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Because it looks like the person using it is creating a fig leaf of an argument so an allied group will never be held responsible.
It's an attempt at bullshit. It isn't really about truth but is just an attempt to convince (or, more likely, just deflect and waste time long enough to dissipate actionable outrage) so what's the point in trying to get into a factual debate about it?
The person has revealed themselves to be a partisan.
As a side note, that's one of the things I find really annoying about these Leftist activist types. For example, suppose they block a highway and get arrested and prosecuted for it. I would have a tiny bit of respect for them if they would own up to what they did, take their licks, and accept their sentence of 100 hours of community service or whatever. But instead, their MO is to spin, lie, etc., do whatever they can to avoid punishment for their wrongdoing.
What does your tiny bit of respect matter to them compared to not being punished by the laws they believe are unjust?
That's an interesting question and I think it touches on one of the core parts of the issue I was raising. So there are laws against blocking traffic; disrupting gatherings; arson; destroying people's property; etc. Do Leftists believe that these laws are unjust? I tend to doubt it. If someone destroyed their property; disrupted their gatherings; etc., they would freak out and demand that the offenders be punished. So what's really going on is that they simply believe they have carte blanche to break the law because in their self-serving judgment they are "punching nazis" or "fighting fascism" or whatever.
A point that MattyY makes is that acts of civil disobedience work because they play on existing faultlines and sympathies. Which is why stopping traffic for Gaza does nothing. It's just a cargo cult licensing their Main Character Syndrome.
That is why they should care, insofar as they care about their cause at all and it's not an excuse to impose their will: you don't need to earn omw_68's specific respect, but you probably need to earn it from some segment of society if you want to make sweeping changes to very big systems or policies.
I basically agree with this, although I would quibble with your use of the phrase "civil disobedience." To me, "civil disobedience" means that you (1) openly and notoriously disobey a rule which you genuinely believe is unjust; and (2) accept the consequences of breaking that rule as a way of making your point. (So for example, a black person intentionally sitting in the "whites only" section of a bus station.) Nobody who blocks traffic for Gaza is seriously claiming that the rules against blocking traffic are unjust. Moreover, instead of owning up to what they are doing, these people (typically) lie, cheat, and play games in order to avoid legal consequences.
I think that when you block traffic for Gaza (or some other cause), it's more akin to terrorism than civil disobedience. To be sure you are generally not killing or maiming people (although you might be if you end up impeding an ambulance) but you are still inconveniencing people and interfering with their legal rights, albeit in a minor way.
In another discussion, I called this "terrorism-lite"
But in any event, as mentioned above, I basically agree with you. For terrorism (or terrorism-lite) to be effective, there needs to be a minimum amount of sympathy in mainstream institutions such as the news media, college administrations, and so on. With Gaza, at least in the United States, there is some degree of sympathy, but there is also a lot of organized pro-Israel sentiment. So it's difficult to accomplish anything with terrorism-lite.
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Wrongdoing? What wrongdoing. They did no wrong. And besides, punishment would harm their enjoyment of those social acitivities. Taking punishment isn't part of the plan; punishment for socially just acitivities would be injustice, after all! If it can be avoided, then that is justice. And what do they care about your opinion, anyways? You're probably a fascist anyways, or at least a violently-silent bystander who refuses to take the correct side.
They're engaging in a socially accepted and promoted social activity (just not accepted by the wrong people whose opinions are wrong) with a thin veneer of sanctity-within-the-civil-religion, why ever from their own perspective would they want to take punishment for it?
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