[wat0n]

Exhibit A. People like @wat0n would have been out there counter protesting against Civil Rights demonstrations because they're "too violent" or "making people uncomfortable"

Not at all.

If anything, it is segregationists who got violent first.

Or have you forgotten the harassment of the Little Rock Nine and the riots at Ole Miss to mention a couple of examples? Let alone the Mississippi civil rights workers murders of 1964.

MLK was against violent protests.

[Pants-of-dog]

There was a narrative in the media that MLK Jr was violent or excused violence and this was used to discredit the Civil Rights movement.

The same is happening now with people protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

It should also be noted that MLK stopped denouncing violence among protesters or in Black neighborhoods, since it would be hypocritical.to ask protesters to put down their weapons when one refuses to tell the government to stop using force and oppression.

[wat0n]

We don't need narratives, we have footage. Just like we have footage of the Little Rock crisis (although I don't know if there's any of the Ole Miss riot).

Just like we know that in Little Rock Black students were harassed for exercising their rights under the law because there's footage of that, we have footage of Jewish students being harassed for exercising their rights under the law.

[Pants-of-dog]

It is difficult to accept moralizing about violence from someone defending an invasion and genocide.

[wat0n]

Are you speaking about yourself defending October 7, @Pants-of-dog?

Or you mean those protesters you love so much who demand to repeat October 7 10,000 times over?

[Pants-of-dog]

Back to the topic:

It is interesting just how many of the protesters are Jewish. Even if one limits themselves to reading accounts of the protests that are written by Jews participating in said protests, there is a wealth of material.

Here in Edmonton, the encampment that was forcibly dismantled by baton wielding cops was organized by a Jewish professor at the U of A. There is rather heartbreaking footage of him standing in front of a line of cops in full riot gear pleading with the police to not hurt his students.

Not only did the police not listen to this peaceful Jewish man, the violence they enacted on the protesters was so egregious that peoole are resigning from the U of A in protest at the University’s handling of the situation.

[wat0n]

Yes, tokenization is a thing.

That does not mean the harassment and vandalism did not happen.

[Deutschmania]

There was a narrative in the media that MLK Jr was violent or excused violence and this was used to discredit the Civil Rights movement.

The same is happening now with people protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

It should also be noted that MLK stopped denouncing violence among protesters or in Black neighborhoods, since it would be hypocritical.to ask protesters to put down their weapons when one refuses to tell the government to stop using force and oppression.

Martin Luther King , Jr. , while staying committed to the principle of nonviolence , did refer to riots as being the language of the unheard . Angela Davis , who by the way was a high profile member of the Communist party , defended the use of armed force , in defense of oneself and one's community . And lastly , Nelson Mandela , after a time of attempting a nonviolent struggle , eventually helped to form the "Spear of the Nation" .

[Deutschmania]

:roll:

Back to the topic:

It is interesting just how many of the protesters are Jewish. Even if one limits themselves to reading accounts of the protests that are written by Jews participating in said protests, there is a wealth of material.

Here in Edmonton, the encampment that was forcibly dismantled by baton wielding cops was organized by a Jewish professor at the U of A. There is rather heartbreaking footage of him standing in front of a line of cops in full riot gear pleading with the police to not hurt his students.

Not only did the police not listen to this peaceful Jewish man, the violence they enacted on the protesters was so egregious that peoole are resigning from the U of A in protest at the University’s handling of the situation.

The issues surrounding the nation of Israel , and the notion of Zionism , has caused a huge rift within the larger Jewish Community . It certainly is not a case of tokenism . Even rabbis , such as this one rabbi in this sermon I tuned into , have felt the need to publicly address the matter . This topic of peace and justice for all , in Israel / Palestine , is most definitely the most pivotal matter that Jewry , especially within the United States of America , has ever faced in recent decades . And any attempts to downplay it are blatantly absurd .

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/24/1197956326/jewish-communities-divided-over-israel

[wat0n]

It is certainly tokenism if they are a small minority of the community, which they are.

