Category: Palestine

Andrzej on the “Biden-Sinwar-Khameni Pact”

May 10, 2024 • 9:20 am

I discuss the war in the Middle East with Malgorzata a lot and, like  Roseanne Roseannadanna, I ask a lot of questions. Andrzej had written a precis of his view of what’s going on there for Listy, and Malgorzata translated his Polish into English just for my sake. I thought I’d post Andrzej’s take on this site, but if you read Polish, you can see the original on Listy here.  (Yahya Sinwar is of course the leader of Hamas.)

As you can see, Andrzej is incensed at Biden’s decision to withhold arms from Israel and sees this as a sign that Biden is concerned more with his own reelection and with achieving comity with Iran than with defeating the terrorism of Hamas. Remember, these are Andrzej’s views, not mine, but I have to say there’s substantial (though not complete) overlap

Biden-Sinwar-Khamenei Pact

Andrzej Koraszewski

The former U.S. ambassador to Israel said there was no doubt that Biden had sided with Hamas. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the American President announced that he intends to stop supplying weapons to Israel (with the exception of missiles for the Iron Dome). In other words, the American President announced that he would try to avoid too many Jewish casualties, but eliminating the threat to Israeli civilians interferes with his plans to cooperate with Iran.

According to The New York Times, this is a “turning point”. We are actually seeing a qualitative change. Biden said out loud what he had quietly said for days. Restrictions on American arms and ammunition supplies had actually begun earlier, although there were official attempts to deny this. Now, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the American president, citing concern for the Palestinian civilian population, decided that he must save Hamas from final defeat and create the conditions for the creation of a Palestinian state under Hamas.

We hear that it is still just a threat, that supplies will be halted “if,” but the Pentagon confirms that they have already been halted.

Is the American president naïve, or is he just pretending that he does not know what he is demanding? In all the months since Hamas started the war, American condemnations of Hamas have been nothing but empty words. There has been no firm pressure on Qatar or Iran, no demand for the expulsion of Hamas leaders from Qatar, no demand for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, no threats to move the U.S. military base out of Qatar, and no ultimatum to Tehran. On the contrary, all the American grievances were directed at Israel, Hamas’s information about Israel’s alleged crimes was taken seriously, human rights were turned into a laughing stock, a tool for constantly accusing Jews, no one blamed “President” Abbas for supporting Hamas’s barbarism, and the American administration gave permission for public hatred of the Jewish state.

The U.S. President has previously asserted that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinians.” He did not reveal the secret of how he knew this, and he also pretended that he had no knowledge of Palestinian opinion polls, or who supposedly represented these Palestinians and how they did it.

Meanwhile, Tehran said on the same day that it may be “forced to change its nuclear doctrine and build nuclear bombs if its existence is threatened.” The fact that Iran either already has nuclear weapons or is a few weeks away from building them has been known for some time. Now they have apparently decided that they have gotten green light from Washington and it is time to stop pretending that they are not aiming at acquiring nuclear weapons at all. Thus, there is no longer a need for a fatwa (which President Obama happily talked about, but which no one has ever seen), which supposedly stated that Islam forbids the production of nuclear weapons.

The new UN statements on readiness to recognize the “State of Palestine” were probably not related to President Biden’s statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, but it is easy to guess that the atmosphere was already considered favorable for taking this step, because there is a possibility that the US in the Security Council will not block the proposal, and the General Assembly resolution itself will certainly obtain the required majority, so journalists will consider it a binding decision of the UN anyway, and that’s what it’s all about.

So what does this “turning point” for America mean? Israeli historian Gadi Taub, in an article published on the same day, wrote:

In the eyes of the Biden administration Hamas is the smaller problem. The bigger problem is Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. is willing to live with Iran’s proxies everywhere, as part of its “regional integration” policy—i.e., appeasing Iran. But they are unwilling to live with Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. The stubborn Netanyahu clearly does not want to learn from his would-be tutors like U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken how to “share the neighborhood” with genocidaires in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, and Tehran, whom his electorate understands to be bent on murdering them.

