Thanks Daniel. The media (not you) have portrayed the protests as illegitimate, a sideshow, a joke. Both parties are indistinguishable. Am I the only one who finds this ominous?
They are a sideshow and a joke. They made the Gaza war about them, diverted attention from it, engaged in cosplay of being oppressed while studying at $90/year universities.
And they've been a massive own goal. By all means, continue disrupting classes for the majority of students who couldn't care about the survival of Al Qassam brigades or Hamas and Sinwar as these anti-Jewish racist children care. They should continue to assault Jewish students, and vandalize buildings, because all of that exposes exactly who the "pro Palestinians" are, and what they're about.
Your "will somebody please defend the free speech rights of anti-Jewish racists to assault Jewish students and vandalize buildings" shows how detached from reality you are. If you find a law enforcement suppression of violence to be "ominous" you sound just like Trumpists who talk about Jan 6 rioters as some gentle tourists.
"It is a reminder that even non-governmental actions in the United States have foreign policy externalities."
I would submit this has been influential on US foreign policy and caused friction with foreigners for a *very* long time before now. Non-governmental actions in the United States have irked, befuddled, and outraged select foreigners for 50-80 years, and many of them, being unfamiliar with the American model of pluralism, or being solely consumed with the effects on themselves, are (or were) unwilling, unable to see non-governmental actions in the US as separate from US policy, or are (or were) unwilling to care about the difference.
*The* original and classic example of non-governmental action in the United States with foreign policy consequences was support of a *minority* of American Jews for the pre-Israel Zionist movement. Groups that lacked majority Jewish congregational or institutional consensus support, or American public consensus support, or institutional support from foreign policy bureaucracy, through passionate commitment, fundraising, direct action including arms smuggling and volunteering, including law-breaking, were able to support the Zionist settlement enterprise [alongside other Jewish supporters in other parts of the international diaspora and occasional non-Jewish donors], and provide meaningful support during the Israeli War of Independence.
This was counter to US law and its *arms embargo* on both the Zionist Yishuv and Israel in the Israeli War of Independence and 1st Arab-Israeli war and result in prosecutions of some arms smugglers for neutrality act violations. I'm uncertain if anyone faced prison terms, but Al Schwimmer who smuggled aircraft (and started Israeli Aircraft Industries) was stripped of his civil rights by the Court by 1949, with them only being restored by Bill Clinton in the late 90s.
The US even after the end of that first war and wartime embargo, still had no legal government arms sales to Israel until the Kennedy Administration sold air defense missiles in 1962, and the Johnson Administration sold all-purpose fighter aircraft in 1966 (still undelivered by June 1967's war). Israel got its most advanced and standardized arms for the 1948 war from Czechoslovakia - duly approved by Stalin's Soviet Union, and its arms in the 50s and 60s from West Germany, France, and Britain.
Yet from 1948, probably 1945, through 1967, Arab governments and publics probably put blame for the creation, worsening, and prolongation of the Zionist and Israel *problem* first and foremost on the USA over any other foreign country. Even though the USSR also supported the partition resolution in the UN, even though it de jure recognized Israel first, and even though its Czechoslovak ally gave the best and probably most decisive arms package to Israel for its first war.
Americans interacting in the region and with its people probably could have explained all this, and could have pointed out the fine distinctions between official government policy - no US military aid most of this time, limited economic aid on the same basis as everyone else gets, the lion's share of *US dollars* going to Israel coming from private groups and weapons being illegal black market surplus.
I doubt that would have done much assuaging. To somebody who is facing a problem, for the Arabs it was Israel, anything another guy fails to do to stop it, might as well be something they are doing on purpose, with malice. Their retort would be, "If you Americans really cared about your relationship with Arabs you have stopped this funding and smuggling. This private activity and fundraising could never happen without the connivance of the US government. Zionists could never advertise without government approval. If you *really* didn't want Zionists to have American WWII surplus planes you would have given Schwimmer more than just a slap on the wrist, or you would not have arms embargoed *our* armies."
Fast forward to the 1990s and 2000s - there is no convincing any authoritarian leaders that international and western pro-democracy NGOs, are *not* an arm of western government policy, and that "color revolutions" are western intelligence manufactured events and campaigns, and not grassroots, spontaneous events.
And, the plethora of non-state, societal influences in the USA and western countries does dilute central control and responsiveness of its diplomacy. A country Washington is negotiating with can try to get off its sanctions list for one issue, WMD or terrorism, but find itself back on its sights for another - human rights, suppressing an internal uprising, threatening endangered species. Or even if US government is taking no part, being effected by economically relevant boycotts over any such niche causes.
