[Pants-of-dog]

Since people are being blacklisted for simply supporting Palestine or being critical of Israel, it would seem that the only way to not incur the wrath if the cancel crowd is to unquestioningly support the Israeli government and IDF in all they do.

[late]

:

The comparison to Charlottesville

The people in the Synagogue, at Charlottesville, were afraid for their lives, as were Left wing protesters outside. Fortunately, Antifa showed up.

Good luck, kid, you are gonna need it.

[wat0n]

The people in the Synagogue, at Charlottesville, were afraid for their lives, as were Left wing protesters outside. Fortunately, Antifa showed up.

Good luck, kid, you are gonna need it.

And now the students at Columbia are scared, goes to show how low the left has fallen.

Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’
Matt Egan
By Celina Tebor, Zoe Sottile and Matt Egan, CNN
9 minute read
Updated 11:59 AM EDT, Mon April 22, 2024


CNN
—
Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation from the White House and New York officials.

The atmosphere is so charged that Columbia officials announced students can attend classes and even possibly take exams virtually starting Monday – the first day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday set to begin in the evening.

Then we have people like @Pants-of-dog pretending that peaceful protests would lead to Rabbis to call students to avoid attending in-person classes.

[Pants-of-dog]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ ... -1.7024279

A man was arrested for saying Palestine should be free.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/man-who-alle ... -1.6800209

On the other side, a man was arrested for firing a nail gun at pro-Palestine supporters.

[wat0n]

That happened in Canada, not the US, where hate speech is punishable by itself.

Note how even publicly calling for mass murder does not, by itself, lead to any arrests in the US. Neither should it.



Stay on topic.

[Deutschmania]

The protest encampments are now spreading to other campuses . From some articles in my E-mail news digest .

Police arrested dozens of people at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan, as student protests over Israel’s war in Gaza continue to roil US campuses.

On the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut, authorities arrested at least 47 protesters on Monday evening, the university said in a statement. Students who were arrested will be referred for disciplinary action.

The police crackdowns came after Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus last week. Several hundred people had been protesting on the Yale university campus, demanding the university divest from military weapons manufacturers. Yale said it had repeatedly asked students to leave, and warned them they could face law enforcement and disciplinary action if they didn’t. In New York, officers moved on an encampment at Gould Plaza near New York University shortly after nightfall. There, too, hundreds of demonstrators had defied university warnings that they faced consequences if they failed to vacate the plaza.

Video on social media showed police taking down tents in the protesters’ encampment in a tense and at times chaotic scene. Some officers tossed tents, and others grappled with demonstrators.

Protesters tussled with officers and chanted, “We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest.”

A New York police spokesperson said arrests were made after the university asked police to enforce trespassing violations but the total number of arrests and citations would remain unknown until much later. The Washington Square News, the student newspaper, reported that the NYPD said over a loudspeaker announcement that students were being arrested for “disorderly conduct” and that protesters were unlawfully blocking traffic.

The law enforcement actions at Yale and NYU came after a tense few days on campuses across the US.

Columbia University president, Nemat Minouche Shafik, called in New York police last week to clear a tent encampment on its main lawn of students demanding the university divest from companies with ties to Israel.

More than 100 students were arrested on Thursday on charges of trespassingand the university and the affiliated Barnard College have suspended dozens of students involved in the protests.

On Monday, Columbia University announced it was canceling in-person classes on its New York City campus to try to “reset” the situation and “deescalate the rancor.” A new encampment has now emerged and hundreds of faculty members have held a mass walkout to protest against the president’s handling of the situation.

Bassam Khawaja, an adjunct lecturer at Columbia law school and supervising attorney at the school’s human rights clinic, told the Guardian she was “shocked and appalled that the president went immediately to the New York police department”.

“This was by all accounts, a non-violent protest,” she said. “It was a group of students camping out on the lawn in the middle of campus. It’s not any different from everyday life on campus.”

