As the Israel Hamas war continues, well past the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas initial public sympathy has turned away from Israel and toward Palestine as their casualties have mounted in excess of 20,000, far beyond the collateral definitions common to wars. While those boundaries have expanded so have the protests, and in America’s largest cities, Chicago to name one, have had sit-ins, demonstrations, and speeches condeming the killings nearly every week, some even on the same day.
While to a large extent these protests have been by Palestinian Americans, and their supporters, there have been many by Jews, as well, giving a multi shaded dimension to what could easily be seen as one dimensional, pointing to a complexity that might have become lost in the shuffle of social media, and press coverage.
On a recent weekend on Chicago’s posh Michigan Avenue, we noticed a truck emblazoned with multi-colored letters detailing the deaths of children in Gaza, with the tagline of “enjoy your weekend.”
In a curious manner the passengers on our bus studiously avoided looking at it, or each other; but., it’s no secret that the war has galvanized opinions on both sides, and people are becoming circumspect in both their speech, and manner.
That protests have notably taken a hold on college campuses, while not surprising, has taken hold in student populations that have heretofore tolerated uneasy, but tolerant alliances, such as the one at George Washington University with its large Jewish and Arab population, which earlier took the form of a projection on one of the walls of the Gelman Library.
As The Washington Post reported: “Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at GWU projected multiple images on the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library on Oct. 24, the GWU statement on Tuesday said. Jewish student groups among others have objected to the images, which were in the form of slogans, and described them as potentially antisemitic. One of the projections, according to photographs, was the phrase “Divestment from Zionist genocide now.” Others included “Glory to our martyrs” and the slogan “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
The group faces a 90 day suspension.
The most salient, and recent, media explosion occurred when three of the nation’s most prestigious universities had their presidents appear before the U.S. Senate, angrily grilled by New York Republican Elise Stefanik, and fellow Republican Kevin Kieley, who asked a hypothetical question principally of Claudine Gay of Harvard,
Jonathan Chait, writing for New York Magazine said in a recent piece:
“The question posed was whether anti Semitiic demonstrations would be allowed within university policies. All three answered well within the parameters of the question, but were berated, when they did.”
Most importantly, he noted that, “The job of a college president involves constantly apologizing and promising to do better. This week, several elite college presidents’ object of their groveling was Congress, which subjected them to a series of largely impossible queries about antisemitism on campus at a hearing everybody agrees went quite poorly for them.”
The question to Gay was, “If you were talking to a prospective student’s family, a Jewish student’s family right now,” asked Kiley, “could you look them in the eye and tell them that their son or daughter would be safe and feel safe and welcome on your campus?”
She replied, “We are absolutely committed to student safety.” Kiley noted acidly that Gay had dodged the question, that he repeated it but received the same answer.”
“And it is true that she failed to answer the question — because there’s no good answer. If Gay says Jewish students would feel absolutely safe on campus, she is denying the problem. If she says they wouldn’t, she is telling Jewish students they shouldn’t come to Harvard.”
Segueing to one significant note Chait added, “So what does it mean to make Jewish students feel safe on campus? One way would be to crack down on anti-Israel rhetoric that might make many Jews feel threatened. That would be consistent with the methods universities have sometimes employed to protect other minority groups. But it would also be deeply illiberal.”
“A more limited and defensible response would be to police conduct. When mobs of students disrupt classes and make it hard for students to walk around campus without being screamed at (or shoved), that creates an intimidating atmosphere.”
While it is not our intention to go into the details of university policies, it is easy enough for the careful reader, or listener, to discern that politics have co opted the protests on college campuses, and Stefanik and others have gone beyond the parameters of student safety and rights to attack elite liberal colleges.
An acolyte of former president Donald Trump, Stefanik seemed to take a wicked delight as the chief questioner, even at the expense of attacking her own alumnus, Harvard.
Let’s end this discussion to quote Chait who said that “The presidents’ efforts to deflect every question about genocide of the Jews into a legalistic distinction between speech and conduct may have sounded grating, and Stefanik’s indignant replies may have sounded like moral clarity. But on the whole, they were right to focus on the distinction between speech and conduct, and Stefanik was wrong to sneer at it. A better criticism would be that colleges are failing to protect Jewish students by refusing to enforce rules of conduct. But that is different from, and in some ways the opposite of, the point Stefanik chose to stand on.”
Lost in these political theatrics are some of the facts, notably the death toll of fleeing Gazans with no safe place to hide (85% of whom have been displaced), and, many of whom are children, sick with typhus and dysentery, forced to drink contaminated water, in the absence of fresh, to merely survive; 360,000 is the latest figure to date. And Israeli captives are still being held by Hamas.