Actually, the plethora of American civil society groups and their multiple demands for a better world created a fatigue in a lot of the Global South and Global East for American liberalism as much as American hawkishness, with many Global South leaders anticipating the more straightforwardly transactional Trump might be simpler and easier to deal. It was mainly the other First World nations with their own "do-gooder" civil society sections that were most offended by Trump's victories over liberals.
The USA has become a despicable country. It is disgusting to watch the horror, carnage, raise, crime much driven by blue state elected sympathizers. No bail laws, corrupted district attorneys, all of which has one thread, Soros supported. BLM crime, which is now every day. Red states like Florida and Texas set the law order example compared to pathetic Cali, Gruesome and corrupt Illinois, with fat elite Pritzker.
This Marxist, fascist threat coordinated by Soros pawns, on college campuses is financed and coordinated by professional agitators. Where is DOJ, FBI? Purposefully hiding. Any hate, any threat today, will only be redirected towards others tomorrow. All international students, professors should be sent back if convicted. The university’s tolerance for crimes is appalling. Pathetic!
This is a US-centric way of describing the fact that all politics are now global. Anyone active in Australian (for example) politics knows where they stand with respect to US, UK and European political parties (less so the wrt Asia, Africa and South America where the issues and alignments are different).
How would you distinguish between social movements being simultaneous with related underlying causes and social movements being diffusionist from an original source? I ask this because it's now apparent in hindsight that the student movements of '68 and thereabouts were simultaneous--e.g., not "contagion" (loaded word) from the US as many at the time implied. France '68 was its own thing and yet not unrelated to US '68 or UK '68 etc. Rather similarly, on the flip side, Americans are inclined to treat Trump as a uniquely American thing but you could make a plausible argument that he's just our version of something happening globally (or even that "it", whatever it is, started elsewhere--Italy, for example).
Thanks Daniel. The media (not you) have portrayed the protests as illegitimate, a sideshow, a joke. Both parties are indistinguishable. Am I the only one who finds this ominous?
Typical extremist, ends always justify means.
LMAO, as if it is legitimate” are you kidding me.
How are protests, now global, not a legitimate response to 30,000 dead? Should they wait for 60,000? A hundred?
They are a sideshow and a joke. They made the Gaza war about them, diverted attention from it, engaged in cosplay of being oppressed while studying at $90/year universities.
And they've been a massive own goal. By all means, continue disrupting classes for the majority of students who couldn't care about the survival of Al Qassam brigades or Hamas and Sinwar as these anti-Jewish racist children care. They should continue to assault Jewish students, and vandalize buildings, because all of that exposes exactly who the "pro Palestinians" are, and what they're about.
This is scrambled beyond recognition
Your "will somebody please defend the free speech rights of anti-Jewish racists to assault Jewish students and vandalize buildings" shows how detached from reality you are. If you find a law enforcement suppression of violence to be "ominous" you sound just like Trumpists who talk about Jan 6 rioters as some gentle tourists.
"It is a reminder that even non-governmental actions in the United States have foreign policy externalities."
I would submit this has been influential on US foreign policy and caused friction with foreigners for a *very* long time before now. Non-governmental actions in the United States have irked, befuddled, and outraged select foreigners for 50-80 years, and many of them, being unfamiliar with the American model of pluralism, or being solely consumed with the effects on themselves, are (or were) unwilling, unable to see non-governmental actions in the US as separate from US policy, or are (or were) unwilling to care about the difference.
*The* original and classic example of non-governmental action in the United States with foreign policy consequences was support of a *minority* of American Jews for the pre-Israel Zionist movement. Groups that lacked majority Jewish congregational or institutional consensus support, or American public consensus support, or institutional support from foreign policy bureaucracy, through passionate commitment, fundraising, direct action including arms smuggling and volunteering, including law-breaking, were able to support the Zionist settlement enterprise [alongside other Jewish supporters in other parts of the international diaspora and occasional non-Jewish donors], and provide meaningful support during the Israeli War of Independence.
This was counter to US law and its *arms embargo* on both the Zionist Yishuv and Israel in the Israeli War of Independence and 1st Arab-Israeli war and result in prosecutions of some arms smugglers for neutrality act violations. I'm uncertain if anyone faced prison terms, but Al Schwimmer who smuggled aircraft (and started Israeli Aircraft Industries) was stripped of his civil rights by the Court by 1949, with them only being restored by Bill Clinton in the late 90s.
The US even after the end of that first war and wartime embargo, still had no legal government arms sales to Israel until the Kennedy Administration sold air defense missiles in 1962, and the Johnson Administration sold all-purpose fighter aircraft in 1966 (still undelivered by June 1967's war). Israel got its most advanced and standardized arms for the 1948 war from Czechoslovakia - duly approved by Stalin's Soviet Union, and its arms in the 50s and 60s from West Germany, France, and Britain.
