Is this any worse than when the truckers blocked roads preventing critical medical supplies from being delivered? The far right cared no then. But now it does? lol.
Or when Trump supporters blocked traffic and drove recklessly during the 2020 election. You see Right wingers frequently decry protests that block traffic yet will use that same tactic.
Well, for sure, and I was marching too, especially over Iraq II. You're right. I didn't express myself well. But speaking as a prof, the level of upset I see among students is like nothing I've seen before, and it seems very odd that it would arrive over Israel v. Palestine CCLXIII than it did, say, over our (like, the actual US) invasion of Afghanistan. But beyond levels of protests or numbers of people marching, the antipathy for opposing viewpoints, or even those not participating, is pretty amazing to me. Startling even. On my campus, students are posting anonymous snarky, smug, self-righteous flyers in the science buildings (where, we all know, students are less likely to be choosing sides) trying to guilt trip those who aren't "standing for Gaza," whatever that means. I suppose this is a product of social media algorithms and the benefit of making people really angry to drive clicks. If any of those poster-making students are comms majors, their profs are failing them entirely. But as I keep telling anyone who asks: "Show me a petition for a ceasefire that also calls for the voluntary dissolution of Hamas, and I'll sign right away."
It is hard for me to answer. Big picture, the way to “wipe out” Islamic extremism is not to continue this policy of destroying civilian infrastructure and residential areas. I don’t think Israel has fully thought through how this will lead to eventual peace. They are reacting to (very understandable) internal pressure to respond with overwhelming force against Hamas. If they have strong evidence that the hospital is an essential central command hub for coordinating attacks against civilians, then the operation could be justified. It depends on details I don’t have — like what is the anticipated civilian deaths on the Palestinian side. The laws of war — do not impose excessive harm against civilians even when there is a legitimate military target — still apply. It apples even if the enemy does not abide by the laws of war (and clearly Hamas didn’t and doesn’t). It doesn’t look like what was found so far constitutes a “central hub” — and now we have Olmert claiming that in fact their main base of operations is in South Gaza. So, what has been achieved militarily by taking control of the hospital? It’s not clear to me.
This kind of gets to what I'm talking about. The US is not at all directly involved in this conflict, but here we have US citizens willing to really f with one another over it. I did not see this in the post 9-11 wars. The "no blood for oil" marches did not, as I recall, involve blocking critical arteries of traffic, but maybe I'm wrong. Fines for this bullshit should be quadrupled. I know people at UCSF who were impacted by this ****-headery.
Not watching videos of evidence of anything, as I've said. But on the general topic: I would agree with the text portion. Shutting down something like a major bridge to achieve a ceasefire won't work. None of the people who can directly make a ceasefire happen are using that bridge. Hamas will get a good chuckle out of it, I guess, and click a thumbs up for the protest. What this specific type of act in the US can accomplish is drive further internal division here and give a greater chance of extremist political candidates winning future elections. That's about it. Good work, choads.
You could pull a Hamas and go completely uncivil nutso against another poster and they could return fire. You would both get suspended, maybe, and mods would probably lock the thread.
