#Pro Hamas Protests

[girlactionfigure]

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notsocrazyjewishmoments

Professor Michael Volz casually sitting next to a man with a sign that says: “Save Hamas.” At the University of Missouri, @mizzou they host a weekly anti-Israel protest.  There is a man who joins the protests almost every week who holds a sign that says: “Save Hamas.” They also regularly hold a sign that says: “Negotiate with Hamas.”  If the people holding signs that say “Save Hamas” do not represent them, then why do they let him march with them every week? If someone showed up to a Pro-Israel event with a sign that declared: “Save Hamas,” then we would not let him march in our group. But, they never kick out people who hold signs praising Hamas.  Drew McCausland is a Methodist Minister in my town who joins the protests. I asked him why he marches with a guy that holds a sign proclaiming: “Save Hamas.” Minister McCausland responded that it was fine, because the sign also states: “Save Israel,” at the bottom. But, when I tried to speak with the man who carries the sign, he started screaming at me. Obviously the message of the sign is that Hamas are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.  Professor Michael Volz is the Director of the MU International Studies Program. Hamas calls for murdering every Jew on earth. The Hamas Charter declares: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews. When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’” On Saturdays, Professor Michael Volz just likes to join protests where people show up to support a group that calls for murdering every Jewish student on campus.

[secular-jew]

Another pro-Palestinian zombie destroys art. This time, a girl mauls and forever ruins the famous painting of Lord Balfour at Cambridge University. As if this will erase Jewish indingeneity history in the land.

[reality-detective]

Pro-Hamas insurrectionists have infiltrated the Cannon House Office Building once again. Why are these people not being prosecuted the same way J6 protestors have been? 🤔

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

University of Connecticut administrators have canceled a planned meeting with UConnDivest (UDC), a spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), following the group’s creating what a local newspaper described as an antisemitic caricature of President Radenka Maric, who is Jewish.

Maric’s administration, aiming to calm the campus months after she ordered the arrests of some two dozen pro-Hamas protesters, still agreed to hold several meetings with UCD to discuss their demands for a boycott of Israel and amnesty for protesters facing criminal charges despite their repeated violations of school rules and promotion of antisemitic tropes. The first of what was to be a series of meetings was held in late August. They were slated to continue throughout the fall semester, but after UCD’s latest outburst, the administration has stated that its patience is exhausted and that a dialogue with the students cannot continue.

“Whatever the intent, these images are examples of grotesque and unacceptable antisemitism that will be instantly recognizable to countless Jews,” high-level university officials on Thursday told UCD in a letter, portions of which were shared by the Hartford Courant. “It is deeply wrong and dangerous to deploy imagery such as this. Depicting a Jewish female administrator with ‘devil horns,’ as a pig, or using obscene and vulgar expressions, are not amusing caricatures — they are dark and troubling images deeply rooted in history that have been associated with hatred and violence for centuries, in addition to being openly misogynistic.”

The letter continued, “We witnessed expressions and actions that are deeply disturbing, counter to our values as an inclusive community, and make further meetings or discussions with your student group at this time untenable.”

[eretzyisrael]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed young pro-Hamas protesters during an interview this week, saying that they knew very little about history anywhere.

Clinton, who made the remarks during a Thursday interview on MSNBC, said that most had no idea that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had brokered a deal in which the Palestinians would have been given 96% of what they wanted but they rejected it.

“First of all, I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now. You are right. They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East, or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country,” she said of the young left-wing protesters on college campuses.

“With respect to the Middle East, they don’t know in the bringing together by my husband of, the then-Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and then the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat,” she said. “An offer was made to the Palestinians for a state on 96% of the existing territory occupied by the Palestinians with 4% of Israel to be given to reach 100% of the amount of territory that was hoped for.”

“This offer was made. And if Yasser Arafat had accepted it, there would have been a Palestinian state now for about 24 years,” she continued. “It’s one of the great tragedies of history that he was unable to say yes. You know, my husband has a book coming out later this year in which he talks about how Arafat kept saying he wanted to agree, but he was pretty sure he’d be killed.”

