The idea seems to be that the time for discussion is over, when in reality it never really started in most cases. The prevailing attitude of the extreme positions can sometimes boil down to: "If you are not 100% with me, I am 1000% against you" which is a recipe for disaster.
They are not there to be right, but join the winning group. Conversely, Reason alone is impotent unlike it becomes socially organized. How to socially organize reason is really “What matters”.
I admire your faith in reason and moral. I hope soon you read about social coordination and game theory. Philosophy is important for everything, sufficient for nothing.
Indeed. But it's not a dialogue between you and some campus activists.
It's a dialogue between Israel and Palestine, which can't happen as long the war continues to go on, and the war continues to go on as long as Israel has a great opportunity to enfore its will without the dialogue. And Israel has this opportunity as long as USA keeps supplying its war effort, regardless of the civilian casualties and war crime perpetrated.
The strategy to make USA stop unconditional support of Israel as quickly as possible, to save as many lives as possible is to mobilize the people *right now*, instead of later, so that current politician changed their course based on societal pressure. Engaging in civil debates so that there will eventually be more supporters of your position should also be done, but it here it's a lower priority and can be a case of labor distribution - some people - "radicals" protest now, while other people "moderates" persuade more people.
The thing is if the goal is to make the USA stop conditional support for Israel as quickly as possible, I don’t think college protest will do anything to move the needle. In fact, if anything, the backlash will probably make people want to support Israel even more.
The fundamental issue with the campus protesters is that they have no legitimate theory of change and they don’t realize just how much of a bubble they live in. Most Americans do not have college degrees. Most Americans do not attend elite universities. Most Americans do not care about these protests.
If anything, the amount of elite media attention the protests are taking up is probably hurtful to the Palestinian cause.
Benson is absolutely right; if you want to change the trajectory of US and Israel relations you absolutely need to have dialogue
Have you read Freddie deBoer's recent book on the social justice movement? I think what he says there about protests with no clear demands applies equally here. It's a good read.
FdB goes hard on this as well. I think at least part of this is that the groups running the Gaza protests have an almost 100% overlap with the "woke" crowd, and woke-related protests aren't about issues, they're about signaling. The woke religion is still in too early a development phase to have a dissent/reply tree inked as well as something like Christianity does.
These demonstrations have a lot in common with earlier ones, but refusing to speak to the curious is completely novel. It seems to make NO sense, and is totally unprecedented.
Yet there must be a reason, since the leaders at the top seem to be pushing this all across the USA.
There are at least two possible reasons that I can think of. (1) Israel/Gaza is just an excuse; the people at the top want young people to become accustomed to protesting. They have (vague or specific) plans for which a cadre of experienced protesters will be useful in the future. (2) Israel/Gaza is central to the organizers' goal, but persuading the American people to change their views is not. Instead, the protests are meant to make an impact on some non-American audience. To achieve this goal, they need lots of young Americans to show up and occupy things, and since they think these students are idiots, they assume that allowing a protesting student to speak to outsiders is more likely to cause them to drop out of the protest than to achieve anything.
They are correct that they are in the majority, on a global scale. Not about specific calls for "intifada", but in support of pressuring the US government to stop arming Israel to use its considerable persuasive power to encourage them to stop destroying Gaza and killing the Palestinians. Globally, the US is an outlier in many respects, and one of these respects is their unilateral support for Israel. Indeed, recent polls show that the US is the only country in the world where people have a net favourable view of Israel.[1]
You are a person of great intelligence and sensitivity, and I sincerely admire you. But I think that the 2 state project cannot work because it generally denies the right of return of expelled Palestinians. In my opinion, the solution would be to abandon the idea of a Jewish or Arab nation state in the region. The Zionist project is based on Jewish ethno-nationalism in the holy land, it is an idea which inevitably creates violence and rejection. An ultra-decentralized confederation should be created, somewhat on the model of the Rojava Kurdish communes, leaving the various cantons enormous autonomy, imposing no ethno-national or religious identity on people on a national scale. Only sovereign power would be ensured by a neutral central authority.
Thank you! It's true that a two state solution would give up on complete right of return. But I think that's a feature--millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad and would eradicate the distinctly Jewish and Democratic nature of Israel, making it roughly like the other Arab states in the region, potentially with Jews subject to violence given the massive support among Palestinians for violence, like Oct 7, against Jews.
> millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad and would eradicate the distinctly Jewish and Democratic nature of Israel
Here you are making three different statements, mixed together. Let's separate them:
1. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad
2. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would eradicate the distinctly Jewish nature of Israel
3. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would eradicate Democratic nature of Israel
I agree that 2 is likely to be true. Is it itself bad? Do ethnostates have some inherit advantage compared to non-ethnostates in your opinion?
If we do not value ethnostates for themselves then 1 depends on the truth of 3. Do you believe that Palestinians are inherently unable to live under democratic government?
Likewise with the claims about future violence towards Jews. Do you believe that this violence is an inherit property of Palestinians and nothing can be done about it other than keeping them in an isolated ghetto or that there are some reasons for this violence and if we remove these reasons, there eventually be no violence?
The idea seems to be that the time for discussion is over, when in reality it never really started in most cases. The prevailing attitude of the extreme positions can sometimes boil down to: "If you are not 100% with me, I am 1000% against you" which is a recipe for disaster.
They are not there to be right, but join the winning group. Conversely, Reason alone is impotent unlike it becomes socially organized. How to socially organize reason is really “What matters”.
