Mr. Reich - Nobody is being arrested for protesting responsibly. Students who are blocking other students from going to class, and students inciting hate and violence are being arrested. You're too smart not to understand the distinction. Why are you conflating and promoting confusion?
You are mistaken. I live a block away, and that is incorrect. More than 100 Columbia and Barnard students peacefully protesting were arrested, and those who were arrested were suspended.
As a Columbia alum, I can tell you that using the public space on campus as an encampment that doesn't allow students to pass through -- and has outside agitators coming in to rile up the crowd -- is NOT allowed.
"Outside agitators"? That slur is as old as the hills. Free speech is the bedrock of our universities. It's part of what makes the US a democracy. Do you want to change that? Yes, sometimes free speech is inconvenient.
Hamas is prolonging this war by refusing to surrender and release the hostages.
"There is a deal on the table that would bring a cease-fire immediately to Gaza simply with the release of women, wounded, elderly and sick hostages," a senior administration official told reporters today. "That is ready to go...and Hamas has rejected that."
In a joint statement led by the United States, 18 countries whose citizens are among the 133 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza called "for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days."
"As awful as this crisis is in so many different dimensions, there’s a core fundamental truth to it,” the administration official added. “Hamas is holding hostages, and releasing videos of the hostages, and refusing to let the hostages go back to their families. And if they would do that, this crisis will wind down."
See? We've done the apartheid thing, we've done the ethnic cleansing thing, now we need to ramp up the genocide thing. But the world is watching...So make sure we say the genocide is really...Hamas's fault! Wow...
Palestinians have known for a long time that the value of a non-Jewish life in Israel is zero... if there is land to be grabbed, wealth to be accumulated, power to be had. Now the whole world knows. Non-Jews in Israel are simply...viewed as sub-human by leadership. Zero them out.
Starting in 1948, almost a million Palestinians had their land stolen by Israel. Many (hundreds? thousands? who knows? MANY) were slaughtered as Zionist militias marauded village to village. The worst massacre (town of Deir Yassin) was led by future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Many women/children/elderly massacred there, so that is baked in Israel's DNA. But even those planned atrocitites-- akin in depravity to what Hamas visited on over 1,000 human beings-- are NOTHING compared to the deprived wholesale slaughter of TRAPPED, STARVING humans that is going on now. In fact, the Israeli Far Right and their supporters (AIPAC, etc.) makes (Netanyahu-supported) Hamas look like an incompetent joke in the annals of DEPRIVED MASS HUMAN SLAUGHTER, aka GENOCIDE.
I remember my former boss, who was born a Jew in Hungary in 1941, coming back from a trip to Israel and saying "It's a giant real estate grab by Israel." He was disgusted.
You clearly know nothing of the history nor what life in Israel is actually like. I suggest you go there and learn so you don’t come across as a shrieking, hysterical, antisemite.
How many Israelis/Jews have been living in Gaza since 2005? I’ll make it easy for you: ZERO. Gaza has not been “occupied.” The Palestinians could have shaped Gaza into anything they desired. Israel would have welcomed them as peaceful neighbors, potentially leading to a Palestinian state comprising Gaza and much of the West Bank. However, within hours of Israeli forces forcibly relocating Jews out of Gaza, Hamas began launching missiles at Israeli towns. Their intention was clear: the destruction of Jews and Israel. Instead of investing in education, desalination plants, or Mediterranean resorts for its citizens, Hamas diverted billions of dollars of aid into a massive military infrastructure with tunnels, missile factories, and weapons. The barbarity of these attacks on October 7 underscored their ongoing intention: the elimination of the state of Israel. 🕊️🇮🇱
Yahya Sinwar and the Muslim Jihadists are cowards, they use their people as human shields, and convince religious morons to commit suicide for the din ( faith).
The Gaza-Israel border was peaceful on October 6. On October 7, Hamas terrorists violated this peace with one of the most barbaric attacks in history -- killing 300 young people at a music festival and 1200 overall, shooting families asleep in their beds, raping in the most brutal way -- cutting off breasts of women and tossing them around like balls, shooting women in the vagina, and kidnapping 300 innocent people and holding them hostage in the most vile conditions.
Did Hamas show any remorse? No, they promise to "do October 7 again and again" until they accomplish their goal of killing the Jews and destroying Israel.
Israel is surgically destroying Hamas, building by building, block by block, city by city. Unfortunately, these cowards hide behind civilians, placing their tunnel network beneath schools, apartment buildings, hospitals and mosques. The civilian death toll is 100% the responsibility of Hamas, not Israel.
This war can end any time that Hamas releases all hostages and the leaders surrender. Until then, Israel MUST continue the operation to destroy Hamas and completely demilitarize Gaza. Only then will peace have a chance and Palestinians and Israelis can have a chance to live in peace.
Richard, history didn't begin on Oct 7. Israel has been collectively punishing the people of Gaza with a savage blockade for the last 17 years. During those years, at various time, Israel rationed food, medicines, electricity, and other goods that made Gaza all virtually uninhabitable. There wasn't even clean drinking water.
Furthermore, in 2018, civil society groups in Gaza organized The Great March of Return, a non-violent action that involved gathering near the fence between Gaza and Israel every Friday for 18 months to call for the right to return to their pre-1948 homes. The event finally ended in violence when Israel began shooting protesters. Here is report on the Great March issued by the National Institute of Health in the US:
Finally, some of the atrocities you describe in your first paragraph never happened--the tossing around of breasts, for instance, has been totally debunked. This isn't to say that I in any way condone Hamas' actions on Oct, 7, namely the taking of hostages and the killing of Israeli civilians. Nor do I condone Israel's indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, its indiscriminate destruction of housing, vital infrastructure, hospitals, schools, markets, mosques, refugee camps, etc. all of which has taken place in the last six months. The idea that Israel has been "surgically" destroying Hamas by pulverizing Gaza is preposterous.
How many Israelis/Jews have been living in Gaza since 2005? I’ll make it easy for you: ZERO. Gaza has not been “occupied.” The Palestinians could have shaped Gaza into anything they desired. Israel would have welcomed them as peaceful neighbors, potentially leading to a Palestinian state comprising Gaza and much of the West Bank. However, within hours of Israeli forces forcibly relocating Jews out of Gaza, Hamas began launching missiles at Israeli towns. Their intention was clear: the destruction of Jews and Israel. Instead of investing in education, desalination plants, or Mediterranean resorts for its citizens, Hamas diverted billions of dollars of aid into a massive military infrastructure with tunnels, missile factories, and weapons. The barbarity of these attacks on October 7 underscored their ongoing intention: the elimination of the state of Israel. 🕊️🇮🇱
Gaza has a border with Egypt in addition to Israel. They have been free to get goods and services through Egypt.
It's not Israel's responsibility to provide free goods to people that have openly swore to destroy Israel and have been attempting to do so since their inception. Israel has been providing Gaza with free utilities since 2005, and would turn it off every time Hamas starts a war with Israel. What do you expect?
Hamas was behind the Intifadas as well. You should read "Son of Hamas", and/or listen to the words of Mosab Hassan Yousef, who is the son of the founder of Hamas, who defected.
Gaza has received billions of dollars in aid a year, from UNWRA, Iran, Qatar, and others. They used that money only for terrorism and enriching their leaders. The leaders of Hamas are billionaires that live in Qatar. Gaza was actually pretty well off compared to much of the world, with restaurants, beach clubs, hotels, universities, wealthy neighborhoods, etc. But they told the world it was a "concentration camp".
Also, the atrocities of Oct 7th DID happen. You can watch the videos and listen to hostage testimony. It is beyond fucked up to hear people denying it, it's akin to Holocaust denial. Fine, 40 babies weren't beheaded, but that was never an official statement. That was a traumatized person who said that. Just because a traumatized person stated the wrong number of beheaded babies does not mean that Hamas did not dismember babies, rape people to death, dismember them, light children on fire, etc etc. They did. Because they believe they are on a mission from God to rid the world of Jews.
And you see them as the victim, and you are on their side.
I agree Nina but would still maintain most of these students aren’t really educated on the conflict in the middle east. Well most Americans aren’t either for that matter.
Really, peaceful, not when people are getting hit, punched by demonstrators, That they haven't broken windows yet, does not mean that they are peaceful.
They have disrupted the lives and income, and probably cost lives, but shutting down bridges, freeways and arterials.
How many people being rushed to an emergency ward are stymied because of these "peaceful protesters), How many people have lost their jobs because they couldn't get to work because of these peaceful protesters, and gott knows what other deleterious effects these moronic campus idiots are responsible for.