Tony Bardan, an American scientist from the Center for Research on Terrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, recently wrote that Israel is facing a choice whether to remain an independent state or to be a client-oriented country in the service of a great power. Bardan reminds us that the latter has already happened once. Herod the Great was practically the governor of Rome, and it ended with the destruction of the temple, and in the following decades the genocide of the Jews and the exile of most of the survivors.

Gadi Taub, describing today’s American frolics in the Middle East—insidious attempts to overthrow the elected leader of the Israeli government and then collusion with a possible “U.S. own” Israeli prime minister—shows that for the Democratic Party, the enemy is Netanyahu rather than Islamic terrorism (not seen as a threat to America and the entire democratic world) and rather than another nuclear-armed enemy of democracy nor a genocidal Hamas.

The American president repeated his usual mantras about Israel’s right to defend itself and about his steadfast support for its ally, while doing everything in his power to save Israel’s genocidal enemy and strengthen its main sponsor.

In a world that has returned to the old rut of murderous Jew-hatred, Israel is dependent on American aid and care. But, Taub writes, the United States keeps Israel on a leash, rationing ammunition, forcing it to uncontrollably deliver humanitarian aid that falls into the hands of Hamas, maintaining its power over the people of Gaza, and in the diplomatic field supporting unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. And while the U.S. helped repel a massive rocket attack by Iran, it forced only a symbolic response from Israel. America’s primary goal today is to ensure the survival of Hamas as ruler of the Gazan fortress.

The United States treats Israel as Jews have always been treated – with superiority and contempt. They invited the prime minister’s political rival (Gantz) to the talks, tried to summon the commander-in-chief of the Israeli army for separate talks, and did not protest when a caricature of an international court threatens to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders. Moreover, there is a great deal of evidence pointing to U.S. government financial and organizational support for Israel’s internal divisions and political destabilization of the country at a time of struggle for existential survival.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the “turning point” is just the climax. Even if not everything is going according to plan and Benny Gantz has not yet decided to cooperate fully, and Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently refuses to give in to pressure, the American alliance with Hamas is delaying the final defeat of this terrorist organization. And the campaign of relentlessly dishonest accusations against Israel is intensifying with each passing day the hostility towards the Jewish state, hostility towards Jews, and sympathy for enemies not only of Israel, but also of America and the rest of the democratic world.

The intentions of the allies are clear: the poster of the BDS movement says it bluntly:

NOTE: A commenter below points out that this is not from the BDS movement, but from an anarchist site. So ignore the figure below.

For Islamists, Hamas’s war with Israel is intended only to open the gate to further fighting. For President Biden, only his election campaign and the expectations of his electorate are important. The option to support the Islamic Republic of Iran was chosen by President Obama, and Biden probably really believes that Israel should learn to live with a Palestinian state armed by Iran and with Lebanon in the hands of Hezbollah. If Israel is not ready for this, so be it—America will continue to pretend to defend human rights. The question of why this human must be a genocidal terrorist might be considered tactless.

Northwestern President faces calls for firing after caving in to protestors; university faces lawsuit

May 2, 2024 • 9:15 am

Three days ago I reported that Northwestern University successfully bargained with the pro-Palestinian protestors who were encamped on its campus. As Zach Kessel reported in the National Review at that time:

After five days of anti-Israel demonstrators occupying Deering Meadow on Northwestern University’s campus, Northwestern president Michael Schill and the rest of the university’s leadership decided to accede to several of the protesters’ demands.

While not committing to divesting its endowment from companies that do business in Israel and ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, the university released a list of concessions in a celebratory statement Monday afternoon in exchange for the removal of the encampment on the lawn.

Most notable among those concessions is a promise to offer full-ride scholarships to Palestinian students and guaranteed faculty jobs for Palestinian academics.

“The University will support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk (funding two faculty per year for two years; and providing full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers),” the document reads. “The University commits to fundraise to sustain this program beyond this current commitment.”