After the crackdown at Columbia, students across the US launched their own protests in solidarity, many of them calling for their universities to back a ceasefire in Gaza and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Students at Brown, Princeton and Northwestern held protests on Friday and over the weekend.

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emerson College, both in the Boston area, have started their own protest encampments.

Other institutions that saw protest actions included Boston University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Guardian

A growing number of college students nationwide are staging encampments to protest their universities’ investments in Israeli entities in light of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has reportedly killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

The protests have sparked mass arrests and suspensions, including at Columbia University, where more than 100 students—including some from Barnard, the all-women’s college located across the street from Columbia’s campus, which has a partnership with the university—were arrested last week after occupying the upper Manhattan campus.

Central to protesters’ demands are for the universities to divest from companies that fund corporations closely connected to Israel’s military operations and for administrators to allow pro-Palestinian protesters to demonstrate without threats of disciplinary action.

Many of the protests have sprung up the past few days after the groups National Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestinian Youth Movement put out a call this weekend “to take back the university and force the administration to divest, for the people of Gaza.”

The encampments appear to be largely peaceful, with demonstrators seen attending teach-ins and chanting in solidarity. But some participants have nonetheless faced serious encounters with law enforcement, including the arrest of more than 40 students at Yale this morning, a university spokesperson confirmed to Mother Jones.

Here’s a running list of where we have seen students setting up encampments across the country in addition to Columbia and their demands.

New York University
A few miles south of Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, students at New York University began camping outside the university’s Stern School of Business at 6 a.m. on Monday, according to the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition. The group is demanding NYU “divest from all corporations aiding in the genocide and fear tactics generating manufactured consent in academic spheres,” shut down its Tel Aviv campus, and remove the New York Police Department from the New York City campus.

On Monday night, the NYPD arrested participants at the NYU encampment after a letter from university officials requested police “clear the area and…take action to remove the protesters.” Local news site Gothamist reported that more than 100 NYU students and faculty were arrested. Video of the plaza posted to social media on Tuesday morning showed the plaza blocked off with barriers. NYU Spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement Monday night that while officials initially let the encampment stand, aiming to “avoid any escalation or violence,” in the early afternoon they “witnessed disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior that has interfered with the safety and security of our community,” which they attributed to protesters who they believe were not affiliated with NYU. Beckman said that after protesters refused to leave and officials learned of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents,” administrators contacted the NYPD. Spokespeople for NYU and the NYPD didn’t respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Tuesday morning.

According to NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition, the over 100 people arrested during Monday’s protest have been released.

The New School
Less than a mile from NYU’s campus, students at the New School set up an encampment on Sunday, when the school was hosting an event for newly admitted students, according to an Instagram post from the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The group is demanding divestment from corporations involved in Israel’s war on Gaza, protection from retaliation for pro-Palestinian protesters, and “a full academic boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.” In a statement Sunday, the New School called the encampment “unauthorized.” The university’s president announced an official would meet with students on Monday to discuss “divesting from certain holdings within the university’s endowment” and that the Board of Trustees would meet with students “in the near future to consider the students’ request for financial transparency of the university’s investments.” A New School spokesperson didn’t respond to additional questions.

