82 Comments

I am in total agreement with all that is said here. I am 92 years old and the students speak the truth. in my humble opinion.

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I think June young people have in general an instinct for right and wrong; money has not yet ascended to the zenith the world places it. Many good wishes to you, Jeff.

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bad professors who allow anti jewish have speech have lost their way - hate speech while first amendment protected, should not be given a public forum - good they cancelled her speech - as for these “entitled” kids, stop pissing up a rope, go to Gaza a d help these people, stop hating your this country

I’m as woke, liberal as they come btw

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No you are not, if you allow the fallacious conflation of condemnation of Israeli genocide with anti-Jewish hate speech . That's a fallacy pushed by Netanyahu and the fanatical, murderous, child-killing Zionists. Would you send your child to Gaza right now, while Israel is bombing and obliterating an entire society? While not a school, university or hospital is left standing and citizens are facing an Israeli induced famine? Watch Mehdi's interview with Naomi Klein from yesterday. Paraphrasing she says Jews need an exodus from the false idol of Zionism.

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And the slaughter of 1200 Israeli citizens is OK ? Grown the fuck up

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Barry. You seem to be Gaslighting and and appear intent on being disrespectful.

I assume your question was rhetorical, since I have yet to encounter any pro-Palestine advocate who has opined that the massacre of 1200 Israelis and the taking of about 250 hostages was okay; many pro Israel, however, support the massacre and brutal treatment of Palestinians.

Violence and Hatred for the Other are core elements of fascist ideology often rooted in untreated trauma. I suggest you seek counseling in anger mgt with a competent mental health provider. Lashing out at those you disagree with doesn’t help find the truth nor reach an understanding. But fascists are usually not interested in the truth, as mendacity is also at the core of fascist ideology.

If what you seek is to add fuel to the fire, that doesn’t help either

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No it’s not. Violence can never be justified, but 75 years of oppression, humiliation , displacement and dispossession, together with periodic mudering rampages, termed ‘mowing the grass’ by Israeli leaders, certainly provides the context.

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Who said that the killing of 1200 Israelis is OK?

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People who think the 35k slaughter of Palestinians is ok are somehow not ok with 1.2k Israeli citizens dying... it's either a math education problem or a bigotry problem... can't ever figure it out...

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It's because they don't see Palestinians as Humans.

Also, we've been saying 35k dead for months now, the real figure is likely multiples of that.

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Of course not!. It was wrong everyone accepts that. However killing over 30,000 innocent civilians is not the answer. The answer is peace. Both sides will have to compromise .

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You sound like a mature person.

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Barry. You are asleep at the wheel. No one can get into Gaza. Not food, water, medicine or electricity. No sanitation and 196 journalists have been killed. Apparently you didn’t notice 7 aid workers died from Chef Jose Andres World Kitchen. Targeted and blown to bits. I am 79 and protesting for humanity and justice since 1960s. Please wake up and realize this Gaza is not a war. It’s annihilation. Genocide. Civilians who have lived in Palestine long long before Israel existed. I am older than Israel. Zionism is dangerously anti democratic

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Barry, just a question of clarification (I know others have responded to other points in your comment): aren't first amendment rights about free public speech? If not, then what is the point of first amendment rights solely for private speech? Just noticing a contradiction I was hoping you could tease out.

Hate speech and killing/slaughter are always obscene. Always. And, in this moment, it seems there are active debates right now to give more context to what constitutes "hate speech." Apart from the official definitions out there right now, how do you define hate speech in your comment? I hope you come to the comments with a true desire to engage, because I certainly do.

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Well said! How is Barry defining hate speech? And does Barry know about all the propaganda put out by the Israeli government calling anyone who criticizes the genocide "anti-Semitic." ??? Some people just don't know. Not that you need to know about the propaganda to know it doesn't make sense

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Zionist playing the victim. 🙄

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Dude's just a troll, count how many words he typed and how many words we all typed in response, because that's how trolls keep score. Not blaming anyone for responding, some things are just so stupid and offensive it's hard to resist, but Barry's long gone by now, trolling some other forum.

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Its called Professional victimhood and Zionist are a master of that.

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I am in agreement with the article and most of the comments. Let me just add that apart from Bernie Sanders and a few other principled leaders the Democrats are accomplices to the racist and genocidal actions of Israel. It is American planes and American Bombs that are obliterating Gaza and its population. I am a Democrat but the Democrats missed the boat when they chose to be represented by a 81 year old cold war warrior. If Biden loses in 2024 it is because the Democratic leaders were gutless and chose the easiest path. I fear we will pay mightily for this.