A pdf of these “concessions” can be found here. I find it sickening. What isn’t mentioned is that Northwestern also commits to this (“MENA students” are North African and Middle Eastern students):

  • The University will provide immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students.
  • The University will provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslim students that is conductive to community building as soon as practicably possible upon completion of the Jacobs renovation (Expected 2026)

Now, as Kessel reports again, Northwestern’s promises may in fact be illegal, and there is already considerable pushback from Jewish organizations. The problem is that this is a concession to only one side of the controversy a concession designed simply to stop a disruptive protest, and it also earmarks both studentships and professorships for residents of a particular foreign territory. That’s a form of discrimination by nationality.

Click the link in first sentence of last paragraph, or go below to the archived version.

First, a chest-puffing announcement by Northwestern’s craven President, Michael Schill:

Schill released a video Tuesday in which he addressed the agreement with encampment organizers, saying he was “proud of our community for achieving what has been a challenge across the country: a sustainable de-escalated path forward.” He also noted the antisemitic posters, saying such messages should be “condemned by all of us.”

What he achieved was to give in to the pro-Palestinian students’ demands, while paying only lip service to anti-Semitism. Yes, Schill met the challenge by caving in to the protestors’ demands. But all is still not well, and for two reasons (Kessels’s words are indented):

The legal problem:

While Schill’s agreement with the encampment organizers has drawn condemnation, legal experts told NR that there is a great deal of uncertainty as to whether the measures to provide scholarships for Palestinian students and faculty positions for Palestinian academics are lawful.

Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told NR that, though Schill did not explain all the details of the press release, the scholarships and faculty positions may violate Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights act, respectively.

Title VI stipulates that entities receiving federal funding must not allow discrimination, exclusion, or denial of benefits on the basis of race, color, or national origin, while Title VII protects against employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

“Even if they eventually paper the Palestinian scholarship in such a way that it purports to be something else, the fact that this is how they announced it will be very strong evidence of the intent behind the program,” Morenoff told NR. “And given that Title VI is primarily — or, as the Supreme Court has said, exclusively — a disparate-treatment statute focused on the intent of a program, it certainly looks like this is a violation.”

Morenoff said he could imagine the university arguing that Title VI applies to programs rather than scholarships but pointed to a 1994 United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling stating otherwise.

On the Title VII issue, Morenoff said it is “very hard to see how having national origin-defined positions as part of this negotiation could be compliant.”

And the pushback:

In a joint statement published Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Brandeis Center, and StandWithUs urged Schill to step down from his leadership position.

“For days, protesters openly mocked and violated Northwestern’s codes of conduct and policies by erecting an encampment in which they fanned the flames of antisemitism and wreaked havoc on the entire university community,” the three organizations wrote. “Their goal was not to find peace, but to make Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. Rather than hold them accountable — as he pledged he would — President Schill gave them a seat at the table and normalized their hatred against Jewish students. It is clear from President Schill’s actions that he is unfit to lead Northwestern and must resign.”

The three groups wrote that if Schill does not resign, they expect the board of trustees to “step in as the leaders the University needs and remove him.”

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) president Morton A. Klein went a step further, arguing in a Wednesday statement that Schill, provost Kathleen Hagerty, and vice president for student affairs Susan Davis should each be relieved of their duties.

“President Schill, Provost Hagerty, and VP Davis should be fired immediately for this disaster — and this dangerous agreement must be rescinded,” Klein wrote. “If a group of white supremacists took over Deering Meadow and chanted for the deaths of blacks, the white supremacists would be immediately removed from the campus — not rewarded with scholarships, professorships, buildings, power over vendors, and investment powers. The same standard should apply here. The Northwestern officials who negotiated and entered into this agreement must be fired, and their agreement must be thrown in the dustbin. The student and faculty trespassers and promoters of anti-Jewish violence should be arrested and expelled or fired.”

There is more in the article, but the archived link will give you the details.  Still, there’s one more looming threat for President Schill:

Meanwhile, a group of Northwestern students met with members of the House Education and Workforce Committee, including Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) and Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) in Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon.

A committee aide told NR that the agreement between Northwestern’s leadership and the encampment organizers poses several problems.

“This really represents a craven decision to cave to the students who were disrupting university policy, violating rules, harassing Jewish students, and we heard really appalling and egregious accounts of that harassment directly from Jewish students in a meeting today,” the aide said, adding that the provisions in the agreement “are of significant concern to us because — while we’re still getting more information and looking into this — they appear to be violations of the law.”

