#but I’m trying to be charitable here so I guess I’ll consider that an ancillary benefit and not their primary motivating factor

[airplanefoodblackmarket]

I’m just a grumpy old Two-Stater, but…

You see, the thing is, when I see University Protestors chant “Globalize the Intifada”, when I see them yell at Jewish students (their fellow members of the student body, no less) to “go back to Poland”, when I see them carry signs and make chants that invoke the Final Solution, when I see them drape themselves in the flags of Hezbollah or Hamas, when I see them refer to Hamas as “the resistance”, when I see them praise the Houthis for their “blockade of Israel” (when all that really happened was the indiscriminate firing of missiles at random civilian shipping belonging to other unrelated countries, and also a major ecological disaster), when I see them express support or sympathy or apology for these and other IRGC-backed terror organizations, when I see them engage in 10/7 denialism or even soft Holocaust denialism, when I see them claim that any Israeli civilian is a legitimate target for violent “decolonization”, when I see them imply that the only acceptable solution to the conflict is one that involves the expulsion of all Israeli Jews from the southern Levant…

I’m just forced to make a snap judgement as to whether these people are:

A) Actually Genuinely Evil, or

B) Severely misguided, under-informed people who are experiencing genuine (and correct!) horror at watching constant needless and horrific slaughter play out on every available source of information they have, and are responding to this horror the only way they know how, by gathering en masse and screaming at the only source of authority they have access to: their school administrations. Because that’s just what people in their social groups do in response to genuine and heartfelt outrage, and they just wind up going along with the antisemitic crap because of the “wisdom of the crowd” effect and because they don’t know any better.

And, to me, even after months of this, option B) still seems not only more likely to be actually correct, but also far more charitable.

But the thing is, when called out for all of that, they always double down. They equivocate and deflect and hide behind claiming that the above examples are all just “anti Zionism not antisemitism”, and they dismiss and demean the perspectives and fears of Jewish people and those of us who stick up for them.

And all of that just really makes me start to wonder about option A) after all.

#I still don’t think they’re evil #and I know the people who do all this stuff may very well be a minority among all campus protestors #But if that’s the case the “majority” still don’t seem very interested in distancing themselves from or freezing out the vocal antisemitics #And you just know that most of the people described above are white and from middle- to upper-class backgrounds #and didn’t know anything about or care about the I/P conflict until the horror of 10/7 and Israel’s horrific overreaction of a response #made it the Only Important Issue in all their social circles #Oh and lest we forget they gain social clout and internet brownie-points for reacting in this way #but I’m trying to be charitable here so I guess I’ll consider that an ancillary benefit and not their primary motivating factor