[Deutschmania]

And now there are Jewish mothers who are up in arms about a Youtuber's choice of charity . They responded with whataboutism , as one might expect coming from apologists of Zionism .

The children’s YouTube sensation Ms. Rachel has ignited a controversy among Jewish and Israeli moms — and it’s not about screen time.

On Monday, Ms. Rachel — whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso and whose bright voice, overalls and pink headband are instantly recognizable to toddlers and their parents — announced that she was creating a fundraiser to benefit children in conflict areas, including Gaza.

“The idea is, I’ll make videos for little ones, and all the money raised on my end will go to Save the Children’s emergency fund, which will go to children living in conflict in Gaza, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine,” she said in the video announcement. (Griffin Accurso refers to children as “little ones.”)

“Hopefully I can make little ones smile by giving them a personal video, and then the money will go to help more children living in unimaginable circumstances,” she added. “Children should never experience the horrors of war.” So many people took Ms. Rachel up on her offer that she paused sales through the website Cameo, which allows celebrities to sell personalized videos, after selling 500 videos and raising $50,000 within hours. “Didn’t think I could love Ms Rachel more, but look at you taking a stand ,” one commenter wrote on TikTok, where Ms. Rachel has 4.3 million followers. (She has nearly 10 million followers on YouTube.)

But the announcement was less popular among some Jewish and Israeli fans who saw Ms. Rachel’s advocacy for children in Gaza as taking sides in the seven-month-old Israel-Hamas war.

“When I saw her fundraiser, it really triggered me,” Moran Gold, a Jewish mother and multilingual speech therapist who teaches language and reading to young children, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“I feel that it’s lovely — and I want to emphasize this: I think it’s lovely for an educator to try to bring light to children in Gaza or in Sudan or in Congo or in Ukraine — but I don’t understand why it’s a deliberate attempt by her and her team and Save the Children to never mention Israeli children,” said Gold, who also posts educational videos on social media. “And that includes Arab children, Jewish children, Druze children, Christian children and all other children that live in Israel.”

Save the Children is a nonprofit that aims to protect children around the world from violence and disease and improve their access to education. Its emergency fund supports children’s needs in areas with active humanitarian crises, including war zones.

The group does not work in Israel, although its website points visitors to other charities that do. In the fall, it also issued multiple statements about the situation in Israel and Gaza, including one expressing concern about the status of child hostages.

Save the Children did not respond to JTA’s request for comment, and Ms. Rachel declined to comment for this story.

Criticism of Ms. Rachel’s fundraiser also flared on Instagram, where she has 2 million followers and where she disabled comments on the announcement post after a flurry of angry messages. Now, anger about the fact that the entertainer is not raising money for Israeli children, too, can be seen in comments attached to other, unrelated posts on her account.

“What about Israeli children Ms Rachel,” one reads. Another says, “What about the hostages?!! do they matter.” A third reads, “What about children in Israel? How about the the [sic] children hostages??? You ‘care’ about the children except if they are from israel! Shame.”

Hamas took dozens of children hostage when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and dozens of children were also among the 1,200 Israelis killed. Most child hostages were released during a temporary ceasefire in November, but two — Ariel and Kfir Bibas, 4 and 1 — remain in Gaza, among roughly 130 Israeli hostages, of which a significant number are understood to be dead. Within Israel, thousands of children are among the hundreds of thousands evacuated from their homes in the south and north because of the war.

Children living in Gaza, meanwhile, have experienced seven months of war that has required most people living in the enclave to leave their homes, some multiple times. United Nations statistics show that thousands have been killed. Children and their parents do not have reliable access to food, medical care and safe accommodations. The United Nations and humanitarian groups such as Save the Children are meeting some needs.

Ms. Rachel’s fundraising for Save the Children, which she said she joined as an ambassador in September, is going toward blankets, food, and psychological support, according to language on Cameo.

The debate over Ms. Rachel’s fundraiser carried over into private Jewish women’s Facebook groups, where the discourse reflected a widening divide in the broader Jewish world. Some expressed concern that the fundraiser excludes mention of Israeli children, while others argued that aiding children in Gaza does not imply that one wants Hamas to prevail in its war with Israel.