There is no such thing as free speech. It is not in the constitution, and speech has always been moderated, Your ability to incite a mob to violence is limited.
>>"Outside agitators"? That slur is as old as the hills. <<
Yes, but there's a reason for that. They exist. I've been at protests where some of the people present were acting way outside the standards of behavior shared by the majority of attendees. The "outsiders" did not interact with others in the group or try to make connections with them to express shared values. They were there to cause trouble.
"Outside agitators" is the canard that the segregationists used when they broke up civil rights demonstrations, that the "hawks" used when they broke up anti-war demonstrations, and the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) used when they hauled Hollywood writers and actors before Congress to persecute and blacklist them for having leftist political views. See a pattern?
Antisemitic chants and even threats against Jewish students have brought the tension of the Middle East onto U.S. college campuses. CBS and many other items.
Rabbi Elie Buechler, who is involved with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, told more than 300 mostly Orthodox Jewish students that they should return home and remain there due to safety concerns.
“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” Buechler wrote, adding that the university has “made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety.”
A protest is not an exchange of ideas. it is a statement of a position, a demand, and it risks being completely counterproductive. Also, calling for Schaffik's resignation is an invitation for the appointment of an authoritarian, which she is not..
Most students don't Most students don't understand the issues or what is behind the issues they protest. It is peer pressure, fun and games, comradeship, something to brag about over coffee or a keg.
Campus idiots. Over educated and brainless and a total lack of curiousity and critical reasoning skills, sez this old dude who went to university with them during the Vietnam war., bullshit blustering posturing and bravado.
I was at the occupation at Yale this weekend it was beautiful, peaceful, the theme was books not bombs, there was food and music, art and singing. Mixed race, mixed religion - the beautiful diversity of humanity calling us to our better angels
I was there, I was not a student, a 60 something year old progressive Xian white women wanting to stand against what is happening in Gaza and yes the attacks of 10/07 were unconscionable. I can hold both realities
Getting rid of the president because she tried to bring order to her campus USA is akin to letting the inmates run the asylum. I am an alumni of Columbia and believe that simpletons such as yourself are a hindrance to the education process!
From one Columbia grad to another: Did the Columbia you went to teach you respect for diverse opinions? To think critically? Not to call people childish names?
I really hate how this Israeli-Hamas conflict has divided Democrats & progressives so much. It seems everyone is so riled up about it. Many people blame Biden. All most likely instigated by Putin from classified information he got from Trump. Yet another way the crafty Putin has harmed Americans with Trump's help.
I agree, the Arab students and the professors bought by chairs purchased by oil money, are foistering antisemitism and Jewish students are subject to violence, threats, ostracization, and name calling.
As Bill Maher found out, Free speech for me, but not for thee. The campus idots of Berkley had his appearance canceled because he had the temerity to call the abaya (that awful head to toe black covering of Arab women, a beekeeper suit.
And how many of those that found him an outrage claim to be champions ofequality and women's rights.
Pure unadultered hypocrisy and worse they are oblvious. Queers for Islam makes about as much sense as chickens for KFC.
Yes, Bill Maher also basically said on his show: "Genocide happens in history. Get over it." Wonder if he would've said that if he had had a tv show during WW2?
He didn't say that. He said that displacement happens in history, and 75 years later you should be fucking over it. Which is true.
Displacing or killing 7 million Jews from Israel does not create justice for the thousands of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948---- by a war the Palestinians and other Arabs started for no good reason.
Start stupid wars, you get displaced. That's life.
And he didn’t define what “displacement” REALLY means, what it REALLY leads to in the context of a Far Right power doing the “displacing,” did he?? He was smoothly and disingenuously speaking as if people were simply being moved from one location to another—the kind of propaganda that Far Right media loves to spread. And they depend on closeted Far Right supporters—like Maher— to normalize their actions.
“Displacement.” The first step to ethnic cleansing. Genocide. (In the past, wide-scale slavery.) These are ALL forms of racial/cultural “displacement.” Displacement happened to Blacks in South Africa as part of apartheid, Jews being corralled in Warsaw, then “displaced” to Auschwitz, much as Palestinians were “displaced” from their homes, corralled in Gaza, now herded into Rafah, for mass starvation and final bombing.
Also, many things in history were fine at the time: feeding other humans to animals for sport, burning people at the stake… you get the idea. So how is the “hey, history, get over it” JUSTIFICATION for any of what’s happening, which is exactly how Maher was chillingly using it?? After all, there’s a precedent of genocide against the Jews —“hey, history, get over it?” So selective and hypocritical?
We need to expose Maher for what he’s really justifying here: genocide. He might have a smooth delivery, but that’s needed to normalize truly EVIL things?
Maher didn’t define what “displacement” REALLY means, what it REALLY leads to in the context of a Far Right power doing the “displacing,” did he?? He was smoothly and disingenuously speaking as if people were simply being moved from one location to another—the kind of propaganda that Far Right media loves to spread. And they depend on closeted Far Right supporters—like Maher— to normalize their actions.
“Displacement.” The first step to ethnic cleansing. Genocide. (In the past, wide-scale slavery.) These are ALL forms of racial/cultural “displacement.” Displacement happened to Blacks in South Africa as part of apartheid, Jews being corralled in Warsaw, then “displaced” to Auschwitz, much as Palestinians were “displaced” from their homes, corralled in Gaza, now herded into Rafah, for mass starvation and final bombing.
Also, many things in history were fine at the time: feeding other humans to animals for sport, burning people at the stake… you get the idea. So how is the “hey, history, get over it” JUSTIFICATION for any of what’s happening, which is exactly how Maher was chillingly using it?? After all, there’s a precedent of genocide against the Jews —“hey, history, get over it?” So selective and hypocritical?
We need to expose Maher for what he’s really justifying here: genocide. He might have a smooth delivery, but that’s needed to normalize truly EVIL things?
What you tried to pull off is a strawmanargument Liz.
Neither Maher or myself mentioned displacement.
You introduced the word,and idea, that you could go on a rant.
Now if you want to accuse the Israeli leadership of ethnic cleansing intentions I won't object, for sure the Israeli right, including Yahoo,want to cleanse the area of Muslims,.
However Islam has a 1400 year old intention of cleansing the world of Jews, it is in their sacred text, and echoed in the HAMAS covenant, by the leaders of Iran, Hezabollah and even Saudi Arabia
And they would have done it,they sure tried in 1948, 1956,1967, 1973 2006, but failed each time, too stupid and eat up to have learned a lesson, and if it werent' for the U.S. and it's aid, the Muslims would have indeed genocided the Jews of Israel, and America had lost a land locked aircraft carrier, that keeps the Arab oil potentates from blackmailing nd destroying the west.
However if you are a hidebound Marxist, that is what you want, to destroy western civilization and culture, to erect a Marxist commune.
Marxists on the left, MAGAts on the right, what is a true progressive to do.?
It’s really fucked up to look at a part of someone else’s religion that isn’t hurting anyone and call it “awful.” You need to examine the bigotry inside you.
Not hurting anyone you say? To start with 2,000 Jews killed and taken hostage because of a holy war. And thousands of oppressed women, gays and unbelievers because of a book.
Many women who wear the garment do not believe they are oppressed. Others are, and that’s a problem, but the mere existence of the practice is not in and of itself “awful.” The holy war you mention has nothing to do with the garment, nor does it reflect the actual beliefs of Islam any more than the crusades reflected the actual teachings of Christ.
Many women who wear the garment don't believe that they are oppressed. Is your response.
How about the Stockholm Syndrome, we have it here in America too, female MAGAts. Amy Comey Barrets, Phyliss Schafly's, anti abortion, anti feminist, right wing women.
As regards the holy war, I've studied the Quran, three different copies, including the one read by Thomas Jefferson, the Hadiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq, I had a Muslims tell me that I knew so much that I hadtp be a Muslim, therefore I was an apostate (murtadd) an enemy of Islam, and my life was forfeit.
Comparing the Crusades to Islam is comparing apples to oranges.
Islam is triumphalist, so are many Christian cults, like Dominionism, aka Christian Reconstruction and other Evangelicals.
Michael your comments were on the mark. Thank you for noting that Mr Reich is ignoring the inappropriate behaviors. Reich omits the reason for arrests: harassment (sometimes physical) and threats to Jewish students.
“You're too smart not to understand the distinction.” No, he is not. And expressing that ridiculous opinion calls your own intellectual acuity into question.
