Great reporting, Kevin! You two raised your children well ... you must be so proud of your daughter (and son). I continue to fail to understand why these universities are so stupid and hard-lined — I guess I’m still naive after all these years. But they blow the useful, decent, productive response every time and go for the inhumane overreaction— when they could so easily gain respect and trust by treating the students as adults. I’m not even talking about the underlying politics of it all.
Thanks, Leslie. I get e-mail comments on these, but you are the first to comment here. It surprises me not a bit that you are the first. As you know, this issue touches nerves for all kinds of institutions. Even administrators who aren't personally pro-Israel have been freaked out by student militancy around Palestine. They also see what happens to university leaders who don't take a hard line on this. The day before yesterday, NPR quoted the lawyer who is defending the 135 UMass students arrested in May at their hearing before a judge. "If the students were active on any other issue...we wouldn't even be here." I think she is right. You'd like this lawyer. She's really amazing. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
AIPAC and other Jewish billionaires have made “anti-Zionism equals antisemitism” the law of the land. And politicians and university presidents bow to the money. Bless the young who see through all the propaganda to the genocide in plain view. They are supported by a growing number of older generations who beseech our administration and elected officials to respond and act. I hope the narrative is changing for the better.
I don't disagree with your main points, but I think we need to be careful about the "Jewish billionaires" language. This language is easily fused in people's minds with old tropes about Jewish financial conspiracies.
Israel has many supporters in the United States, some of whom are Jewish and some of whom are very wealthy. In this country, Christian Zionists easily outnumber Jewish ones, a fact we often overlook. But as in all things, money matters. High-end donors of all faiths have an outsized influence on universities, especially elite ones, but I'm not sure that explains the decision of the president of a public university in Amherst, MA to be out front as a supporter of Israel.
No one can dispute that there is a strong pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. led by AIPAC and some very influential wealthy donors.
I agree with you about my old trope language. Because of my Semitic background, I sometimes feel freer to hurl these epithets. But it’s not productive. More accurately, I should’ve said billionaire Zionist Christians and Jews.
As a Jew, (and atheist), I'm furious and ashamed at many of my co-religionists' failure of conscience in regard to Palestinians. And of course, it's not jby any means ust Jewish people who cannot see (or don't care about) the humanity of Palestinians! -- in fact, as we all know, many Jewish students have led these "Let Gaza Live" and other pro-Palestinian protests. But Jews have allowed the specter of antisemitism to scare the dickens out of college administrators and so many others -- while what is deemed "antisemitism" is, it turns out on investigation, often simply a person speaking out against what's happening in Gaza, speaking out to stop the killing of Palestinians there and in the West Bank. Shameful!!!
Great reporting, Kevin! You two raised your children well ... you must be so proud of your daughter (and son). I continue to fail to understand why these universities are so stupid and hard-lined — I guess I’m still naive after all these years. But they blow the useful, decent, productive response every time and go for the inhumane overreaction— when they could so easily gain respect and trust by treating the students as adults. I’m not even talking about the underlying politics of it all.
Thanks, Leslie. I get e-mail comments on these, but you are the first to comment here. It surprises me not a bit that you are the first. As you know, this issue touches nerves for all kinds of institutions. Even administrators who aren't personally pro-Israel have been freaked out by student militancy around Palestine. They also see what happens to university leaders who don't take a hard line on this. The day before yesterday, NPR quoted the lawyer who is defending the 135 UMass students arrested in May at their hearing before a judge. "If the students were active on any other issue...we wouldn't even be here." I think she is right. You'd like this lawyer. She's really amazing. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
AIPAC and other Jewish billionaires have made “anti-Zionism equals antisemitism” the law of the land. And politicians and university presidents bow to the money. Bless the young who see through all the propaganda to the genocide in plain view. They are supported by a growing number of older generations who beseech our administration and elected officials to respond and act. I hope the narrative is changing for the better.
Thanks, Andrea. I hope you are well.
I don't disagree with your main points, but I think we need to be careful about the "Jewish billionaires" language. This language is easily fused in people's minds with old tropes about Jewish financial conspiracies.
Israel has many supporters in the United States, some of whom are Jewish and some of whom are very wealthy. In this country, Christian Zionists easily outnumber Jewish ones, a fact we often overlook. But as in all things, money matters. High-end donors of all faiths have an outsized influence on universities, especially elite ones, but I'm not sure that explains the decision of the president of a public university in Amherst, MA to be out front as a supporter of Israel.
No one can dispute that there is a strong pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. led by AIPAC and some very influential wealthy donors.
I agree with you about my old trope language. Because of my Semitic background, I sometimes feel freer to hurl these epithets. But it’s not productive. More accurately, I should’ve said billionaire Zionist Christians and Jews.
As a Jew, (and atheist), I'm furious and ashamed at many of my co-religionists' failure of conscience in regard to Palestinians. And of course, it's not jby any means ust Jewish people who cannot see (or don't care about) the humanity of Palestinians! -- in fact, as we all know, many Jewish students have led these "Let Gaza Live" and other pro-Palestinian protests. But Jews have allowed the specter of antisemitism to scare the dickens out of college administrators and so many others -- while what is deemed "antisemitism" is, it turns out on investigation, often simply a person speaking out against what's happening in Gaza, speaking out to stop the killing of Palestinians there and in the West Bank. Shameful!!!