Stefanik! We all know what she does to craven or double-talking professors. Not that I’m on her political side, or agree with her views on the First Amendment, but Schill does need to be grilled publicly on this.

And Northwestern students have sued their school for breaching promises to them. It’s all described in the student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern; click the headline below to or the link in this sentence to read:

The complaint:

Three plaintiffs brought a breach of contract lawsuit against Northwestern Wednesday, citing a “dystopic cesspool of hate” present at the pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow.

The lawsuit — brought by two graduate students and one first-year undergraduate student at NU — alleges that NU breached a “modest core promise” to students when it opted to allow the encampment to continue throughout the weekend despite demonstration policies stating such encampments are prohibited.

“Northwestern’s refusal to enforce its own policies is thus a breach of contract, in addition to being a total embarrassment to the broader Northwestern community,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit, filed in the Cook County Circuit Court, alleges the University allowed the encampment to become “increasingly hostile to Jews” and that “the encampment featured open support for Hamas.” The plaintiffs seek class certification for Jewish students at NU who did not participate in the encampment.

. . .“Rather than enforce its express and implied promises to Plaintiffs that Northwestern is a place of civility where free expression is governed by transparent, content-neutral codes of conduct, Northwestern twisted itself into a pretzel to accommodate the hostile and discriminatory encampment, legislate around it, and ultimately reward it,” the lawsuit reads.

This is what I think the administrators at the University of Chicago have not considered: that their allowing our encampment to remain, despite its palpable violations of the “time, place, and manner” of speech codes, despite the protestors’ repeated vandalism and removal of the banners of Jewish students, despite their erection of illegal blockages of access, and despite their placement of Palestinian flags all over the quad—all of this constitutes a violation of the free speech (and restriction of its disruption) code that is contractually promised to our students by the University.  The persistence of the encampment despite our administration’s admission that it violates university regulations is, I think, grounds for a lawsuit against the University of Chicago. They cannot on one hand laud our tradition of free speech and on the other hand allow palpable and copious violations of free speech and of the time, place, and manner of its emission.

National news about the protest

May 1, 2024 • 10:30 am

Everybody now knows about the issues at Columbia University, and that the NYPD has cleared the occupied building of protestors and arrested them, with the administration threatening to expel those who were arrested. As I predicted, violence is beginning to erupt around the encampments, but now in some places it’s spread from the pro-Palestinian side (which has already enacted violence by invading buildings, injuring workers, and so on) to the pro-Israeli side, and I can’t abide violence coming from the ideological side I identify with. More below:

But first, as the Hindustan Times reports, a Jewish woman at Penn was told “she was too ugly to be raped”.

A shocking video of a woman allegedly venting her anger against the Israel government in front of a Jewish woman has gone viral. In the insensitive video an old white woman, holding a Palestine flag walks up to girl and shouts on her face saying, “Jewish women are too ugly to be raped…maybe with a condom.” It’s then that she is pulled by other women and taken away.

Here’s the video of that.  And yes, this is about the sexual violence on October 7, which some people still deny.

That’s bad enough, but this is worse. The same article reports that a Jewish woman at UCLA was beaten up by “pro-Hamas students”:

In another video a young Jewish woman was beaten unconscious by pro-Hamas students at the UCLA campus in California today.

Video of her bleeding head after being hit has gone viral. She was hospitalized with a concussion after being ganged up on by at least five student protesters.

Here’s the tweet. There’s a shot of her bloody head at the end:

Perhaps in response, the Jewish students at UCLA attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, and that is not something I favor at all. Even someone getting beaten up like this should not promote a delayed and violent response.  The attack on the Jewish woman, which was reprehensible, should have been reported to both the cops and the university, and UCLA should expel or sanction the perpetrators and consider removing the illegal encampment if it’s promoting violence. But attack it or its residents? No.

Here’s a Twitter video of Jewish students attacking the protestors. I didn’t see anybody getting physically assaulted, but the report below implies that that happened later.

