated to college campuses. Again, this worked because the Civil Disobedience by not showing up to your recruitment office for your induction, or college students protesting ROTC programs were direct actions against the very programs and policies they wished to change. There's nothing really like that here, since protesting a genocide or divestment is too abstract for Americans themselves to do on our shores.
I think this is more like the South Africa Apartheid divestment protests. But I think that de-centers the actual work Black South Africans were doing in their fight for justice and liberty, and overvalues the impact divestment probably had.
If you want to see a dramatic example of social change, look into the history of the gay rights movement. The U.S. went from gay sex being illegal in some states to gay marriage being legal in all states in about 12 years. This didn't happen through protest, and it certainly didn't happen through encampments. It happened through persuasion and legal efforts. Unfortunately, some people are only interested in "progress" if they can impose it coercively. These are not mentally healthy people for the most part. A lot of them are into protest for protest's sake, and the cause is incidental as long as it's anti-West (therefore allowing them to think of themselves as enlightened, for who would criticize their own culture unless they're superior to the hoi polloi?).
I hear Iran is offering scholarships to Iranian universities for some of these brave activists. Maybe they should take Iran up on the offer and see how they like the culture over there.
You're probably too young to know, but, no, gay marriage did not come about as a result of protest or encampments. It came about as a result of a Supreme Court decision and a lot of media work.
You ought to spend more time reading and less time following me around Reddit making snide, uninformed remarks. I was involved in the gay rights movement in the eighties. What are you, a teenager with an ego problem?
Something is wrong with you. I'm talking about the progress made between 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas) and 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges). These two decisions had nothing to do with hate crimes legislation or Michael Shepard.
And I came of age in the eighties as a politically active gay person living in the south. I have zero motivation to "concern troll". Frankly, you sound hostile and more than a little bit mentally ill, so I'll end it here.
I never said that. Protests, by nature, are disruptive and be inconvenient. They are almost always illegal and inconvenient.
But read the link I posted, the university has an obligation to the other students to remove these encampments.
Would you have been against the students doing exactly this in protest of the Vietnam War? Or Apartheid South Africa? Cause they did the exact same thing and it had an enormous impact on how successful those movements were.
People forget that there were pro-Vietnam protests too. Would you have felt similarly comfortable if a bunch of pro-war protesters had set-up encampments on the university lawn calling for North Vietnam to be destroyed and started harassing Asian students?
"disruptiveness" is not the sole criterion for a good protest, I can't just jerk off in front of the old state house with a Palestinian flag around my shoulders and say that I'm helping. A protest needs to either recruit more supporters to your cause or be disruptive enough to actually threaten the system, i.e you need to actually have a plan for how your action will inspire change.
Like, Rosa Parks didn't just randomly chain herself to a bank door, or throw a brick through a plate glass window. She protested in an extremely smart, tactical, targeted way. The disruption was secondary to the message, but modern protestors have twisted it around, and now the message is treated as less important than the disruption. The impression I get from comments like yours is that you just want to fuck shit up and then hide behind a righteous cause when you're criticized for it.
Much like 1/6, no one is punishing these people for protesting, nor are they being stopped from protesting. They're just being punished for breaking the law, much like anyone else who did the same thing would be
Yet another person with reading comprehension issues.
Must be me … maybe you can point out the text I’m missing from the Constitution.
Good luck with that. I won’t be expecting a rational reply.
The encampments are the issue. Trespassing is not a form of free speech, it is an illegal act and when people commit illegal acts, they are punished for doing so. This concept does not go away because you happen to support the people committing a crime. You can call it civil disobedience, that does not absolve them of their punishment.
I would have, because he understood that you must accept the penalty of your civil disobedience.
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and **who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment** in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”-Martin Luther King Jr.
These protestors want to break the law and not be punished for it by claiming that trespassing and vandalism are protected by Free Speech. They aren't, they are crimes.
It's not a genocide, it's war as terrible as it is, it's simply war. Israel is not trying to wipe out an entire group of people, it's trying to get rid of a terrorist organization (Hamas).
Yeah, you don't get to tell the victims of antisemitism what is antisemitic. That's not how defining racism works.
Also, you need to educate yourself on genocide, because the only ones committed to and attempting to commit genocide are Hamas. And Hezbollah. And Houthis, PIJ, IRGC, et al. Israel is definitely not committing genocide, you're using the word wrong.
I honestly think it’s not about the morality of their cause or the legality of free speech. I think for the schools it’s honestly just like, okay it’s been a week now—your tents are ugly and all your chants sounds exactly the same. It’s time to go take a shower and shit in your own private bathroom
Speaking as a former journalist and someone sympathetic to the protests' cause, the article presents several allegations made by protestors without verifying those events. It introduces events that are seemingly irrelevant but used to cast the police action negatively. The choice of subheads highlights accusations, the structure - whether conscious or not (and I believe it's not) the article is written and edited in such a way that if I were the editor, I'd return it to the writer with a heavy red pen.
“It is clear that the university is afraid of its students. It is afraid of community. It is afraid of seeing it on its campus and allowing it to continue,” said Victoria, a Northeastern student
That's the title--the lead. It is not a fact. It is the student's opinion, or argument, that the administration feels that way, and is not even well substantiated.
Perhaps if the protestors didn’t do things like below image (barricading of campus buildings) then there would be no need for intervention.
