Palestine college student protest megathread

[DaleCooper]

Such a shame that some students were bound and determined to turn a solemn and meaningful ceremony into a political rally for a cause they're very poorly informed about.  The university was not willing to endure such a sad, obnoxious spectacle and instead made the reasonable decision to cancel.  Now all their fellow students who just wanted to enjoy graduation -- especially after missing 2020 high school graduation because of COVID -- are robbed of it because of the selfishness of a few assholes who see the entire world as just a collection of platforms for them to jump up on and chant "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab free"

Are you allergic to acknowledging that there are a sizeable amount of non-problematic protestors that aren't racist and just don't like seeing grandmas and babies getting blown up by bombs or starving to death? It seems like you actively go out of your way to make sure that you don't acknowledge that they exist in your posts.

There is no overlap between the reasonable protesters and the protesters trying to ruin a graduation ceremony for thousands of innocent people.

[DaleCooper]

These universities are eventually going to have to get a lot tougher on these protesters. Students interested in receiving a real education, undisrupted by mentally disabled activists, will start taking their business elsewhere. Even the most liberal campuses are populated by a majority of students that are just there to go to class and get their degree.

[DaleCooper]

Such a shame that some students were bound and determined to turn a solemn and meaningful ceremony into a political rally for a cause they're very poorly informed about.  The university was not willing to endure such a sad, obnoxious spectacle and instead made the reasonable decision to cancel.  Now all their fellow students who just wanted to enjoy graduation -- especially after missing 2020 high school graduation because of COVID -- are robbed of it because of the selfishness of a few assholes who see the entire world as just a collection of platforms for them to jump up on and chant "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab free"

Are you allergic to acknowledging that there are a sizeable amount of non-problematic protestors that aren't racist and just don't like seeing grandmas and babies getting blown up by bombs or starving to death? It seems like you actively go out of your way to make sure that you don't acknowledge that they exist in your posts.

There is no overlap between the reasonable protesters and the protesters trying to ruin a graduation ceremony for thousands of innocent people.

I’m glad you’re concerned about thousands of innocent people. I can think of a few more such thousands who are suffering a lot worse than a canceled graduation ceremony.

I don't live there and I don't know anyone that lives there. I've advocated for all money (including humanitarian aid) to be withheld from Israel until Netanyahu is dead or removed from power. I will never vote for any Republican, which is easily the more pro-Isreal party. If that's not good enough for you then I don't know what to tell you. I'm not going to go hold up inflammatory signs outside of unrelated events, Westboro Baptist Church style, nor would that help anything anyway.

[DaleCooper]

I don't even understand the valedictorian situation. Being the valedictorian doesn't mean you've won a sweepstakes and have been awarded a free audience for your stupid political opinions. If anything, I'm kind of surprised that students don't submit their speeches ahead of time for approval. Obviously high school is a lot different, but I seem to remember all of the speeches in my high school graduation being limited to a very specific amount of time and I can't imagine they'd have been allowed to rant about irrelevant current events.

[DaleCooper]

Lowkey I hope this happens at my university too.
I would rather spend my graduation day doing something fun with my family and then receiving the degree in the mail than have to sit through a tedious ceremony just for nice photo ops.

You can already do that.

[DaleCooper]

I don't even understand the valedictorian situation. Being the valedictorian doesn't mean you've won a sweepstakes and have been awarded a free audience for your stupid political opinions. If anything, I'm kind of surprised that students don't submit their speeches ahead of time for approval. Obviously high school is a lot different, but I seem to remember all of the speeches in my high school graduation being limited to a very specific amount of time and I can't imagine they'd have been allowed to rant about irrelevant current events.

In her case, she was chosen by other students out of like a 100 candidates so there probably is a case that she was picked by her friends and allies who wanted to use the opportunity to educate everyone about Palestine, all Israelis are white supremacists with dual passports, USC parents can’t hide / she charges them with genocide, etc. She did not have a uniquely high GPA.

In that case it sounds like the whole thing was a scam from the beginning.

[DaleCooper]

Put up or shut up!

[DaleCooper]

Really inappropriate for the faculty to get involved in this.

It's very obvious that they would not be doing this if the students were protesting for the KKK or MAGA or pro-life or any other right-coded cause.  They probably wouldn't even do it for a student protest that was pro-Israel or lamenting the 10/7 attacks.

They are doing it for this protest because they agree politically with the message the students are sending, and that is inappropriate because it involves the faculty going against their own employer (Columbia University) in order to provide favorable treatment to a certain group of students based on their political beliefs.

