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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27703 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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(can move to the Israel/Palestine thread, but thought I'd post here as it's not geopolitics)

Looks like donors of elite schools are starting to pause their donations to schools due to the Israel/Palestine situation.

Well, rather, by the reaction and statements from some students at those schools, combined with the lack of reaction/statement by the school presidents condemning the initial Hamas attack. It seems donors, like Ken Griffin, are either pressuring the school to change tact, or stopping donations altogether.

Just today, apparently [some Jewish students at Cooper Union] were blocked in a library due to a pro-Palestine/anti-Israel rally](https://twitter.com/stopantisemites/status/1717300476524322969?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ). Not sure why the library only had Jewish students (Hillel meeting?), but seems bad if true.

George Washington Uni. got pro-Hamas projections saying things like "glory to our martyrs" (!!) on school buildings (ironically with donors like "Gelman" right underneath the projections). Protests that shout "from the river to the sea" all over every elite school, from Brown to NYU to UCLA, you name it. And on and on...

Social media wasn't that developed, and I wasn't paying attention, last time the large Israel/Palestine hostage situation happened in 2014, or the situation in 2008. Was it always been like this, pro-Hamas/anti-Israel/ and I just didn't notice? Or is it noticeably larger now, more organized, more tolerated? It's not just US either, it's also in UK, it's in Berlin and Vienna and Paris. Obviously there's big protests in Jordan or whatever, as they are closer and have millions of Palestinians, so I'd expect protests there. But it almost seems kind of shocking how brazen many people are, in NYC!?

Seems like influential folks, even sjw/leftist-friendly (?) youtubers, are realizing the changing cultural winds, and perhaps political winds downstream.

The donors' using their money to cause change is not new, but seems like there is urgency from them to change some of the culture in universities. Will this actually change things, though? My bet is no, Griffin's $300mil will not change how Harvard students think and say. What do you guys think?

edit:

This was an interesting thing, that I was trying to but failing to reference/get at:

In the 1960s, the radical left and black militants engaged in terrorism and mass violence for several years. During that period, a disproportionate amount of money and leadership on the left came from Jews and Jewish organizations. Then the Panthers took the movement by storm and imposed a Third World, anti-imperialist focus on the left, which turned hard against Israel after the Six Day War in ‘67. The Panthers’ anti-Zionism bled over into plain anti-Semitism, and many disillusioned Jews began to back away from the movement. Then, in ‘69, black militants in NYC picked a fight w/the mostly Jewish NYC teachers’ union, and the virulent antisemitism that had been just beneath the surface burst out into the open. The Jewish Defense League was actually formed in the aftermath of the conflict, to protect and retaliate on behalf of Jews who were being harassed and attacked by black militants.

The loss of Jewish support was the end of the ‘60s radical left as a serious movement, and the long march on the institutions began. Now that it’s had a half decade to regroup, it’s back on the streets causing mayhem. As before, Jewish organizers and groups played a disproportionate leadership role w/BLM, campus radicals, and other militant groups, and as before, the movement has turned against Israel and Jews more generally. If the rest of the cycle repeats, turning against the Jews will mark the beginning of the end of this round of left wing madness…

Hopefully we all learn a more lasting lesson this time.

Imagine if any other foreign group were so outright in tying financing to their state interests. Israeli/jewish control over the US isn't even hidden at this point.

As for support there really only are two support bases for Israel in the world, zionist jews and American evangelical boomers. Israel has never been popular in Europe, latin America or Asia. The support base for neoconservatism is largely a generational thing. Young Americans are equally split between favoring Hamas and Israel and that is in a country that is more hardcore zionist than Israel.

The almost fanatical support for a foreign nation that is culturally alien was never organic. It hinged on carefully controlled media narratives. Once people in Palestine got phones and their images could be spread around the world Israel was inevitably going to lose public support.

If you want to do things without daddy's approval, stop asking for daddy's money and daddy's protection? How many countries get a carrier battle group deployed to their neighborhood as a token of solidarity, following a terrorist attack?

I'm on your side of this particular spat, but trying to paint Israel as an underdog with no support is ridiculous.

The carrier battle group is not there as "a token of solidarity." It is there to dissuade other actors in the region from expanding the conflict, by reinforcing the idea that Israel remains formidable, in part because it has powerful friends who are willing to act.

Potato - potahto. They're pretty much the same picture.

No, they're not. The US has an interest in preserving the economic stability that would be threatened by a broader conflict in the Middle East which is independent of any interest in protecting Israel per se. Not to mention that, if the claims commonly repeated on here about the terrible effects of higher gas prices on the well-being of US citizens are true, preventing a wider conflict serves the interests of those citizens.

Not to mention that, if the claims commonly repeated on here about the terrible effects of higher gas prices on the well-being of US citizens are true, preventing a wider conflict serves the interests of those citizens.

Imagine still trying to shill the "US military Intervention in the Middle East is due to oil, it's not about Israel" talking point at this point.

Okay. I'm imagining it. Your point?

And in case my point is too subtle, it's this: this is a snide and consensus-building way to assert "Actually, it's all about Israel." You may make the argument that it's all about Israel. You may not simply assert that anyone who thinks it's not all about Israel is simply a "shill."

So, I had to think about whether to warn you or give you a ban for this. The comment in itself is only slightly bad. But you've been tip-toeing up to that line for as long as you've been here, and you've been repeatedly warned about being a one-note piano, and your response has been to try to make the Joo-posting a little more sneakier but still, it's really all you ever post about, and you're frequently antagonistic when you do.

You have a fan club, and some people will be pissed off if we ban you and complain that we're just protecting Da Joos.

The fact is, you've actually been getting extra slack just because of your particular niche viewpoint and us bending over backwards to be fair-minded. So one more time: you can deny the Holocaust, Notice(tm)-post, and talk about (((whatever else you want))), but you need to follow the same rules of charity and civility as everyone else, and the more you keep banging that one note, the more we are going to notice (and respond) when you choose to be obnoxious about it.

Banned for two weeks.

(ETA: Typoed 13 days, but fine, you get a free 1-day reduction.)

How about engaging substantively, rather using perjoratives like "shill"?

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