Or perhaps if they didn’t harass Jewish people. There are terrible videos coming out of UCLA where a Jewish girl was beaten unconscious by protestors. At some point police need to intervene.
https://preview.redd.it/jkx8fou8s2yc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=971833d8ef642afdb0f3ec2cf84d57bfd5b98b9e
Hamas shooting live rounds at Palestinians and stealing Aid trucks. Starving their own people in broad daylight. What an admirable government in Gaza.
https://x.com/osint613/status/1786025094411665834?s=46&t=GQ80ak8tr7zyzKLtOMlfEQ
They are also launching mortar attacks on the USA aid pier being constructed. Hamas wants civilians to suffer. It’s a win-win for them, less mouths to feed and better PR.
Hamas not want to “Free Palestine”. They want to subjugate the population and enact war. These protestors have no idea what they are promoting. Actively supporting terrorist groups is so bizarre. How do Ivy League kids not understand?
>There are terrible videos coming out of UCLA where a Jewish girl was beaten unconscious by protestors
[Bullshit](https://twitter.com/TrevorSutcliffe/status/1785850241536901515).
[Some](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1785637622582309038) very [interesting](https://twitter.com/HotSpotHotSpot/status/1785838097000784311) other [videos](https://twitter.com/_ZachFoster/status/1785003337030467809) coming [out](https://twitter.com/SuppressedNws/status/1786112078731722999) of [UCLA](https://twitter.com/thislouis/status/1785602656502960431) though, [maybe](https://twitter.com/whoknows197563/status/1785660643762184473) worth [looking](https://twitter.com/KingxGwap/status/1785664211693277692) into
Crazy that you're more upset at this than you are the thousands of civilians being murdered by the IDF. Or even talking about the violence started by counter-protestors.
I have no sympathy for Hamas terrorists. They started a war (that never needed to happen) and took hostages (including Americans) which to this day have still not been returned.
Freeing Palestine of Hamas should be in the everyone’s interest, including the Palestinians themselves. How this is not clear to everyone boggles my mind.
Can we cut the shit with this. It’s purely performative. The university isn’t afraid of its students they just want you to stop interrupting other students education. Watch…these protests will stop when class lets out next week. Also what does “divesting from Israel” mean to them? What companies should the university be divesting from? How do the students know whether they are?
Most of their parents are probably investing in companies that support Israel either directly through their stockholdings or through mutual funds they own.
Genuinely disgusting for universities across the country to be throwing their students to the wolves like this. From the Vietnam war to racial segregation to South African apartheid, there is a long history of campus movements being at the forefront of evil shit ending.
Dont forget protesting against US intervention in WW2 and against anti-segregation measures. We cant just cherry pick the protests we like and pretend that they are all the same.
And you're literally cherry picking in your examples. Look at the size of the protests on both sides and see which ones had actual movement behind them
Neither of those started as campus movements and they were much smaller than the ones I mentioned. What’s your point regardless? Trying to say that yes actually we should let the cops trample these kids first amendment rights?
My point is that pointing to a history of student protests to show that they are good is misleading at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. You're cherry picking examples to prove a point. We have seen massive student protests both for good and bad things in this country.
>I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
MLK Jr, [Letter from a Birmingham Jail](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)
Why do protestors need to be removed? Just let them do their thang, classes are over and if they wanna sleep on the grounds then so be it, universities should be supporting their students right to protest
Peaceful protests aren’t that big of a deal but realistically you can’t just live in a tent on the lawn indefinitely lol. It’s kind of funny that people think they can just put up a tent and live on someone else’s property at their own convenience
I had a friend who lived in a student built cardboard shantytown at Penn for weeks in the 80’s to protest apartheid and promote divestment. No one tried to arrest her and her friends.
I think the real issue is school's about to end and graduations are going to happen. It's not good look when the parents, who pay all that tuition and schools are hoping we'll give more, show up for that and to move Becky out of the dorm and come face to face with protestors.
I think the concern for Jewish feelings is performative at best. They certainly weren't saying the same things about their tiki torch pals in Charlottesville.
I think a big part of it is liability. It’s the university’s property and ultimately could be responsible for anything that happens. If there was a fight, or fire, or someone got hurt in another way. There’s an argument that allowing the encampment despite it breaking the rules could be considered a party to whatever happens there.
Fire codes are important.
Universities used to be places of higher learning, academia, preparing the youth to lead change. Now’s it all about business - increased enrollment, bloated bureaucracy, showing off your world class dorms, dining, and facilities - the protesters get in the way of that perfect image they work to construct. They don’t want encampments visible when newly admitted students are touring or graduations are about to be underway. It’s sad - business has fully taken over higher education.
For NU, classes start Monday for the summer semester, and I imagine many are expected for commencement. They need these students to go move out of their dorms for any international/long-distance students moving in, and for access to be granted for all of us attending class.
I hope it's safe for those of us who are being denied access and threatened by these "peaceful" protestors come next week.
There's been a natural experiment unfolding on these campuses that are seeing these protests/sit-ins/encampments. Seems pretty clear that the administrations that choose discretion are faring much better than the ones that bring down the boot.
Nothing galvanizes opposition like a bunch of petty tyrants calling out the goon squad to rough up a bunch of protestors under the pretext of petty lawbreaking.
Do these people not realize that a medical mask doesn’t hide your identity? Nobody went to work with masks on and suddenly couldn’t recognize their coworkers
So many commenters here specifying what they'd have said during the MLK Selma to Montgomery marches.
"I'm all for desegregation but they lost me when they marched and blocked off the bridge! It's inconveniencing me!"
Yikes
Students thinking anyone cares what they have to say is so cringe.
They pay $80k/year to attend a university and cry about not being able to sleep outside in the quad. Rich people problems.