WATCH:

[athymelyreply]

A highly recommended read. Full text of article under cut

On October 7, I was not hiding with my child in the safe room. My house was not burnt to the ground, and my husband didn't blow me a last kiss before his killer fired a fatal bullet.

I was safely at home in London where I have lived for over 30 years when my elderly peace-activist parents, Oded and Yocheved Lifschitz, along with 77 others members of the community, were taken hostage, barefoot and in their pajamas from their homes in the kibbutz where I was born and raised.

Israel's hostages in Gaza: A matter of life and death

Israeli peace activists who lost loved ones in the Hamas massacre stand their ground

What we can learn from released Hamas hostage Yocheved Lifshitz

For the past 229 days, together with the families of the other of hostages taken captive which now number 128, we have taken part in the fight for the lives of our loved ones.

A photo of the writer, Sharone Lifschitz's parents, Yocheved and Oded Lifschitz, who were both kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza on October 7. To date, only Yocheved Lifschitz has returned. Credit: Amiram Oren

In Nir Oz, my family's kibbutz, one in four people (117 in total), were either executed or kidnapped. We are still piecing together the events of that brutal day that Hamas terrorists and some Gazan civilians, perpetrated medieval levels of cruelty, driven by hate and revenge, blinded by radical religious ideology and super-charged with amphetamines.

Last month, at the "Seder in the Streets" event in New York, activist Naomi Klein spoke as if none of that ever took place. Instead, addressing hundreds who gathered for a combination Passover Seder and protest of the war in Gaza, she spoke of what she termed the "False Idol of Zionism", comparing Jewish support of it to the Israelites "worshiping" the golden calf and recalling Moses' rage seeing the spectacle.

Klein's interpretation seems to miss the point: Moses, unlike Klein, did not disengage. He did not give up on his people when they worshipped a false idol. Instead, without compromising his integrity and beliefs, he guided them through the desert for forty more years in their journey to become a nation. Klein, at this dangerous moment in history, is failing to lead her listeners to take responsibility, to engage and work towards a shared future in the region for Jews and Palestinians, one built on the preciousness of life on both sides and an understanding of the original intention of Zionism: the necessity for a safe home for the Jewish people.

"Seder in the Street" was also protesting the heartbreaking and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank. Many in Israel, like my parents, would agree. Yet their plight and that of the other hostages – most of them civilians, from a baby boy of one year to a man of 86 - are not mentioned at Seder in the Streets or other gatherings of far-left pro-Palestinian Jewish activists.

My father, Oded Lifschitz, who is 83, and his friends who are also hostages, all in their late 70s and 80s, have worked for peace for decades. My mother, Yocheved Lifschitz, was thankfully released after 17 days of captivity.

Yocheved Lifschitz after being released from 17 days in Hamas captivity, in Tel Aviv, Israel in late October. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

How much more effective these protests could be if activists abroad could act as a bridge between the pro-Palestinian movement and progressives fighting for peace in Israel?

Hamas, a terrorist organization which has been systematically stripping freedom, women's rights and democracy from the Gaza strip since 2006 are also strangely left out of the discussion. In fact, I see more criticism of the Hamas attack and crimes from moderate Palestinian voices than from prominent Jewish voices of the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States and Europe.

Klein is instead content in disengaging from Israel based on a distorted idea of Zionism and in so doing offers no solidarity with the moderate, progressive Jews living in Israel and for whom rejecting Zionism is irrelevant at this moment. Whether we like our government's policies or hate them as many do, Israel is home. Just as Canada is Klein's home, whether or not she likes the policies of the Canadian government or condones its mistreatment of its Indigenous population.

I consider myself pro-Palestinian. My family has always fought for a shared future for our two peoples, understanding this key point: our fates are interlinked. My parents have advocated for peace and equality for and with the Palestinians since the 1960s. We have united as a family to protest policies of the current Israeli government we find abhorrent. I wish for the Palestinians what I want for my own people: to live without bloodshed, in their own democratic state, as part of a negotiated two-state solution.

