On December 5th, for over five hours, lawmakers grilled the presidents of elite universities in a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. In one of the testiest exchanges a Republican congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates university rules. It is “context-dependent”, replied Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania.
In what context is calling for genocide acceptable?
How people selectively quote and paraphrase is probably key. There’s a lot of people today who would hear someone say the Palestinians should be free and think they’d attack Israel, Israel is Jewish, so that’s calling for genocide. People right now are really making up their own facts and treating it like truth. So part of context dependent is how full of shit people are.
Whether that’s what they meant I can only speculate, but I can certainly understand the perspective of saying “not every instance of this thing is evil, and I reserve the right to judge each instance on its own merits.”
The only situation where this can be fine is if you’re quoting someone. But apart from that I can’t think about any other situation where this wouldn’t be problematic.
It depends on how you define “calling for the genocide of Jews”. Some people seem to consider saying “The Palestinian people have a right to exist” to be “calling for the genocide of Jews”.
Given the fact that the question was asked by a Republican to what they consider a fairly liberal university, I don’t exactly put a lot of stock into it being a question asked in an intellectually honest way.
“From the river to the sea” is a chant about Israel stopping to exist and be replaced with a Muslim Palestinian regime. Guess what happens to Jews under Muslim regimes. It sounds sweet until you listen to what their leaders are calling for.
There’s really no way to twist it to be about peace and freedom. It’s a genocidal chant.
Arab Jews and Arab Muslims lived peacefully together in the region for centuries prior to Zionism. Acting like they have to kill each other is part of the issue. They do not. This isn’t about religious groups that are required to hate each other, it’s about power hungry people using religion to make people hate each other for their benefit.
The hatred between Arabs and Jews isn’t natural, but it is real. The destruction of Israel would likely mean conditions for the Israelis quite similar to what the Palestinians endure now. (loss of land/ homes, political repression, official discrimination, refugees, and migration) I get the hypocrisy of Zionists calling it genocide when it happens to them, but swapping the oppressed and the oppressors isn’t a solution. It wouldn’t undo 1948, it’d redo 1948.
Does anybody wanna see what happens when there is mass migration of Jews into the West? Does anybody want to see what Israel will do with her nukes?
This is what people of good-faith mean when they say “it’s complicated”. The war crimes are simple; that the violence must stop is simple; but simple solutions are an illusion.
In what context is calling for genocide acceptable?
How people selectively quote and paraphrase is probably key. There’s a lot of people today who would hear someone say the Palestinians should be free and think they’d attack Israel, Israel is Jewish, so that’s calling for genocide. People right now are really making up their own facts and treating it like truth. So part of context dependent is how full of shit people are.
Whether that’s what they meant I can only speculate, but I can certainly understand the perspective of saying “not every instance of this thing is evil, and I reserve the right to judge each instance on its own merits.”
The only situation where this can be fine is if you’re quoting someone. But apart from that I can’t think about any other situation where this wouldn’t be problematic.
Maybe people who leave their shopping cart just anywhere in the lot, or listen to music from a speaker, on a bus?
How has this suddenly become a thing again? I hate it.
Suddenly? It’s always been a thing, just more people have easy access to speakers now.
In what context is a republican condemning antisemitism normal?
It depends on how you define “calling for the genocide of Jews”. Some people seem to consider saying “The Palestinian people have a right to exist” to be “calling for the genocide of Jews”.
Given the fact that the question was asked by a Republican to what they consider a fairly liberal university, I don’t exactly put a lot of stock into it being a question asked in an intellectually honest way.
“From the river to the sea” is a chant about Israel stopping to exist and be replaced with a Muslim Palestinian regime. Guess what happens to Jews under Muslim regimes. It sounds sweet until you listen to what their leaders are calling for.
There’s really no way to twist it to be about peace and freedom. It’s a genocidal chant.
Arab Jews and Arab Muslims lived peacefully together in the region for centuries prior to Zionism. Acting like they have to kill each other is part of the issue. They do not. This isn’t about religious groups that are required to hate each other, it’s about power hungry people using religion to make people hate each other for their benefit.
The hatred between Arabs and Jews isn’t natural, but it is real. The destruction of Israel would likely mean conditions for the Israelis quite similar to what the Palestinians endure now. (loss of land/ homes, political repression, official discrimination, refugees, and migration) I get the hypocrisy of Zionists calling it genocide when it happens to them, but swapping the oppressed and the oppressors isn’t a solution. It wouldn’t undo 1948, it’d redo 1948.
Does anybody wanna see what happens when there is mass migration of Jews into the West? Does anybody want to see what Israel will do with her nukes?
This is what people of good-faith mean when they say “it’s complicated”. The war crimes are simple; that the violence must stop is simple; but simple solutions are an illusion.