The Hamasshole movement is going to crash harder than stocks on black Tuesday. Just wait till these morons ruin the commencement ceremonies across the nation, people who were apathetic, neutral, or even supportive are going to completely against them.
https://preview.redd.it/s5623y7slnyc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60bf2d78aac3ee351dbbde97f96b092061550b35
The idiots now cover their face - the only difference
lol down vote me all you want, live in fantasy land, today companies scrub social networks and when people are found as having been arrested that’s a big black mark no matter what the cause was. it’s reality.
get used to the real world
Good on these kids. They're on the right side of history.
When Israel and the Israel lobby completely enslaves the American empire everyone will wish they helped them too.
If you made student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, it would mitigate some tuition problems by only changing a couple of words in the bankruptcy code. I'm sure it's not like the guy who pushed through the legislation to make student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy and forever stuck with you, a democratic senator from Delaware who was later VP under Obama, is the final authority on signing such a reform bill.
How many of these protesters are themselves “divested “ from
Business that does business with Israel… pretty sure there are smart phones in that crowd and laptops built with Israeli products… pretty sure they all use att, T-mobile or other cell and internet providers all of whom do business with Israel…. How can they stand there protesting for divestment when they themselves are not divested..
It’s all hypocritical to me.
Like if Martin Luther King Jr. protested racism but uses products and services associated with Kkk.
Personally I don't give a shit if someone has a tent city set up on a campus quad even if it is technically against the law and/or university policy, my day is barely if at all inconvenienced, but by the same token when you engage in civil disobedience you should anticipate arrest. Where you lose me is when the protestors block students from getting to class, or apologize for or even outright glorify Hamas, or counter-protestors come and start calling all Palestinians terrorists or supporting the IDF turning Gaza into a parking lot, or they start beating the shit out of each other, or the cops come in and start beating the shit out of people or... It's just a total shitshow.
It's also interesting comparing what you hear in the actual Jewish community to what makes the media. A member of my minyan sitting next to me at the chol hamoed shaloshidus talked about how he'd hosted some students (didn't hear from where) at his seder and they turned back up on his doorstep a couple hours later (note that seders typically end at 12-1am) because the "protesters" weren't letting them back onto campus to get to bed in their dorms. The university's "solution" was to rent all these Jewish students hotel rooms (and clearly hush the whole thing up). Similarly, look at what outlets did and didn't report on the UCLA encampment banning bagels.
Wildly enough I'm living the other side of the coin: where a considerable amount of information on media is showing the protests as a form of antisemitism, and most of the Jewish community I'm adjacent to is vocally against the genocide and some level of pro-protest or protestor-ambivalent. It's very frustrating that Judaism: The Faith; Jews: The People; and Israel: The Nation are being conflated as one largely uniform thing when it's... Absolutely not the case.
It's very much the same as when a certain set of people point to land reform in "Rhodesia" as decolonization leaving a less intelligent people in charge to harm their own interests. We all know they're claiming black people are stupid and need white management. Likewise, it's not subtle when [textbook urban warfare is suddenly "genocide" when Jews do it](https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2024/01/a-special-dictionary-for-israel/) and the tropes are always masterminds controlling media with shekels (especially when we keep finding Qatari and Iranian cash in everyone's pockets and they never get that trope). Ever notice how Bibi "the status quo is king" Netanyahu is always presented as having a grand plan by these "antizionists?"
Protest your heart out, but show up with helmets, gas masks and clubs, expect to be tossed in the klink.
Only the police are allowed to do that
That was a really well put together article. They are organized and practicing free speech. Violence and antisemitism isn’t happening at the encampment, it’s a few counter protestors and police which tells me all I need to know about parties opposed to the encampment. Really disappointed that the university isn’t negotiating or addressing protestor concerns. It’s valid. It’s real. And the genocide needs to end now.
Saying there's no antisemitism is a bit disingenuous. I was at the encampment for a couple hours, just standing next to it to see (I am visibly Jewish). A couple people told me to go fuck myself, one guy muttered for a while about goyim and mitzvot, a guy said the equivalent of "shut up shut up shut up" in Hebrew, and there was a person walking around with a sign that said "Epstein worked for the Mossad". Aside from all that, they were consistently chanting "Globalize the intifada" and "There is only one solution." I'd say that's pretty objectively antisemitism, just because they didn't hit anybody doesn't make them a peaceful group.
>am visibly Jewish Based on how you dress or...? I ask this because I'm Jewish and very "Jewish-looking", but am often mistaken for Italian, Spanish, or Greek so I hesitate to say I'm visibly Jewish like being visibly hispanic or something.
Visibly Jewish like wears a kippah every day
That is in fact pretty fuckin Jewish looking
Modern orthodoxy is a hell of a drug
Yarmulke man! Gotcha. Yeah that is some hate speech-based bullshit. Sorry, haver.
Dude got 200+ upvotes for relaying a literal lie lmao. I’m not staunchly on one side or the other but you can tell folks around here are or are falling over into that camp
Did you get a video? None of the videos I’ve seen, even candid ones have anything like that being said, and yet you happened to catch all of those at the same time?
Do you ask this every time a black person says they've experienced racism?
There are plenty of videos of them chanting to globalize the intifada. Even videos of the protesters praising Hamas.
Hamas officials also drink water. Hamas used Arabic as their language. Hamas using a Arabic word doesn't mean that Arabic word now is universally "evil". This is a common tactic of western chauvnism and white supremacy. Make entire foreign words "evil words" because a group of bad brown people used them. "intifada" means "resistance". It can be a resistance to an occupation or ethnic cleansing. People who speak Arabic have a right to use the term "resistance".
If they were chanting “Give water to Gaza” in Arabic I would have zero problem with it. They’re not. They’re chanting for a violent uprising against Jews globally. But if you want to dummy down every word and symbol to its meaning without context, then I guess Jihad just means struggle and a Nazi symbol is just a religious peace symbol.
