University students rising up against ties with Israel (title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[EasterIssland]

Many university students are raising up against the ties their universities have with Israel. Students are asking for this agreements to stop
I can see this is happening in USA which has been in the news quite a lot but I can also read news about Paris as well as UK.

I really doubt much will change but I’m glad people are against these agreements. We can’t change what Israel / Hamas do. But we should be able to change what our governments / universities do.

Sorry if I misunderstood this, it does seem to imply that you find 'end the occupation' troublesome

I pointed out that there are people who think that the entirety of Israel is an occupation. I showed a screenshot of one of the boycott websites that was shared on Mumsnet listing Tel Aviv as being in 'occupied Palestine'.

What do you think someone who thinks Tel Aviv is in occupied Palestine means if they say 'end the occupation'?

And don't you think, given that even on this thread people can't agree what is being occupied that it might be a good idea to check on a shared understanding before chanting it?

I didn't say 'end the occupation' was problematic, more that, when people say it, you don't know exactly what they mean. And they could mean 'Israel shouldn't exist'.

That student on the radio showed that there are clearly people who are of that opinion in these camps, so it is definitely worth asking that question.

You speak of ‘the end game’, as if everyone is secretly hoping to wipe out Jewish people

No, I said it was the end point of the reasoning. It's where you logically get to if you demonise Israel and the people who support its right to exist.

And as for 'secretly hoping to wipe out Jewish people'. Let's not forget that some actively tried to do that within living memory. It's not an idle concern? And there are some who definitely still have that as a wish (the Houthi slogan being 'Death to Israel, a curse upon Jews' should be noted). So please don't use that flippantly.

What is the end game for Gaza?

That appears to be in the hands of murderous fanatics right now. We can only hope for a ceasefire agreement from both sets.

Like I said I was just taking you at face value. Your any time anyone says 'end the occupation' seems pretty unambiguous to me and tbh this post seems to be doubling down on that.

We are poles apart. We will never agree. For me it is really important that Israel end their occupation, without it there will never be peace. You feel the fact some people might take that to mean that Israel shouldn't exist means we should all stfu, no matter what we mean.This conversation is pointless.

I didn't say that at all, so your continued attempts to misinterpret me in the worst possible way do certainly suggest engaging with you is pointless.

I would hope students at our leading universities are intelligent people.

I think this is why I am disturbed by the fact the protestors don't seem to be able to have the intellectual band width to understand how difficult a lasting solution in the middle East is. This is a problem that has not been solved by generations of our greatest diplomats and statesmen.

Some of the students may be simply distraught at the general suffering of the Palestinians and at a human level I respect that but many and maybe the majority wish to see a ''free' Palestine and end of oppression without a considered view of how that can be achieved without destroying the integrity of the Jewish state Israel. I would hope it would be minds at the like of Oxford and Cambridge that could look at this incredibly difficult problem without resorting to sloganeering and a job mentality that viewed the problem at an utterly superficial simplistic level.

As the girl interviewed on Radio 4 showed without considered thought on the subject you easily are shown to be anti Semitic and to be frank that is embaressing.

I think when some of these protestors refer to a free Paelstine and end of occupation they are referring to the whole of Israel and there is that implicit desire to destroy Israel as a state in the existential sense that is a homeland for the Jewish people governed by them. It is this sense of having Israel not campaigning against excessive military reaction or aid limitation that is making the government meet with vice chancellors to ensure that campuses are safe spaces for Jews and hounding five licence to our greatest universities to be places where people can openly advocate for the destruction of Israel.

Im actually in awe of the majority of these students , and I’d be very concerned if they were indifferent to the killings of 34,844 in total , including 13000 children, displacement of over 1,8Million, the list goes on and on.

these students have achieved in days what so called peace makers and politicians failed to achieve in years.
some might be ill informed and are just there for troubles, but the majority seem very well informed and according to reports peaceful.

I personally had tears in my eyes when I saw the banner Hinds hall. That will certainly be
something remembered for generations to come .

This!

I personally had tears in my eyes when I saw the banner Hinds hall.

Same.
And again, when I saw Hind’s mothers respond.

But there are only a very tiny proportion protesting out of all the students at the University; the campers out will be far more extreme politically than the other students.

They don't have all the answers just because they are going to an old University. They do get a lot of publicity for what may be some very dodgy ideas.

I would be very sorry to see links being severed between Oxford and Cambridge and Jewish scholars and I really hope it doesn't come to that.

@noblegiraffe

it is a very vague term occupation isn't it. The problem with not specifying what areas are 'occupied' you are led to believe that the protesters believe all of Israel is occupied and an end of occupation is to subjugate Israel as a country. As I said before there may be some protesters there who wish simply for peace but there are I am sure significant numbers that believe in undermining Israeli statehood.

I

So here is a poll of 1,250 University students in the US (couldn't find one for the UK)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-college-students-gaza-war.html

As you might expect, things are more nuanced if they are examined more closely.

45% said they support [pro-Palestinian encampments] either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed

but

A large majority (81%) of students support holding protesters accountable, agreeing with the notion that those who destroyed property or vandalized or illegally occupied buildings should be held responsible by their university

and

67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable and 58% say it’s not acceptable to refuse a university’s order to disperse. Another 90% said blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable.

Also

when asked whom they principally blame for the situation in Gaza, 34 percent name Hamas and 31 percent name the Israelis (19 percent specifically blame Bibi Netanyahu and 12 percent the Israeli people generally).