 

I’m afraid this kind of violence is going to happen on our campus as well. So far things have been relatively peaceful, but I fear that the demonstrators will get increasingly restive if their demands aren’t meant. Here I’m not worried about the Jewish students, whom I know; and I’ve not seen a sign of violence in them. Their actions have been peaceful.

Some of this is reported on Fox 59 News.

Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another.

The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

After a couple of hours of scuffles, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help.

UCLA campus police and medical personnel had showed up briefly at the scene before retreating, Nexstar’s KTLA reported.

The Jewish students also lobbed fireworks into the encampment; again, a terrible move. As my friend Rosemary said, “Jewish students need to find creative and non-violent ways to end the encampment.”  My view is that Jewish students should use violence only when it’s necessary to defend themselves against violence from others.

Apparently the clashes continued until the police arrived:

I can’t advise the protestors in illegal encampment on campus, but I would advise Jewish or pro-Israeli people to respond as Jews have responded historically to confrontation: use words all you want to defend yourself, but violence must be reserved only for when you are attacked by others.  The parallel with the Gaza/Hamas war is obvious.

h/t: Rosemary Alles

Protestors win big time at Northwestern

April 30, 2024 • 3:59 pm

This headline below speaks for itself. Northwestern University here in the Chicago area has shamed itself by negotiating with the People of the Encampment, winning scholarships for five  Palestinian students and jobs for two Palestinian professors.  This is about as big a violation of institutional neutrality that I can imagine.

From the National Review; click to read:

After five days of anti-Israel demonstrators occupying Deering Meadow on Northwestern University’s campus, Northwestern president Michael Schill and the rest of the university’s leadership decided to accede to several of the protesters’ demands.

While not committing to divesting its endowment from companies that do business in Israel and ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, the university released a list of concessions in a celebratory statement Monday afternoon in exchange for the removal of the encampment on the lawn.

Most notable among those concessions is a promise to offer full-ride scholarships to Palestinian students and guaranteed faculty jobs for Palestinian academics.

“The University will support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk (funding two faculty per year for two years; and providing full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers),” the document reads. “The University commits to fundraise to sustain this program beyond this current commitment.”

In other words, the University will have five permanent scholarships for students and two visiting Palestinian faculty in perpetuity, given that they can find a donor, which shouldn’t be hard if Qatar is around.

. . . Other concessions in the deal Schill and the rest of Northwestern’s leadership struck with the encampment occupants — one of whom assaulted a student journalist attempting to take video — include student oversight of the university’s partnerships with suppliers and the investment of its endowment.

“The University will include students in a process dedicated to implementing broad input on University dining services, including residential and retail vendors on campus,” Northwestern’s leadership wrote, as well as forming a committee on “investment responsibility” with “representation from students, faculty, and staff.”

The deal Northwestern struck with the protesters — who hung a sign showing a crossed-out Star of David on the lawn’s fence — has drawn condemnations from a variety of groups and individuals.

The Midwest division of the Anti-Defamation League — itself often criticized for a disproportionate focus on antisemitism on the Right rather than on the Islamist and social-justice-oriented Left — issued a statement on the agreement, which it called “reprehensible” and “dangerous”:

“The agreement between Northwestern University leadership and encampment organizers is reprehensible, dangerous, and a case study in failed leadership,” the group said in a statement. “For days, protesters violated campus codes of conduct and policies, intentionally fanned the flames of hate and antisemitism, and wreaked havoc on campus life. Instead of holding the perpetrators accountable, the university rewarded them. It would be unbelievable if it wasn’t true.”

The Anti-Defamation League is 100% right: this is rewarding illegal protests, which will only hearten more illegal protests. I am astounded and baffled, and Northwestern University is reprehensible. Any Jewish donors should stop giving them money, and no Jewish student should apply there.

Or perhaps the Jewish students should conduct illegal protests to get scholarship and faculty jobs for Jews!  Naaah. . . . it’s not in us.