Emerson College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University
In Boston, students at Emerson College, MIT, and Tufts set up encampments on Sunday night, the Boston Globe reported. The groups are demanding the schools disclose and divest from investments in Israel, stop punishing student organizers, and support a ceasefire in Palestine. “We were definitely inspired by what’s going on at Columbia,” Owen Buxton, an Emerson College student, told the Globe. “They put out the call for universities across the country, and we answered.” An Emerson spokesperson told Mother Jones that “a small number of protesters actually stayed in the alley [overnight], much fewer than the number when the protest was initiated.” A spokesperson for Tufts said that, as of early Monday afternoon, there were about a half-dozen tents set up and a similar number of protesters, and that classes were proceeding as usual. “Regarding the students’ demands, our position on this has been clear and consistent for several years: We do not support the BDS movement,” added Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations. Representatives for MIT and the Boston Police Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Yale University
At Yale, police arrested more than 40 student protesters early Monday morning, according to the student groups behind the encampment set up since Friday. By Sunday night, more than 250 protesters were occupying 40 tents in front of the main library, according to the Yale Daily News, the student-run newspaper. Student organizers compared today’s arrests to the 1986 arrests of more than 70 Yale students who protested South African apartheid. In an email to students Sunday, Yale University President Peter Salovey said that while most protesters were peaceful, university police were also investigating reports of threats and harassment. More than 2,000 Yale alumni have also signed a letter demanding divestment as of Tuesday morning. A Yale spokesperson told Mother Jones on Monday that university officials spent “spent several hours in discussion with student protestors yesterday,” adding that both the university and police had warned protesters “numerous times” that they faced the possibility of arrest. The University of Michigan
About 40 students set up an encampment at the University of Michigan on Monday morning, demanding divestment from Israeli entities, according to the student-run newspaper The Michigan Daily. In a press release, the student protesters said the university invests more than $6 million in Israeli companies and military contractors.

A university spokesperson told Mother Jones Monday night that officials “are carefully monitoring the situation and remain prepared to appropriately address any harassment or threats against any member of our community.” The spokesperson also pointed to the school’s investment policy, which dates back to 2005 and stipulates that the school’s endowment must be shielded “from political pressures.” Instead, “our investment decisions [are based] solely on financial factors such as risk and return,” the policy states. At a Board of Regents meeting last month, officials affirmed that position, adding that they “are not moving to make any divestment of any kind.” The board also said that “the endowment has no direct investment in any Israeli company,” and that “less than 1/10 of one percent of the endowment is invested indirectly in such companies.” Vanderbilt University
Students at Vanderbilt University have been occupying parts of the campus lawn since March 26, according to the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition. The group is demanding increased transparency about the university’s investments, for school officials to drop charges and disciplinary actions against students who have protested in support of Palestine, and the reinstatement of a canceled referendum concerning recommendations made by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, according to the student-run newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler. A university spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to questions.

California State Polytechnic University
Protesters barricaded themselves inside an academic building on the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday, prompting a response from local police and university police. “Humboldt for Palestine” claimed several students were arrested.

University of California, Berkeley
On Monday, students launched a “Free Palestine Camp,” demanding a ceasefire, divestment of the university’s holdings from corporations that support Israel’s war on Gaza, the establishment of a Palestinian Studies Program at the university, and the end of academic collaborations with Israeli universities, including the school’s summer internship program in Israel. The student newspaper, The Daily Californian, reports that the encampment is the first at a UC campus and that a dozen tents were set up Monday, with plans for more. “Just like they did at Columbia, we will continue to be here,” Malak Afaneh, co-president of Law Students for Justice in Palestine, told the student paper. “You can arrest us, you can expel us, you can suspend us, but we will continue to be here.”

A Berkeley spokesperson told Mother Jones on Tuesday morning the university is “prioritizing students’ academic interests” and “will take the steps necessary to ensure the protest does not disrupt the university’s operations.” It added that “there are no plans to change the university’s investment policies and practices.”

University of Minnesota
Early Tuesday morning, students set up an encampment. The group is demanding the university: divest from Israeli weapons companies and ban them from recruiting and hosting workshops on campus; boycott Israeli institutions that have supported the war; disclose the university’s investments; release a statement in support of the university’s Palestinian students; and provide “amnesty for all students, staff, and faculty disciplined or fired in the movement for Palestinian liberation.” At 6:30 a.m., police arrested nine students, according to the organizers. Protesters also posted a video showing police removing signs and chairs from the site. University spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday morning. Mother Jones

A pro-Palestinian protest at Yale University allegedly turned violent with dozens of arrests.

The University of Southern California canceled all its planned commencement speakers.

Encampments have sprung up at campuses from Boston to Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill.

