Tensions spill across universities like Columbia and Harvard as students on each side accuse the other of a kind of bloodlust

To one side, Columbia students stood silently, wrapped in the blue and white of Israel as they gripped pictures of the murdered and abducted. Across the grass and brick divide, a slightly larger cohort of students chanted “Free, free Palestine.”

The faultline between the two ran along the claim by each that the other was pursuing a kind of bloodlust – a charge that has divided university campuses across America in the wake of the bloody Hamas attack on Israeli communities and Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza.

Reactions within US universities to the killing of at least 1,300 Israelis and the abduction of about 100 more have swung from celebration of the Hamas assault as a legitimate act of resistance to occupation to condemnation along with a demand that it not be used to ignore the deaths of Palestinians killed in Israel’s retaliation on Gaza.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    I don’t give a fuck what their reasoning is, I don’t root for people that take civilian hostages.

    Or groups that #Trump supports.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        No.

        But that in no way justifies killing a thousand or so people, injuring several thousand more, and kidnapping and threatening to execute hundreds (including children) in an orgy of violence. Both sides are in the wrong here.

        • vind@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You can support the Palestinians and their right to end occupation and not support Hamas. You can be an advocate of Palestinians’ rights and not endorse Hezbollah or Iran’s regime. You can be pro-Palestinian without being anti-semitic. You can support Ukraine’s sovereignty and decry Israel’s human rights abuses. You can condemn terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians and still believe in one’s right to resist.

          These stances are not mutually exclusive.

          End the genocide of Palestinians.

          • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            I agree, this is the part I don’t understand. Why do people want to force others to pick a side? They are both wrong and treat each other horribly. Cant we condemn both? Civilian death is completely unnecessary for both sides. Just lay down all the weapons and end apartheid.

            The problem is you have two right wing governments that only know violence. The civilians are the victims.

            • remus989@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              I’ll tin foil hat for a second. It really feels like there’s a coordinated effort to push this as a really divisive event where you either completely support Israel or you’re a monster. Is that actually happening? Probably not, but it sure does feel that way.

  • Neato@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Leading financial figures on Wall Street made a show of saying they would not employ Harvard students who signed the statement blaming Israel for the Hamas attack. A billboard truck drove around Harvard campus displaying the pictures and names of the students, and their addresses and other details were published on websites.

    That’s some intense and coordinated propaganda.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      On the one hand, it’s a favorite conspiracy among the right-wing to scream about the “internationalist cabal of Jewish globalist bankers who control the world!”

      But then you read something like that, and it does seem suspicious. Like why would “leading financial figures” care who Harvard students support? And who would think putting their personal info on a fucking truck is acceptable?

      Note: I am absolutely not saying or espousing any theory that the Jews control the world or anything. But I think that in a vacuum, absent any outside context, it seems weirdly coincidental for Wall Street to care if a bunch of college students blame Israel or for their information to be publicly broadcast.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The problem with conspiracy theories is how unsure one must be of another’s motives: from where you’re sitting you think I’m sealioning; from my perspective you’re painting with a really broad brush.

          Perhaps my point wasn’t clear enough so let me try to rephrase it: this is the exact kind of activity that adds fuel to right-wing anti-Semitism. I fully expect to hear on next week’s Knowledge Fight Alex Jones using this to fuel his “Jews Globalists control the world!” narrative.