The facts are indisputable to Zionists and non-Zionists alike: There are about 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish Israelis cannot be expected to reject the idea that they can and should have the right to live safely in Israel. Without Israel, where would they go?

Everyone who cares about what's best for the region must strengthen those who are working for a peaceful future. As my father always says, "You make peace with your enemies."

A Palestinian family rides on the back of a donkey-drawn carriage next to damaged buildings in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in April.Credit: AFP

Thanks to international efforts to formulate a plan for the "day after" the war in Gaza, we are potentially closer to a long-term political agreement to lift us out of conflict than ever before. To help facilitate it, American and European progressives must distinguish between religious fanatics on both sides and those working toward a path of justice and peace for everyone in the region.

We must differentiate the liberal American pro-Palestinian activists from those who justify Hamas atrocities as acts of resistance. The dominant current narrative of the American far left, including the Jews among them, unwittingly aligns with Iran, and with antidemocratic and illiberal forces.

Instead of fostering hate and promoting disengagement from Israel, progressives abroad should help those in the region regain a sense that another future is possible and advocate for a negotiated political agreement that would create a state of Palestine established alongside the state of Israel. It won't be perfect, but it will be a good start.

The work of advocating for a different, sustainable future, must start with a call for the immediate release of hostages as part of a long-term agreement, backed by America and its allies, including moderate Arab states, that has the potential to transform the lives of Palestinians and Israelis by rescuing them from this ongoing tragedy. To fail to do so is to fail not just the hostages and their families, but to throw all the people of the region further into the abyss and undo the inspiring work of moderate forces within Israeli and Palestinian society.

In this, our darkest hour, we ask ourselves, who is our enemy? My enemy is the blind hate that seeks to erase the humanity of the other side. All of us who are horrified by what is unfolding in Gaza should work toward empowering the people of the region to move away from our common enemy. That's not Zionism, but rather the religious fanaticism we have within both our societies – Israeli and Palestinian – that threatens to engulf us all.

Sometimes, I want to shout at the news on TV, to remind people that their indulgent engagement in hatred of one side is so futile, so self-congratulatory. We can do better.

As we bleed and grieve, and in the case of families like my own – hang suspended between hope and despair for the fate of our loved ones, we must seek points of human connection between Jews and Palestinians, we must fight, not against one another, but for a practical solution that dismantles the status quo so that we can all survive – and live in freedom and security.

Sharone Lifschitz is a London-based filmmaker and academic originally from Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose parents were taken hostage on October 7. On Twitter: @Lifschitz_sha

[biritmode]

I feel sad for Ivy League students who just want to study. Having an encampment with people judging you for not joining them is not conducive to an education.

Having your school vandalized with spray paint and windows smashed in is NOT a safe environment.

If I were a parent or someone who went to those schools, I would complain about how my tuition fee is being spent coddling those "peaceful protesters."

Hey peaceful protesters, your First World privilege is showing.

[proudzionist]

This is disgusting. These protestors are nothing but modern day Nazis or Hitler youth ,who have been brainwashed, they are extremely ignorant, fake activist,this is all a game to them.

Doing this at the March of the Living just shows the world that they are nothing more than Human dung 💩💩💩💩

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

These are the same people who want you to use paper straws and eat bugs for the environment.

EDIT: And want you to pay off their student loans. For things like "Palestine Studies," "Postcolonial Studies" and "Gender Studies." Working class people who work hard and didn't go to college get to pay for their bourgeois classes in how oppressed they are. You're being screwed.

[notes-to-society]

Note to Society #35

The primary reason behind the common American backing Ukraine instead of Palestine is the United States government’s relationship with the offending nation.

If the US interacted with Israel the way it interacts with Russia, there would have been immediate calls to end this genocide as well as stronger humanitarian aid given to the people of Gaza.

Remember to be weary of propaganda when you’re consuming media related to this crisis. The people of Palestine have been calling for help for decades - Israel is committing genocide. And we are doing nothing.

[girlactionfigure]

[harley-rose25]

Anti-zionism is antisemitism is anti jewish.

