Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(05-01-2024, 04:23 PM)pally Wrote: They remind me of the kids during the Vietnam era.  They are all caught up in something that allows them to fight against the "establishment"  They believe fighting for Palestinians is something noble.  They don't believe the information they are being provided with.  Adults today are reacting tp the protests much in the same way that they did

As a "kid" who came of political age during the Vietnam war, I can say that some of this describes my own experience.
Protestors were considered immature and lacking in knowledge. We were just "rebelling against authority."
Adults wondered what "outside influences" were corrupting us. Moscow?  "Leftists" professors were in the mix too.
Many calls to fire those guys, expel students, call in the National guard. Hire people who teach "America first" history. No propaganda.

I began protesting the war because I learned more about what caused it; yet many presumed my stance was based on an absence of information.
E.g. my parents and aunts and uncles didn't know a GOD DAMNED thing about the Geneva Accords or why the RSV, a Catholic remnant of the French colonial
administration, was hated by the vast majority of its own people. So I can feel an affinity with today's protestors on that score.  One big difference--few people are calling these students "traitors," or not yet. 

What pushed me over was the illegal bombing of Cambodia. So many thousands of rural villagers carpet bombed to death. Never knew what hit them.
That's probably the Gaza War for today's protestors.

(05-01-2024, 04:23 PM)pally Wrote: Where does it come from...they are living 70 years post WW2. They grew up in a different world than we did. They are less likely to have known someone who was directly involved in the war or the holocaust.  Israel has been under the control of Netenayhu most of their lives and virtually all of their awareness of world events life.  To them, Israel "reaps what they sows"  Israel isn't protecting itself against hate and anti-semitism but rather suppressing and marginalizing the Palestinian people.  Thy don't see Hamas as terrorists but as people who are fighting back against an oppressor.  Netenayhu's and Israel's far-right rhetoric makes clear they want to destroy the Palestinians.  These young people, especially on the campuses of elite colleges, are far more likely to have personally encountered Arab and Muslim classmates than previous generations so they hear the story of the Israeli/ME conflicts from different perspectives.

I think the bolded are important points. They are more likely to know Arab students.

But also, especially in "elite" universities, they are more likely to be exposed to post-colonial perspectives on history too.
Columbia was home to Edward Said, one of the most articulate spokespersons for the Palestinian cause, and other post-colonial
luminaries like Gayatri Spivak.

For my parents, the US had always been the good guys fighting bad Germans and Japanese and NK commies. 
We didn't kill masses of innocents. It was hard for them to process My Lai and Cambodia. but eventually they did.

The parents of the Columbia protestors grew up in a world where Israel was a brave little country making the desert bloom,
surrounded by envious Arab bullies who just hated Jews. Palestinian "terrorists" were always coming from out of the blue
to attack them. Because of "hate." Israel always tried to make peace with them but they always rejected it.