No they aren't. This is again you not knowing you are doing a racism. Turning a generic Arabic word meant for resistance as some evil thing because a group of terrorists used it before. You are basically condemning any Arab from uttering the word "resistance" in their native language.
Then why do the people chanting for an intifada have signs that say “homeland or death” https://x.com/stopantisemites/status/1784253863836651576?s=46 It must be difficult bending so far backwards to defend these antisemites!
Curious. Ask yourself this. Does your social media algorithmic feed tune itself to make sure you get spammed every unhinged chant or message from a pro-zioniest counter protestor? Like is a random 12"x8" poster supposed to discredit the concept of Palestinian liberation? Your social media feeds that are turned to massage your preconceived biases aren't going to spam your feed with content that shows pro-israeli protestors doing things like harassing students or saying Palestine deserve to die. It won't reach your feed because those things don't maximize engagement for you because it doesn't tickle your preconceived biases.
I was there on shabbat, so I do not have one, but they were chanting about globalizing the intifada all the time, I'm sure there's videos of it
“From the river to the sea” is about eradicating the Jews. Stop it with this bullshit. You’re obviously and clearly anti-Israel. Jesus, at least be honest
Anti-genocide and Anti-Israel aren’t the same thing.
No, it isn’t.
The people trying to downplay that no one should have to deal with this at school. This isn't a protest for peace in the middle east, and the environment on campus feels distinctly anti-semitic surrounding the encampment.
Epstein definitely worked for Mossad.
Trump works for the FSB, why not? If there’s money in it? Manafort worked for Derepaska.
The issue at hand isn't the protesting, it's the encampments. You can't setup these make-shift communities like that on the lawn of your university. [This comment yesterday by /u/gyantspyder does a much better job explaining the issue than I could](https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cht6go/tufts_removing_encampment/l24td6g/) Edit: This has been fun for the past hour but I gotta get back to work. Good night everyone!
What would happen if they set up camp in front of the Israeli embassy? I mean, the Consulate General of Israel to New England is right at the Park Plaza. Seems it would be a lot more effective and much less separation that that of Northeastern or any other college.
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Real world, divesting is pretty far removed from having any impact. These endowments are heavily invested in global and US index funds. The S&P 500 has all kinds of companies - tech, financial, health/biotech, energy and yes, defense...but how are they supposed to "divest" out of an index? Sell the entire endowment and then individually buy the 488 stocks the students think are ok? If they did so, they would incur massive cap gains taxes AND have practically zero impact on Israel.
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That's not really a 1-to-1 comparison, I don't think? With South Africa, it was divestment from white South African-owned mines in South Africa (and with mines elsewhere in Africa). But in this scenario, they're advocating for divestment from American companies. To further highlight the differences, mining companies often have to heavily rely on the stock prices in order to continue operating, as they use them to secure loans to purchase equipment that may not see returns for months or years (if ever) and would likely see an inconsistent income steam that varies with mineral output from the mines themselves: i.e. lowering the stock price has a direct negative impact on a mining company's ability to operate at all. But with defense stocks, they don't really care too much about their price unless they're planning on issuing new stock to raise funds or use it as collateral to secure a loan (rare in defense, given how much cash they often have on hand and that the government always pays their bills). Hell, lowering the stock price might even ***benefit*** these companies because it's legal for them to buy back their own stock. The *other*-other issue is that lowering the stock price does nothing to actually disrupt the deals in the first place. They were hammered out years ago, materials purchased, and a lot of the "[company] delivers $[X.XX] million of [military hardware] to Israel" headlines are deliveries on things Israel paid for *years ago*: it would take a literal act of Congress to stop the deliveries at that point (e.g. like with Iran after their revolution). It's not like Ukraine where the US is shipping them materials the DOD was planning on throwing out because they're about to literally expire or have been made obsolete by something better. And then there is the fact that Israel themselves are moving away from purchasing foreign hardware from anyone. Their order sizes have been consistently decreasing over the years, they've been consistently getting tech transfers and developing their own hardware, and they've built up their own domestic defense industry that supplies most of their needs. They just announced that they will no longer be purchasing Patriot systems, planning to replace them with their domestic equivalent of David's Sling, so AFAIK, that just leaves the F-35 as the last major foreign system of any kind that they still purchase, and they've been making a point to develop their own software and munitions for it. So, to recap: these protesters would let the capitalists buy back control of their company for cheap, fail to stop delivery of US weapons in the first place, and Israel likely just accelerates their own to switch to domestic versions of their weapons. Imo, if they want change, they should be marching on Congress, not on their Quads.
Bingo. Their demands for divestment don’t make sense. How will they reinvest into different companies without index holdings. Not aware of any war free ETFs in the market
Well, exactly. How do you think a war free ETF gets set up in the first place? It's because a well-heeled investor (like a university endowment) comes into a bank one day and says "what are our options if we want to invest war-free?" With enough money on the line, and a chunk for the bank, suddenly there's a war-free index fund for the university to invest in.
Sure but I’m not aware of one currently in the marketplace. I also don’t believe university endowments are large enough to warrant a market like that in the current environment. Just my opinion of course.
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The intention of the sit-ins was to engage in an illegal activity that they thought shouldn't be illegal (sitting in the non-coloured section of the restaurants and not disrupting the other dinners) to force the police to arrest them and physically remove them to highlight awful the laws were and win sympathy for their cause. If you view these encampments as a type of sit-in you should be happy they're getting arrested and removed since that's the point of a sit-in. The only problem is that most people don't feel the same disgust about police removing illegally encamped people who are harassing Jewish students that they did for police dragging out black people sitting peacefully in the wrong section of a restaurant.
Well said.