It’s not just Columbia: The unrest that has overtaken the Ivy League university in New York City, and upended life for Jewish students and everyone else, is spilling over into the rest of the country. The spread of the demonstrations is being promoted and celebrated by pro-Palestinian activists, including the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. And it’s prompting alarm from Jewish campus groups that are calling on administrators to take more aggressive action. Students across the country said the Columbia arrests only further emboldened them to call for their universities to divest from Israel. Buoyed by the growing number of demonstrations, the national umbrella of Students for Justice in Palestine announced the launch of a cross-campus initiative called “Popular University for Gaza.”

“Over the last 72 hours, SJP chapters across the country have erupted in a fierce display of power targeted at their universities for their endless complicity and profiteering off the genocide in Gaza and colonization of Palestine,” the group posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday afternoon.

The post was headlined, “CAMPUSES IN REVOLT FOR GAZA AND DIVEST.”

One of the first and most notable campuses to see a Columbia-style encampment was Yale, whose protest began last week. Like Columbia’s, it ended in the arrests of dozens of students when police entered campus overnight between Sunday and Monday.

A pro-Israel student said she was stabbed in the eye by a pro-Palestinian protester’s flag at the protests, which have been condemned by Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents the district and has called for a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“Inciting hatred and violence toward Jewish students and community members, as we have seen at other universities, is completely unacceptable and those responsible for violence must be held accountable,” DeLauro wrote.

In a letter to students and its campus community, Yale Hillel leaders Uri Cohen and Rabbi Jason Rubenstein described the recent events as “perhaps the most divisive, most fearful moment I have seen.”

“In last night’s chaos on the Beinecke Plaza, which could erupt again tonight, protests became the site of physical altercations that left a member of our community injured, which we cannot tolerate,” Cohen and Rubenstein wrote. “I have similarly heard troubling and credible first-hand accounts that respected Muslim members of the Yale community, and their sacred symbols, were treated with disrespect last night — for which there is no excuse.”

Similar protests are springing up at a range of other schools. One student activist collective at the University of Michigan, the TAHRIR Coalition, said Monday that it, too, had set up an encampment on the Diag, the center of campus. One banner at the encampment reads, “Long Live the Intifada.”

“Inspired by the 100+ students facing academic and carceral retaliation for protesting Columbia University’s investment in genocide, we along with Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the country have made the bold and unwavering decision to occupy our campuses until our demands are met in full,” the Michigan coalition said in a statement.

The collective said it would not leave the space “until we achieve full divestment” from Israel, adding, “Power to our freedom fighters, glory to our martyrs.”

The campus chapter of JVP said it would hold a Passover seder there Monday night in solidarity with the protesters. In addition to Michigan, pro-Palestinian protesters at several other schools have set up new encampments in solidarity with Columbia students, including at New York University and the New School in New York; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and Emerson College in the Boston area. At some schools, including UNC, those encampments have already been dismantled after administrators intervened.

In response to the encampments, Hillel International, the umbrella organization of Jewish campus groups, said it respected free speech but called on university administrators to take action in the face of the protests, including demands to “aggressively enforce” their rules, bar entry to “outside agitators” and protect Jewish spaces.

“The extreme tactics of those creating these encampments and related protests are unacceptable at every level,” the Hillel statement said. “They are denying students access to safe learning opportunities and campus life. They are flagrantly violating clear campus policies and rules with impunity. They are fostering hate and discrimination, often targeted specifically at Jewish and Israeli students who are part of their campus communities.”

The statement follows divergent statements from Jewish leaders at Columbia: One rabbi urged students to leave campus, while others condemned the protests but rebuffed calls for Jews to flee.

At MIT, the pro-Israel student group MIT Israel Alliance said that a campus encampment was “anti-Jewish” because it had been set up near the Hillel building just before Passover, which begins Monday evening, and said it was “alarming” that many of the protesters were not students.

“We do not trust that random protesters who have nothing better to do than sleep on Kresge lawn banging drums all night will have good judgment in terms of safety and violence escalation,” the group said, echoing observers of the Columbia protests who said some of the most strident participants were also not students. The MIT group urged the school to clear the encampment while also providing remote learning options for Jewish students.