Is that true on every campus? With so many students on so many campuses protesting it would be unusual for each protest to exist in the same format as the next. Are you sure this description you gave applies everywhere? I saw one student at Colombia interviewed who complained it was difficult for him to prepare for and take exams in that environment. He did not say impossible. Protests can be inconveinient for some but inconvenience does not rob someone of his or her rights to a sound education or opportunity to take exams. Do you have evidence that certain students have been unable to go to class or take exams at all? If so can you share your source? Thank you.
He’s not. He’s pointing out that Israel’s response to the abominable attacks of 10/7 is not excused by those attacks. the Israeli government has made a series of deliberate choices that have caused thousands, if not tens of thousands, of unnecessary civilian deaths, as well as mass homelessness and famine. That didn’t have to happen, it was a choice.
Maybe you should leave Chicago and go to New York to see what is really happening before pronouncing from afar on, apparently, no evidence. The NYPD Chief of Police said the student protestors were peaceful and polite. He seemed a bit bewildered that the NYPD were called in, and, in the end, all charges were dropped.
Now, President Shafik is doing what she should have done in the first place--actually talking to the students and listening to them. Had she done that in the first place, she would not have sparked university student protests nationwide--as she should have known would happen if she understood anything about university students at all.
I totally agree with Dr. Reich; Columbia faculty should vote no confidence in her.
The faculty at University of Texas at Austin should do the same in regards to their president, who should have realized that the local police he called in would be violent and brutal.
Tip from the 60s: if you go to a protest where the police may be called in an may be violent, wear a bike helmet or motorcycle helmet to protect yourself from a concussion.
Where are the peaceful protestors for Ukraine!? The leaders of Ukraine and Russia have displaced millions of Ukrainian citizens and killed hundreds of thousands more on both sides never mind the destruction of a sovereign nation! Oh yes and $60 billion in US tax payer money. We should be frantically trying to end both wars, but alas only protest against Israel those horrible Zionists that have no where to go. (Sarcasm) How anyone can think there isn’t a hidden agenda here is naive
What exactly should they be protesting about in Ukraine? The only thing worth protesting would be if we were not arming Ukraine, but we are, so there’s nothing to be done right now.
They should be trying to broker a peace agreement! Ukraine can’t possibly win a war with Russia and they have a dwindling population of military aged men! This will be a long war of attrition and devastating for Ukraine. Protest for both governments to stop the war. Also some Americans just don’t feel so strongly about spending 60 billion of our tax payer money let Europe foot the bill we have migrants to house and feed😡
Wait!! How do student protestors know when a student is a Zionist? Sounds strange to me. Does the Jewish person wear a foot long Jewish star or carry a sign saying 'I am a Zionist - beware!'?
They get harassed if they are visibly Jewish and not covered in "Free-Palestine" swag.
They also say that if you don't loudly stand with Hamas, you are "complicit in genocide". That's why they demand that everyone take a stand and make a statement. They cancel you for your "silence" if you don't.
That is wildly untrue, student marshals trained in keeping the peace at protest link arms to block counter protestors looking to heckle students practicing their free speech. Like the comment above the encampments are not blocking access to any buildings. The ‘Zionist’ students aren’t there by accident. They’re intentionally there to agitate and antagonize students as seen on multiple videos. And then they go on to claim that these protest are violent. Please share this video and let’s watch the ‘whole’ video, not just the conveniently clipped version.
I'd just like someone to explain to me how it is that genocide is up for any discussion, anywhere on the planet, as if there's a pro/con argument. This is what boggles my mind, and deeply disturbs me to my core.
Which genocide? The one that criminal murdered, enter bedrooms, raped women and beheaded children, than kidnap 230?. Or the one trying to release the hostages and pound the enclave of murderers for their action to stop, and discourage repeated crimes.
The genocide of 30,000 women & children that are being murdered. It's clearly not ethical to kill 30,000 inocent women and children. This would not be tolerated if it were Jewish people.
Stop using one wrong as an excuse to murder and wipe people from the face of the earth bc you want the land. Some hawks were dreaming of an opportunity to murder like this. That does not mean that you can not hunt down the fighters. You just can not use it to kill everyone.
The health ministry's numbers have historically been considered reliable by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch.[6][7][8] The United States Department of State cited its numbers in a public report in March 2023.[9]
The UN denounced Israel 20 times this year, but did not denounce Hamas or the Acts of Oct 7th even once.
This is because so many of the nations in the UN are Islamic, and it's sadly within the Islamic doctrine to hate, fight, and kill Jews. Specifically, the prophet Mohammad said in a popular Hadith that Muslims must fight the children of Israel (the Jews) to the death, until every last one is dead, before Judgement Day. There are other examples as well, like that time Mohammad killed a village of 700 Jews for not accepting him as prophet.
Andrea, it's now up to around 34,000 Palestinians killed. Two wrongs don't make a right. You know that. You need to know about Netanyahu's criminal trials predicament, and you especially need to know the history of Israel and of the Palestinian people. One has to have context for this war.
The Health Ministry is terrorist? It makes sense that those who don't want to acknowledge the great numbers of dead, injured without care and starving would look for any doubting theories to hang onto. The Israel side is not innocent of doubters, deniers and propagandists. This is the fog of war. It does make sense that MANY many have been killed/injured/starving and that they were fighters but many more women, men (not fighters) and children given what we know for sure about the bombs that have been dropped and looking at the damage. Many under the rubble cannot be counted.
I guess in WWII all we had to do is look for Hitler and the war would have been over. but we did not find him even at the end after 5 years and 40 millions dead. Yes 40 millions including 6 million Jews in crematoriums and 30 million Russians. A war is not fought with soldiers standing in a auditorium being selected as the one to fight. Soldier's are supported by the civilian's who feed them, clothes the, and manufacture the killings devices, bombs, bullets rifles and cannons. the soldier's do not make these, the civilians do and they are the fighters in the arena.
The elected government of Gaza is Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group. They do not have separation of religion and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. The Health Ministry answers to Hamas.
The National Post is right of center (looked it up), so I don't trust the info, given Netanyahu is a conservative with an intention to stay in office indefinitely. He has three criminal trials to face once he's out of office. So take a good look at the death and destruction. It's simply shocking.
So you avert your gaze from anything that might burst your bubble? Most leaders want to stay in office.
War can be shocking - but Gazan's are still going to hospitals with power to have babies - with doctors and nurses. This was on the news. No such thing happened on Okinawa, or in Berlin when the Red Army captured it.
Early on, we were told that hundreds dies when the IDF destroyed a hospital. This number was reported very quickly (somehow). It turned out that an opponent's rocket had fallen short and landed in the hospital's parking lot - with some casualties - but none caused by Israel (Yes - you probably think it's Israel's fault because it exists.)
In full scale military attacks (e.g. Okinawa, Red Army capture of Berlin), there was no casualty count under well after - and then only as estimates. Women were not going into hospitals with staff and power. Civilians were sheltering to avoid the millions (not thousands) of shells and rockets.
Joshua, you bring up a valid point. During WW II the Nazis killed civilians with gusto and impunity, and so did the Allies. It was a fight to death. What's going on in Gaza now is not unlike what happened then. But after WW II nations got together and passed resolutions, enacted laws and procedures to prevent a recurrence of that horrendous war. Should we renounce these hopes as hopelessly unrealistic?
Obviously reporting cannot be absolutely accurate in the fog of war. Does it make sense to you that many many people have not been killed when you look at the damage, read the reports, and hear the amount of bombs dropped?
Think how many cannot be counted under the rubble. How many have not died yet because of their injuries ( with little or no care).
No, the the genocide on the other side of the walls and fences, the side blockaded for 16 years, that's been bombed and bombed again now to almost complete destruction,with immense loss of life, whose population is surviving barely and in threat of being pushed further into smaller and smaller enclaves homeless with no services, no end and no hope. THAT genocide... or what is being called by some a genocide somewhat credibly if you listen to the far right in Israel that is also in power.
Why not release the hostages and the slaughter will likely stop. If not you would have a good cause to call Israel criminal but for now, they are looking to free their people taken off their beds at night while sleeking and sisters were raped and the children beheaded. Until then, there is no mercy and should not be, as Gazans, and all of them, supported and fed and supplied the means for the murderous incursion into Israel on October 7.