Yet from 1948, probably 1945, through 1967, Arab governments and publics probably put blame for the creation, worsening, and prolongation of the Zionist and Israel *problem* first and foremost on the USA over any other foreign country. Even though the USSR also supported the partition resolution in the UN, even though it de jure recognized Israel first, and even though its Czechoslovak ally gave the best and probably most decisive arms package to Israel for its first war.
Americans interacting in the region and with its people probably could have explained all this, and could have pointed out the fine distinctions between official government policy - no US military aid most of this time, limited economic aid on the same basis as everyone else gets, the lion's share of *US dollars* going to Israel coming from private groups and weapons being illegal black market surplus.
I doubt that would have done much assuaging. To somebody who is facing a problem, for the Arabs it was Israel, anything another guy fails to do to stop it, might as well be something they are doing on purpose, with malice. Their retort would be, "If you Americans really cared about your relationship with Arabs you have stopped this funding and smuggling. This private activity and fundraising could never happen without the connivance of the US government. Zionists could never advertise without government approval. If you *really* didn't want Zionists to have American WWII surplus planes you would have given Schwimmer more than just a slap on the wrist, or you would not have arms embargoed *our* armies."
Fast forward to the 1990s and 2000s - there is no convincing any authoritarian leaders that international and western pro-democracy NGOs, are *not* an arm of western government policy, and that "color revolutions" are western intelligence manufactured events and campaigns, and not grassroots, spontaneous events.
And, the plethora of non-state, societal influences in the USA and western countries does dilute central control and responsiveness of its diplomacy. A country Washington is negotiating with can try to get off its sanctions list for one issue, WMD or terrorism, but find itself back on its sights for another - human rights, suppressing an internal uprising, threatening endangered species. Or even if US government is taking no part, being effected by economically relevant boycotts over any such niche causes.
Actually, the plethora of American civil society groups and their multiple demands for a better world created a fatigue in a lot of the Global South and Global East for American liberalism as much as American hawkishness, with many Global South leaders anticipating the more straightforwardly transactional Trump might be simpler and easier to deal. It was mainly the other First World nations with their own "do-gooder" civil society sections that were most offended by Trump's victories over liberals.
Reality--Jihadi protests on US campuses.
Drezner-- Whatabout white supremacy?
Just FYI your conception of "reality" seems.... fantastical.
Hamas headbands at Stanford, cries for intifada, etc.? These aren't peace protests.
Agree!
How you like Rafah now? Israeli ground action initiated. As Walter Cronkite would say, “that’s the way it is”.
Amazingly, I hear none of you or the sympathizers talk about the 30 Americans killed by Hamas. Despicable.
Israel will finish what Hamas started. Lmao on global. Soros will spend it all.
Richard, and all. I am sure you would appreciate having your son or daughter’s graduation violated by the Soros extremists.
The USA has become a despicable country. It is disgusting to watch the horror, carnage, raise, crime much driven by blue state elected sympathizers. No bail laws, corrupted district attorneys, all of which has one thread, Soros supported. BLM crime, which is now every day. Red states like Florida and Texas set the law order example compared to pathetic Cali, Gruesome and corrupt Illinois, with fat elite Pritzker.
This Marxist, fascist threat coordinated by Soros pawns, on college campuses is financed and coordinated by professional agitators. Where is DOJ, FBI? Purposefully hiding. Any hate, any threat today, will only be redirected towards others tomorrow. All international students, professors should be sent back if convicted. The university’s tolerance for crimes is appalling. Pathetic!
Riiiight.... https://www.axios.com/2024/04/16/homicide-rate-us-voters-trump
Cake is baked on potus Biden, playing with stats means nothing now.
This is a US-centric way of describing the fact that all politics are now global. Anyone active in Australian (for example) politics knows where they stand with respect to US, UK and European political parties (less so the wrt Asia, Africa and South America where the issues and alignments are different).
How would you distinguish between social movements being simultaneous with related underlying causes and social movements being diffusionist from an original source? I ask this because it's now apparent in hindsight that the student movements of '68 and thereabouts were simultaneous--e.g., not "contagion" (loaded word) from the US as many at the time implied. France '68 was its own thing and yet not unrelated to US '68 or UK '68 etc. Rather similarly, on the flip side, Americans are inclined to treat Trump as a uniquely American thing but you could make a plausible argument that he's just our version of something happening globally (or even that "it", whatever it is, started elsewhere--Italy, for example).
There is also a lot of evidence for this, and it is probably much more influential than in the past. Let's say compared to the 60s.
We can’t have radicalism. Specially student radicalism. Can’t put down the pens. And close the books. Heavens. Let’s proceed slowly.
Dude, let me help you out: the next time you tell me what I should be doing "as a Jew" I will permanently ban you from this space.
Bye.