I admire your faith in reason and moral. I hope soon you read about social coordination and game theory. Philosophy is important for everything, sufficient for nothing.
> solution is dialogue
Indeed. But it's not a dialogue between you and some campus activists.
It's a dialogue between Israel and Palestine, which can't happen as long the war continues to go on, and the war continues to go on as long as Israel has a great opportunity to enfore its will without the dialogue. And Israel has this opportunity as long as USA keeps supplying its war effort, regardless of the civilian casualties and war crime perpetrated.
The strategy to make USA stop unconditional support of Israel as quickly as possible, to save as many lives as possible is to mobilize the people *right now*, instead of later, so that current politician changed their course based on societal pressure. Engaging in civil debates so that there will eventually be more supporters of your position should also be done, but it here it's a lower priority and can be a case of labor distribution - some people - "radicals" protest now, while other people "moderates" persuade more people.
The thing is if the goal is to make the USA stop conditional support for Israel as quickly as possible, I don’t think college protest will do anything to move the needle. In fact, if anything, the backlash will probably make people want to support Israel even more.
The fundamental issue with the campus protesters is that they have no legitimate theory of change and they don’t realize just how much of a bubble they live in. Most Americans do not have college degrees. Most Americans do not attend elite universities. Most Americans do not care about these protests.
If anything, the amount of elite media attention the protests are taking up is probably hurtful to the Palestinian cause.
Benson is absolutely right; if you want to change the trajectory of US and Israel relations you absolutely need to have dialogue
Have you read Freddie deBoer's recent book on the social justice movement? I think what he says there about protests with no clear demands applies equally here. It's a good read.
They see themselves as demonstrating / wielding power. If you can achieve your aims by coercion, you don’t need to convince anyone.
On some universities, they are correct in this view.
FdB goes hard on this as well. I think at least part of this is that the groups running the Gaza protests have an almost 100% overlap with the "woke" crowd, and woke-related protests aren't about issues, they're about signaling. The woke religion is still in too early a development phase to have a dissent/reply tree inked as well as something like Christianity does.
Hello Matt, thanks for the article. What university is this at?
These demonstrations have a lot in common with earlier ones, but refusing to speak to the curious is completely novel. It seems to make NO sense, and is totally unprecedented.
Yet there must be a reason, since the leaders at the top seem to be pushing this all across the USA.
There are at least two possible reasons that I can think of. (1) Israel/Gaza is just an excuse; the people at the top want young people to become accustomed to protesting. They have (vague or specific) plans for which a cadre of experienced protesters will be useful in the future. (2) Israel/Gaza is central to the organizers' goal, but persuading the American people to change their views is not. Instead, the protests are meant to make an impact on some non-American audience. To achieve this goal, they need lots of young Americans to show up and occupy things, and since they think these students are idiots, they assume that allowing a protesting student to speak to outsiders is more likely to cause them to drop out of the protest than to achieve anything.
“I’m not unsympathetic to the cause of the Palestinians.”
The Israel-Madelstien conflict
“I’m not unsympathetic to the cause of the Palestinians.”
- literally every entirely unsympathetic Zionist
They are correct that they are in the majority, on a global scale. Not about specific calls for "intifada", but in support of pressuring the US government to stop arming Israel to use its considerable persuasive power to encourage them to stop destroying Gaza and killing the Palestinians. Globally, the US is an outlier in many respects, and one of these respects is their unilateral support for Israel. Indeed, recent polls show that the US is the only country in the world where people have a net favourable view of Israel.[1]
1. https://time.com/6559293/morning-consult-israel-global-opinion/
You are a person of great intelligence and sensitivity, and I sincerely admire you. But I think that the 2 state project cannot work because it generally denies the right of return of expelled Palestinians. In my opinion, the solution would be to abandon the idea of a Jewish or Arab nation state in the region. The Zionist project is based on Jewish ethno-nationalism in the holy land, it is an idea which inevitably creates violence and rejection. An ultra-decentralized confederation should be created, somewhat on the model of the Rojava Kurdish communes, leaving the various cantons enormous autonomy, imposing no ethno-national or religious identity on people on a national scale. Only sovereign power would be ensured by a neutral central authority.
Thank you! It's true that a two state solution would give up on complete right of return. But I think that's a feature--millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad and would eradicate the distinctly Jewish and Democratic nature of Israel, making it roughly like the other Arab states in the region, potentially with Jews subject to violence given the massive support among Palestinians for violence, like Oct 7, against Jews.
> millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad and would eradicate the distinctly Jewish and Democratic nature of Israel
Here you are making three different statements, mixed together. Let's separate them:
1. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would be bad
2. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would eradicate the distinctly Jewish nature of Israel
3. Millions of Palestinians returning to Israel proper would eradicate Democratic nature of Israel
I agree that 2 is likely to be true. Is it itself bad? Do ethnostates have some inherit advantage compared to non-ethnostates in your opinion?
If we do not value ethnostates for themselves then 1 depends on the truth of 3. Do you believe that Palestinians are inherently unable to live under democratic government?
Likewise with the claims about future violence towards Jews. Do you believe that this violence is an inherit property of Palestinians and nothing can be done about it other than keeping them in an isolated ghetto or that there are some reasons for this violence and if we remove these reasons, there eventually be no violence?
He is, in case the open contempt and racial animosity was subtle.
lol