The Encampment, Day 2: Jewish students restore the banners and flags torn down by protestors

April 30, 2024 • 11:45 am

After talking to someone who’s been in contact with the University administration here, I now believe that their “plan” for dismantling our pro-Palestinian encampment is this: DO NOTHING.  I believe they hope the encampment will disappear on its own, even though the letters from the President and Dean of Students imply that if it doesn’t disappear within a few days, ACTION WILL BE TAKEN.

I would hope that this is true, but you know the old saying, “If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.”  I do not believe action will be taken, for it should have been taken by now.

The encampment violates a whole slew of campus rules; let me reprise them:

An illegal encampment with tents where people sleep overnight, rendering a large part of our Quad unusable
Many non-student participants who are guilty of trespassing
Palestinian flags stuck on lightpoles throughout the quad; this is illegal
Big wooden vertical slabs, painted with Palestinian slogans, blocking the main walkways in the Quad
Amplified sound played during hours when it’s prohibited
Vandalism and ripping down of legal banners and flags placed by the Jewish students
And now, pro-Palestinian graffiti painted on University buildings. Here’s a specimen I photographed an hour ago. Will the University remove it? I was told they’re in no hurry to do so:

Why doesn’t the University of Chicago enforce its own rules and do something about this? I suppose because they’re afraid of the publicity that might be attendant on removing the encampment. But this is short-sighted because lawsuits accusing the University of not obeying its own rules (and thus creating a climate of harassment for some students) could easily ensue.  I simply don’t understand how a President and Dean who issue statements admitting that illegal activity is happening on campus refuse to do anything about it. It’s maddening and, as I said, for this first time since 1986, I am truly ashamed of my  University. The shame I feel about our administration has been replaced by increasing pride in my Jewish heritage, and the resilience of Jewish students on campus.  Were Bob Zimmer still President, the Encampment would have been removed before it had been set up.

Here are two batches of photos. One shows more bits of The Encampment, and the other the response of the Jewish students (I believe their group is called “Maroons for Israel”) to having their banners and flags torn down at about 10 pm yesterday by the camping bullies.

The Encampment has a library!

And legal advice should you be put in the slammer:

They will kindly let you walk through if you have a good reason to do so!

Political posters are everywhere. This is one of the illegal barriers that block the sidewalks. Behind it is Levi Hall, the main administration building. Notice that they are honoring “all our martyrs,” which of course includes those members of Hamas killed on October 7 while butchering Jews.  They are HEROES!. It also honors other Hamas terrorists killed. Notice also the violent Islamist call to “Globalize the intifada.”

The Deans on Call are supposed to be on campus as observers of the situation, to prevent violence or destruction of property, and to report what’s happening to the administration. But can you trust a Dean on Call whose fingernails are painted in watermelon colors, the colors of the Palestinian flag? Some of these deans are not politically neutral and should not be monitoring this situation. Have a gander at this!:

 

At about 10 pm yesterday, pro-Palestinian protestors, in violation of University regulations, tore down eight large and expensive banners put up by the Maroons for Israel, as well as a large string of Israeli flags. The pro-Israel students didn’t miss a beat: at 8 a.m. today, they marched back to the quad with replacements for all the posters and most of the flags. They know well that tonight the thugs will tear them down again (the University doesn’t care a fig), but then they’ll replace them again.  Here are the heartening (for me) photos showing the resilience of our Jewish students. They must care for each other since the University doesn’t appear to care for them:

The little flags going back up:

And a larger flag which, of course, will be ripped down by tomorrow:

And some legal chalkwork created by one of the leaders of this student group, the indefatigable Eliza Ross, seen in the background:

The Encampment, Days 1 and 2: The layout

April 30, 2024 • 9:45 am

I thought I’d simply show some photos of the encampment and its residents. Here’s a pretty good panoramic shot, but you’ll have to click on it to see the whole thing. Seven of the tents are the green-and-white jobs that you can see at other schools’ encampments, and are surely supplied by some organization, whether SJP National or someone else.

One of two large boards blocking the main sidewalk from the center of the quad to the administration building. The presence of these is of course in violation of University regulations.

 

There’s a fence around the encampment. I don’t know who put it up:

Two deans on call, who didn’t want their photo taken (I was told by a reporter that I could photograph anybody there as it was out in public.  They simply observe the process and have no real power to do anything, though they can ask for IDs.  I was told that no real member of the administration, including deans and the like, had even come down to the protest, but I don’t know if that’s true.

