Excellent news from Vermont: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi was released on orders of the judge in his case. This is yet another positive indication that resistance to the new dictatorship is possible, with the US judicial system still functional enough to often stop the illegal exercise of dictatorial powers. Unfortunately the Columbia trustees still have not realized they need to resist and try going to the courts like Harvard.
In local resistance news, at Rise Up, Columbia you can read some of the texts of speeches given at the 25-hour speakout here. In the Spectator, there’s a letter from Jewish students at Columbia and Barnard about the abuse of accusations of antisemitism that is at the root of the current situation here.
Still no news about the ongoing negotiations between Trump’s people and the trustees. Unfortunately it has become much clearer to me why the trustees so far have not decided to go to court to resist illegal demands from the would-be dictator. Besides being afraid of the consequences of confronting the dictator, some likely see this as an opportunity to get changes made here that they want anyway, and would otherwise have great difficulty achieving. Looking at the list of trustees, only one (Victor Mendelson) regularly donates to Republican candidates, recently to Elise Stefanik. But many of the others (and major donors like Robert Kraft) are strong supporters of the Israeli government and see pro-Palestinian protests or sympathies here as a major problem that needs action. From their point of view, the demands they have agreed to so far are not a cave-in to Trump that has ruined the reputation of the university but a positive step in fixing the ruining of the university’s reputation caused by the pro-Palestinian protests. Given the clownish incoherent behavior of those around Trump, it’s hard to guess what their current demands are, but as long as they’re careful to cater to bogus accusations of “antisemitism”, they may very well be able to convince the trustees to not resist by going to court, but to a further cave-in of some form.
In relevant news from elsewhere, Harvard has released reports about antisemitism and Islamophobia. I believe the situation at Harvard is very much like the one here at Columbia. Bringing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to these campuses has caused a lot of fear, but is hitting one side a lot harder: the reports show that 15 percent of Jewish students feel unsafe on campus, while more than three times as many (47 percent) Muslim students feel unsafe. While 61 percent of Jewish students are worried about expressing their views, 92 percent of the Muslim students felt this way.
Polling both sides to see how afraid they are to express their views misses one crucial variable — namely, how afraid they should be, given the content of their beliefs. Broadly speaking, I’d like anyone on either side who feels like the wrong approach is being taken to a peaceful two-state solution to be totally unafraid to speak. But I’d also like anyone on either side who feels like the other side needs to be eradicated from the earth, to be afraid to speak.
Scott,
Maybe an even more crucial variable is what each side is afraid of. In this case I believe students worried about expressing pro-Israel views are fearful of hostile verbal reactions and social ostracism. Those fearful of expressing pro-Palestinian views are often worried not about this, but about being grabbed off the street by masked thugs and thrown in a hole in Louisiana.
On the “peaceful two-state solution” issue, which I’ve now listened to debate about for over fifty years, I’m loathe to hear more debate untethered to the (ever less promising) realities on the ground. But I have been mystified by the way you seem to make commitment to this your touchstone for what is acceptable, given that the current Israeli government has expressed firm opposition to a sovereign Palestinian state.
I’m strongly opposed to the current Israeli government, as I’ve made clear at every opportunity. I’m even more opposed to anyone, on either side, who glorifies the mass murder of the other side — meaning, not collateral death in war, but killing the other side’s civilians simply because they all deserve to die. Yet “all Zionists deserve to die” was an accepted view within the tentifada movement from the very beginning, and has been the explicit position of CUAD at least since they welcomed back Khymani James in fall of last year.
Scott,
We’re back to the problem that you have a completely delusional view about what the pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia and elsewhere were thinking and saying. While you probably could find a small number of idiots amongst them who believe “all Zionists deserve to die”, this was not “an accepted view”. For every one of such idiots I’m sure you could find without much effort multiple pro-Israeli idiots going on about “all Palestinians are terrorists and deserve to die”.
Unfortunately I think you’re still completely devoted to your conviction that Columbia’s pro-Palestinian demonstrators who you’ve never seen or met and know nothing about are murderous demons. I’d like to this time more politely encourage you to leave us alone. Maybe you can at least change your focus to Harvard, which has not been so heavily damaged yet by the kind of campaign you’re pursuing.