“We’re talking about children who don’t have access to water, to hygiene and sanitation. They may be living outdoors in a refugee camp, they may not only be orphaned, [they may] have nobody — no adults looking after them,” Hailey Zislis-Gaus, a public health specialist based in Scotland and the mother of a 9-month-old girl with whom she watches Ms. Rachel, told JTA.

“These are really, really dire circumstances and it doesn’t take away from the pain and displacement and death and destruction that has happened in Israel,” she said. “We can hold two things at once.”

Zislis-Gaus, who said she was familiar with Save the Children from her past work in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, said she had learned about Ms Rachel’s fundraiser in a nearly 50,000-person Facebook group for Jewish women and had been discomfited by the response.

“I noted just initially that this sparked really serious outrage and there were really terrible things being said about her,” she said. “But there were many people deeming her some kind of, like, ‘Israel-hater’ or ‘Hamas apologist’ or ‘antisemitic.’ Lots of terms being thrown around. Some people went as far as to encourage people to kind of essentially cyberbully her, which was quite shocking to me.”

In a post following her initial announcement, Ms. Rachel seemed to allude to critical feedback when she mentioned child hostages.

“Children should never experience the horrors of war — nor be killed, injured or taken hostage,” the post said. “These are grave violations of children’s rights. Children have the right to clean water, food, medical care, a safe place to live and education. We need to get aid to children and their families. We need the hostages home safe. The violence has to end. Children have rights. We should be ashamed of how children around the world are suffering when we could wrap each and everyone up in love.”

For Gold, the allusion offered little comfort.

“Why is it that in the one post that you vaguely mentioned hostages, you don’t say the word ‘Israel,’ as though it’s like Voldemort from ‘Harry Potter’?” she asked. She added that she felt that Ms. Rachel’s approach was at odds with the values of her educational videos.

“When you’re a teacher, if you have 25 students in your class, you’re supposed to take an interest in all of them,” Gold said. “You don’t uplift a few children at the expense of others, even if you feel that their situation is more dire.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency

[Deutschmania]

Here are the exact statistics on how American Jews feel about Israel .

Israel, the world’s only Jewish-majority country, is a subject of special concern to many Jews in the United States. Caring about Israel is “essential” to what being Jewish means to 45% of U.S. Jewish adults, and an additional 37% say it is “important, but not essential,” according to a new Pew Research Center survey that was fielded from Nov. 19, 2019, to June 3, 2020 – well before the latest surge of violence in the region. Just 16% of U.S. Jewish adults say that caring about Israel is “not important” to their Jewish identity.

However, the survey found that Jewish Americans – much like the U.S. public overall – also hold widely differing views on Israel and its political leadership. Most Jewish Americans identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, and more than half gave negative ratings at the time of the survey both to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to then-President Donald Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Israel. But Orthodox Jews – 75% of whom are Republican or lean Republican – generally rated both Netanyahu and Trump positively.

Orthodox Jews were also more likely than Jews in other denominations to say that the Israeli government was making a sincere effort to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians and that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. By contrast, most Jewish Americans said they did not think that either the Israeli government or Palestinian leaders were sincerely seeking peace. And most Jewish adults took the position that God “did not literally give” the land of Israel to the Jewish people (42%) or said they do not believe in God or a higher power at all (24%).

This analysis looks at the size of the gaps among U.S. Jews on a range of questions about Israel depending on differences in Jewish denomination, political party and age.

More than half of all U.S. Jews belong to the two long-dominant branches of American Judaism: 37% identify as Reform and 17% as Conservative. Roughly one-in-ten (9%) describe themselves as Orthodox. Other branches, such as the Reconstructionist movement and Humanistic Judaism, total about 4%, and due to small sample sizes cannot be analyzed separately. One-third of Jewish adults (32%) do not identify with any particular stream or institutional branch of Judaism. Among U.S. Jews overall, 58% say they are very or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel, a sentiment held by majorities in all of the three largest U.S. Jewish denominations. However, Orthodox (82%) and Conservative (78%) Jewish adults are more likely than those who identify as Reform (58%) to feel this way. Conversely, among U.S. Jews who do not belong to any particular branch, a majority say that they feel not too or not at all attached to Israel.