"A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamist militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders. The comments by Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday came amid a stalemate in months of talks for a ceasefire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the militant group officially committed to Israel’s destruction. But it's unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario. Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank." from The World (PRI) newsletter today
Let us assume peace settled there, all smiling and working. Working? Doing what? Is either Gaza or the West Bank as independent countries are economically viable? What will 2.3 million Gazan do? Now they run daily to the drop point of the free food and money showered on them for the Hate they bear for Israel by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the likes as well as by the UN. If that money stops because there is no more hate and war, what will they do? Yes, in 1970 I bought shirts Made in Gaza. they may make shirts, better yet they may develop the beach to entertain the Germans and Swedes and more as these are fantastic beaches. But will it feed 2,.3 millions? I forgot, they will catch some fish too. And the West Bank, is it an economic viable entity or will it continue as a hand out with a violin in the street corner. The only solution is either merge with Egypt or Jordan to expand the horizon beyond the West Bank or Gaza. Else the tension will NEVER subside, the lay person out of work will just stay home and for fun make more and more children. And then? War again with Israel which they will not win and just help thin their population in misery of war deaths. Is that not true that Nietzsche once said wars are design to help the world in its population control? “War essential. It is vain rhapsodizing and sentimentality to continue to expect much (even more, to expect a very great deal) from mankind, once it has learned not to wage war. For the time being, we know of no other means to imbue exhausted peoples, as strongly and surely as every great war does, with that raw energy of the battleground, that deep impersonal hatred, that murderous cold bloodedness with a good conscience, that communal, organized ardor in destroying the enemy, that proud indifference to great losses, to one’s own existence and to that of one’s friends, that muted, earthquakelike convulsion of the soul.” (HAH, 477)"
Amos, I'm not sure what war you're talking about here. Please, please read about the history of Israel and Palestine before you go on a rant about rape and beheading. This war is definitely not one-sided.
Well, it must have been on the Moon. Some gangsters invaded the Moonies at night and raped their women and beheaded theit children and than danced and sang victory songs. Then took the remaining living with them to the crevices and depression of the moon surface. Doe it sound familiar? If not take a valium and go to sleep perhaps the scene will awaken in your dream.
So Israel is threatening Hamas to release the hostages and the “slaughter” you are admitting will stop? There was an ongoing slaughter happening before October 7 over the years. Many times slowly and in various “operations”. People have been taken off their beds in the night also, incarcerated without trial, the young as well, protesting. Israel has lost the support and sympathy it had. Hamas will continue or resistance groups will in their place including via aid from elsewhere like Iran Hezbollah. If Israel wants only its hostages back and no deal to end the occupation it won’t happen. Israel is losing and destroying itself thinking it ca win this way.
You're correct, but Israel does have a right-wing government. And Netanyahu must stay in power, or else face his three criminal trials. Regarding Hamas, many of their fighters are on a drug called Captagon, which makes them more fierce than they really are. Yes, there has to be a deal to end the occupation. BTW, if anyone knows the answer to why the Israeli government confiscated weapons from those settlements before they were attacked, I'd like to know the answer. There are pieces to this puzzle that are missing.
Being on drugs makes sense to be able to perform such atrocities that a human normally cannot do. Also they must have plenty of reasons personally having lost family lived through and suffered Israel’s destruction and oppression, being prevented from living a life in what is called a prison -Gaza- unable to leave with no normal hopes and dreams. Israelis for all the terror they have gone through have not experienced this and live more happy lives. I think I can say that comfortably. October 7 has context.
I was not aware of the confiscated weapons or what matter it has. Israel has suffered under Netanyahu, they voted for him, for too long and should not have to endure him longer as he gets desperate and brings the country down to save himself. Sound familiar?
Every time there was a war with Gaza, who started it? Hamas / Gaza.
The only reason Hamas hasn't killed tons more Israeli yet is not for lack of trying, it's because Israel has military superiority.
In fact, EVERY war between the Arabs and Israel was started by the Arabs.
Even the first one-- where the Palestinians were offered the chance to have their own state for the first time in all of history, but instead they ganged up with 5 Arab nations to start a war with Israel. The war displaced thousands of Palestinians.
No one would have been displaced if they didn't start this war.
Their hatred of Jews is killing them, but they never stop.
Now they rebrand it as the "Nakba," where they were kicked out of their homes by demonic Israelis out of nowhere.
Just a short comment: I was there, In Israel during the 1948 events, and can assure you very few Palestinians were evicted or driven by Jews. I saw in my own eye the Mullahs standing and shouting for the people to free the village for the Syrians and Egyptian to have the freedom to wage a killing war against Israel and they will then return back yo their homes and enjoy the Jewish bounty off the driven Jews.
Yes, these are fact I myself experienced. Lots of propaganda is false toxic and absolute lies. Tul Karem is where I saw it in person.
While sleeping in a barn lighting a match is deadly. That is what Gazan did. Sorry I should have said the Hamas Gazens. Though the Gazans as a whole is Hamas. They feed them, clothes them, love them, dance and hurray while they parade with Effigies of dead Jews. As said, you sleep with a skunk, you end up smelling like a skunk and soon it becomes hard to distinguish.
There are 7 million Palestinians under occupation. Maybe 40, 000 just killed by Israel. Enormous destruction. What is Israel planning to do for its security now if it doesn’t give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks?
When people have nothing to live for they go for broke. Fact is the Gazans did not want this and knew nothing about this plan. But you are here justifying your inhumanity shamelessly.. Same can be said for the Israelis dancing close to the gates and walls of the prison that is Gaza? If might makes right, then that’s the way people go to survive.even if that might becomes terror out of poverty of other means.
Yes. And that some people seem more concerned with relatively minor inconveniences, interruptions and hurt feelings caused by demonstrations at educational institutions than they are with genocide. Mind boggling. I think the students believe they had to ratchet up their activities, e.g., with encampments, because our politicians have all but ignored other acts of protest.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction *in whole or in part*;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits genocide whether committed in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, *in whole or in part*, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Spot on, Nancy. It's hard to believe that people are even questioning that it's a genocide. There is more to this slaughter of innocents than many people know. There is also Netanyahu's agenda, which is to keep the war going. Once he's out of office, there are three criminal trials awaiting him.
Are you unaware of the ruling of the International Criminal Court, which designated the war on Gaza as a "plausible genocide"? Just because the US government refuses to use the word "genocide," much less the word "apartheid," doesn't mean these things are happening.
Mr. Reich - Nobody is being arrested for protesting responsibly. Students who are blocking other students from going to class, and students inciting hate and violence are being arrested. You're too smart not to understand the distinction. Why are you conflating and promoting confusion?
You are mistaken. I live a block away, and that is incorrect. More than 100 Columbia and Barnard students peacefully protesting were arrested, and those who were arrested were suspended.
As a Columbia alum, I can tell you that using the public space on campus as an encampment that doesn't allow students to pass through -- and has outside agitators coming in to rile up the crowd -- is NOT allowed.
"Outside agitators"? That slur is as old as the hills. Free speech is the bedrock of our universities. It's part of what makes the US a democracy. Do you want to change that? Yes, sometimes free speech is inconvenient.
Hamas is prolonging this war by refusing to surrender and release the hostages.
"There is a deal on the table that would bring a cease-fire immediately to Gaza simply with the release of women, wounded, elderly and sick hostages," a senior administration official told reporters today. "That is ready to go...and Hamas has rejected that."
In a joint statement led by the United States, 18 countries whose citizens are among the 133 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza called "for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days."
"As awful as this crisis is in so many different dimensions, there’s a core fundamental truth to it,” the administration official added. “Hamas is holding hostages, and releasing videos of the hostages, and refusing to let the hostages go back to their families. And if they would do that, this crisis will wind down."
See? We've done the apartheid thing, we've done the ethnic cleansing thing, now we need to ramp up the genocide thing. But the world is watching...So make sure we say the genocide is really...Hamas's fault! Wow...
Palestinians have known for a long time that the value of a non-Jewish life in Israel is zero... if there is land to be grabbed, wealth to be accumulated, power to be had. Now the whole world knows. Non-Jews in Israel are simply...viewed as sub-human by leadership. Zero them out.
Starting in 1948, almost a million Palestinians had their land stolen by Israel. Many (hundreds? thousands? who knows? MANY) were slaughtered as Zionist militias marauded village to village. The worst massacre (town of Deir Yassin) was led by future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Many women/children/elderly massacred there, so that is baked in Israel's DNA. But even those planned atrocitites-- akin in depravity to what Hamas visited on over 1,000 human beings-- are NOTHING compared to the deprived wholesale slaughter of TRAPPED, STARVING humans that is going on now. In fact, the Israeli Far Right and their supporters (AIPAC, etc.) makes (Netanyahu-supported) Hamas look like an incompetent joke in the annals of DEPRIVED MASS HUMAN SLAUGHTER, aka GENOCIDE.