If you say death to zionist what you really mean is death to jews.

If you support the intifada you support genocide of the Jews.

If you think hamas are ""freedom fighters"" congratulations, youre an antisemite.

Glad I could clear this up for ya'll.

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

I've been watching a lot of the discourse online about Israel and Gaza. As many of you know I am staunchly pro Palestine but I'd like to take a moment to reiterate something

Judaism is not Zionism, Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semetism

Zionism is a disease to Judaism, much like the KKK or Evangelism is to Christianity

A group of people have appropriated a set of beliefs set in place to establish a relationship with God and have twisted and cherry picked things from within the system to mass manipulate people into feeling fear in order to make them more manageable to control and push an Imperialistic agenda that only suits the purposes of those in control in order to benefit them either socially or materialistically

Jesus did not stutter when he said "Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself"

When we are speaking out in protest of what Israel is doing to Palestine it is because we are against the slaughter of innocent people and the onslaught of what Imperialistic colonisation has done to various people and cultures throughout history

We have seen this scenario play out in history over and over and over again, and we want it to stop and we have the chance to stop it while it is happening right in front of us

This isn't the first genocide in history but it will be the most well documented, it may also be the first one we are able to stop before it is completed to the satisfaction of the oppressers

We may very well be able to right this wrong and restore Palestine by protecting it's people

Please, if you are mentally tired that is understandable, but please don't stop being a voice for those that need our help, all of our help.

Use your voice in any way you can, no matter how small you think it may be

Don't stop talking about Palestine

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dexter Van Zile

I recently witnessed something I haven't seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews.

The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt him and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.

On August 16, 2024, the pro-Hamas activists conducted their retreat from Lexington in two stages.

First, they walked away from the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street, where they have been protesting on an intermittent basis since October 7. Then, after they retreated a couple of hundred feet down Mass. Ave. (while tenacious, but peaceful, pro-Israel protesters followed them), the Hamas supporters packed up their signs and withdrew altogether, leaving an Iranian-born American citizen to conduct a solitary rear-guard action. Once the pro-Israel protesters took pity on the police officers charged with keeping the peace and got ready to leave, the pro-Hamas supporter also left — clearly a little bit worse for wear.

The pro-Hamas folks did not abandon the site of their weekly standout because they were outnumbered. The two groups were evenly matched. In fact, the pro-Hamasniks may have even enjoyed a slight numerical advantage over the pro-Israel folks who challenged them. Nevertheless, it was the anti-Israel folks who retreated.

The pro-Israel activists, who had coalesced around a core of Iranian human rights activists associated with From Boston to Iran, used a very simple message to break the resolve of the pro-Hamas activists: "You are on the side of rapists and murderers."

The pro-Hamas protesters tried countering with the lie that Israel is committing a "genocide" in Gaza, but it didn't work on the pro-Israel folks who just kept repeating their message: If you're pro-Hamas, you're siding with rapists and murderers. They offered this message in chants and individual conversations.

The pro-Israel folks didn't bother reminding their opponents that Hamas attacks civilians while hiding behind civilians, thereby making civilian casualties inevitable. They didn't waste their breath reminding the pro-Hamas folks that Arab and Muslim leaders have killed millions of Arab and Muslim civilians without much comment from the progressive left in the United States. The pro-Israel folks knew these facts — but didn't waste their time repeating them on the streets of Lexington. They just kept repeating the central truth of the conflict in Gaza: Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers, and many leftists and anti-democratic radicals in the US have taken their side.

Most importantly, our strategy worked.

By repeating the simple truth of what's happening in the Middle East, a gathering of pro-Israel Jews and Iranians stripped a gathering of pro-Hamas protesters of the moral superiority in which they have wrapped themselves since October 7. By sticking to the "Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers" message, pro-Israel activists reminded any self-proclaimed progressives who joined the Hamas supporters, that the October 7 massacre was not performed to "liberate" the Palestinians — but to build a social order in the Middle East in which terror and violence is the dominant culture, as opposed to peace, tolerance, and full rights for all religions, genders, and minorities.