And while 60% of Jews overall say they have a lot or some in common with Jews in Israel, Orthodox Jews (91%) are more likely than Conservative Jews (77%), Reform Jews (61%) or those who don’t identify with any branch (39%) to express this feeling.

On some political and theological questions in the survey, the differences across denominations are starker. There is an especially large gap on whether God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. The vast majority of Orthodox Jews (87%) say they believe God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people, compared with 46% of Conservative Jews, about a quarter of Reform Jews and about one-in-five of those who don’t affiliate with any branch of American Judaism.

Party affiliation is another clear dividing line in Jewish Americans’ views on Israel. About seven-in-ten Jewish Republicans and independents who lean Republican (72%) say they are very or somewhat attached to Israel, compared with about half of Democratic and Democratic-leaning Jews (52%). There are similar gaps across the political aisle in the percentages of Jews who closely follow news about Israel and feel they have at least some things in common with Jews in Israel. It’s important to keep in mind that the survey was conducted during the final 14 months of Trump’s term, after the administration moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but before it announced agreements for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel. At that time, eight-in-ten Republican U.S. Jews rated Netanyahu’s leadership as excellent (42%) or good (40%), compared with just a quarter of Jewish Democrats. A solid majority of Jewish Democrats gave Netanyahu “only fair” (32%) or poor (38%) marks.

Similarly, Jewish Republicans were roughly four times as likely as Jewish Democrats to rate Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Israel as excellent or good (89% vs. 21%). And Jewish Republicans were much more likely than Jewish Democrats to say they had heard of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement, and that they strongly oppose it.

Another way of examining differences among Jewish Americans is to look at age gaps. While Orthodox Jews tend to be relatively young and feel a strong attachment to Israel, younger Jews – as a whole – are less attached to Israel than their older counterparts. Two-thirds of Jews ages 65 and older say that they are very or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel, compared with 48% of those ages 18 to 29.

In addition, Jewish Americans 65 and older are more likely than the youngest adults to say that caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them, to follow news about Israel at least somewhat closely, and to know about and strongly oppose BDS. And when it comes to assessments of Netanyahu’s leadership and of Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Israel, U.S. Jews ages 65 and older were more likely than those under 30 to have rated the performance of both men positively. Pew Research

[wat0n]

That doesn't help your case, and most importantly has nothing to do with the current situation. Fortunately, there are polls on this matter:

Americans are more likely to strongly or somewhat oppose (47%) than support (28%) pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses throughout the country in recent weeks, according to a YouGov poll this week of 9,012 U.S. adults. American Muslims support the protests by 75% to 14%; Jewish Americans, however, oppose them by 72% to 18%. Adults under 45 are twice as likely as older adults to be in favor of the protests (40% vs. 19%).

In the same page, there's also the results of another survey (from a panel of respondents, done in April 28-30) where 59% of Jews say the protests have not been dealt with harshly enough - this higher than the figure for Republicans (54%) even though around 2/3 of Jews vote Democrat.

[Pants-of-dog]

Yes, tokenization is a thing.

That does not mean the harassment and vandalism did not happen.

Prove that harassment and vandalism happened at the U of A.

[wat0n]

I'm not referring to the U of A specifically.

There have been several such examples posted ITT, and those are the ones where someone recorded them.

[Pants-of-dog]

I'm not referring to the U of A specifically.

I am.

At the U of A, there as harassment and violence directed at Jewish people.

The Jewish people were protesting the conflict in Gaza and were harassed and assaulted by cops.

Why ignore these examples?

[wat0n]

Because they were trespassing and seemingly gathering material to make barricades according to the U of A, they were not arrested for being Jews. They weren't even students - and they found hammers and axes, which is kind of weird as I am not sure why would you need an axe if you're just protesting peacefully.