I remember my former boss, who was born a Jew in Hungary in 1941, coming back from a trip to Israel and saying "It's a giant real estate grab by Israel." He was disgusted.
I dare you to click on this map. Made me see exactly what my former boss was talking about. Non-Jewish human life is worthless, compared to real estate: https://www.zochrot.org/villages/nakba_map/en?Nakba_Map
You clearly know nothing of the history nor what life in Israel is actually like. I suggest you go there and learn so you don’t come across as a shrieking, hysterical, antisemite.
How many Israelis/Jews have been living in Gaza since 2005? I’ll make it easy for you: ZERO. Gaza has not been “occupied.” The Palestinians could have shaped Gaza into anything they desired. Israel would have welcomed them as peaceful neighbors, potentially leading to a Palestinian state comprising Gaza and much of the West Bank. However, within hours of Israeli forces forcibly relocating Jews out of Gaza, Hamas began launching missiles at Israeli towns. Their intention was clear: the destruction of Jews and Israel. Instead of investing in education, desalination plants, or Mediterranean resorts for its citizens, Hamas diverted billions of dollars of aid into a massive military infrastructure with tunnels, missile factories, and weapons. The barbarity of these attacks on October 7 underscored their ongoing intention: the elimination of the state of Israel. 🕊️🇮🇱
You've been misled. Here's a video about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the time leading up to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrp_UiTyVZk
Yahya Sinwar and the Muslim Jihadists are cowards, they use their people as human shields, and convince religious morons to commit suicide for the din ( faith).
The Gaza-Israel border was peaceful on October 6. On October 7, Hamas terrorists violated this peace with one of the most barbaric attacks in history -- killing 300 young people at a music festival and 1200 overall, shooting families asleep in their beds, raping in the most brutal way -- cutting off breasts of women and tossing them around like balls, shooting women in the vagina, and kidnapping 300 innocent people and holding them hostage in the most vile conditions.
Did Hamas show any remorse? No, they promise to "do October 7 again and again" until they accomplish their goal of killing the Jews and destroying Israel.
Israel is surgically destroying Hamas, building by building, block by block, city by city. Unfortunately, these cowards hide behind civilians, placing their tunnel network beneath schools, apartment buildings, hospitals and mosques. The civilian death toll is 100% the responsibility of Hamas, not Israel.
This war can end any time that Hamas releases all hostages and the leaders surrender. Until then, Israel MUST continue the operation to destroy Hamas and completely demilitarize Gaza. Only then will peace have a chance and Palestinians and Israelis can have a chance to live in peace.
Richard, history didn't begin on Oct 7. Israel has been collectively punishing the people of Gaza with a savage blockade for the last 17 years. During those years, at various time, Israel rationed food, medicines, electricity, and other goods that made Gaza all virtually uninhabitable. There wasn't even clean drinking water.
Furthermore, in 2018, civil society groups in Gaza organized The Great March of Return, a non-violent action that involved gathering near the fence between Gaza and Israel every Friday for 18 months to call for the right to return to their pre-1948 homes. The event finally ended in violence when Israel began shooting protesters. Here is report on the Great March issued by the National Institute of Health in the US:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7348434/
Finally, some of the atrocities you describe in your first paragraph never happened--the tossing around of breasts, for instance, has been totally debunked. This isn't to say that I in any way condone Hamas' actions on Oct, 7, namely the taking of hostages and the killing of Israeli civilians. Nor do I condone Israel's indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, its indiscriminate destruction of housing, vital infrastructure, hospitals, schools, markets, mosques, refugee camps, etc. all of which has taken place in the last six months. The idea that Israel has been "surgically" destroying Hamas by pulverizing Gaza is preposterous.
And no universitys remain from my understanding
How many Israelis/Jews have been living in Gaza since 2005? I’ll make it easy for you: ZERO. Gaza has not been “occupied.” The Palestinians could have shaped Gaza into anything they desired. Israel would have welcomed them as peaceful neighbors, potentially leading to a Palestinian state comprising Gaza and much of the West Bank. However, within hours of Israeli forces forcibly relocating Jews out of Gaza, Hamas began launching missiles at Israeli towns. Their intention was clear: the destruction of Jews and Israel. Instead of investing in education, desalination plants, or Mediterranean resorts for its citizens, Hamas diverted billions of dollars of aid into a massive military infrastructure with tunnels, missile factories, and weapons. The barbarity of these attacks on October 7 underscored their ongoing intention: the elimination of the state of Israel. 🕊️🇮🇱
Nina, you've been lied to.
Gaza has a border with Egypt in addition to Israel. They have been free to get goods and services through Egypt.
It's not Israel's responsibility to provide free goods to people that have openly swore to destroy Israel and have been attempting to do so since their inception. Israel has been providing Gaza with free utilities since 2005, and would turn it off every time Hamas starts a war with Israel. What do you expect?
Hamas was behind the Intifadas as well. You should read "Son of Hamas", and/or listen to the words of Mosab Hassan Yousef, who is the son of the founder of Hamas, who defected.
Gaza has received billions of dollars in aid a year, from UNWRA, Iran, Qatar, and others. They used that money only for terrorism and enriching their leaders. The leaders of Hamas are billionaires that live in Qatar. Gaza was actually pretty well off compared to much of the world, with restaurants, beach clubs, hotels, universities, wealthy neighborhoods, etc. But they told the world it was a "concentration camp".
Also, the atrocities of Oct 7th DID happen. You can watch the videos and listen to hostage testimony. It is beyond fucked up to hear people denying it, it's akin to Holocaust denial. Fine, 40 babies weren't beheaded, but that was never an official statement. That was a traumatized person who said that. Just because a traumatized person stated the wrong number of beheaded babies does not mean that Hamas did not dismember babies, rape people to death, dismember them, light children on fire, etc etc. They did. Because they believe they are on a mission from God to rid the world of Jews.
And you see them as the victim, and you are on their side.
Congrats.
Nina--Free speech and violence through demonstrations are two completely different realities.
What violence? Even the NYPD has acknowledged that the demonstrations are peaceful. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-i-teach-555/comment/54803803?r=wlq5
I agree Nina but would still maintain most of these students aren’t really educated on the conflict in the middle east. Well most Americans aren’t either for that matter.
What violence?
A woman was hit in the eye with a Palestine flag pole. People have been beat up and harassed.
Really, peaceful, not when people are getting hit, punched by demonstrators, That they haven't broken windows yet, does not mean that they are peaceful.
They have disrupted the lives and income, and probably cost lives, but shutting down bridges, freeways and arterials.
How many people being rushed to an emergency ward are stymied because of these "peaceful protesters), How many people have lost their jobs because they couldn't get to work because of these peaceful protesters, and gott knows what other deleterious effects these moronic campus idiots are responsible for.
Nina--You don't what I watch.
Are they people who come in from outside and agitate things?
Yes, anarchists, Muslims, ignorant old line Marxists.
William, your statement, I am sorry to say, is bigoted, completely irrational..
There is no such thing as free speech. It is not in the constitution, and speech has always been moderated, Your ability to incite a mob to violence is limited.
Trump is finding out the limits of "free speech".
>>"Outside agitators"? That slur is as old as the hills. <<
Yes, but there's a reason for that. They exist. I've been at protests where some of the people present were acting way outside the standards of behavior shared by the majority of attendees. The "outsiders" did not interact with others in the group or try to make connections with them to express shared values. They were there to cause trouble.
"Outside agitators" is the canard that the segregationists used when they broke up civil rights demonstrations, that the "hawks" used when they broke up anti-war demonstrations, and the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) used when they hauled Hollywood writers and actors before Congress to persecute and blacklist them for having leftist political views. See a pattern?
Antisemitic chants and even threats against Jewish students have brought the tension of the Middle East onto U.S. college campuses. CBS and many other items.
Rabbi Elie Buechler, who is involved with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, told more than 300 mostly Orthodox Jewish students that they should return home and remain there due to safety concerns.
“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” Buechler wrote, adding that the university has “made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety.”
https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/news/2024/04/22/jewish-students-fear-safety-amid-pro-palestinian-protests-at-columbia-university
A Los Angeles County District Attorneys' assistant 9caught protesting) faces eleven felony charges filed by the state attorney general.
Following a school altercation in Central Florida, three students, two non-students and one employee were arrested by Tampa Police.