Add to the charges of rape and sexual mutilation by Hamas against Israeli hotages are the equally disturbing images of captured Palestenian men, in hiding, and forced to strip to their underwear, often blindfolded, and forced to kneel in the streets, or herded into the back of military convoy trucks, the rage, on both sides increases exponentially.
While few would support the horrors of war, with its wide ranging repercussions, it’s also apparent to many observers, us included, that this is a wide ranging, and multifaceted response that is generating more and more anger, giving less and less support to Israel.
If disingenuous responses, like that of Stefanik, loom large in the public consciousness then the background of calls for a cease fire are becoming engendered, even as the United Nations tries to negotiate a resolution to do just that.
As the New York Times reported:
“United Nations and other aid workers warned on Saturday that a new U.N. Security Council resolution calling for stepped-up aid for Gaza’s embattled civilians would fail to stop the spiraling humanitarian crisis because it did not demand a full halt to the fighting.
“The resolution called on the U.N. Secretary General to appoint a special coordinator for aid to Gaza and establish a mechanism to speed up aid delivery in consultation with all relevant parties.”
“But without a cease-fire to accompany the stepped-up assistance, aid officials said they cannot address the insufficient food and fuel entering the territory, the collapse of Gaza’s commercial sector, frequent communications disruptions, or the inability of relief workers to reach many areas because of intensive Israeli airstrikes and ground operations.”
“Right now, we cannot deploy humanitarian aid. It’s impossible,” said Guillemette Thomas, the medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Jerusalem. “People need to be able to get food and water without the fear of being bombed or killed or shot at any moment. We need to be able to move within the strip to access people,” she added.
“The only thing that would be helpful is a cease-fire.”
The questions, and these assertions, fueling the frustration of those advocating for a cease fire are based on what they see as intransigence by Israel against any, and all, attempts at lessening the constraints that have led to the starvation and suffering of millions of Gazans.
Again from the Times: “Nor did the resolution immediately undo any of the snarls that have limited aid entering Gaza, including a stringent inspection system by the Israeli authorities, who say they want to prevent the entry of weapons or other goods that could benefit Hamas’s military operations.”
“Human Rights Watch this week accused the Israeli government of “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” which it called “a war crime.”
“Israeli officials said after the vote that they would still screen all goods entering Gaza, a process that U.N. officials and aid agencies have criticized as cumbersome and slow.”
“The resolution maintains Israel’s security authority to monitor and inspect aid entering Gaza,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said after the vote.
“Last week, after significant international pressure, Israel opened its main cargo crossing into Gaza and began letting aid in. That crossing, Kerem Shalom, was open for the first time since the war began for major aid shipments.”
Facing criticism by Israeli citizens, some of whom blame Benjamin Netyanhu for the Oct. 7 attack, there are also those who feel that he is not doing enough to free the hostages, a political maelstrom that might engulf future efforts by the Israeli government to end the fighting. And, added to the shooting of three Israeli hostages who escaped and walking shirtless down the road and waving white flags, the prime minister faces multiple accusations that he is doing more harm, than good, and not freeing current hostages.
For the United States, a long time, and staunch, ally of Israel, the country, as well as President Biden who is up for reelection and facing low polls, is becoming ensnared in a near cataclysm of criticism, and is being urged to force Israel for a permanent cease fire.
Illinois Congresswoman and Senator Dick Durbin recently faced off screaming mobs outside their homes, as demands for a cease fire, and the pain of area residents, who have relatives in Gaza became too close to ignore.
All of these protest seem to no avail despite pleas from the Biden administration to stop the seemingly indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and as of Christmas Day, an offer by the Egyptian government for a temporary cease fire, and future governance of the Gaza Strip, as reported by ABC News:
“Israel and Hamas on Monday gave cool public receptions to an Egyptian proposal to end their bitter war. But the longstanding enemies stopped short of rejecting the plan altogether, raising the possibility of a new round of diplomacy to halt a devastating Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.”
“The Egyptian plan calls for a phased hostage release and the formation of a Palestinian government of experts to administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, according to a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat familiar with the proposal.”
Perhaps the most poignant note of all comes in an OpEd piece for The Washington Post by Queen Rania of Jordan, who wrote, in part: “Since Oct.7, the vast majority of casualties in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been civilians. Whether killed, kidnapped or unjustly detained, each person leaves an unfillable void. There is no difference between the pain Palestinian and Israeli mothers feel over the loss of a child.”