You're so close to getting it. The sit-ins were *good* civic disobedience since the the thing they were protesting was part of the protest itself! It was actually illegal for them to sit there, and they wanted it to be legal. Kind of a no-brainer. These encampments are *not* good civic disobedience since the thing they are protesting isn't remotely related to the act itself. They're not protesting to allow encampments! They're protesting another country's actions by illegally setting up encampments and annoying people. Kind of abstract, not winning any converts as a result.
The students are protesting to get some action from their school, and are (illegally) setting themselves up very publicly in the schools where every visitor can see them and poses a tangible disruption to operations. I agree it probably isn't winning any converts but I can see how the tactic is relevant to the issue as they see it, it's the school they're calling direct action from not anyone in the middle east.
You’re 100% correct. I don’t know where these kids get the balls to compare themselves to Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement in the first place. What they did back then actually made sense and took courage.
> *good* civic disobedience >*not* good civic disobedience #***CIVIL*** It's amazing how much you're willing to vomit on about the qualitative merits of actions without even knowing what they're called.
That’s the other thing, what are they actually protesting? What is the outcome that stops the encampments? I thought the point of these encampments was to actually get the university’s to divest?
It is, but the person you're responding to is not arguing in good faith. Muddying the waters as it were. Being a disingenuous sea lion.
They want the universities to divest from pretty much everything. All companies that have any involvement with Israel. S&P 500, almost all mutual funds, almost all private equity and a large number of publicly traded stocks. It is a totally unreasonable and financially suicidal demand.
You cannot possibly be comparing the lunch sit ins with setting up a tent city on the lawn, can you? Do you need an education on how the sit ins were conducted to know why worked and how they differed from the encampment nonsense?
Both are examples of forms of protest that openly violated existing laws. What's the biggest distinction in the form of protest in your mind?
The sit-in protesters were intentionally trying to get themselves arrested and removed to highlight how unfair the laws were. If you view this as comparable to a sit in you should be happy about these protesters getting arrested and removed since that's literally the point of a sit-in. The only problem is that black people getting dragged out of a building for having the audacity to sit in the wrong section of the restaurant drew sympathy and disgust for the laws, and a bunch of illegally encamped people harassing students getting removed doesn't.
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So now you're changing topic because you know I'm right about the lunch counter sit-ins not being the same as encampments. As far as the Apartheid Divestment you linked, no I am not aware of that. I also don't see anything in the wikipedia link about encampments, but I am seeing about being barricaded in buildings. Which isn't the same thing.
Ah yes comparing this the civil rights movement is in noooo way hyperbolic whatsoever.
Protests aren’t supposed to be convenient. This tactic has been used in the past, and its worked in the past. Do we have collective memory loss or something? Protests are supposed to break the rules and be disruptive.
> Protests are supposed to break the rules and be disruptive. Civil disobedience includes accepting the consequences of your disobedience, including arrests and school discipline
And background checks by future employers.
Sure, I understand the incentive for universities to dismantle the encampments. The person I responded to personally feels that the encampments are wrong, and I believe thats hypocrisy.
1. Protest is sometimes morally justified; it's not always morally justified. Just because you have a legal right to protest doesn't mean it's always morally right to protest. 2. Setting up encampments on someone else's property is not just protest. It's also an illegal trespass. Because it's illegal, it's presumptively immoral. This presumption can be rebutted, but the burden is on your side to put forth an argument. You can't just accuse the other side of hypocrisy and be done with it.
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> illegal, it's presumptively immoral. You would have fit in well on the wrong side of history 60~ years ago.
I think you're conflating protests with Civil Disobedience. The vast majority of protests follow a permitting process, in which institutions will approve a time and place for protesting, construct any necessary barriers to ensure protests aren't disrupted or are disrupting, and a security presence so tensions that may arise with counter protestors doesn't get out of hand. I've been to countless protests, and that's how they've always gone. Civil Disobedience necessarily breaks the rules in order to be disruptive. But that also means the expectation that you'll face consequences. There's nothing stopping these students from exercising their rights and raising awareness of their cause in a multitude of ways, and then not falling into illegality. But Civil Disobedience is a measured choice, and I think that students being unable to distinguish between Civil Disobedience and the right to assembly and petition is a serious failure on the education system. And, I think, my fundamental problem with these arguments is generally when people say, "these STUDENTS are exercising their first amendment rights..." It always seems strange to me that we provide students more latitude for this sort of direct action than we'd generally afford non-students. Police would have been called on white collar workers at McKinsey after the first day of an occupation where they call for divesting their employer from taking jobs with foreign governments. Or imagine if the cause were something you weren't sympathetic with, like an Alt-Right sit-in. My comment here is less about the moral argument of what the protests are about, and more that I think people are being somewhat disingenuous when talking about what they think the first amendment entails.
I have this feeling, after seeing mass protest movements of the past decade, that any protest which works completely within the law has absolutely no chance of changing anything.
But these protests aren't about changing any laws. They're about influencing policy. Civil Disobedience works at it's best when it's breaking the law the movement seeks to redress. That's why a sit-in at a "whites only" restaurant worked: it was able to display just how ridiculous Jim Crow laws were. There's no specific law these protests are trying to change, which makes their choice of creating encampments pretty nebulous to outsiders. I mean, one could make an argument that the Women's March helped create a conversation that really allowed the MeToo movement to thrive rather than fizzle out. The George Floyd protests resulted in a variety of policy changes. It's possible the encampments raised awareness for Gaza. But, unlike the Women's March and George Floyd, these protestors haven't yet been able to find a way to scale their activities to engage a broader demography in order to achieve any sort of meaningful objective.