This is aside from the point that making such a silly demonstration to protect students because you agree with their political beliefs is especially bad when those political beliefs are "there is only one solution, intifada revolution" and "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which can be heard ad nauseum throughout the background noise of the video.

It's sad too because there are thousands of under-employed professors out there that actually want to educate students, but the top universities are full of these crackpots. I'm a huge advocate for getting a college education, but as I've said before, do not waste your money on these places.

[DaleCooper]

She should've been fired years ago for being a DEI Director.

[DaleCooper]

How many deplorables here will cheer and clap if the cops end up killing them?

No one will defend a hypothetical police response that hasn't even happened yet. At this point pretty much any violence will be 100% the fault of university administration for letting it get to this point, and the protesters themselves of course. This should've been ended within 24 hours when they were outside and much easier to deal with.

I hope that the non-protesting students are successful in suing the university. They all deserve to have their tuition refunded.

[DaleCooper]

I really don't think this can be called "unrest", lol. This is completely irrelevant to everyone who isn't on one of these campuses.

[DaleCooper]

911?
I want to report a murder.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1785839777926807593

Offtopic but damn, JD Vance has absolutely gorgeous eyes.

He kind of looks like a woman disguised as a man.

[DaleCooper]

I can't stress enough just how much >90% of employed people despise protests like this. The left has completely failed to appeal to working people and there seems to be no interest in fixing that.

[DaleCooper]

We all remember the Civil Rights protests when anyone who was interested in hearing what the marchers had to say was met with "f--k off, thought traitor"

They did this exact same thing back during the fake anti-racist protests in 2015-2016. There was a clip that went viral from Missouri, I think, where some Karen was screaming for help to remove a random guy with a camera because the media is racist.

[DaleCooper]

I know that we like to instinctively defend people that appear to be on our side, but I strongly urge people who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to realize how dangerous this crap is. Everybody in this country hates ritzy college activists. Everybody hates them. Just look at all the good causes they've helped destroy recently. Feminism is a complete joke now and women have fewer rights than they did half a century ago. Bernie Sanders went from being relatively competitive as a no-name challenger against the establishment candidate to being completely non-competitive against Biden. Environmentalism is largely a joke. Universal healthcare doesn't even seem to be a consideration now after years of "Medicare for All!" cringe. Black Lives Matter is associated exclusively with rioting and lefty bullsh-t and all of the momentum for change after Floyd's murder has been lost. Can we at least acknowledge that these people are terrible at everything they attempt to do? They don't even f-cking vote! There's no value to having these guys in your coalition.

There is a real chance for America to end its abusive relationship with Israel, but it's not going to happen if the Palestinian cause turns into the Green New Deal or #MeToo. If that happens, then any shift in public opinion against Israel could be lost or at least diminished. When these people become the face of your movement, at least half the country rejects your cause purely out of spite. (If you fail to understand this, then you don't understand America.) The pro-Palestinian people should treat these protesters like they're the plague.

[DaleCooper]

they don't know if they are supposed to be mad that colleges don't allow due process when punishing students.  Most of them don't care when it's just men (often minority men and occasionally a lesbian, but they can overlook that) getting screwed by such things.  We'll have to wait until their handlers tell them which way to think on this issue.  My guess is that it's too confusing and they will mostly ignore it.

The left doesn't believe that certain types of "criminals" (and that's in quotes because frequently these guys aren't actually accused of breaking the law) should not be entitled to a fair trial. Sexual misconduct is one, obviously. At the height of the MeToo moral panic you could get fired simply for suggesting that accused men should get a real trial before having their lives ruined. The other big one is any kind of allegation of bigotry, which is the issue here.

I'm opposed to this, obviously, but I find it borderline impossible to feel bad for people who are just now realizing that this is a problem because it's suddenly affecting people they care about.

[DaleCooper]

VOX, if anyone on the left still cares about them, I know how you are about canceling entities that don't toe the exact line you want, suddenly remembers that free speech is important

ROFLMAO

Between Elon Musk buying Twitter and universities crushing the protests, conservatives (and libertarians!!!) are really now having the last laugh in the "free speech" debate. You really don't hear "it's a private company, they can do whatever they want" or "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" from leftists these days.

I think plenty of people have said this about Twitter/X, specifically people who have voted with their feet and stopped using it. Twitter is still huge obviously but it has shrunk pretty dramatically and is an openly bleeding money wound with a lot of advertisers wanting nothing to do with it.

Twitter usage hasn't dropped dramatically, where are you getting that from? I see still it used just as much as before, just look at this thread (or really any thread in this forum).

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/twitter-usage-in-us-fallen-by-a-fifth-since-elon-musks-takeover