A new “installation” appeared in the Quad yesterday next to the tent that appeared the other day; both were designed by the Students for Justice in Palestine and were erected with permission of the University. That makes a total of three “hatey” installations on the quad, and it makes the area look like a mess. Prospective students and parents are now visiting the campus, and I wonder what they think of it, especially if they’re Jewish.
This one below may have had a tent nearby, as it looks as if something collapsed, or there is some canvas at the bottom. At any rate, this shows four of our Trustees, all accused of “financing genocide.” I disagree:it is Hamas that is committing genocide, not Israel.
The tent is nearby, showing our President, Paul Alivisatos (with a dollar sign for the “s”), looking satanic and bearing the blood-dripping label, “genocide normalizer”. At the top we read “Israel Bombs” along with an Israeli and American flag. At the bottom we see the useless cry to “divest,” for the University has already said it won’t. SJP is fighting a battle they’ve already lost, but they can’t help acting out. This is the equivalent of a tantrum by a petulant child.
The tent. You can enter it to “find out more,” but a herd of elephants couldn’t push me inside that den of admiration for terrorism and antisemitism:
The official University permission, required for any such installation:
Somebody seems to have complained, because at the bottom of the “permission” sign, highlighted in yellow, is a note that the OEOP is investigating this installation for whether it violates university policy. Until that determination is made, the installation will stay up, though it has to come down this Saturday. That’s in two days, so the “investigation” is more or less a sham. But if the Trump administration sees this, what with its use of antisemitism as an excuse to control universities and remove federal funding, who knows what will happen? I wonder if the University thinks of that. Still, giving permission for these “art installations” is making a statement in favor of free speech, and for that I admire them.
Below is the old sign before the updated replacement above. At the bottom it reads:
Installation Description
A 15 X 15 foot tent with a presentation inside about on going [sic]genocide in Palestine and the University’s ties to Israel. Art will be displayed.
They don’t say what’s on the outside, which I showed the other day: hateful caricatures of administrators and trustees embellished with symbols of red hands, a widely-understood symbol of killing Jews. Some art!
I wonder if there’s any number of installations that reaches a threshold of constituting harassment of Jews. For the meantime, I construe this as free speech, but, as I said, even our free-speech advocates are debating whether the Quad should be free of banners and signs and used as a place for discussion and speech, since some construe a plethora of signage as actually chilling speech. For the time being, I am on the pro-sign side, but there should be a limit on the number and size of signs allowed on the central part of our campus.
And the hatred evinced by these signs makes me detest the ideology behind them, for the ideologues have already lost–both on campus and in Gaza. And remember, after the extremists take care of the Jews, their next aim is to destroy Western civilization and its Enlightenment values.
I would guess that the Trustees pictured could sue for defamation, and should.
Aren’t those behind this, as students, indirectly contributing to the “genocide”? Seems a bit hypocritical to me.
The two sign formats are different, one having location defined, the other not. Rather than just an organization contact, I think there needs to be an actual individual of uchicago affiliation with a uchicago email address…someone needs to be responsible…someone that university officials can go to…someone DrB can sue!
If these are two separate permissions for two separate displays that is fine. If there is only one permission, the one for a 15 ft tent, then the poster display is in violation. If the poster display is questionable because of a lack of specificity in the description, then the university must require more specificity before approving an installation.
Looks like the university is trying…but still needs to do better.
Consider scale and impact here:
The tantrums of low-mate-value girls who “aren’t doing well emotionally” on elite American campuses are less than a rounding error in the entire equation of civilization verses barbarism.
Their impact is zero, but their narcissism and ignorance are unmeasurably large.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
ps And yet… Algerian Islamist terrorist Khalil still is in the US, regrettably undeported yet.
Once again, Khalil has never been charged with a crime and there is no evidence he has engaged in terrorism. Ironic that you criticize protestors for ignorance while literally slandering another person.
A noncitizen who is undesirable does not have to be charged with a crime (terrorism or otherwise) to be deportable (at least not in Canada) because deportation is an administrative not a criminal proceeding. Here’s an example from earlier today:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/us-family-cbsa-1.7516978
I think a noncitizen who is detained for deportation does have to get sufficient due process to be very sure he is not a citizen. Otherwise citizens who say the wrong thing could be deported for lack of having their passports in their pockets at the time they are detained, and that really would be fascist.
The current disagreement is over whether a noncitizen deserves a more fulsome judicial review of his undesirability (not just his citizenship). In the case of Khalil, Judge Comans said she doesn’t have the authority to second-guess the administrative determination of the State Department.
I think on balance someone like Khalil who has permanent residency and is married to a US citizen (and has a child by that marriage born a few days ago who is also a US citizen) probably shouldn’t be deported because of the direct harm his deportation would do to his wife and child. Putting up with Khalil’s pro-pal bullshit seems like the cost of sparing his family.
I wasn’t saying he cannot be deported. Clearly he can. I was referring to a person making a demonstrably false statement about that person.
Do you mean “literally” literally, or figuratively? Either way, it isn’t slander even if it were defamatory. IANAL, but at least I know the difference between speaking and writing.
BTW, today’s Word.A.Day posting discusses nominative determinism. And with a little care one can readily avoid being defamatory.
Ok, well since it is written, it is really libel. But same result; a false statement that damages someone’s reputation.
Ghastly. Also an eyesore.
A bit of good news is that BBC programming on NPR this morning had a long piece about an increasing % of Gazans who are fed up with Hamas, and they want them out. They are more openly protesting against Hamas in larger numbers, without care or fear of reprisals, and someone who claims knowledge thinks that this is the view of a majority of Gazans right now.
This link seems to follow the script I’d heard on NPR: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c175z14r8pro
No-one likes being a loser. Rats, ship, glug-glug.
Looks like the Yale pro-Palestine group is in trouble for violating policies:
https://x.com/BenTelAviv/status/1915486570036985922
https://x.com/BenTelAviv/status/1915490692169601040
It look like lux et veritas is doing better than vanilla veritas.
“Bright College Days” v “Fight Fiercely, Harvard”?
Re “financing genocide”, in a nearby alternative universe those trustees would file defamation suits against SJP, and against UoC for actively participating in the publication of said defamations. IANAL.
Re “the tent”, I propose having two actors playing Terrance and Philip enter the tent, and fart fart fart. The tent is small enough that there would be a definite impact. (Who ever said South Park wasn’t educational?)
And if SJP tries to remove them, T&P could loudly protest oppression against the Canadian hyperflatulent community. I’ll even write them some appropriate chants. (Note: the fictional T&P are Canadian; please take any complaints up with SP, not me.)