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Makram, well said. It may be time for Biden to resign, or retire and allow his VP to clean up the mess he created. Email Pres Biden, respectfully & briefly: WhiteHouse. gov

Call your congresspersons:

(202)224-3121

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Leave the students alone. They are standing up for their beliefs. My college days were demonstrating against apartheid.

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Thank you. I'm old enough to remember the debate about Apartheid, and the claims made that it was "irresponsible" for students to call for divestment from South Africa. What was needed (according to the "experts") was "constructive engagement" which meant continuing to pump money into the Apartheid economy while somehow (this was never explained) working "within the system" for "gradual reforms." What bullshit that was, and the students saw that clearly, and their elders didn't.

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And finally Nelson Mandela was FREE. A Messenger for all of us. Say what you will. He resisted all and he is still a force for freedom and justice

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I for one am extremely impressed with the student demonstrators who are willing to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. When I see resistance to autocracy, genocide and human rights violations around the world, it is gratifying to know that love of money and power aren’t the only motivations that fuels our social interactions and that horrible evils like genocide and human rights violations can be still opposed by those who would make our country’s founders proud.

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The protests at USC are a sign of the times. I was a student at USC from '03-'07 and all of us student organizers at the time were told we "cared too much" about things that didn't matter. It's amazing to see so many young people standing up at campuses all across the U.S. and beyond to protest and create critical dialogue through the tactics they've been left with by administrations that ignore students when they go through so-called proper channels of dissent.

It's incredibly scary and sadly, not surprising to see that the profit-driven universities that turn students to consumers, faculty into mere workers, and administrators into police-adjacent adjudicators are the backdrop for the visible emergence of proto-fascist forces. This is urgent, timely, and terrifying.

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Very sickening to see what is happening.

Not protesting massacre of Innocent children, women in Gaza is what is despicable

USA is behaving like a colony of Israeli government and not a world leader.

God bless our students who are risking their lives for what is right.

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I appreciate your comments and for the most part they’re spot on, however, it is important to mention that in addition to republicans democrats are also complicit in this. Sadly you failed to mention that.

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When it comes down to it, democrats and republicans are the same. They are both fascists trash.

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R Shelli, there is a difference between Dems and the GOP that you may have not noticed; but you and the likes of you benefit from. You can talk trash about Dems here and elsewhere without endangering your health and safety. Under a fascist Republican administration, saying what they don’t like might get you hurt …

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"The like of you"? Whatever could you mean? Like I said, no difference.

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R Shelli, “…the likes of you…” means those that share your ideology, think like you …

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You have no idea how I think or who I am. Be better.

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BS to that

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Amazing argument

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Notably your president….

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After reading this article, along with other pieces on university administrators’ responses to student demonstrations, I can’t help but wonder about the extent of universities’ financial dependence on Zionism and its supporters. Are American universities overly reliant on a Zionist financial system, potentially compromising their financial stability should these supporters sever ties?”

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I think it's more about the war machine. Prof. Jason Stanley (Yale) was being interviewed by Rula Jabreal (for Zeteo), he's the author of a book on fascism, he made a great point about this being the latest in a string of issues that the Far Right or any fascist-sympathizing leadership will blame to keep the fear and militarism going. A few years ago it was BLM and woke-ism, now it's this. It's a confluence of forces. Far too many American Jews are falling for this and as JVP or Naomi Klein have pointed out - it's a real threat to Jews and Judaism, because it's forcing them to align w the Ultra Right. But it is conveniently embraced by the investor class - And elite schools have HUGE endowment funds that serve as cover to earn $$ this way. It's a "virtuous circle" that they don't want to end. It's guaranteed revenue from our tax dollars, as well as the tax coffers of other countries, to feed the companies like Lockheed or Boeing and too many others who make their money this way. It's widespread. It's profits, jobs, middlemen who do all the negotiating/contracting, the tech development, cloud services, enterprise services, data warehousing, all the lobbyists, the money they use to pay off our politicians. Everywhere you look, it's our tax dollars to feed a massive killing machine. Now it's coming after our kids.

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Eka, Biden is likely unwilling to lean on Netanyahu too hard since Israel is a good customer; we give them $ and they use the $ to buy weapons from the oligarchs in the military industrial complex. The more bombs dropped the more profit made by those who have enough but want even more.

I’m increasingly thinking Biden needs to find a good excuse to retire early and let his VP clean up the mess he started. Unfortunately, her mate is a Zionist. She will have to tell him to shut up. Unless she has alienated the Dem base as Biden has KH may be the pit bull we need to crush the fascist GOP.

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Exactly right. GenZ are doing what generations prior could not find the courage or strength to do. Time to stand up for our kids, our grandkids, for future generations. We need equality for all, human rights for all, not just a select group of people.