Other schools have been the sites of walkouts, rallies and pro-Palestinian protests, including Ohio State University and Miami University in Ohio; Rutgers University in New Jersey; and Northwestern University in Illinois.

At Harvard University, officials closed Harvard Yard for the week in anticipation of similar planned protests. Officials at Washington University in St. Louis suspended three students who disrupted a campus event for admitted students with a pro-Palestinian protest the previous week, then disbanded a rally held to protest the suspensions over the weekend.

And the University of Pennsylvania over the weekend banned a pro-Palestinian student group, Penn Students Against the Occupation, after the school said members had targeted and harassed Jewish students and faculty who participated in a trip to Israel.

Meanwhile, across the country, the University of Southern California has canceled all commencement speeches — including its invited speaker, film director Jon M. Chu — as part of the continued blowback stemming from the school’s decision to bar its pro-Palestinian valedictorian from speaking at next month’s ceremony. In addition, the university canceled appearances from planned honorary degree recipients including pioneering tennis legend Billie Jean King, National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson and National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt.

The cancellation of USC’s commencement speaker lineup is one of several parallels students are drawing between this moment and 1968, when anti-Vietnam war protests at Columbia prompted the school to cancel that year’s graduation ceremonies.

“In 1968 commencement did not happen. That was a long time ago, but that is what in a lot of ways is trying to be recreated here,” said Yakira Galler, a Jewish student at Barnard, Columbia’s women’s college, who has been disturbed by the protests. “I don’t know where they’re going to put all the seats for commencement.”

Regarding the administration, she added, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think they’re hoping that it will calm down, but I think they’re terribly wrong.”

Angus Johnston, a historian of student activism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that today’s pro-Palestinian protest movement is actually less radical in its actions than student movements of the Vietnam era — though he acknowledged that the antisemitism present in today’s protests is a concern.

He said that during Columbia’s mass student protests against the Vietnam War in 1968, students occupied a half-dozen campus buildings for a week; took an administrator hostage; and stole and destroyed university files. Antiwar protesters at other schools frequently set fire to buildings housing the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which trains students enlisted in the military.

“The administration response is pretty similar: mass arrests, closing down the campus and calling the cops and all of that,” said Johnston, an adjunct instructor at Hostos Community College of the City of New York. “But the protests themselves, both at Columbia and across the country, have really been much more measured, much more restrained, than the kinds of protests we saw even in the mid ’60s.”

Johnston said administrators have turned themselves into a target by taking aggressive action against the students right before the end of the semester.

That’s because another lesson from the Vietnam protests, Johnston said, is “the more the administration escalates, the more the administration itself becomes a target of the protests. Because the administration is now doing the oppressing of the students.”

Some pro-Palestinian student activists see hypocrisy in their universities’ efforts to crack down on their behavior. Prior to the incidents at Columbia, Rifka Handelman, a Jewish Voice for Peace student activist at the University of Maryland, told JTA that the university library has framed photos of student-led protest movements from throughout the 20th century, including against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.

“It really rubs me the wrong way that UMD embraces these protests as part of its history — you know, these big photos on the wall of the library for everyone to see,” Handelman said. “I find it pretty hypocritical that universities embrace the history of those movements, but do not embrace movements with similar goals and similar tactics.”

Whether and how commencement happens at the schools now contending with encampments, at least one Jewish leader is looking to the story of Passover to guide his students through a trying time and reassure them that they will emerge on the other side.

In a note to his community, Yale’s Cohen wrote, “I hope that the straits through which we pass this year will not only help us experience what the first Exodus felt like, but also what it might feel like in our day.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency

[Pants-of-dog]

As long as settler colonialism is a thing, October 7 will keep happening.

Stating this causal relationship is not a call to mass murder. It is merely an explanation as to why the mass murder will periodically occur.

[Unthinking Majority]

When protesters are arrested, it is cops being violent.

So in this case, we have state violence being perpetrated against a specific group for their political views.