Agreed, they definitely believe in undermining Israeli statehood & the settler colonialism myth leads them to believe thst the whole of Israel is 'occupied' territory. One of the common chants there and here is 'Judaism yes, zionism no, the state of Israel has to go'. People in bad faith will endlessly argue about 'from the river to the sea' but I can't see how anyone can read 'the state if Israel has to go' as anything other than the end of a homeland for Jews.

It's quite something, 7 months in, for people to be finding out that they don't potentially all mean the same thing when they say 'end the occupation'.

I am reminded of the conversation of a week or two back on here where people who had been saying 'I'm not anti semitic, just anti-Zionist for months were not sure what was meant by Zionism. No agreed understanding of that word either.

There have also been people arguing for 7 months that 'From the river to the sea' doesn't mean getting rid of Israel when they chant it, when it is often used to mean exactly that.

The student protestor on the national news saying she doesn't believe Israel has the right to exist really should be a wake-up call.

@noblegiraffe ,

I wonder if in some cases it is feigned ignorance in order to disguise the anti senitism?

I think a lot of naieve students have been caught up in a whirl wind and by propaganda that has drawn them to a point where they do feel Palestinians should occupy all the land. Maybe there are students that have been brought up with atlases with Israel not on them because believe me they do exist. I am seeing maps on my social media field with maps of Israel with city names changed all in Arabic and it is pretty obvious what the desired end goal is from these people.

I'm quite interested in the university protests angle, because some of the protests are taking place in a physical area that I know very well; and back in the day, I took part in quite a few protests myself (on different issues).

I think there is a great appeal in feeling radical and they are doing very well at getting media attention.

But I suspect several of them aren't very knowledgeable about their cause; and I bet most of them really wouldn't enjoy living under an actual state governed by Hamas etc.

@mids2019 when you're seeing maps with city names written in Arabic, are they maps which are written in Arabic overall? Because it's fairly common to produce maps written in different languages and an Arabic language map is no more sinister in itself than a French one or a Japanese one. The maps that erase Israel are horrible. No country should be erased.

https://x.com/qudsnen/status/1789178487787356441?s=61&t=nilGqPeurpC5xVqZAZdZog

Australian student speaks well at the University of Sydney

https://x.com/qudsnen/status/1789245689983037832?s=61&t=nilGqPeurpC5xVqZAZdZog

University of Geneva

@Scirocco

the posts were of maps of Israel showing palestinian Palestinian land i.e.occupied. I think there are some that don't want Israel to exists and the very existence of the state is an an anathema. It is this implied destruction of Israel that concerns people and if protesters cannot see that protests which are upheld by a collective wish to destroy Israel are problematic then that is a problem.

A lot of the concern about free Palestine and ending oppression is that none of the protesters seem to have given thought to how a 2 state solution would be made to work and what the territorial boundaries and governance arrangements would be. It's as if the protesters have engaged in group think where there is a vague hope that Israel as an entity can be deconstructed and we can all start again.

to start on a Palestinian state and many politicians do advocate a 2 state solution we have to start with the premise Israel exists and work from there. We would need to draw state boundaries for Palestine and governance forms which would preclude terror groups. Importantly at heart it has to be realised you will never get to a pre 1948 position so there are many Palestinians who would have to give this up as an obtainable goal and I think that will be difficult. To my mind many of the protesters probably hold maximist goals of a Palestinain state which may entertain Jews or more likely hope the Jews once again become a diaspora.

It is these views that need combating and people should be free to question the motivations of the protesters freely especially if they are intelligent students willing to engage in discourse.

I have said before many are empathetic to the huge suffering of the Palestinian people but having extremists that hate Israel fronting their cause doesn't help. I think the same view could.be taken if the Israeli government currently as they stretching their rightful need for self defence but even their allies currently acknowledge this.

@Gunnersforthecup But I suspect several of them aren't very knowledgeable about their cause; and I bet most of them really wouldn't enjoy living under an actual state governed by Hamas etc.

I would agree with that.

This is why I bust myself laughing when I see protesters holding banners/placards saying "Gays for Gaza".

It seems that they don't realize that Hamas would execute any Gay person they discovered. 😮

Perhaps they are ignorant, but saying ‘Gays for Gaza’ is not the same as saying ‘Gays for Hamas’.

And even if gay protesters know how precarious life is for gay people in Gaza, they still might want the people to thrive and live, and then, who knows, perhaps eventually become more modern and tolerant, like we ourselves did, given it was only in 1967 that gay men were no longer illegal here.

To my mind many of the protesters probably hold maximist goals of a Palestinain state which may entertain Jews or more likely hope the Jews once again become a diaspora. so we create a new diaspora? the Palestinian Diaspora ?

It seems that they don't realize that Hamas would execute any Gay person they discovered.

Or they can seperate Hamas from innocent Palestinian people and feel compassion for those being killed. Thankfully most of us can feel compassion for those being killed, starved and displaced regardless of who they are and what they think.

Exactly, as if gay people would not want women and children and innocent men saved just because it was not all about themselves.

So where does the 'Gay' bit come into it?

Why even mention it?

How does their 'gayness' help Palestinians in any specific way?

Why show themselves as a group with a particular leaning when they know that Hamas hates them?

I'm confused.

I think they're probably just indicating their own identity and group, and expressing that there are people in that group who care about the innocent people in Gaza. I don't think they're planning to move there or hang out with Hamas.

"[Group name] for [cause]" is a pretty common slogan template.