Below: one of the leaders of the protest at the welcome tent. He was giving instructions to the protestors, which you can see in the video below. I’ve never seen this guy at any other Palestinian protestors, so he may be an “outsider” not affiliated with the University. A reporter told me that he’d seen buses dropping off non-students at the protests in Northwestern, and clearly a large percentage of protestors here and elsewhere are non-University people. I just verified that by talking to a person who went through the encampment asking people if they were students, and most of them said “no”. (They could of course by lying.)

The putative leader tells the students not to interact with “Zionists.”  How can he distinguish between a Jewish student and a Zionist? He adds “we’re keeping everyone’s identity private.” The wearing of masks by nearly all the protestors, but not by any of the Jewish students, shows that they are cowardly, for real practitioners of civil disobedience do not try to hide their identity, nor do any of the Jewish students.

“This dog smells some rats”: The Encampment, Day 2, post 1: Destruction of Jewish signs and banners, statements by President and Dean of Students

April 30, 2024 • 8:15 am

We have a couple of days of readers’ wildlife photos left, but I’m holding off until the encampment here ends so I can document it (more photos and videos later today).

Yesterday the protestors removed a lot of small Jewish flags that had been strung up by the Jewish students a few days ago, and also tore down some of the big (and expensive) banners that the Jewish students had put up over the weekend. The installation of all the flags and banners were, of course, approved by the University. Here are (or were) two of the large ones. Note that they are peaceful, referring only to the hostages and giving a QR code to read about Hamas.

The Chicago Maroon reports this vandalism of Jewish signage, as well as someone calling the Jewish students trying to replace the banners “rats”, and shows a photo of the torn-down small Jewish flags. Bolding in the main text is mine:

April 29, 10:32 p.m.:

Maroons for Israel set up their Israeli flags again. Someone with a dog watching them said, “The dog smells some rats.” This incident was caught on video and confirmed by the Maroon.

Noting that the Israeli flags were going up again, encampment organizers made an announcement telling protestors not to engage with “Zionists” or “counter-protestors,” stressing that confrontations were a threat to the entire encampment.

— Eva McCord and Kayla Rubenstein, Co-Editors-in-Chief, Emma Janssen, Deputy News Editor

April 29, 9:50 p.m.:

The string of Israeli flags hung earlier in the day were taken down. The flags, along with the poster on a nearby lamppost, were approved by the University.

This marks 12 hours of the encampment.

— Eva McCord and Kayla Rubenstein, Co-Editors-Chief and Zachary Leiter, Deputy Managing Editor

The calling of the Jewish students “rats” is part of the anti-Semitism fomented by the demonstration. And since the Maroon has video of this, it can be confirmed.

How much longer will the administration tolerate this kind of divisive behavior. Tearing down banners and calling Jewish students “rats” (something not unknown during the Third Reich) is not bringing the campus together, but fracturing it. Does the administration care? How long will they let this charade persist, a performative demonstration that both the President and Dean admit is against university regulations.  Are we becoming Harvard, treating different groups differently, even when they violate University rules?

The Maroon’s photo:

Caption from the Maroon: Israeli flags hung earlier in the day were taken down and found on the ground. (photo by Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon)

Here’s the official statement of our President:

The last three paragraphs implicitly threaten the demonstrators because the encampment is “a way of using force of a kind.”  But it does not affirm that the encampment will be dismantled, nor give a time limit for how long it will be allowed to stand. It’s clear that the encampment is already disrupting scholarship, not only by alienating the Jewish students by vandalizing their signs, but by obstructing the quad, and, especially, by allow signs to stand that block the main sidewalks accessing the quads from north and south, like this one.

My prediction, which I hope will not come true, is that the administration will continue to tolerate the encampment despite the threats of reprisal for violating University regulations.  It won’t look good if they bring in the cops to remove protestors: I was once told by an administrator that the thing that would make the University look bad was “laying hands on students.” But without forcible removal of protestors and dismantling the encampment, it will stay.  Since many of the protestors, I think, are not part of the University community, they won’t feel threatened by warnings about suspension.

