> Attributing this to people you disagree with on the issue is a telltale sign of bad faith
I've been in rooms in New York with very smart people who argued exactly this. That the founding of Israel was a mistake and that we should poof it away. (Something about decolonization usually meanders its way in there.)
They're a minority. Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a minority. But they both exist.
> Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a minority.
Not sure what "minority" you are talking about, because this is actually unfolding right in front of our eyes over the past 18 months with the backing of the most powerful country on the planet. Talking about this as if its some fringe idea is disingenuous.
> this is actually unfolding right in front of our eyes
One, it's not currently happening. It's being actively discussed. But to my knowledge, mass expulsion has not (yet) happened.
Two, many things happen despite being only popular with a minority. I haven't seen polling around Abrego Garcia's de facto kidnapping and illegal detention in El Salvador, but I doubt more than the baseline 20% or so of nutters (a) understand what's going on and (b) support it.
Sorry, I was (unclearly, admittedly) referring to Americans in the pro- and anti- camps. I’m not sure how eradicating Israel would poll in Gaza, but I’d wager it’s north of 50% there, too.
> He and people like him propped up the political weaponisation of "antisemitism" in order to attack legitimate protest
Attacking legitimate protest is fine? Like, the KKK are allowed to legitimately demonstrate. And I'm allowed to say they're terrible. That's speech. That's debate.
> They enabled Trump to do this and now they are trying really hard to differentiate themselves from the fascists
Clubs and departments calling for the eradication of a nation-state is nothing new, we've been drawing lines on maps thousands of miles away since Sykes and Picot and before. People opposing those clubs is nothing new. What is novel is the state getting so involved in suppressing it, at least in post-WWII America.
You are acting as if the world is binary and either the previous status quo was justified or Trump's actions are justified, neither of which have to be the case.
Previous status quo was absolutely unjustified, therefore brave students protested it, at a great personal risk while being slandered as "antisemites" by individuals like Scott Aaronson.
> brave students protested it, at a great personal risk while being slandered as "antisemites" by individuals like Scott Aaronson
Do you have an example?
Israel-Palestine is a nuanced ground truth that has been ridiculously oversimplified in American discourse. "Pro Israel" covers folks who want to kill every Palestinian and annex their land to those who just don't want kids slaughtered at raves. "Pro Palestine" covers people who want the basic human dignity of an ancient people respected, through those who want to destroy Israel as a nation-state, all the way over to full-blown racists who hate Jews (or anyone with European heritage).
> the 20-year-old Israeli who’s now in notoriously antisemitic Malmö, Sweden
It's because of Aaronson and others that the original meaning of antisemitism almost entirely lost its meaning. They perverted it to suit their political agenda.
And completely forgetting to mention there is a Jewish block literally in the photo they took themselves.
Obviously, they never mention the actual violence by the Zionist counter-protesters, which in my experience far exceeds that of the pro-Palestinian proteseters.
> People like Aaronson are smart enough not to directly say that
Doesn't that completely undermine the claim that students were being slandered as anti-Semites?
Like, yes, I'd prefer people thought nice things all the time. But if they're thinking something I consider mean, I'm happier with them keeping it to themselves. And if they won't, I prefer they call out a group versus attacking random individuals within it for being a member of that group.
"Leftist Students and Faculty: We’d sooner burn universities to the ground than allow them to remain safe for the hated Zionist Jews, the baby-killing demons of the earth. We’ll disrupt their classes, bar them from student activities, smash their Hillel centers, take over campus buildings and quads, and chant for Hezbollah and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to eradicate them like vermin. We’ll do all this because we’ve so thoroughly learned the lessons of the Holocaust."
"It’s important to add: from what I know, some of the people being detained and deported are genuinely horrible. Some worked for organizations linked to Hamas, and cheered the murder of Jews."
"Meanwhile, at elite academic institutions across the region, the calls for justice have been deafening. “From the Nile to the Sea of Reeds, free Egypt from Jacob’s seeds!” students chanted. Some protesters even taunted passing Hebrew slaves with “go back to Canaan!”, though others were quick to disavow that message. According to Professor O’Connor, it’s important to clarify that the Hebrews don’t belong in Canaan either, and that finding a place where they do belong is not the protesters’ job."
I’m not arguing that anti-Semiticism hasn’t been diluted to an over inclusive definition. I was just challenging the claim that students have been called out. This looks like the protests being called out, not the students. That’s an important difference because it, in my opinion, divides civil disagreement from something nastier.