In Hotlanta Emery University spokeswoman Laura Diamond alleged the several dozen protesters were not students and had “trespassed” onto the campus.
Police arrested four who were not students, after they refused to leave an encampment on a plaza at the center of Yale University’s campus .
Agitators, outsiders distorting the peaceful message. Like proud boys would do or kkk
A protest is not an exchange of ideas. it is a statement of a position, a demand, and it risks being completely counterproductive. Also, calling for Schaffik's resignation is an invitation for the appointment of an authoritarian, which she is not..
Just because it is a canard used by segregationists, does not negate the fact that there are indeed outside agitators using the students.
I do believe there are outside agitators considering some of the students don’t really even understand the conflict in the Middle East!
Most students don't Most students don't understand the issues or what is behind the issues they protest. It is peer pressure, fun and games, comradeship, something to brag about over coffee or a keg.
Campus idiots. Over educated and brainless and a total lack of curiousity and critical reasoning skills, sez this old dude who went to university with them during the Vietnam war., bullshit blustering posturing and bravado.
Some were like that, but some were principled dissenters expressing their views publicly where they could be heard.
I was at the occupation at Yale this weekend it was beautiful, peaceful, the theme was books not bombs, there was food and music, art and singing. Mixed race, mixed religion - the beautiful diversity of humanity calling us to our better angels
I was there, I was not a student, a 60 something year old progressive Xian white women wanting to stand against what is happening in Gaza and yes the attacks of 10/07 were unconscionable. I can hold both realities
Mr. Reich
Getting rid of the president because she tried to bring order to her campus USA is akin to letting the inmates run the asylum. I am an alumni of Columbia and believe that simpletons such as yourself are a hindrance to the education process!
From one Columbia grad to another: Did the Columbia you went to teach you respect for diverse opinions? To think critically? Not to call people childish names?
Mr. Reich is an ivory tower fool!
Being open minded is one thing, but being so open minded that the brain falls out of the skull is another.
Sometimes you just can't walk the middle of the road
Jim Hightower, a progressive darling said: The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillo's.
I really hate how this Israeli-Hamas conflict has divided Democrats & progressives so much. It seems everyone is so riled up about it. Many people blame Biden. All most likely instigated by Putin from classified information he got from Trump. Yet another way the crafty Putin has harmed Americans with Trump's help.
he will (further) divide where ever he can to conquer.
And, in interviews on TV, many were not students.
I agree, the Arab students and the professors bought by chairs purchased by oil money, are foistering antisemitism and Jewish students are subject to violence, threats, ostracization, and name calling.
As Bill Maher found out, Free speech for me, but not for thee. The campus idots of Berkley had his appearance canceled because he had the temerity to call the abaya (that awful head to toe black covering of Arab women, a beekeeper suit.
And how many of those that found him an outrage claim to be champions ofequality and women's rights.
Pure unadultered hypocrisy and worse they are oblvious. Queers for Islam makes about as much sense as chickens for KFC.
Yes, Bill Maher also basically said on his show: "Genocide happens in history. Get over it." Wonder if he would've said that if he had had a tv show during WW2?
Maher has become unwatchable.
He didn't say that. He said that displacement happens in history, and 75 years later you should be fucking over it. Which is true.
Displacing or killing 7 million Jews from Israel does not create justice for the thousands of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948---- by a war the Palestinians and other Arabs started for no good reason.
Start stupid wars, you get displaced. That's life.
And he didn’t define what “displacement” REALLY means, what it REALLY leads to in the context of a Far Right power doing the “displacing,” did he?? He was smoothly and disingenuously speaking as if people were simply being moved from one location to another—the kind of propaganda that Far Right media loves to spread. And they depend on closeted Far Right supporters—like Maher— to normalize their actions.
“Displacement.” The first step to ethnic cleansing. Genocide. (In the past, wide-scale slavery.) These are ALL forms of racial/cultural “displacement.” Displacement happened to Blacks in South Africa as part of apartheid, Jews being corralled in Warsaw, then “displaced” to Auschwitz, much as Palestinians were “displaced” from their homes, corralled in Gaza, now herded into Rafah, for mass starvation and final bombing.
Also, many things in history were fine at the time: feeding other humans to animals for sport, burning people at the stake… you get the idea. So how is the “hey, history, get over it” JUSTIFICATION for any of what’s happening, which is exactly how Maher was chillingly using it?? After all, there’s a precedent of genocide against the Jews —“hey, history, get over it?” So selective and hypocritical?
We need to expose Maher for what he’s really justifying here: genocide. He might have a smooth delivery, but that’s needed to normalize truly EVIL things?
Liar, spewing b s propaganda
Had to copy this for you as well:
Maher didn’t define what “displacement” REALLY means, what it REALLY leads to in the context of a Far Right power doing the “displacing,” did he?? He was smoothly and disingenuously speaking as if people were simply being moved from one location to another—the kind of propaganda that Far Right media loves to spread. And they depend on closeted Far Right supporters—like Maher— to normalize their actions.
“Displacement.” The first step to ethnic cleansing. Genocide. (In the past, wide-scale slavery.) These are ALL forms of racial/cultural “displacement.” Displacement happened to Blacks in South Africa as part of apartheid, Jews being corralled in Warsaw, then “displaced” to Auschwitz, much as Palestinians were “displaced” from their homes, corralled in Gaza, now herded into Rafah, for mass starvation and final bombing.
Also, many things in history were fine at the time: feeding other humans to animals for sport, burning people at the stake… you get the idea. So how is the “hey, history, get over it” JUSTIFICATION for any of what’s happening, which is exactly how Maher was chillingly using it?? After all, there’s a precedent of genocide against the Jews —“hey, history, get over it?” So selective and hypocritical?
We need to expose Maher for what he’s really justifying here: genocide. He might have a smooth delivery, but that’s needed to normalize truly EVIL things?
What you tried to pull off is a strawmanargument Liz.
Neither Maher or myself mentioned displacement.
You introduced the word,and idea, that you could go on a rant.
Now if you want to accuse the Israeli leadership of ethnic cleansing intentions I won't object, for sure the Israeli right, including Yahoo,want to cleanse the area of Muslims,.
However Islam has a 1400 year old intention of cleansing the world of Jews, it is in their sacred text, and echoed in the HAMAS covenant, by the leaders of Iran, Hezabollah and even Saudi Arabia
And they would have done it,they sure tried in 1948, 1956,1967, 1973 2006, but failed each time, too stupid and eat up to have learned a lesson, and if it werent' for the U.S. and it's aid, the Muslims would have indeed genocided the Jews of Israel, and America had lost a land locked aircraft carrier, that keeps the Arab oil potentates from blackmailing nd destroying the west.
However if you are a hidebound Marxist, that is what you want, to destroy western civilization and culture, to erect a Marxist commune.
Marxists on the left, MAGAts on the right, what is a true progressive to do.?
It’s really fucked up to look at a part of someone else’s religion that isn’t hurting anyone and call it “awful.” You need to examine the bigotry inside you.
Not hurting anyone you say? To start with 2,000 Jews killed and taken hostage because of a holy war. And thousands of oppressed women, gays and unbelievers because of a book.
Many women who wear the garment do not believe they are oppressed. Others are, and that’s a problem, but the mere existence of the practice is not in and of itself “awful.” The holy war you mention has nothing to do with the garment, nor does it reflect the actual beliefs of Islam any more than the crusades reflected the actual teachings of Christ.
Again, you’re a bigot, just like Bill Maher.
Many women who wear the garment don't believe that they are oppressed. Is your response.
How about the Stockholm Syndrome, we have it here in America too, female MAGAts. Amy Comey Barrets, Phyliss Schafly's, anti abortion, anti feminist, right wing women.
As regards the holy war, I've studied the Quran, three different copies, including the one read by Thomas Jefferson, the Hadiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq, I had a Muslims tell me that I knew so much that I hadtp be a Muslim, therefore I was an apostate (murtadd) an enemy of Islam, and my life was forfeit.
Comparing the Crusades to Islam is comparing apples to oranges.
Islam is triumphalist, so are many Christian cults, like Dominionism, aka Christian Reconstruction and other Evangelicals.
There is no difference between them and Islam.
Well said.
Michael your comments were on the mark. Thank you for noting that Mr Reich is ignoring the inappropriate behaviors. Reich omits the reason for arrests: harassment (sometimes physical) and threats to Jewish students.
Do we know this to be true?
“You're too smart not to understand the distinction.” No, he is not. And expressing that ridiculous opinion calls your own intellectual acuity into question.
His brain pan was evacuated decades ago.
