A serious red line has been crossed: America’s democratic freedoms, expansive on paper, will simply not tolerate serious dissent on the U.S.–Israel relationship. As criticisms of Israel have become more mainstream, the attempt to shut them down entirely has become more extreme.
In pursuit of this blank-check relationship with an Israeli government that is becoming ever-more intransigent with each passing year, pro-Israel forces in the U.S. are attacking our own democratic freedoms in order to suppress public outcry about apartheid and potential genocide 6,000 miles away. And, if the recent campus crackdowns are any indication, these forces are winning their battle.
With tens of thousands of Palestinians left dead and the Israeli assault on Gaza ongoing, the U.S. protests targeting university ties with Israel over the last month — voluble and outspoken — have been overwhelmingly nonviolent.
Yet these nonviolent protests have met with the full brutal force of the U.S. security state. Dispersing the protest encampments, police have viciously beaten protesters, fired rubber bullets, and enveloped students in dense clouds of tear gas.
Anyone remember the war in Iraq? How people criticizing that war were treated as anti patriotic?
I protested that
Halliburton cash grabwar and it was rough. People young and old would treat us as if we were pissing on the flag. Still waitin’ on them WMDs Dubya!Thank you for your service!
It was unfortunately fruitless. That’s when I learned that Republicans don’t listen to protesters. They just vilify them in the news and call the police. Now we know they don’t even flinch at an insurrection. They may even call you a patriot.
That’s when I learned that Republicans don’t listen to protesters.
The best part was in 2006 when Democrats retook congress and demonstrated that they were just as much a rubber stamp for war as Republicans had been.
The US pulled out of Iraq in 2007.
And then stayed until 2011.
It took a while to hand full control back to their government after having destroyed and compromised so much of their nation.
That’s when I learned that Republicans don’t listen to protesters.
I distinctly remember the way liberals enthusiastically villified antifa when they were the only ones willing to throw down with the neo-nazis and their police protectors in the streets a few years ago. Stop pretending that liberals’ overtly fascist cousins are the only anti-democratic faction in the US political establishment.
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What a photo. A guy clad head to toe in black squared up with a club in front of the ruins of a protest, the only color in his uniform a big gold star and an American flag.
Why do they have flags on their uniform? Is someone going to mistake which country they’re in? Are they soldiers at war? Bringing righteous patriotism into a career that mostly attacks US citizens is a really chilling idea.
Cops don’t have any direct association with America as a whole. They’re a civilian organization employed and directed by local officials. I believe those are California Highway Patrol officers. If they absolutely have to wear a flag, they can have a bear.
The flag is being used as a symbol of government authority. Governments are big on symbols (YT link) because they work.
It seems they are utilizing it the way people on the right do. If you are queer for instance and you come across a gathering where a bunch of people are flying the stars and stripes you remove yourself from that situation because those people are almost always not safe. Those people have used it as a symbol of fear and intimidation wrapped up cloak of patriot rhetoric for a good decade now.
Is that a Star of David? Oof…
No, it’s a seven-pointed star used by the CHP.
Gee, who could have predicted electing someone that spent 50 fucking years loudly declaring that there is absolutely nothing that would ever make him support Israel any less…
Biden talking about current protestors sounds a hell of a lot like trump talking about BLM tho
“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”
“Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Yup. Indistinguishable.
“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Mr. Biden said into cameras in his first personal remarks on the campus fray in 10 days. “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.” Antisemitism, he added, “has no place” in America.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-campus-protests.html
It’s peaceful protests to get him to stop funding a genocide, and he’s saying the protestors are the violent ones…
Like, you realize racists said the same thing about MLK and the civil rights movement?
Biden was friends with most of those senators. When he talks about the “good ole days” he’s talking about hanging out with Strom Thurmond and fighting school integration.
This is who he’s always been.
If protests arent inconvenient, how is it going to work?
He’s not talking about peaceful protest there. He’s clearly addressing attacks on Jewish people. In case you’re not aware, antisemitism is prejudice against Jews, prejudice against Israel is nationalism. I know Netanyahu likes to conflate the two, but Biden knows the difference.
He’s clearly addressing attacks on Jewish people.
But those haven’t been happening…
And cops are getting violent with all of them. Even the protestors who are also Jewish and carrying signs saying so.
This isn’t a religious thing. It’s a genocide thing.
That’s outrageously incorrect. We’re not talking about attacking pro-Israel protesters, or attacks by pro-Palestinian protesters. We’re talking about people ignorantly attacking Jewish students simply because they’re Jewish. They’re being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish.
Antisemitism in the US is up 400% since October. College students across the nation have been targeted.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/business/antisemitism-college-harvard-upenn/index.html
This isn’t a religious thing. It’s a genocide thing.
That’s exactly the ignorance that is causing the problem. Jewish is both an ethnicity as well as a religion. That’s why antisemitism is uniquely different, it’s both religious persecution and racism. You should be more informed or you may unintentionally promote hate.
