These excerpts partly represent the contrasting positions covered in the article:
And
There is a selective outrage on US campuses. I have not heard of any protests demanding a cease fire in Sudan, where the humanitarian crisis is far worse than in Gaza.
Sudan: Urgent Action Needed on Hunger Crisis | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
Sudan war threatens ‘world’s largest hunger crisis’: WFP | Humanitarian Crises News | Al Jazeera
Is the US funding the crisis in Sudan? Campus protests are larger when the US has an active role in the event
“Recently, the college ended an exchange program with the University of Haifa, a request pro-Palestinian activists have made for several years”
(Notice they’ve been asking for this FOR SEVERAL YEARS - keep this in mind while you read the article below)
Once again, you have to wonder if those jumping on the protest bandwagon even know what they are protesting.
“The University of Haifa is Israel’s most diverse university — about 40% of students are Palestinian citizens of Israel. It’s a place where you can hear both Hebrew and Arabic, and where learning — until recently — overrode many of Israel’s deep divisions.”
As someone with family in Ukraine, I feel this. Does anyone remember that there are still war crimes being committed there every day? Does anyone care?
Students at colleges such as Smith, Pomona and Pitzer seem more like forerunners in any greater campus activism that may or may not develop along similar principles.
Just seems to me that calling for an end to sending students to one of the few places in the world where they can actually see and talk to Palestinians and Israelis learning side by side and having meaningful discussions, while sitting in an administrators office in California, has little to due with actually moving toward peace and understanding.
Pretty certain nothing in the Mideast is moving towards peace and understanding right now; hence the campus protest.
I expect campus protests have the
goal of changing US policy in the mideast. Perhaps students do not similarly object to US policy on Ukraine.
I would think few are even aware of US policy on the Sudan, much less object to it.
I read the article you posted with interest. Let’s say Pitzer students were misguided in their earlier efforts. Further, to your point, this suggests that they could be similarly misguided in their current efforts. However, while there’s logic to this, the reasoning may not transfer when considered in relation to the magnitude of current international events. The particular students involved may be substantially different as well.
I guess where they lose me is calling Israel an apartheid state, yet calling for an end to a program at a national university that clearly does not practice apartheid.
The attention grabbing quote in the headline in the LA Times leaves out two key words. The full quote is “I can’t focus on anything but rage since Friday.”
This is an important omission, because much of the anger and outrage over the last week relates to the college’s actions last Friday to:
- Forcibly remove an 8 panel “mock apartheid wall” installation so as to sanitize visible portions of campus of signs of protest before that weekend’s alumni and recruiting events on the main quad;
- To call in dozens of fully equipped riot police from Claremont and neighboring towns to arrest peaceful protestors;
- To not only immediately suspend all the arrested students without due process, but also to immediately kick them off campus, denying them access to their dorm rooms, beds, personal belongings, and meal programs. (By the time protesters were released from jail, all their access had been cut off.)
As an opinion piece in the school paper put it:
With such a strong response, it seems like admin’s main intention was to intimidate students from exercising their right to free speech, especially at times when their opinions may not align with that of the administration.
. . .
Pomona admin put students in danger past the arrests themselves.Rather than show consideration for the arrested students’ well-being, Pomona immediately revoked swipe access to dorms and campus buildings, meaning that as soon as police released students from the Claremont jail, the first thing on their mind was finding a roof overhead for the night and food the next day.
. . .
Calling for an excessive police force and embracing the militarization of campus — despite knowing what the imagery of police brutality and incarceration conjures in the minds of students, staff and faculty, and particularly the non-white 5C community — is heartless.This is especially salient given that student protestors had never become violent, per numerous TSL reports and my own experience witnessing the protests.
It also seems like the college president is unintentionally providing a Ted-Talk-level symposium on how to escalate and inflame tensions and ignite further protests, and so far that is how it is working out.
I concur. The headline misdirects the (implied) object of the quotation. Nice analysis generally . . .
There is a selective outrage on US campuses. I have not heard of any protests demanding a cease fire in Sudan, where the humanitarian crisis is far worse than in Gaza.
Sudan has a civil war, that’s an objectively different issue than a conflict between separate nations, and significantly more complicated.
Moreover, the U.S., I believe, stands as the top country in providing relief aid to Sudan.