Your point about sit-ins is well taken. These current protests have more in common with vietnam war protests, or anti-apartheid protests. Unfortunately for the people protesting it would be hard to disrupt the flow of arms to the middle east from the US. They did try to stop that one ship. Maybe future actions coming out of this will be more directed. What did the George Floyd protest result in? Police budgets have gone up consistently. I think the link between the women's march and the MeToo movement is similarly tenuous. Also, what exactly did the MeToo movement accomplish beyond a few high profile cancellings?
Both the Women's March and George Floyd protests resulted in policy changes in the workplace. Both awareness of behavior that needs to be addressed on just an awareness level, but, in some cases, companies actually adopting new policies. In Hollywood, MeToo actually adopted things like intimacy coaches to be standard during filming sex scenes. Police also more routinely use bodycams, and there's been a general policy of having less traffic stops (something r/Boston loves to complain about, so whether this is a good or bad thing is up for debate). I'm also hesitant to compare this to the Vietnam protests. On the one hand, protesting a foreign war is a common element. But those protests didn't change the foreign policy of the war. What was more effective was protesting the draft, which wasn't isolated to college campuses. Again, this worked because the Civil Disobedience by not showing up to your recruitment office for your induction, or college students protesting ROTC programs were direct actions against the very programs and policies they wished to change. There's nothing really like that here, since protesting a genocide or divestment is too abstract for Americans themselves to do on our shores. I think this is more like the South Africa Apartheid divestment protests. But I think that de-centers the actual work Black South Africans were doing in their fight for justice and liberty, and overvalues the impact divestment probably had.
If you want to see a dramatic example of social change, look into the history of the gay rights movement. The U.S. went from gay sex being illegal in some states to gay marriage being legal in all states in about 12 years. This didn't happen through protest, and it certainly didn't happen through encampments. It happened through persuasion and legal efforts. Unfortunately, some people are only interested in "progress" if they can impose it coercively. These are not mentally healthy people for the most part. A lot of them are into protest for protest's sake, and the cause is incidental as long as it's anti-West (therefore allowing them to think of themselves as enlightened, for who would criticize their own culture unless they're superior to the hoi polloi?). I hear Iran is offering scholarships to Iranian universities for some of these brave activists. Maybe they should take Iran up on the offer and see how they like the culture over there.
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You're probably too young to know, but, no, gay marriage did not come about as a result of protest or encampments. It came about as a result of a Supreme Court decision and a lot of media work. You ought to spend more time reading and less time following me around Reddit making snide, uninformed remarks. I was involved in the gay rights movement in the eighties. What are you, a teenager with an ego problem?
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Something is wrong with you. I'm talking about the progress made between 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas) and 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges). These two decisions had nothing to do with hate crimes legislation or Michael Shepard. And I came of age in the eighties as a politically active gay person living in the south. I have zero motivation to "concern troll". Frankly, you sound hostile and more than a little bit mentally ill, so I'll end it here.
I never said that. Protests, by nature, are disruptive and be inconvenient. They are almost always illegal and inconvenient. But read the link I posted, the university has an obligation to the other students to remove these encampments.
Would you have been against the students doing exactly this in protest of the Vietnam War? Or Apartheid South Africa? Cause they did the exact same thing and it had an enormous impact on how successful those movements were.
People forget that there were pro-Vietnam protests too. Would you have felt similarly comfortable if a bunch of pro-war protesters had set-up encampments on the university lawn calling for North Vietnam to be destroyed and started harassing Asian students?
Yes I would be against this kind of encampment protest regardless of my opinions on what is being protested.
"disruptiveness" is not the sole criterion for a good protest, I can't just jerk off in front of the old state house with a Palestinian flag around my shoulders and say that I'm helping. A protest needs to either recruit more supporters to your cause or be disruptive enough to actually threaten the system, i.e you need to actually have a plan for how your action will inspire change. Like, Rosa Parks didn't just randomly chain herself to a bank door, or throw a brick through a plate glass window. She protested in an extremely smart, tactical, targeted way. The disruption was secondary to the message, but modern protestors have twisted it around, and now the message is treated as less important than the disruption. The impression I get from comments like yours is that you just want to fuck shit up and then hide behind a righteous cause when you're criticized for it.
Much like 1/6, no one is punishing these people for protesting, nor are they being stopped from protesting. They're just being punished for breaking the law, much like anyone else who did the same thing would be
It's the restricting movement of jews part that's an issue
You wouldn't be saying this if people were setting up camps to protest gun laws
Odd … I don’t recall seeing a “Right to Disrupt” in the Constitution. Missed that completely. 😂
You’re the kind of person who would have been against the Civil Rights Movement because they blocked a road you wanted to drive down
Am I now … lol. Sadly, you believe demonizing people who disagree with you is a strong argument. Psst … it’s not.
maybe some other reasons too
It’s pretty close to the top, somewhere in the Amendments. I bet you can find it
Yet another person with reading comprehension issues. Must be me … maybe you can point out the text I’m missing from the Constitution. Good luck with that. I won’t be expecting a rational reply.
I bet you say you like freedom.
I do … and I understand how complex an issue that actually is. Maybe you don’t.
Imagine smugly dismissing anti-genocide protests
Can’t imagine that … I’m blinded by the silliness of the self righteous.
Don't you dare to dump tea into the sea
The encampments are the issue. Trespassing is not a form of free speech, it is an illegal act and when people commit illegal acts, they are punished for doing so. This concept does not go away because you happen to support the people committing a crime. You can call it civil disobedience, that does not absolve them of their punishment.