Is that true on every campus? With so many students on so many campuses protesting it would be unusual for each protest to exist in the same format as the next. Are you sure this description you gave applies everywhere? I saw one student at Colombia interviewed who complained it was difficult for him to prepare for and take exams in that environment. He did not say impossible. Protests can be inconveinient for some but inconvenience does not rob someone of his or her rights to a sound education or opportunity to take exams. Do you have evidence that certain students have been unable to go to class or take exams at all? If so can you share your source? Thank you.
Why is Professor Reich so enthusiastically “playing the tune” of Hamas, laying full responsibility for the bloodshed upon Israel?
He’s not. He’s pointing out that Israel’s response to the abominable attacks of 10/7 is not excused by those attacks. the Israeli government has made a series of deliberate choices that have caused thousands, if not tens of thousands, of unnecessary civilian deaths, as well as mass homelessness and famine. That didn’t have to happen, it was a choice.
Maybe you should leave Chicago and go to New York to see what is really happening before pronouncing from afar on, apparently, no evidence. The NYPD Chief of Police said the student protestors were peaceful and polite. He seemed a bit bewildered that the NYPD were called in, and, in the end, all charges were dropped.
Now, President Shafik is doing what she should have done in the first place--actually talking to the students and listening to them. Had she done that in the first place, she would not have sparked university student protests nationwide--as she should have known would happen if she understood anything about university students at all.
I totally agree with Dr. Reich; Columbia faculty should vote no confidence in her.
The faculty at University of Texas at Austin should do the same in regards to their president, who should have realized that the local police he called in would be violent and brutal.
Tip from the 60s: if you go to a protest where the police may be called in an may be violent, wear a bike helmet or motorcycle helmet to protect yourself from a concussion.
You are incorrect
You live in an imaginary version of America where justice is for everyone.
Where are the peaceful protestors for Ukraine!? The leaders of Ukraine and Russia have displaced millions of Ukrainian citizens and killed hundreds of thousands more on both sides never mind the destruction of a sovereign nation! Oh yes and $60 billion in US tax payer money. We should be frantically trying to end both wars, but alas only protest against Israel those horrible Zionists that have no where to go. (Sarcasm) How anyone can think there isn’t a hidden agenda here is naive
What exactly should they be protesting about in Ukraine? The only thing worth protesting would be if we were not arming Ukraine, but we are, so there’s nothing to be done right now.
They should be trying to broker a peace agreement! Ukraine can’t possibly win a war with Russia and they have a dwindling population of military aged men! This will be a long war of attrition and devastating for Ukraine. Protest for both governments to stop the war. Also some Americans just don’t feel so strongly about spending 60 billion of our tax payer money let Europe foot the bill we have migrants to house and feed😡
There is actual video of student protestors blocking 'Zionist' students on campus, while forming a human chain (so they chanted).
Who are they truly? KKK reps ?
Wait!! How do student protestors know when a student is a Zionist? Sounds strange to me. Does the Jewish person wear a foot long Jewish star or carry a sign saying 'I am a Zionist - beware!'?
They get harassed if they are visibly Jewish and not covered in "Free-Palestine" swag.
They also say that if you don't loudly stand with Hamas, you are "complicit in genocide". That's why they demand that everyone take a stand and make a statement. They cancel you for your "silence" if you don't.
Video of Jewish students being blocked from places on campus
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6DNlSHNnhm/?igsh=MW5pdTQ2dW96bW0wag==
They blocked them from being in their encampment, not on campus at all, and not while going to class.
That is wildly untrue, student marshals trained in keeping the peace at protest link arms to block counter protestors looking to heckle students practicing their free speech. Like the comment above the encampments are not blocking access to any buildings. The ‘Zionist’ students aren’t there by accident. They’re intentionally there to agitate and antagonize students as seen on multiple videos. And then they go on to claim that these protest are violent. Please share this video and let’s watch the ‘whole’ video, not just the conveniently clipped version.
I'd just like someone to explain to me how it is that genocide is up for any discussion, anywhere on the planet, as if there's a pro/con argument. This is what boggles my mind, and deeply disturbs me to my core.
Which genocide? The one that criminal murdered, enter bedrooms, raped women and beheaded children, than kidnap 230?. Or the one trying to release the hostages and pound the enclave of murderers for their action to stop, and discourage repeated crimes.
The genocide of 30,000 women & children that are being murdered. It's clearly not ethical to kill 30,000 inocent women and children. This would not be tolerated if it were Jewish people.
Stop using one wrong as an excuse to murder and wipe people from the face of the earth bc you want the land. Some hawks were dreaming of an opportunity to murder like this. That does not mean that you can not hunt down the fighters. You just can not use it to kill everyone.
30,000 women and children killed is Hamas propaganda, How can you take a terrorists reporting as complete truth
The health ministry's numbers have historically been considered reliable by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch.[6][7][8] The United States Department of State cited its numbers in a public report in March 2023.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Health_Ministry#:~:text=The%20health%20ministry's%20numbers%20have,public%20report%20in%20March%202023.
UN and UNWRA are fully Hamas.
The UN denounced Israel 20 times this year, but did not denounce Hamas or the Acts of Oct 7th even once.
This is because so many of the nations in the UN are Islamic, and it's sadly within the Islamic doctrine to hate, fight, and kill Jews. Specifically, the prophet Mohammad said in a popular Hadith that Muslims must fight the children of Israel (the Jews) to the death, until every last one is dead, before Judgement Day. There are other examples as well, like that time Mohammad killed a village of 700 Jews for not accepting him as prophet.
Andrea, it's now up to around 34,000 Palestinians killed. Two wrongs don't make a right. You know that. You need to know about Netanyahu's criminal trials predicament, and you especially need to know the history of Israel and of the Palestinian people. One has to have context for this war.
The Health Ministry is terrorist? It makes sense that those who don't want to acknowledge the great numbers of dead, injured without care and starving would look for any doubting theories to hang onto. The Israel side is not innocent of doubters, deniers and propagandists. This is the fog of war. It does make sense that MANY many have been killed/injured/starving and that they were fighters but many more women, men (not fighters) and children given what we know for sure about the bombs that have been dropped and looking at the damage. Many under the rubble cannot be counted.
I guess in WWII all we had to do is look for Hitler and the war would have been over. but we did not find him even at the end after 5 years and 40 millions dead. Yes 40 millions including 6 million Jews in crematoriums and 30 million Russians. A war is not fought with soldiers standing in a auditorium being selected as the one to fight. Soldier's are supported by the civilian's who feed them, clothes the, and manufacture the killings devices, bombs, bullets rifles and cannons. the soldier's do not make these, the civilians do and they are the fighters in the arena.
If this is the rationale for the slaughter of Gazans then Hamas can use it to kill Israelis.with the same justification.
Yes, the Health Ministry is controlled by Hamas.
The elected government of Gaza is Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group. They do not have separation of religion and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. The Health Ministry answers to Hamas.
Everyone in Gaza answers to Hamas.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rahim-mohamed-hamas-death-numbers-cant-be-trusted-heres-more-evidence-they-are-inflated
The National Post is right of center (looked it up), so I don't trust the info, given Netanyahu is a conservative with an intention to stay in office indefinitely. He has three criminal trials to face once he's out of office. So take a good look at the death and destruction. It's simply shocking.
So you avert your gaze from anything that might burst your bubble? Most leaders want to stay in office.
War can be shocking - but Gazan's are still going to hospitals with power to have babies - with doctors and nurses. This was on the news. No such thing happened on Okinawa, or in Berlin when the Red Army captured it.
see my above. Who do you trust? This article from last month mentions Occam's Razor. What you reason depends on where you stand.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/israel-welcomes-canada-s-conclusion-that-israel-didn-t-strike-hospital-in-gaza-1.6612145
OOPS! Link is bad.
This is not what we are arguing about.
Early on, we were told that hundreds dies when the IDF destroyed a hospital. This number was reported very quickly (somehow). It turned out that an opponent's rocket had fallen short and landed in the hospital's parking lot - with some casualties - but none caused by Israel (Yes - you probably think it's Israel's fault because it exists.)
In full scale military attacks (e.g. Okinawa, Red Army capture of Berlin), there was no casualty count under well after - and then only as estimates. Women were not going into hospitals with staff and power. Civilians were sheltering to avoid the millions (not thousands) of shells and rockets.