It is no accident that Iranians who oppose the theocratic leadership in Tehran have become a powerful force of anti-Hamas activism in the United States. Having to deal with the rapists and murderers who oppress their friends and relatives, Iranian human rights activists understand that the violence against moderate Muslims, non-Muslims, and women in Iran has a common root with the violence of the October 7 massacre. They know that the violence perpetrated against Iranian and Israeli women is justified by radical Islamism, a supremacist ideology that privileges the rights of Muslim men over non-Muslims and women.

Although leftists should know this as well — many don't, and they need to be reminded repeatedly, and publicly, of the true nature of the radical Islamist movement they help support. One day, they will be the target of the Islamist oppression endured by Iranians and Israelis and when it happens, they won't be allowed to say no one told them.

[eretzyisrael]

by Jack Elbaum

Videos from recent pro-Hamas protests and encampments on university campuses show demonstrators attacking and threatening Jewish and pro-Israel individuals, as well as making explicit calls for violence.

On some campuses, administrators have decided to call in police forces to remove the encampments. Others have been more hesitant to do so or have been refused help by the city.

The encampments have reportedly made some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. The Algemeiner documented an extensive list of pro-Hamas and antisemitic statements made at the Columbia University encampment shortly after it was set up. However, some observers have argued those statements are not representative of the movement as a whole.

Meanwhile, many voices have argued for the removal of the encampments on the grounds that members of them have attacked and threatened pro-Israel or Jewish students. But others don’t believe any physical threats or attacks have taken place. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, for example, called the idea of such attacks “a massive hoax that they’ve been perpetrating for months.”

Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of the recent physical attacks and explicit calls for violence on campuses that suggest such fears are not simply a “hoax,” although debate will likely continue over how representative these incidents are of the larger anti-Israel movement.

At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a girl from a nearby school was kicked in the head and knocked unconscious. She had to go to the emergency room. 

A video shows anti-Israel protesters detaining a pro-Israel student at UCLA. When he tried to escape, they chased him down, with at least one person exclaiming “get him,” and surrounded him again — making it impossible for him to leave. 

Footage shows a woman following around a man — who was not engaging with her — and attempting to tase him.

A student journalist at Yale University was poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag by a protester. She had to be brought to the hospital.

At The George Washington University (GW), students acted out a “people’s tribunal,” where they charged the president of the university, Ellen Granberg, along with other members of the administration with various crimes. “Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine,” members of the encampment chanted.

A leader of the “people’s tribunal” said, “Bracey, Bracey [referring to school provost Christopher Bracey], we see you. You assault students too. Off to the motherf—king gallows with you.” She also said, “As you already know where I am sending her [to the guillotine], her and her f—kass bob.”

Also at GW, when pro-Israel activist and Israel Defense Forces reservist Rudy Rochman came to campus, he was surrounded and people chanted, in Arabic, “God winning, Allah will take your life,” according to his video of the incident.

At DePaul University, an anti-Israel demonstrator displayed “10 fingers, followed by seven fingers [referencing Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7], and then the throat-slitting gesture in front of Jewish students.”

A visibly Jewish person filming an encampment at City University of New York was surrounded by a group and assaulted. When his kippah fell off, a member of the mob  threatened, “Pick up the f—king hat, I’ll f—k you up.”

A group of anti-Israel protesters stole a man’s Star of David headscarf and beat him near the Met Gala in New York on Monday.

At Emory University, a protester threw a sign at the head of a police officer while a group was trying to push the officers back against a door.

Protesters were roaming around UCLA looking for Jews to harass and confront. “Where the Jews at, my n—a,” one exclaimed.

Demonstrators at Columbia University took over a building violently and held janitors there against their will. 

[halalchampagnesocialist]

this could probably be better articulated by an anti-zionist jew but i feel like the reason zionists are like *that* when they see hundreds and thousands of people from all walks of life (inc other Jews) come together to protest for Palestine is bc Zionism, as a response to antisemitism, was never based in any material global solidarity but instead appealed to imperialist powers so they feel alienated by this concept of solidarity (in relation to Palestine specifically)