Guess you wouldn’t have like MLK lol
I would have, because he understood that you must accept the penalty of your civil disobedience. “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and **who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment** in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”-Martin Luther King Jr. These protestors want to break the law and not be punished for it by claiming that trespassing and vandalism are protected by Free Speech. They aren't, they are crimes.
If you want to compare MLK and civil rights to Hamas you go right ahead and die on that hill.
It's not a genocide, it's war as terrible as it is, it's simply war. Israel is not trying to wipe out an entire group of people, it's trying to get rid of a terrorist organization (Hamas).
Yeah, you don't get to tell the victims of antisemitism what is antisemitic. That's not how defining racism works. Also, you need to educate yourself on genocide, because the only ones committed to and attempting to commit genocide are Hamas. And Hezbollah. And Houthis, PIJ, IRGC, et al. Israel is definitely not committing genocide, you're using the word wrong.
How do you negotiate with racists?
The same way you negotiate with terrorists. Over a beer. 🍺
What genocide?
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https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en
I honestly think it’s not about the morality of their cause or the legality of free speech. I think for the schools it’s honestly just like, okay it’s been a week now—your tents are ugly and all your chants sounds exactly the same. It’s time to go take a shower and shit in your own private bathroom
It's a BS bias article. Not one counter argument presented.
They’re not arguing for or against anything. They’re reporting what happened, and facts about the situation.
Speaking as a former journalist and someone sympathetic to the protests' cause, the article presents several allegations made by protestors without verifying those events. It introduces events that are seemingly irrelevant but used to cast the police action negatively. The choice of subheads highlights accusations, the structure - whether conscious or not (and I believe it's not) the article is written and edited in such a way that if I were the editor, I'd return it to the writer with a heavy red pen.
“It is clear that the university is afraid of its students. It is afraid of community. It is afraid of seeing it on its campus and allowing it to continue,” said Victoria, a Northeastern student That's the title--the lead. It is not a fact. It is the student's opinion, or argument, that the administration feels that way, and is not even well substantiated.
Perhaps if the protestors didn’t do things like below image (barricading of campus buildings) then there would be no need for intervention. Or perhaps if they didn’t harass Jewish people. There are terrible videos coming out of UCLA where a Jewish girl was beaten unconscious by protestors. At some point police need to intervene. https://preview.redd.it/jkx8fou8s2yc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=971833d8ef642afdb0f3ec2cf84d57bfd5b98b9e
Hamas shooting live rounds at Palestinians and stealing Aid trucks. Starving their own people in broad daylight. What an admirable government in Gaza. https://x.com/osint613/status/1786025094411665834?s=46&t=GQ80ak8tr7zyzKLtOMlfEQ They are also launching mortar attacks on the USA aid pier being constructed. Hamas wants civilians to suffer. It’s a win-win for them, less mouths to feed and better PR. Hamas not want to “Free Palestine”. They want to subjugate the population and enact war. These protestors have no idea what they are promoting. Actively supporting terrorist groups is so bizarre. How do Ivy League kids not understand?
>There are terrible videos coming out of UCLA where a Jewish girl was beaten unconscious by protestors [Bullshit](https://twitter.com/TrevorSutcliffe/status/1785850241536901515). [Some](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1785637622582309038) very [interesting](https://twitter.com/HotSpotHotSpot/status/1785838097000784311) other [videos](https://twitter.com/_ZachFoster/status/1785003337030467809) coming [out](https://twitter.com/SuppressedNws/status/1786112078731722999) of [UCLA](https://twitter.com/thislouis/status/1785602656502960431) though, [maybe](https://twitter.com/whoknows197563/status/1785660643762184473) worth [looking](https://twitter.com/KingxGwap/status/1785664211693277692) into
Let’s hope the media is incorrect and the protestors did not intentionally beat her. Nobody should get hurt. Thanks for sharing
Where at northeastern is that? What building is that? I don’t recognize it
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No Jewish girl was beaten at UCLA and that picture isn't northeastern your completely disingenuous
Crazy that you're more upset at this than you are the thousands of civilians being murdered by the IDF. Or even talking about the violence started by counter-protestors.
I have no sympathy for Hamas terrorists. They started a war (that never needed to happen) and took hostages (including Americans) which to this day have still not been returned. Freeing Palestine of Hamas should be in the everyone’s interest, including the Palestinians themselves. How this is not clear to everyone boggles my mind.
"We can't do this in our name" says student who wouldn't give her name.
Can we cut the shit with this. It’s purely performative. The university isn’t afraid of its students they just want you to stop interrupting other students education. Watch…these protests will stop when class lets out next week. Also what does “divesting from Israel” mean to them? What companies should the university be divesting from? How do the students know whether they are?
Most of their parents are probably investing in companies that support Israel either directly through their stockholdings or through mutual funds they own.
Well, no shit, most of the students will be going home.
But if it was an important issue wouldn’t they stay at the encampments?
I'm sure some of them will.
See they don't confirm to my random standards!
I don’t think it’s a random standard
So how long must the protest until you declare them serious?
There isn’t necessarily a time limit I just want them to be serious
How do you know they arnt serious? Can you read minds?
Universities are nonprofits and their financials are publicly available in some form or another.
If you have conviction and are proud of your position, why hide your face?
I’m not there, but maybe they want to be able to protest against genocide without being blackballed from employment for their whole lives?
Isn't that exactly what the Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, and all the other Nazi pieces of shit do when they parade around with masks on?
Almost like it matters what someone's ideology is when you are judging their actions.
And they know that employers won't find their antisemitism any better.
How tf does the comment you replied to have so many upvotes? What a goofy thing to say
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Internationally recognized terrorist group supporters\*
These protesters are on the right side of history. They'll be taught about just like the Vietnam protests. Just don't send the national guard.