Joshua, you bring up a valid point. During WW II the Nazis killed civilians with gusto and impunity, and so did the Allies. It was a fight to death. What's going on in Gaza now is not unlike what happened then. But after WW II nations got together and passed resolutions, enacted laws and procedures to prevent a recurrence of that horrendous war. Should we renounce these hopes as hopelessly unrealistic?
Obviously reporting cannot be absolutely accurate in the fog of war. Does it make sense to you that many many people have not been killed when you look at the damage, read the reports, and hear the amount of bombs dropped?
Think how many cannot be counted under the rubble. How many have not died yet because of their injuries ( with little or no care).
Don't use this ear as an excuse to kill all Goz
No, the the genocide on the other side of the walls and fences, the side blockaded for 16 years, that's been bombed and bombed again now to almost complete destruction,with immense loss of life, whose population is surviving barely and in threat of being pushed further into smaller and smaller enclaves homeless with no services, no end and no hope. THAT genocide... or what is being called by some a genocide somewhat credibly if you listen to the far right in Israel that is also in power.
Why not release the hostages and the slaughter will likely stop. If not you would have a good cause to call Israel criminal but for now, they are looking to free their people taken off their beds at night while sleeking and sisters were raped and the children beheaded. Until then, there is no mercy and should not be, as Gazans, and all of them, supported and fed and supplied the means for the murderous incursion into Israel on October 7.
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-khalil-alhayya-qatar-ceasefire-1967-borders-4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438
"A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamist militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders. The comments by Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday came amid a stalemate in months of talks for a ceasefire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the militant group officially committed to Israel’s destruction. But it's unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario. Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank." from The World (PRI) newsletter today
Let us assume peace settled there, all smiling and working. Working? Doing what? Is either Gaza or the West Bank as independent countries are economically viable? What will 2.3 million Gazan do? Now they run daily to the drop point of the free food and money showered on them for the Hate they bear for Israel by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the likes as well as by the UN. If that money stops because there is no more hate and war, what will they do? Yes, in 1970 I bought shirts Made in Gaza. they may make shirts, better yet they may develop the beach to entertain the Germans and Swedes and more as these are fantastic beaches. But will it feed 2,.3 millions? I forgot, they will catch some fish too. And the West Bank, is it an economic viable entity or will it continue as a hand out with a violin in the street corner. The only solution is either merge with Egypt or Jordan to expand the horizon beyond the West Bank or Gaza. Else the tension will NEVER subside, the lay person out of work will just stay home and for fun make more and more children. And then? War again with Israel which they will not win and just help thin their population in misery of war deaths. Is that not true that Nietzsche once said wars are design to help the world in its population control? “War essential. It is vain rhapsodizing and sentimentality to continue to expect much (even more, to expect a very great deal) from mankind, once it has learned not to wage war. For the time being, we know of no other means to imbue exhausted peoples, as strongly and surely as every great war does, with that raw energy of the battleground, that deep impersonal hatred, that murderous cold bloodedness with a good conscience, that communal, organized ardor in destroying the enemy, that proud indifference to great losses, to one’s own existence and to that of one’s friends, that muted, earthquakelike convulsion of the soul.” (HAH, 477)"
nattering from a nabob of negativism to paraphrase Agnew
Astonishingly
Pooh! To put it nicely.
Amos, I'm not sure what war you're talking about here. Please, please read about the history of Israel and Palestine before you go on a rant about rape and beheading. This war is definitely not one-sided.
Well, it must have been on the Moon. Some gangsters invaded the Moonies at night and raped their women and beheaded theit children and than danced and sang victory songs. Then took the remaining living with them to the crevices and depression of the moon surface. Doe it sound familiar? If not take a valium and go to sleep perhaps the scene will awaken in your dream.
So Israel is threatening Hamas to release the hostages and the “slaughter” you are admitting will stop? There was an ongoing slaughter happening before October 7 over the years. Many times slowly and in various “operations”. People have been taken off their beds in the night also, incarcerated without trial, the young as well, protesting. Israel has lost the support and sympathy it had. Hamas will continue or resistance groups will in their place including via aid from elsewhere like Iran Hezbollah. If Israel wants only its hostages back and no deal to end the occupation it won’t happen. Israel is losing and destroying itself thinking it ca win this way.
You're correct, but Israel does have a right-wing government. And Netanyahu must stay in power, or else face his three criminal trials. Regarding Hamas, many of their fighters are on a drug called Captagon, which makes them more fierce than they really are. Yes, there has to be a deal to end the occupation. BTW, if anyone knows the answer to why the Israeli government confiscated weapons from those settlements before they were attacked, I'd like to know the answer. There are pieces to this puzzle that are missing.
Being on drugs makes sense to be able to perform such atrocities that a human normally cannot do. Also they must have plenty of reasons personally having lost family lived through and suffered Israel’s destruction and oppression, being prevented from living a life in what is called a prison -Gaza- unable to leave with no normal hopes and dreams. Israelis for all the terror they have gone through have not experienced this and live more happy lives. I think I can say that comfortably. October 7 has context.
I was not aware of the confiscated weapons or what matter it has. Israel has suffered under Netanyahu, they voted for him, for too long and should not have to endure him longer as he gets desperate and brings the country down to save himself. Sound familiar?
Have you seen this:
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-khalil-alhayya-qatar-ceasefire-1967-borders-4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438
So, all bombing is genocide now?
Every time there was a war with Gaza, who started it? Hamas / Gaza.
The only reason Hamas hasn't killed tons more Israeli yet is not for lack of trying, it's because Israel has military superiority.
In fact, EVERY war between the Arabs and Israel was started by the Arabs.
Even the first one-- where the Palestinians were offered the chance to have their own state for the first time in all of history, but instead they ganged up with 5 Arab nations to start a war with Israel. The war displaced thousands of Palestinians.
No one would have been displaced if they didn't start this war.
Their hatred of Jews is killing them, but they never stop.
Now they rebrand it as the "Nakba," where they were kicked out of their homes by demonic Israelis out of nowhere.
Just a short comment: I was there, In Israel during the 1948 events, and can assure you very few Palestinians were evicted or driven by Jews. I saw in my own eye the Mullahs standing and shouting for the people to free the village for the Syrians and Egyptian to have the freedom to wage a killing war against Israel and they will then return back yo their homes and enjoy the Jewish bounty off the driven Jews.
Yes, these are fact I myself experienced. Lots of propaganda is false toxic and absolute lies. Tul Karem is where I saw it in person.
While sleeping in a barn lighting a match is deadly. That is what Gazan did. Sorry I should have said the Hamas Gazens. Though the Gazans as a whole is Hamas. They feed them, clothes them, love them, dance and hurray while they parade with Effigies of dead Jews. As said, you sleep with a skunk, you end up smelling like a skunk and soon it becomes hard to distinguish.
There are 7 million Palestinians under occupation. Maybe 40, 000 just killed by Israel. Enormous destruction. What is Israel planning to do for its security now if it doesn’t give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks?
Yes one should love one’s oppressor.
When people have nothing to live for they go for broke. Fact is the Gazans did not want this and knew nothing about this plan. But you are here justifying your inhumanity shamelessly.. Same can be said for the Israelis dancing close to the gates and walls of the prison that is Gaza? If might makes right, then that’s the way people go to survive.even if that might becomes terror out of poverty of other means.
Yes. And that some people seem more concerned with relatively minor inconveniences, interruptions and hurt feelings caused by demonstrations at educational institutions than they are with genocide. Mind boggling. I think the students believe they had to ratchet up their activities, e.g., with encampments, because our politicians have all but ignored other acts of protest.
Genocide means the targeted killing of an ethnic group, because they belong to that ethnic group.
1. Hamas is not an ethnic group.
2. Israel's war with Gaza is because of Oct 7th and what Hamas did, NOT because they are Arab Muslims.
It's obviously not a genocide, unless ALL wars are genocides.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction *in whole or in part*;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits genocide whether committed in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, *in whole or in part*, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Spot on, Nancy. It's hard to believe that people are even questioning that it's a genocide. There is more to this slaughter of innocents than many people know. There is also Netanyahu's agenda, which is to keep the war going. Once he's out of office, there are three criminal trials awaiting him.
Sharon--Exactly where do you find the actual term "Genocide" being applied in our world today?
Are you unaware of the ruling of the International Criminal Court, which designated the war on Gaza as a "plausible genocide"? Just because the US government refuses to use the word "genocide," much less the word "apartheid," doesn't mean these things are happening.
That is a significant distortion of what the ICC said.
But there is no doubt that the October 7 atrocities constituted genocide: murder, rape, mutilation, and kidnapping of people because they were Jews.