Note that it is only the Palestine supporters being arrested.

You can't arrest someone for protesting or having specific political views, that's illegal. A crime needs to be committed.

The protestors were camping in tents and occupying a part of the university without authorization. Things started getting more heated near a Jewish holiday, non-students were joining the protests/occupation, Jews on campus were harassed and intimidated, classes were being disrupted to the point where the semester is to be completed remotely. No doubt the school admin asked the protestors to leave and they refused. I'd assume the cops asked them to leave also and they still refused. At that point, the only way to get lawbreakers to leave was to arrest and/or suspend them.

If Jewish students weren't arrested it's because they weren't camping out on campus without authorization and refusing to leave when asked. You're trying to make the pro-Palestine supporters to be victims of unjust police violence, this narrative appears false. If it's true the students can successfully sue the police and the school.

[Unthinking Majority]

That happened in Canada, not the US, where hate speech is punishable by itself.

Note how even publicly calling for mass murder does not, by itself, lead to any arrests in the US. Neither should it.



Stay on topic.

The same thing happened in Canada in Ottawa where a protestor told a large crowd "Long live Oct 7th". They are looking into hate speech charges I believe. I highly doubt the Calgary hate speech charge will be upheld. I don't believe in hate speech laws except for threatening/inciting violence. These people are directly advocating terrorism and genocide.

[Unthinking Majority]

As long as settler colonialism is a thing, October 7 will keep happening.

Stating this causal relationship is not a call to mass murder. It is merely an explanation as to why the mass murder will periodically occur.

That's not what the Columbia protestors in the video above meant at all though. Both of them are advocating terrorism and the targeted mass murder of civilians.

[Unthinking Majority]

The thing about this particular right wing cancel culture machine is that it has deep enough pockets to pay the cops to enforce their censorship of protesters.

But do you have evidence of this conspiracy theory of yours happening in this case?

[wat0n]

As long as settler colonialism is a thing, October 7 will keep happening.

Stating this causal relationship is not a call to mass murder. It is merely an explanation as to why the mass murder will periodically occur.

More nonsense.

Those guys were clearly calling for a repeat of October 7 "10,000 times". This would mean killing over 11 million people.

Just because you support it, it doesn't mean the rest of us can't tell exactly what's being advocated for.

And yet, even then, this is not illegal since there was no threat of imminent lawless action. What is illegal, however, is harassing people, blocking access to public spaces be they owned privately or by the state and blocking highways and commerce more generally, let alone even more violent forms of protest like rioting, looting, arson or murder. When this line is crossed, of course the cops have to intervene.

@Unthinking Majority Canada goes beyond just the imminent lawless action standard used in the US. Canada and also some European countries definitely police the content of speech itself beyond just what's necessary to prevent the violation of other laws.

[Unthinking Majority]

@Unthinking Majority Canada goes beyond just the imminent lawless action standard used in the US. Canada and also some European countries definitely police the content of speech itself beyond just what's necessary to prevent the violation of other laws.

Yes I know, I don't agree with making all such speech illegal. I think the line should be threatening violence/genocide etc.

[ingliz]

@wat0n

I believe any student who supports Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza should be suspended.

Political Zionism seeks to advance an exclusive homeland for the Jews in the form of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine. Such an enterprise necessarily calls for the elimination or domination of the Palestinians.

[Saeko]

She's back.

[Pants-of-dog]

You can't arrest someone for protesting or having specific political views, that's illegal. A crime needs to be committed.

I was at a protest once where a cop came along and pushed a woman to the ground. As she was falling, she splayed her arms out to catch herself and accidentally brushed the arm of a police officer. She was then charged with assaulting a police officer.

So, yes, a crime needs to be committed. Cops can find a crime being committed wherever they want to. If need be, they can force the issue.

The protestors were camping in tents and occupying a part of the university without authorization. Things started getting more heated near a Jewish holiday, non-students were joining the protests/occupation, Jews on campus were harassed and intimidated, classes were being disrupted to the point where the semester is to be completed remotely. No doubt the school admin asked the protestors to leave and they refused. I'd assume the cops asked them to leave also and they still refused. At that point, the only way to get lawbreakers to leave was to arrest and/or suspend them.

