The Biden administration has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has violated international law, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of military aid, the State Department told Congress on Friday.
In the administration’s most detailed assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the State Department said in a written report to Congress that Israel “has the knowledge, experience and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations.”
But it added that “the results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” as to whether the Israel Defense Forces are using them sufficiently.
I agree that the diplomats have a lot of things to consider and need to make careful nuanced discussions that lead to effective decisions. However, I think student protests help sway the public opinion and give more backing to such diplomatic decisions.
And US students obviously can’t make foreign policy decisions with Isreal, so what else are they supposed to do? Clearly, months of smaller actions haven’t seemed to change the situation.
Student protests accomplish nothing other than promote antisemitism. Sorry.
You aren’t going to convince Netanyahu to halt the assault on Rafah but looking the other way on antisemitic speech by your peers because you’re afraid of being ostracized from the fun get-together you call a protest. If anything it’s making things worse because Israel isn’t going to backing down if you make them feel like the whole world hates them after what happened on October 7.
Sure emotions are running high, but people need to think about the consequences of their actions. Making excuses about hate speech being acceptable because TikTok is telling you that what Israel is doing justifies hate speech isn’t going to bring the conflict to an end. If anything, it will prolong it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Joe Biden cares more about the Palestinian people than anyone protesting on college campuses. I get people are lonely and are looking for any reason to go out and hang out with other people, but demanding the faculty of a university to do something about foreign policy is just a cover for getting together to hate a group of people. As exhilarating as that might feel in the moment, it’s not actually a positive action. This kind of fervor centered around hate has happened many times before.
How many Palestinians will these protests save compared to Joe Biden negotiating a ceasefire? Do you think the things you hear at these protests work at a negotiation table? If Joe Biden screams “GENOCIDE!” at Netanyahu does that result in a ceasefire? Do you think backing Israel into a corner saves Palestinian lives? They can get munitions from other countries… do you think forcing Israel to use less accurate munitions saves Palestinian lives?
Joe Biden has to consider all of these things, while someone screaming “GENOCIDE” at protest doesn’t. There’s a reason why Joe Biden says that the college protests don’t influence him. Because lonely and emotional children aren’t all that good at foreign policy.
Disagree. I won’t say it’s impossible it encourages some antisemitism, but it feels like you’re lumping all these students into that camp. I think the protests provide awareness of where much of the public stands on the issue.
It feels disingenuous to say these protests are a fun party. I can think of plenty of activities I partook in college that were more fun and with less risk. I think these students (a fairly small percentage of all students, realistically), feel an alturistic need to do something. And there’s not a lot of domestic options available to them, especially ones where their voice is actually heard.
These protests must be effective if they’re turning the whole world on Israel. But I think that’s much more of Israel’s doing. Surely killing medical staff, journalists, aid workers, and children may factor in? Of course I’m against antisemitism, but I won’t say the same about antizionism.
There’s also the part where these protests aren’t directly about ending the conflict (of course that’s the ultimate overarching goal). These students are protesting their schools’ investments in Israel. And I think they have every right to have that discussion with the schools they’re attending. This is the impact they’re trying to make, one that /is/ related to them, and one that /is/ possible.
Like it or not, Joe is the best shot at ending the conflict right now, I agree. But it’s been many months of him appearing to do close to nothing. Is Israel backed into a corner? Looks more like Palestinian civilians are in a corner. A corner that keeps getting moved and then bombed.
The US has a lot of sway in the world. There’s a lot of options our government could take. Continued financial, military, and political support doesn’t feel like the best option. I’m not saying we should wipe Israel off the map, but surely there’s some sort of middle ground where civilians of the region aren’t just endless collateral damage?