What do the protestors think they're achieving?

[Intotheniiight]

This isn't a goady post or expressing my opinion on the actual situation but I'm watching the news and seeing all these protestors doing sit ins etc at US universities and now here and I genuinely don't understand what they think that achieves in any genuinely productive helpful way to the cause?

How does someone willingly starving themselves on the steps of columbia university help?

These protesters are young, idealistic & naive. That’s perfectly understandable, because they are students. I too was idealistic & naive when I was a student.

But they will grow up and they will learn the hard way, as I have, that protesting is a completely pointless waste of time. Millions of us protested against the Iraq war in 2003. It happened anyway. Millions of us protested to get a second Brexit referendum ; one in which people actually understood what they were voting for. It didn’t happen.

In a democratic society actual votes in ballot boxes are what matter, and what change things, not protests.

It's an absolute nonsense that protest achieves nothing. A PP have numerous examples and there will be many many more. The protests on university campus have had very specific concise aims one of which is to get the universities that they spend thousands of dollars to attend to divest from Israeli companies that are directly contributing to the conflict (such as arms sales). And there is a significant number of Jewish students involved with the protests too.

What is the alternative to not protesting? I've lobbied my MP via email and phone with no reponse, I eventually greencarded him in the lobby of the Houses of Parliament to have a conversation with him, his viewpoint was abhorrent. I won't be voting for any party Labour, conservative or otherwise that continues to fund a state committing war crimes. Thats my red line.

Great to see politically engaged students again. I applaud them.

People protesting about Gaza in the US/UK are putting pressure on their own government to withdraw support from Israel. They are acting in the place where they want to effect change.

It often doesn't actually achieve anything but it brings attention to a cause.

I was in the march against the Iraq war at 17. I've attended dozens of protests since then including seeing Colston's statue torn down and attending the Kill the Bill protests and seeing with my own eyes the police brutality, including against my very peaceful friends.

No, it might not change anything immediately but at least people may have more awareness and that may shape votes in future. What's the alternative? Just ignore injustice?

Most of them state the goal that universities cease all business and academic arrangements with Israel or with businesses or academic organizations that operate with Israel.

Even my ridiculously liberal 15yo understands this is close to impossible. The clothing the protestors are wearing, the food they are eating, and the devices they are using to communicate can all be linked to Israel if you follow enough steps. It’s sort of like that old movie industry game, 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

The alternative would be to volunteer for charities/aid missions/go to the location of the issue and help actively? I'm not saying you don't, I don't know what you do personally haha, but in general, that would be what id be doing if I wanted to achieve something

A few have said to raise awareness and while I still don't get doing that in that way, I appreciate those trying to explain :)

The alternative would be to volunteer for charities/aid missions/go to the location of the issue and help actively?
Go to Gaza? Really?

What??

Authority figures like the Jewish community?

I very much doubt that most students have an issue with 'the Jewish community' as a whole.

They have an issue with genocide and the murder of innocent civilians. Like Hind Rajab. And the two paramedics trying to rescue her from a car full of her dead family.

Israel is committing war crimes. This is nothing to do with antisemitism.

Maybe not gaza itself but I'm sure there are aid workers at the borders and different charities here etc to proactively help

The point is that our government and the US government support Israel. It's an election year. Politicians want the youth vote. The youth are showing that this issue is important to them. What don't you understand about that?

And it's utterly ridiculous to say if they really wanted to help they'd fly to Gaza. Protests are an important feature of democracy.

To me, a protest however naive or pointless, does highlight the issues in hand. It gives media coverage and hopefully will reach a wider audience.

Students are taught to think, evaluate interpret and analyse. If a bunch of students say something is wrong here, it's worth my time. Even if it's just a few minutes...

PS: there are always lots of protests in the US before an general election. It's part of political point scoring.

antisemitism is an acceptable, almost fashionable racism these days, sadly

I don't associate ordinary Jewish people with the murderous genocidal actions of the Israeli government. The two couldn't be further apart in my mind. There is nothing Jewish about what the Israeli government is and has been doing to the Palestinians for decades.

Do you not believe any protests work then? Even if politicians don't change their actions straight away it raises awareness and can change the opinions of members of the public, eventually influencing politicians too.
The poll tax protests definitely helped get rid of Thatcher.
Direct action from suffragettes wasn't a waste of time.

Also @Intotheniiight if the students' protest works as they intend and they manage to pressure Biden into withdrawing US support to Israel, that would be far more effective in ending the war than students flying over to provide aid at the border. They are doing what they think will help and most effectively achieve their goal. Israel need the supply of weapons and they need international allies, particularly the US. Without those things, they couldn't continue the war.

I'm a lawyer and I volunteer a lot locally (pro bono legal advice plus women's aid and our local food bank). Taking time off to go to a war torn country isn't realistic.

The point of protesting is to show the government how we feel about things. Yes, there may be no obvious immediate change but if they want our votes they will need to change eventually. In the case of the US protests, the US are still supplying Israel with missiles etc, so the students are literally protesting against the right people!

Personally I feel it's hard enough for the money grants anyhow and there making it worse. I can guarantee no protester will offer there house and wages to accommodate migrants

I do get this. I'm from a traveller background and sometimes it feels like we're the last minority group it's OK to be prejudiced against.

But Israel and Jewish people are not the same.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/5065923-whats-going-on-in-the-american-ivy-league-colleges

Why don't you join forces with this other confused OP?

The alternative would be to volunteer for charities/aid missions/go to the location of the issue and help actively?

You are more deluded than the students.

There's no need to be rude and insult me, is there?

Follow the money, where has this whole movement been funded and stoked from? The protesters are without exception useful idiots in the bigger game, which is destabilise the west and are products of the long march through the institutions.

I think it's rude to dismiss people's efforts in protesting by saying that if they really cared they would abandon their studies and fly to a war zone where it's unlikely they're wanted or needed. It's a way of sneering at people who are trying to make a difference and implying that they aren't really dedicated, don't really care, if they haven't made such and such a sacrifice then their actions are pointless. When it has been explained that they aren't directly protesting the Israeli government but in fact, their own government. You can disagree with their cause but it's very disingenuous to say you don't understand it or that it's pointless because it doesn't meet your very odd criteria of activism.

The “Pro-Palestine” students on college campuses can swear up, down, and sideways that they are “anti-war” and “anti-genocide,” but when some of the most commonly heard chants at the encampments are “intifada, intifada,” “globalize the intifada,” “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “from water to water, Palestine is Arab,” those are not anti-war, anti-genocide slogans; that’s incitement to violence. When we hear “Hamas, we love you and your rockets too!” or “we say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!” these are not peace protests. When Jewish students who don’t fall in line are assaulted, when death threats against Jews are everywhere, when support for the Islamic Republic and its murderous proxies is widespread…well, it doesn’t matter how you describe your protests. These are protests organised by groups with long-established ties to terror organisations and support for massacres of Israelis, including October 7. Like the isolationists of the 1930s and 1940s (those American student activists who argued against getting involved in Europe’s war, pre- Pearl Harbour), the current crop of protestors are packaging their support for genocidally antisemitic groups in “anti-war” language.

My take: You can claim to be “anti-imperialist” all you want, but when you are supporting the biggest imperialist force in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran, your words ring just as hollow as those of the students during the 1979 Iranian Revolution who helped Ayatollah Khomeini come to power. Those same students later came to deeply regret their actions (I can provide you with some insight on this example if you’re interested).

The students can claim these are “pro-peace” protests, but we see them assaulting Jewish students: with fists, with sticks, with tasers, with water bottles, and more. We see the militarism and radicalisation and though we hope it never reaches that point, the Red Guards (the student group mobilised by Mao Zedong in 1966) are a prime example of where this can lead.