Thanks for explaining why I am right that only critics of Israel were arrested.

If Jewish students weren't arrested it's because they weren't camping out on campus without authorization and refusing to leave when asked. You're trying to make the pro-Palestine supporters to be victims of unjust police violence, this narrative appears false. If it's true the students can successfully sue the police and the school.

If the only crime was putting up tents and saying things critical to Israel, then arresting them is ridiculous.

The same thing happened in Canada in Ottawa where a protestor told a large crowd "Long live Oct 7th". They are looking into hate speech charges I believe. I highly doubt the Calgary hate speech charge will be upheld. I don't believe in hate speech laws except for threatening/inciting violence. These people are directly advocating terrorism and genocide.

That's not what the Columbia protestors in the video above meant at all though. Both of them are advocating terrorism and the targeted mass murder of civilians.

Since you do not have a magic mind reading machine, this is unverifiable speculation and can be ignored.

But do you have evidence of this conspiracy theory of yours happening in this case?

A conspiracy is supposed to be covert. This is not. It is completely open and legal and therefore does not fit the definition of a conspiracy theory.

The universities have donors. The donations are often in the millions of dollars. The donors are threatening the universities with withholding funds. The universities, therefore, have financial incentives to crack down on anyone criticizing Israel.

The donors even admit this publicly.

Note that the people protesting the war are calling for an end to violence whole the Zionists are supporting violence by enacting a genocide as we speak.

This whole “calling for violence is bad” is theatre.

[wat0n]

I was at a protest once where a cop came along and pushed a woman to the ground. As she was falling, she splayed her arms out to catch herself and accidentally brushed the arm of a police officer. She was then charged with assaulting a police officer.

So, yes, a crime needs to be committed. Cops can find a crime being committed wherever they want to. If need be, they can force the issue.

Things that never happened.

If the only crime was putting up tents and saying things critical to Israel, then arresting them is ridiculous.

Blocking access to campus is enough of a reason to arrest them.

Since you do not have a magic mind reading machine, this is unverifiable speculation and can be ignored.

It's evident from the speech.

The call for violence is even more obvious than the infamous "Jews will not replace us" from the Charlottesville riot of 2017.

A conspiracy is supposed to be covert. This is not. It is completely open and legal and therefore does not fit the definition of a conspiracy theory.

The universities have donors. The donations are often in the millions of dollars. The donors are threatening the universities with withholding funds. The universities, therefore, have financial incentives to crack down on anyone criticizing Israel.

The donors even admit this publicly.

Note that the people protesting the war are calling for an end to violence whole the Zionists are supporting violence by enacting a genocide as we speak.

This whole “calling for violence is bad” is theatre.

No, those protesting the war are calling for the destruction of Israel and its population (at least the Jewish one) as evidenced by the footage.

Here's another example of protesters calling to burn Tel Aviv to the ground.



But that's not the issue. The issue is that they're disrupting university operations and harassing students.

@wat0n

I believe any student who supports Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza should be suspended.

Political Zionism seeks to advance an exclusive homeland for the Jews in the form of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine. Such an enterprise necessarily calls for the elimination or domination of the Palestinians.

None of this is true.

But I don't find it surprising that someone who supports the agenda of exterminating Israelis would support banning their speech, if not Israelis themselves, from campus.

[Pants-of-dog]

@wat0n

Are you Jewish?

[wat0n]

@Pants-of-dog yes

[late]

Things that never happened.

Read the history of the 68 Chicago police riot. Or that time the gays fought back against the police, and wound up starting the gay movement. Or Kent State, or...

We didn't have problems like that in Maine. But in some cities you sewed up the pockets of your blue jeans so they couldn't plant drugs on you.

Nobody was listening to him, so Doyle created Sherlock Holmes to illustrate what effective policing could do.

This has a long history.