Of course the Jewish students were extremely upset that their banners, which cost a lot of money to make, were ripped down by the protestors (notice that the vandalism is all by one side), and the protest itself (look at the map of Israel above) smacks of Israel hatred. The tearing down of the signs, however, smacks of Jew hatred, as the signs are not about Israel, but about the hostages and Hamas.

To provide some solace for the distressed Jewish students, Rabbi Yossi of Chabad and Rabbi Anna of Hillel stood for hours yesterday in the center of the quad, just outside the encampment, acting as a magnet for about 25-30 of the students. The students did not shout and they did not chant; they just stood in a group that was at once upset and defiant. I admire Yossi and Anna for going to the demonstration to show the Jewish students that someone cared.

Here’s the emailed letter we got from the Dean of Students:

Dean Rasmussen’s letter is stronger, affirming that the encampment is violating University policy, and implying that the signs blocking the sidewalks are, too. She notes that the camping protestors have been put “on notice”, but I don’t know how.  The Deans on Call are empowered to ask for student IDs, which must be shown upon demand, but they have not done this. This is a nonviolent way of identifying which protestors are students, and getting their names should they be punished. Note that the email does not give any specific time limit for the encampment, nor a firm assurance that violators of University policy will be disciplined.

Although there are high-minded words about free speech in both letters—and, indeed, protests against what’s happening in Gaza are free speech—the encampment is not about free speech.  In fact, the protestors prohibit any interaction with university officials, the press, or “Zionists”.  It is about whether protestors can violate university policies for the time, place, and manner of such speech, and do so with impunity.  The encampment is there to test the mettle and resolve of the University of Chicago to defend freedom of speech by preventing its disruption, and to ensure that the University is not impeded from carrying out its mission. So far, the University is failing the test.

So far, the University’s “threats” seem toothless, and are fracturing the campus, allowing Jewish students to have their banners vandalized and to be characterized as “rats”. I hope with all my heart that my University recognizes that an important part of free speech is allowing it to be exercised without disrupting the academic mission of the University. So far, the University have recognized that only in words, not in deeds.

And, of course, tearing down the banners of Jewish students is an explicit violation of free speech.  Will those who did it be identified and punished? I wouldn’t count on it.

As my Polish friend Malgorzata said (she lost most of her relatives in the Holocaust), “I don’t understand how this can happen in America.”

I’ll be back later with photos and video of the encampment. So far the protestors seem to be there for the long haul, as they’re well equipped with food, tents (including a medical tent) and other supplies.

Finally, as all the readers know here, I’m an atheist, and reject the tenets of Judaism as I reject the tenets of all faiths. But that doesn’t extend to a group of students who are being attacked and terrorized by the campers, and their pro-Israel signs and flags ripped apart and thrown on the ground.  The head of one Jewish organization in Chicago posted this mantra on her Facebook page, which also appeared on Twitter:

And, yes, I’m getting Jewisher (culturally, not religiously) and I call on the administration to not only prevent vandalism of the Jewish students’ own free expression, but to dismantle the illegal encampment before it tears the University apart.  SJP and UCUP can march and holler as much as it wants, but it cannot be allowed to violate University rules.

Oh, and President Alivisatos, you know that although the administration would rather do anything than call the police to dismantle the encampment you recognize as illegal, Title VI lawsuits against the University will surely follow, as the night the day.

The “encampment” has begun at Chicago

April 29, 2024 • 10:34 am

A photo from a colleague. Note that most of the tents are similar, so they likely reflect purchase by one agent.

And this demonstration is clearly illegal.  Now is the true test of our administration. Do they have the spine to remove these protestors?

Blocking access to campus and buildings, chanting and disturbing classes, tresspassing (for non-students, and I suspect there are many), and camping illegally on the quad: these are violations. So far the deans on call are on the site but are doing nothing. I suspect the administration is sweating bullets, not knowing what to do and therefore doing nothing.

More photos from my colleague Peggy Mason. The signs are clearly blocking the sidewalk:

Two demonstrators: