If you’ve read about the various pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests across American campuses, one thing you’ll notice is a general reluctance to punish demonstrators when they violate university rules. Of course protests are usually fine if they conform to First Amendment principles (though some schools don’t hold those principles), but they’re never fine when they violate campus rules. These latter rules are usually called “TPM rules”, meaning that universities can regulate the “time, place, and manner” of demonstrations in a way that doesn’t impede the mission of the institution: teaching, learning, and research.
So at the University of Chicago, for example, we’ve laid out the rules for protests and demonstrations at this website, which gives information about noise levels permitted, building occupancy (not permitted at all) and the like. In 2024, I gave four examples of pro-Palestinian demonstrators violating University regulations without any punishments meted out. The only sanction levied was a tepid warning to Students for Justice in Palestine that they disrupted a Jewish gathering, a warning that they’d better not do it again or else. . . .
As I always say, rules that aren’t enforced are not rules at all. Even our encampment, which involved several hundred people—both students and outsiders—which was declared in violation of university rules, was dismantled by the university police, but none of the demonstrators faced any punishment.
Is it any wonder, then, that the anti-Israel demonstrators feel empowered to break any campus rules they want? And they did—two weeks ago when the pro-Pals, a consortium called “UCUP”, for “UChicago United for Palestine” held a week of demonstrations commemorating last year’s encampment, which, not coincidentally, also included Alumni Weekend. (One wonders what mindset thinks that these loud and obnoxious intrusions will change peoples’ opinions.)
At any rate, the Chicago Maroon, which loves nothing more than an anti-Israel demonstration, had an article about a week of protests that included several violations of University rules, all of which seem to have been unpunished. Oh, well, there’s one exception: the police confiscated one megaphone being used illegally. I suppose they arrested it for “excessive loudness.”
Click below to read the article. I’ve bolded the bits where illegal actions went unpunished. The cops and deans-on-call showed up, but the former are constrained by the administration and can’t take action without permission from above, and deans-on-call are, to me, a joke; mere observers who can’t enforce anything and barely want to report anything. In fact, some of the deans-on-call are blatantly pro-Palestinian, and so can’t be objective. Here’s a photo of the “watermelon” (Palestinian colors) fingernails of one of those deans-on-call taken by a student during the encampment last year:
I’ll give some excerpts showing how the U of C ignores violations, as well as giving the article’s introduction. Click headline below to read; unpunished violations are in bold.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment, UChicago students and community members launched a week-long protest and installation outside Swift Hall. The students, organized as the “Popular University for Gaza,” called for solidarity with Palestine and the divestment of University funds from institutions tied to Israel.
Between Monday, April 28, and Friday, May 2, the group held teach-ins, workshops, and demonstrations—some resulting in confrontations with the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) and deans-on-call—as they sought to maintain public pressure on University leadership.
Shortly after 1 p.m. on April 28, protesters gathered on the quad outside of Swift Hall, raising a banner reading “Free Palestine, Bring the Intifada Home.” UCPD officers and deans-on-call observed from a distance as the group began a series of chants over a megaphone. Deans repeatedly informed the protesters that they were in violation of University policies regulating the use of amplified sound on campus.
Did anybody stop the violations? Are you kidding me?
Around an hour and a half into the demonstration, the UCPD officers and deans-on-call requested identification from those who had been using megaphones. The protesters initially locked arms to prevent possible arrests, with the crowd gradually dispersing as officers continued to ask for identifying information.
And again it seems as if the protestors, who are obliged to provide identification, did not do so; nor did the cops take any IDs.
Here’s a protestor waving a Houthi flag; photo by Grace Beatty. Love that AK-47! Note the covered faces of the protestors, indicating two things: they are cowards who don’t want to be identified, and they are not enacting civil disobedience, whereby you break a law considered immoral and voluntarily take the punishment.
On Thursday they arrested. . . .a megaphone:
Two UCPD officers, along with several deans-on-call, gathered to observe the protest.
As protesters continued to chant, UCPD officers chased after demonstrators and confiscated at least one megaphone. The demonstration, which took place after 1 p.m., was again in violation of University policy regarding amplified sound. An unidentified protester flew a flag identifying with the Houthi movement in Yemen; one UCPD officer was overheard saying “As long as they’re holding [the flag], it’s free speech.”
The cop is right about free speech; our campus police are well aware of what is a violation and what is not. But they cannot move against real violations without permission of the administration.
Finally, although again this is legal, they heckled the President and Provost. Not THAT is going to change their minds!
Here’s President Alivisatos being heckled as he walks to the alumni tent. He kept his cool and did not respond. And you have to hand it to the heckler that he didn’t cover his face. (This was published on the UC United Instagram page.)
So the week was a mixture of legal and illegal activities by the protestors, but the only thing arrested was a megaphone.
Below you see a poster in the Quad. If you know what “Intifada” means, it’s a term in Arabic for “shaking off” and has come to mean “shaking off the Jews”, i.e., killing them. These are really congenial sentiments.
I’m not sure whether the students had permission to post such a banner, but even if they did the sentiments surely create a hostile climate for Jewish students:
These demonstrations used to bother me more, especially their implicit calls for genocide of Jews (the poster above and the “From the river to the sea. . ” chants), but now that Hamas is losing, and the University of Chicago has made it clear that it will not divest from Israel, these demonstrators strike me as pathetic, cosplaying as Houthis and members of Hamas. Surely a large moiety of them are antisemitic, and it’s okay to do that so long as you don’t create a climate inimical to the participation of Jewish students at the University. Do we have such a climate? You’d have to ask the Jewish students, but some of them have, I’ve heard, said “yes.” I know some of them won’t wear their Stars of David necklaces in a way that make them visibly Jewish.
I wish only that my University would be serious about its demonstration rules. When students break those rules, they should be punished, bar none. If Columbia can do it, so can we.
I am sure there is a way for individuals to file a formal complaint about these campus rule violations. Has that occurred? In most organizations, this would cause a formal investigation to be initiated in response to the complaint. Is it that no one is stepping up to file complaints and force the hand of leadership to create accountability?
Unless individuals can be identified, the complaint can’t go forward. You can’t complain about an organization like UCUP because it’s not a campus group, but a consortium (it does include SJP), but unless you know the names of individuals, or that a specific campus student organization was involved as a unit, virtually nothing can be done. This is why it’s important to get the names/IDs of people who break the rules.
It is not up to the complainant to get the names. That is up to the investigator assigned to investigate the complaint. If a rule violation occurs, file a formal complaint. Failing to do so just gives university leadership a pass on their obligation to create accountability via an investigation. As an internal affairs investigator, time and time again, I see situations where no one takes the first step to file the formal complaint. Everybody thinks everyone else is taking care of it. In addition, I would also bet that a separate formal complaint to DOE may make leadership pay more attention….especially when there is potential antisemitism involved in some of these examples and $ tied to ignoring such behavior.
Good point. It sounds as if the useless “deans on call” would usually be the ones to file such a complaint, and the demonstrators are counting on them never doing so.
I saw a meme* other day :
“DO NOT DUMB HERE —
NOT DUMB AREA HERE”
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/281407893/do-not-dumb-here
Might need to hang one up there – I didn’t figure out if the translation is simply an add-on by some nerd or a true error (the Japanese is supposedly “Don’t dump trash here”). There are a variety of these memes.
*it is the Age of Memes – whether I like the word for this or not.
My comment is simple: these geniuses and the admin who watched from the sidelines just enrolled themselves in Trump’s campus antisemitism task force watchlist, and maybe even ICE’s holiday newsletter. Honestly, if I had the cash, I’d buy a one way study abroad ticket to Yemen for the guy waving the Houthis flag. The level of brain rot among these self-proclaimed enlightened humanitarians is almost impressive
Thinking back to when I was in college in the 1970’s (and up through 1996, when I left academia), my experience was that university administrations were highly tolerant of protests. The attitude—I believe—was that student protests serve an educational role, in that they allow students to practice activism and political involvement. Hence, they tolerated all sorts of minor transgressions—holding sit-ins in the administration building, posting banners, dressing John Harvard’s statue with the colors of whatever oppressed flag was the fashion of the day. Setting the ROTC office on fire—which happened—was not tolerated.
It seems to me that tolerance is still the order of the day. This would be all fine and good if the protestors weren’t preventing other students from getting an education, or if the protestors weren’t advocating for violence (of for pushing to the edge of violence), or if the protestors were students and were not accompanied by or even led by outside professionals. But this is where we are today. The current protests go beyond being opportunities for students to practice being adults. Universities, including the U of C, need to buckle down enforce the rules.
Well, I gotta say something.
First, I am very concerned that these demonstrations “used to bother me more”, Jerry. I think their continuation especially with a continuing lack of enforcement of uni policy (well they apparently DID arrest one of the megaphones!) should be more irksome with every passing day. To be worn down into accepting these deviant behaviors is known as normalization to deviance…it was a major cause of Nasa’s loss of two Space Shuttles and killing 14 astronauts. In the case of Challenger, the solid rocket booster o-rings were leaky, allowing hot gases through when they were supposed to not let any gas through. Nasa management was aware of this deviance on virtually every flight, but they never loss a Shuttle and crew, so rather than stop flying and figuring out the problem and correcting it, they normalized to blow by as ok….until it wasn’t…when Challenger came apart killing all seven astronauts. The lesson was not learned by Nasa as a few years later these same managers accepted years of insulating fuel tank foam coming loose and striking the tiles of the Shuttles because they never lost a Shuttle from this deviant foam behavior…until of course Columbia burned up on re-entry, killing another seven astronauts. We are a society of laws for a purpose. A law or policy has a purpose – that’s why it was made…to ignore such policies is to invite disaster or certainly organizational dysfunction.
After watching “Blind Spot”, there is surely damage done to Jewish students. In my numerous board trainings, I learned that you can have stupid policies and not be successfully sued as long as you consistently enforce them; but being arbitrary and capricious or not enforcing your board-approved written policies does leave you open to successful suit. I would think that some of the Jewish students whose education has been interrupted and denied would have standing to do so and that there are an adequate number of lawyers around to act pro bono to bring such a suit forward. Put President Paul in the hot seat along with his chickenshit deans on call.
The Shuttle disasters are forceful analogs. Even professional engineers, risk managers, and university administrators habituate to repetition, rendering dangerous events tolerable and lessening the perception of risk. Jim’s point is a good one. President Paul—and administrators at other campuses—need to resist the tendency toward tolerating the intolerable. Someone is going to get hurt.
I will be watching “Blind Spot” tomorrow night over dinner with my wife. I hope that it doesn’t ruin the lovely meal she’s planning.
“Someone is going to get hurt.”
“On Sunday, April 28, 2024 a Jewish student was beaten unconscious by protesters. A YouTube video shows another UCLA Jewish student being blocked from walking across campus by protesters while campus security stands by, presumably told by university leadership not to intervene. Around the same time, a UCLA professor who is Jewish was tackled and knocked to the ground while walking across campus.”
https://www.hoover.org/research/ucla-protests-were-not-about-free-speech-and-could-have-been-avoided
According to Perplexity AI:
“According to organizers, more than 150 people were assaulted with pepper spray and bear mace, and at least 25 protesters required emergency room treatment for injuries that night, including fractures and severe lacerations.”
I was just watching a short documentary that simulated the descent and break up of the Columbia space shuttle, with moment by moment communications up to when communications stopped. I suspect the pilot, who was experienced, was growing to understand early on what was about to happen and he was powerless say anything and powerless to stop it.
Yes, Mark. He did not have any idea of the root cause, but they did experience a strong lateral acceleration due to windshear just a second or two before the catastrophe if I recall correctly, so he knew something off-nominal had occurred. The whole disaster was a clear case of swiss cheese holes lining up. Initiated by the hot gas blow by around the o rings at a point on the circumference of the booster rocket that happened to align with a connecting strut, acting like a constant blow torch. At max dynamic pressure (greatest aerodynamic force on rocket, 70 sec into flight), they were rocked sideways by a windshear event which broke the weakened, burned through strut, allowing the top of the booster to pivot into the top of the external fuel tank, breeching the barrier between the liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks, giving rise to an explosion of the fuel and putting the shuttle vehicle at a high angle of attack to the wind, breaking off the left (i think) wing. They had started emergency oxygen packs so knew they were in trouble all the way down. At least that is how I recall the report. Swiss cheese model: had there been no leak, or if the leak were anywhere else around the rocket’s circumference, or if they had not had the windshear, or the wind shear had not struck at max dynamic pressure……oh and of course they launched outside of the known test matrix of o rings behavior as a function of overnight air temperature. It all could have been prevented (at least on this flight) by simply following their own launch criteria and stood down on temperature criteria….in spite of the president state of the union speech that night and the first teacher in space, christa mcaulliffe, on board.
Sorry, mark, I read challenger, not Columbia. But yes, on Columbia the data he was seeing in the cockpit went way off nominal and off any of the conditions they had simulated on the ground. Charlie Camarda, an astronaut who is a high temp materials and structures engineer who flew on the return to flight mission after Columbia has just published a book: “Mission Out of Control” that is incredibly critical of agency management on Columbia.
I did report some incidents to the Admin, but was told that unless I could provide names, they couldn’t do anything. They apparently do not WANT to do anything.
Yes. I remember you doing that. Thanks for the follow-up. As one of my favorite school counselors always said: watch what people actually do, not what they say. And as I think you have pointed out, even if these culprits are arrested, generally, they are not prosecuted or convicted of anything.
It should be obvious that university admins need a lot more “Deans-on-call” to serve the vital function of standing around at these rituals. DEI officers could be re-assigned to this job; beside just being there—an essential part of administration—the D-OCs could help demonstrators file complaints about their treatment. They would no doubt insist that confiscation of their megaphones was microaggressive and made them feel unsafe.
“the D-OCs could help demonstrators file complaints about their treatment.”
Maybe we should call them ”Deans-in-collusion”
Jerry, I’m one of your readers who knows that affirming the reality of sex does not amount to bigotry. I get that you object to the slogans you cited, because of the meaning you take them to have—but just as I appreciate it when fair-minded people can acknowledge that one needn’t have animus towards trans-identifying people to, say, take a stance against males in female sports, I also appreciate it when an organization like American Jewish Committee can acknowledge that not everyone who uses the “From the River to the Sea” phrase does so with harmful intent (they include this acknowledgement in the final paragraph on this page: https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/From-the-River-to-the-Sea)
What I would like to learn from you (zero snark intended with the following question!)—is if there’s an organization or campaign that you can point to, as an example of how TO go about criticizing actions by the state of Israel in a way that doesn’t risk the impression of implicitly calling for harm to Jewish people? (Combatants for Peace is one organization I’d formed a positive impression of; do you have an opinion of them one way or another?)
MLK famously said, “I criticize America because I love her.” I know critics of Israel who are not genocidal antisemites.
My heart has been broken over and over by the inhumanity that we are capable of, towards one another.
I’m interested in solutions that meet people’s needs. Like the “humane and moderate solution” outlined by BADIL (a Palestinian org) and Zochrot (an Israeli org) in this essay:
https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return?
Could this be part of a path toward peace? I don’t know. I offer it for our consideration… (pasting a relevant excerpt below)
When Jews imagine Palestinian refugee return, most probably don’t imagine a modified version of Israel’s absorption of Soviet Jews. More likely, they imagine Palestinians expelling Jews from their homes. Given Jewish history, and the trauma that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has inflicted on both sides, these fears are understandable. But there is little evidence that they reflect reality. For starters, not many Israeli Jews live in former Palestinian homes since, tragically, only a few thousand remain. More importantly, the Palestinian intellectuals and activists who envision return generally insist that significant forced expulsion of Jews is neither necessary nor desirable. Abu Sitta argues, “it is possible to implement the return of the refugees without major displacement to the occupants of their houses.” Yusuf Jabarin, a Palestinian professor of geography who has developed plans for rebuilding destroyed villages, emphasizes, “I have no interest in building my life on the basis of attacks on Jews and making them fear they have no place here.” Asked about Jews living in formerly Palestinian homes, Edward Said in 2000 declared that “some humane and moderate solution should be found where the claims of the present and the claims of the past are addressed . . . I’m totally against eviction.
Badil and Zochrot have outlined what a “humane and moderate solution” might look like. If a Jewish family owns a home once owned by a Palestinian, first the original Palestinian owner (or their heirs) and then the current Jewish owner would be offered the cash value of the home in return for relinquishing their claim. If neither accepted the payment, Zochrot activists Noa Levy and Eitan Bronstein Aparicio have suggested a further compromise: Ownership of the property would revert to the original Palestinian owners, but the Jewish occupants would continue living there. The Palestinian owners would receive compensation until the Jewish occupants moved or died, at which point they would regain possession. In cases where Jewish institutions sit where Palestinian homes once stood—for instance, Tel Aviv University, which was built on the site of the destroyed village of al-Shaykh Muwannis—Zochrot has proposed that the Jewish inhabitants pay the former owners for the use of the land.
I will be brief. First, people who shout slogans like FTRTTS or Bring the Intifada Home should not shout if they do not know what they are saying. Because those slogans have a definite meaning. It is like shouting “Gas the Jews“ and saying that people are just mouthing slogans they do not understand. If you do not know the import of what you are shouting, then you should shut up. U of Chicago students are not dumb and they know what they are saying.
As for the article you cite, it is from Peter Beinart, a well known hater of Israel, and his solution is not workable as it will lead to murder and harm, as will all such right-of-return plans.
If you are calling the IDF inhumane and its actions break your heart, i would disagree. Israel is fighting as humanely as humanly possible. The civilian/combatant death toll ratio is one of the lowest in world history.
As for your quote, it is TL, DR, and I have discussed the greatly distorted refugee situation before. Most refugees left to avoid fighting with Jews but also because they were told to leave by the invading Arabs, thinking they would come back to a Judenrein state. Also, Israel SAID that Arabs could stay so long as they were peaceful. That is one reason there are so many Arab Israelis.
If you are looking for me to answer UNRWA, so called anti-Zionist groups, or other groups that pretend to be neutral but are really anti-Israel if not anti-Jew, I am sorry. They are not neutral. You surely recognize that the vast majority of non-Israeli groups that criticize Israel do so because it is the world“s only Jewish state, not because they want to improve Israel.
Finally, do note that many of the people killed on October 7 were Israeli Jews who lived in kibbutzim and were working for peace with Palestinians (not with Hamas!). They were taking Palestinians to Israeli hospitals and the like. What happened to them? They were slaughtered like everyone else. This is why any right of return will not work, and if you left your house in 1947 expecting to return to a Judenrein land that is not Israel, you do not deserve to get your house back.
Jerry, when I referred to my heart breaking over and over, I had in mind many terrible events, including Oct 7, and before, and since.
I’m not sure what you’re saying in the paragraph which starts out referring to UNRWA. But given that you didn’t directly comment about Combatants for Peace, it seems like maybe you are not familiar with them? If you (or any others reading this) are interested, more information is here: https://www.cfpeace.org/combatants-for-peace
It’s been several years since I watched the film about CfP, called “Disturbing the Peace.” I was impressed by the transformation embodied by Chen, Jamil, Avner, Sulaimon, Mohammed, Shifa, Assaf, Maia…
The director says, “We were often asked by people before they saw the film, whether it was pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, and we would always answer ‘Yes.’ In reality, it was neither – it was pro-humanity, recognizing that we all have the ability to be perpetrators as well as victims. We all have the capacity for violence, as well as love and compassion.”
And yet the film is from 2016, so I wondered about its relevance, post-Oct 7. I found a column by its director, published Oct 15. It provides his personal background, and introduces the reader to some orgs he admires in addition to CfP, and, among other things, this message from an Israeli peace activist: “Even in my misery and my pain and my sorrow and my grieving, I refuse to harden my good heart to the pain and suffering of others. I refuse not to see them as human. I refuse to not see their blood as my own blood. Because the moment I do that I become the very monster that has caused my people such suffering. I become my own enemy. And that is the great victory of those that have butchered my people… And I refuse. I refuse to become them… It all comes down to one thing – what you hate don’t do to your neighbor. Love your brother as you love yourself. And so I will not harden my heart, as God be my witness. And victory is mine.”
https://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/steve-apkons-thoughts-on-love-in-the-time-of-war
What can people do, to keep hearts from hardening against the other?
I think that’s a very important question.
I’m sorry but the Palestinians have been offered their own state at least five times. They have refused, for they want Israel and they want the Jews dead. If you want to solve the problem, get UNRWA to stop teaching Palestinians to hate Jews, get Hamas to stop perpetuating terrorism, and above all get Palestinians to abandon terrorism and create their own state that abjurs terror. All of the killing we see has been initiated by the hatred of Jews by Palestinians–in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Iran, and in the Palestinian territories.
I don’t think this is worth discussing any more. Your plaint seems to be a repeated “why can’t we be brothers and sisters” question? The answer is that too many Arabs want to kill Jews and want Israel gone. Just remember who started the war in Gaza, which would not be taking place had Hamas and others been determined to invade Israel and kill Jews.
This is the end of this conversation. If you want a solution, figure out how to give the Palestinians a state without terrorism or Jew hatred. I don’t want any lectures about hardening my heart and what a good person you are to love those who kill Jews. Tell HAMAS “what you hate don’t do to your neighbor.”
I don’t think anyone has reason to be heartbroken over anything Israel or the IDF are doing. Israel is at war, an existential war it must win, which means destroying the ability of the enemy to make war, and that includes starving his fighters. Hamas runs Gaza. Let Hamas feed Gaza. War is hell. Good idea not to start one. And a good idea to surrender when you’re losing if you want to have fewer of your people killed.
That’s decent of them. What if they change their minds once they get control and the Jews don’t cooperate with the non-“major displacements” imposed? You can’t be for addressing the claims of the past, as Said claimed to be, while also being totally against eviction. One of those is a lie. This is why we aren’t giving any land back in Canada, (except in provinces that elect socialist governments who want to do just that.) We know our new landlords will judge and evict us for all our past sins. They won’t be able to help it. Greed and envy will take over and their radicals will force them to.
There is simply no other hand. Israel must hold the land absolutely, just as all sovereign nations hold their land. Deeds held by Israeli landowners must be good fee simple. The idea that a Jewish landholder would have to surrender his land when he dies to someone not of his choosing, while still having all the responsibilities of ownership while he lives, is just not something any landholder can agree to. That’s the kind of thing modern South Africa threatens to do. The Arab “refugees” will just have to find someplace else to live.
Not being Jewish, I don’t understand, “Not in our name.” In war it sounds like aid and comfort to the enemy though. I’m not sure what the point of foreigners criticizing Israel is, Jew or Gentile. Israel is not going to change its war plans because of handwringing from abroad. If the goal of foreign criticism is to cause one’s own government to restrict military or diplomatic support of Israel because the foreigner doesn’t happen to like a certain Israeli policy but claims to wish Israel success and no ill, what exactly is that foreigner trying to achieve? How are you helping?, I ask them.
We have some newly appointed contemptible federal Cabinet Ministers (mostly retreads from the Trudeau years) already sounding off about how Canada needs to bring Israel to heel. As if. Just sayin’.
I agree with your first paragraph completely, Leslie. If the world is so concerned about civilians in Gaza, then governments, the UN, and the media should demand that Hamas return the hostages and surrender. The pictures of distressed Gazans that I see every day on the BBC and AP web sites—adjacent to headlines intimating that the suffering is Israel’s fault—are dishonest, disgraceful, and disgusting.
Providing aid to those with whom you are at war is neither required nor expected in war. Any aid allowed into Gaza by Israel—and it has allowed considerable aid in—is an act of compassion that is anathema to Hamas. On the contrary, Hamas has been stealing and stockpiling provisions, preventing them from reaching the civilian population. It’s Hamas that has made it impossible for aid to get in.
When the Axis powers were defeated in WWII, they surrendered, making way for massive reconstruction, economic growth, and decades of stability. Does Hamas really have the best interests of Gazans in mind as it continues this losing battle? No. It does not.
If you take the side of an invading army, you lose all rights if your side loses. Now they want the land their grandparents lost when they chose the wrong side, after generations of terrorist outrages, bombing buses and cafes, slitting throats of children while they sleep, running down people waiting for their bus…. The Palestinians have lost all sympathy privileges.
They started this war, and they did it in the most despicable, evil way imaginable. Israel is, as Leslie said, in an existential war that the Palestinians started. The IDF has conducted themselves with restraint; the US killed more than 100000 Japanese in one night over Tokyo and we didn’teven warn them first before raining fire on them.
War IS hell and it is Hama’s fault that the “civilians” are suffering. It is they who are hoarding food and using “civilians” as shields. And to make it all worse, useful idiots in the West blame the Israelies for both the war and the suffering.of “civilians”.
The phrase “from the river to the sea…” may be spoken by people ignorant of its meaning, but those deluded fools are few and anyway no one, even those fools, has any excuse anymore in understanding what it means.
They need a more inclusive name. I propose “Friends of UChicago United for Palestine”.
I think that eventually Hamas will trade the hostages for safe passage out of Gaza (I have said this many times). They had a dream that they would ‘win’ the war. So did Hitler. Same dream, same results. Of course, my crystal ball is a bit cloudy. I didn’t think any hostage exchanges would occur. I was obviously wrong.