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Thanks for this dose of empathy and critical thinking.

One of the most disorienting elements about the discourse around the protests is how wildly uncalibrated some people are about what is morally right and wrong.

I saw a clip of Morning Joe where Mika was relentlessly going back to property damage and breaking the law at Columbia. If those are such fundamental principles to her, why isn't there more urgency about the complete physical destruction of Gaza? Or the uncountable, documented violations of the laws of war? Anand Giridharadas did an admiral job of explaining civil disobedience, but she couldn't seem to let go of the idea that anything the protestors do is illegitimate.

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Look at Gaza if you want to talk about property damage! People utterly committed to authoritarian brutal capitalism and fake meritocracy go nuts when they see property damage - because they worship materialism and the unassailable white privilege right to accumulate and protect material things. For them, physically brutalizing people can be easily justified if they committed the unholy sin of damaging property. Sick

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OMG, Morning Joe is just awful. Haven't watched it in years, but as you point out, it's just as bad as it ever was.

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Mika is a corporate shill.

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The students protesting are risking their careers & lives by standing up for what is right. All they are asking their universities to do is Disclose their investments, Divest from weapons companies both American & Israeli and grant amnesty to the protesting students. Surely, the university can negotiate & agree to bring the topic to vote. Instead universities like Columbia chose to unleash NYPD anti-terror unit on the students.

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You're right to say, "right-wing," but to my deep dismay, that includes the far-right, right, centre-right, centre and near-left, of the Democrats, as well as the Republicans. The majority of the democratic base rejects aiding & abetting Israel in a genocide against Palestinians, but there is practically no integrity, anywhere in government, except for some progressives. (We've seen now, that Sinema isn't the only member of government, who faked progressivism to get elected, and later dropped the act.)

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Yes, just look at John Fetterman. I still don't know how people decided he was some kind of progressive, was it just that he wore shorts and a hoodie?

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1776 - Independence from England tyranny

2024 - Independence from AIPAC tyranny

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It's funny how history tends to repeat itself, especially in the U.S. It's almost like the older Americans have selective memory loss as they keep repeating the same doom scenario over and over again. An here they are once again. Forgetting the lessons from the Vietnam War protests from 50 years ago. This time around the stakes are a little higher as the only barrier the U.S. has against authoritarianism is a acknowledged Zionist in the white house who is trying to keep the dam from breaking after he crashed into it.

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Elsewhere on Substack I'm seeing a lot of comments from guys (yeah, it's all guys) who claim to have been student protesters in the 60's, and apparently the ONLY lesson they learned from that experience is that all protests do is help the Republicans*. So nobody should protest, it might hurt the Democrats, which is the only thing that matters to them.

*ONE data point does not a theory make

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Not all older Americans. Mostly the ones whose opinions are shaped by cable news. Both sources considered right and left leaning. They’re all corporate owned.

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I agree. But they carry a large amount of the vote share in the U.S., which will hurt in November.

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On May 4th 1970 4 Students from Kent State University were massacred by the Ohio National Guard and 9 were wounded. These students were protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia.

Now the Republican leadership wants National Guards called again on the students to maintain Law and Order? When we cannot reason with someone we have a tendency to start Physical altercation; this is where the current Administration of the Universities are headed. Brown University and Wesleyan University chose discussion and negotiation.

I agree with the premise of the article that it is a rebellion of students against our elected leader’s hypocrisy re the happening in Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine. The happenings of last night at Columbia will not help the situation as the Mayor Adams of New York is conflating legitimate criticism of a foreign country with people being anti-Semite.

We start using force when we cannot debate an issue and wars are considered failure of one’s intellect.

War is never an answer.

Protesting against the wars and Genocide in Gaza is the correct option for the students.

About 6 months back when Israel invaded the occupied territory of Gaza and started bombing the civilians with US Supplied funds, and Weapons, many students signed a letter to protest these killings and the result was that many law firms including Davis Polk & Wardwell rescinded their job offers from these students. And these included students from Harvard and Columbia.

As long as the University Administration is beholden to the Moneymen, it would take someone with spine of steel to stand against them, Kraft, the New England patriots owner has already told Columbia that he would disassociate himself with them.

I for one will not watch New England Patriots from now on or eat Kraft products.

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Ah yes Robert Kraft, the billionaire who was busted soliciting prostitutes in a massage parlor. Of course we should take morality lessons from him.

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This is happening in a country that uses “Democracy & Free speech” as an excuse to annihilate poor countries and then happily supports rich oil-producing dictatorships, seems the dictatorship of its Arab allies has rubbed off on the American establishment. God protect the brave students and I hope they have the strength & power to change this hypocritical world.

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