Jews are not committing genocide. Israel is.
The ADL has defined anti-Zionism to be antisemitic, so of course they will say antisemitism has rocketed. I don’t doubt that there has been some increase in antisemitism, which is awful, to be clear. But when there are such widespread, deliberate efforts to muddy the waters by conflating anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism, the accusation loses its power. And that conflation happens in the articles you posted.
Anti-Zionism is often expressed, explicitly or implicitly, in the rejection of the status of the Jewish people as a nation and the denial of the Jewish right to self-determination; the vilification and ostracization of individuals and groups associated with Zionism; and the downplaying or negation of the historic and spiritual Jewish connection to the land of Israel.
https://www.adl.org/antisemitism
https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/what-antisemitism-anti-zionism-anti-israel-bias
Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism, but antisemitism is not anti-Zionism.
Also, the other links are clear accounts of Jewish students, not pro-Israel protesters, being attacked verbally and physically, receiving harassing emails, and being doxxed for being Jewish. Comments like yours are the problem. Read before you type.
People want their side to be all good and the opposition to be all bad.
I mean, the opposition is all bad in this case, but one’s own side is rarely all good. People more often engage in hagiography than analysis.
It’s just important to know that the side that is at fault is Israel and not Jews. If people understood that, then antisemitic hate crimes wouldn’t be up 400%. The real ignorance is people hearing Biden and Congress condemning antisemitism and conflating it with judgement of anti-Israel protest. They are not the same. Biden knows that, as do the thirty-something Jewish members of Congress. I blame Netanyahu for manipulating that term in defense of Israel, but that doesn’t excuse the ignorance of Americans.
Well, cops have beaten the shit out of a lot of Jewish students, so there definitely have been attacks on Jewish people. Don’t think that’s what Biden was referencing though.
Have you seen any videos of people attacking Jewish people?
If it’s that prevalent then there must be hundreds of such videos.
The articles I shared above have first hand accounts as well as statistics. Most of the attacks are verbal, some physical, harassing emails, and doxxing. Are you suggesting it’s not happening without video?
Im suggesting it’s not happening at a level which would be more than 1% of protesters.
Verbal isn’t worth shit. People have something to gain by lying.
How come we can find videos of people peacefully protesting but all this violence seems to be done off camera?
Are you suggesting that the protesters actually hate Jews and they don’t care about Palestinians?
Not at all. I’m stating, as well as the articles I’ve provided, that there are people that confuse Israel with Jews, and then attack Jews out of ignorance. That’s what Biden is speaking against.
You’re taking the criticism personally, but it’s not directed at all protestors. It’s directed at the ones that can’t discern the difference between protests and attacks, or Israel and Jews. It’s that simple.
Nah
coming from a true democratic country is kinda sad read this, just accepting the lesser evil of the two options, both paid by billions dollar companies, and still calling itself democratic
coming from a true democratic country
Which one is that?
It’s still a republic with democratic features.
Those features involve lots of money.
“But dissent must never lead to disorder.”
Let me translate that for those who don’t understand liberal pretend-democracy schtick.
“We will tolerate dissent as long as it doesn’t threaten the status quo with actual change - if it does, we sicc our pet fascists on you.”
So you define “actual change” as attacks or violence. That’s fine, but not constitutionally protected. Peaceful protests work. There’s no reason to take them into criminal behavior.
So you define “actual change” as attacks or violence.
“Law & Order” isn’t just the name of a popular pigprop show on television, liberal - it is also the rallying cry of fascism. In fact, it’s the fascist’s most tried and tested narrative to get gullible liberals onboard the fascism train.
I might be wrong about the last part, though… you never see liberals around when antifa is fighting neo-nazis and klan-boys in the streets. Maybe you’re not gullible at all.
Peaceful protests work.
Your proof of this?
🥱
Of course the US will have democracy, it’s just that poor people having it would be bad for the US
Israel itself means little to the US. It’s merely the conduit through which the US Geo-political power gets channeled through in the Middle East at the moment. The moment that Israel become more burden than value, they will be dropped and abandoned like many of nations/regions across the planet.
That’s not even it though. The US has so many military bases around the world that Israel is hardly worth maintaining a presence in, much less giving them billions in aid a year. I don’t think the US even used Israel for any significant staging for the gulf war and they were all but involved.
It is still the focal point of US presence in the middle east for all the surrounding nations. Israel is synonymous with US power in the region.
Only because the US is their babysitter and sugar daddy.
The same can be said of any place the US has a political/military presence.
No. The US has given 100 billion more to Israel than any other country since WWII, while receiving basically no assistance in any military action aside from using space. Israel is uniquely coddled.
It’s merely the conduit through which the US Geo-political power gets channeled through in the Middle East at the moment.
Well… there’s always Saudi Arabia - another shining example of “succesful” US foreign policy.
You know what they say… fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost.