We fully understand that the majority of the members of the encampment, particularly our students, were peaceful and posed no threat to public safety. However, this did not extend to all members of the encampment. To the best of our knowledge, only 25% of the camp's occupants were U of A students. Most individuals in the camp were not members of the university community. Some encampment members were collecting wood pallets, materials known to be used to make barricades — actions that are counter to peaceful, law-abiding protests. The fire inspector declared the presence of these pallets a fire hazard. Although we had asked encampment members to remove all the pallets, we found 17 wood pallets located within 150 meters of the encampment. When the tents were dismantled yesterday morning, we found potential weapons, including hammers, axes and screwdrivers, along with a box of syringes.

There can be no question that the encampment posed a serious and imminent risk of potential violence and injury to university community members and members of the public.

Because the encampment was on university premises and involved university community members, the university has a clear legal and moral duty to take reasonable measures to ensure the safety of those present. No court of law and no court of public opinion would accept an excuse from the university that because the encampment was unauthorized, the university bears no responsibility for any injuries or violence associated with the encampment. Had anyone been injured or killed, the responsibility for this would rest squarely with the university. Everyone would quite rightly demand: how could the university have done nothing to prevent this?

As a university, we simply do not have the resources or expertise to manage an encampment of this size and complexity and ensure public safety. We have no means to supervise the encampment to ensure there are no weapons or illegal drugs. We have seen that these encampments can quickly spiral out of control and attract the attention of counter-protesters, as happened at the University of Calgary and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). With our limited security resources, we have no means to protect the encampment from escalating tensions and potential violence if there are counter-protesters.

The only reasonable measure we have to ensure public safety and security is to take steps to end the encampment as peacefully and respectfully as possible while at the same time reinforcing our commitment to freedom of expression and lawful protest. This is what we had to do yesterday. The vast majority of the occupants of the camp left peacefully. A small minority refused to leave, and the Edmonton Police Services took the measures necessary to remove them. Three people were charged. The charges included assaulting a peace officer, obstruction and trespassing. No university community member was charged. The university has not banned any members of the U of A community from campus who were involved in the encampment and no students were suspended or have faced academic sanctions.

[Pants-of-dog]

Because they were trespassing

No. They were in a public area open to the public.

and seemingly gathering material to make barricades according to the U of A,

So no barricades were made.

they were not arrested for being Jews. They weren't even students

This is not true and even the accusations by the University cannotbe supported with evidence. This will be dismissed as a rationalization after the fact.

- and they found hammers and axes, which is kind of weird as I am not sure why would you need an axe if you're just protesting peacefully.

You have never gone camping. Or if you did, you were not the one doing the work.

Hammers and camp axes are used to drive tent pegs into the ground and remove them later.

[KurtFF8]

I am.

At the U of A, there as harassment and violence directed at Jewish people.

The Jewish people were protesting the conflict in Gaza and were harassed and assaulted by cops.

Why ignore these examples?

Because people like @wat0n ignore the reality of these protests. They only accept the Fox News and CNN narratives that they're all a bunch of riots. I suspect this is how @wat0n also framed the BLM protests of 2020 as well.

[wat0n]

No. They were in a public area open to the public.

Yet it is still university property, and as such it has the right to limit who sets up tent there.

So no barricades were made.

Yet they were seemingly getting ready to do that.

This is not true and even the accusations by the University cannotbe supported with evidence. This will be dismissed as a rationalization after the fact.

Please prove they were arrested for being Jews.

You have never gone camping. Or if you did, you were not the one doing the work.

Hammers and camp axes are used to drive tent pegs into the ground and remove them later.

The statement speaks of "axes", not "camp axes".

Also, why would you need to chop wood if you're camping in an university campus?

Because people like @wat0n ignore the reality of these protests. They only accept the Fox News and CNN narratives that they're all a bunch of riots. I suspect this is how @wat0n also framed the BLM protests of 2020 as well.

That was certainly not the CNN narrative. Have you forgotten about the actual reporting of the BLM riots?

And no, BLM was not simply about rioting. But it definitely was an example of using violence to achieve political goals, one that I am sure most Americans have not forgotten about - not unlike the Capitol riot.