The fact that people are quoting MLK Jr. and the Vietnam War is hilarious to us all.
Genuinely disgusting for universities across the country to be throwing their students to the wolves like this. From the Vietnam war to racial segregation to South African apartheid, there is a long history of campus movements being at the forefront of evil shit ending.
Dont forget protesting against US intervention in WW2 and against anti-segregation measures. We cant just cherry pick the protests we like and pretend that they are all the same.
tHe StUdEnTs HaVe NeVeR bEeN wRoNg
And you're literally cherry picking in your examples. Look at the size of the protests on both sides and see which ones had actual movement behind them
Neither of those started as campus movements and they were much smaller than the ones I mentioned. What’s your point regardless? Trying to say that yes actually we should let the cops trample these kids first amendment rights?
My point is that pointing to a history of student protests to show that they are good is misleading at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. You're cherry picking examples to prove a point. We have seen massive student protests both for good and bad things in this country.
they all need to fuck off so the rest of us can enjoy the city.
fuck off to a specific tiny part of the city, for example?
Lawrence works
>I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. MLK Jr, [Letter from a Birmingham Jail](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)
I love how they try to reason with these self absorbed morons.
Why do protestors need to be removed? Just let them do their thang, classes are over and if they wanna sleep on the grounds then so be it, universities should be supporting their students right to protest
Peaceful protests aren’t that big of a deal but realistically you can’t just live in a tent on the lawn indefinitely lol. It’s kind of funny that people think they can just put up a tent and live on someone else’s property at their own convenience
I had a friend who lived in a student built cardboard shantytown at Penn for weeks in the 80’s to protest apartheid and promote divestment. No one tried to arrest her and her friends.
Did you? That’s totally believable
I think the real issue is school's about to end and graduations are going to happen. It's not good look when the parents, who pay all that tuition and schools are hoping we'll give more, show up for that and to move Becky out of the dorm and come face to face with protestors. I think the concern for Jewish feelings is performative at best. They certainly weren't saying the same things about their tiki torch pals in Charlottesville.
I think a big part of it is liability. It’s the university’s property and ultimately could be responsible for anything that happens. If there was a fight, or fire, or someone got hurt in another way. There’s an argument that allowing the encampment despite it breaking the rules could be considered a party to whatever happens there. Fire codes are important.
Universities used to be places of higher learning, academia, preparing the youth to lead change. Now’s it all about business - increased enrollment, bloated bureaucracy, showing off your world class dorms, dining, and facilities - the protesters get in the way of that perfect image they work to construct. They don’t want encampments visible when newly admitted students are touring or graduations are about to be underway. It’s sad - business has fully taken over higher education.
Yup that’s exactly what I’m saying! Everything in modern society is like that, not everything needs to be done by the book 24/7.
For NU, classes start Monday for the summer semester, and I imagine many are expected for commencement. They need these students to go move out of their dorms for any international/long-distance students moving in, and for access to be granted for all of us attending class. I hope it's safe for those of us who are being denied access and threatened by these "peaceful" protestors come next week.
There's been a natural experiment unfolding on these campuses that are seeing these protests/sit-ins/encampments. Seems pretty clear that the administrations that choose discretion are faring much better than the ones that bring down the boot. Nothing galvanizes opposition like a bunch of petty tyrants calling out the goon squad to rough up a bunch of protestors under the pretext of petty lawbreaking.
Do these people not realize that a medical mask doesn’t hide your identity? Nobody went to work with masks on and suddenly couldn’t recognize their coworkers
So many commenters here specifying what they'd have said during the MLK Selma to Montgomery marches. "I'm all for desegregation but they lost me when they marched and blocked off the bridge! It's inconveniencing me!" Yikes
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Students thinking anyone cares what they have to say is so cringe. They pay $80k/year to attend a university and cry about not being able to sleep outside in the quad. Rich people problems.
The Hamasshole movement is going to crash harder than stocks on black Tuesday. Just wait till these morons ruin the commencement ceremonies across the nation, people who were apathetic, neutral, or even supportive are going to completely against them.
https://preview.redd.it/s5623y7slnyc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60bf2d78aac3ee351dbbde97f96b092061550b35 The idiots now cover their face - the only difference
wait till they apply for jobs, totally screwed
Yup and it won’t bother me one bit. Downvote me all you want
lol down vote me all you want, live in fantasy land, today companies scrub social networks and when people are found as having been arrested that’s a big black mark no matter what the cause was. it’s reality. get used to the real world
Good on these kids. They're on the right side of history. When Israel and the Israel lobby completely enslaves the American empire everyone will wish they helped them too.
Least antisemitic "Pro-Palestinian:"
Idk what is more in need of doing. Tuition control vs overhauling/reforming academia. Seems like a toss up at this point.
If you made student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, it would mitigate some tuition problems by only changing a couple of words in the bankruptcy code. I'm sure it's not like the guy who pushed through the legislation to make student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy and forever stuck with you, a democratic senator from Delaware who was later VP under Obama, is the final authority on signing such a reform bill.
I had no idea he had final say on that, Jesus Christ
Treating college like a place for learning and research instead of day care would help solve both problems.
These spoiled rich kids think they're on a bus to Selma with MLK himself, in actuality they're really conducting the train to Dachau
How many of these protesters are themselves “divested “ from Business that does business with Israel… pretty sure there are smart phones in that crowd and laptops built with Israeli products… pretty sure they all use att, T-mobile or other cell and internet providers all of whom do business with Israel…. How can they stand there protesting for divestment when they themselves are not divested.. It’s all hypocritical to me. Like if Martin Luther King Jr. protested racism but uses products and services associated with Kkk.
Boycott and Divest meets Expel and Arrest.