16 votes

Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of September 16

Automatically posted
Tags: israel, palestine, gaza strip, 2023 israel hamas war, recurring.weekly, war, megathread

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Israel-Hamas war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

Please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

14 comments

  2. [9]
    rosco
    Link
    Prosecutors charge 10 people at UC Irvine after pro-Palestinian protests. Looks like the UC System is up to their old, anti-student tricks. Feels like 2020 all over again.

    Prosecutors charge 10 people at UC Irvine after pro-Palestinian protests. Looks like the UC System is up to their old, anti-student tricks. Feels like 2020 all over again.

    7 votes
    1. [8]
      gary
      Link Parent
      Any sufficiently motivated small group could shut down anything if there's no established boundaries, so the question would be what those boundaries should be. Today it's protestors on your side,...

      In the spring, university officials said they had allowed a peaceful encampment to remain on campus even though it violated school policies, but called in police after a small group barricaded themselves inside a lecture hall, supported by a large group of community members outside.

      Any sufficiently motivated small group could shut down anything if there's no established boundaries, so the question would be what those boundaries should be. Today it's protestors on your side, but tomorrow it might not be. The Canadian truckers' protest comes to mind.

      8 votes
      1. [4]
        rosco
        Link Parent
        I suppose, but civil disobedience is a university standard and the responses are always extremely overblown. As a former UC graduate myself, with a good friend who has recurring migraines...

        I suppose, but civil disobedience is a university standard and the responses are always extremely overblown. As a former UC graduate myself, with a good friend who has recurring migraines following a blow to the head and ER visit from an overeager officer contacted by the UC in 2020 (while she was sitting, linked arm in arm with other protestors) I have a hard time giving the regents the benefit of the doubt. Their MO has been to over-escalate, litigate, and assign blame to students. It happened at Davis, Santa Cruz, and what is happening at Irvine is no different. During my time as a student (late 00s) I couldn't get to class on at least a dozen occasions - all driven by some form of protest. Acting as if this isn't par for the coarse at a higher ed university in the US is arguing in bad faith.

        13 votes
        1. [3]
          updawg
          Link Parent
          Not sure if you went to a UC school, but I don't remember a single protest beyond people holding signs saying to stay out of Syria. And that was at UCB. Okay, not UC Berkeley; it was another UCB...

          Acting as if this isn't par for the coarse at a higher ed university in the US is arguing in bad faith.

          Not sure if you went to a UC school, but I don't remember a single protest beyond people holding signs saying to stay out of Syria. And that was at UCB.

          Okay, not UC Berkeley; it was another UCB where no one other than the administration actually calls it UCB, but my point stands

          2 votes
          1. [2]
            rosco
            Link Parent
            I went to pretty politically active UCs, for both undergrad (2007-2011) and grad school (2018-2020). When I lived on campus I was woken up protests pretty regularly - enough so that it was a big...

            I went to pretty politically active UCs, for both undergrad (2007-2011) and grad school (2018-2020). When I lived on campus I was woken up protests pretty regularly - enough so that it was a big deal. I personally wasn't politically active as an undergrad and found it frustrating but a part of life. I had classes that would be cancelled due to protests, so years not infrequently. When I was an undergrad the cost of tuition increased 50% year over year for 4 years, so that got folks riled up. My sophomore year the tallest redwood on campus was cut down to make way for new construction, cue tree sitters and protests. Again so classes disrupted. There were protests for gender rights, anti-war in Afghanistan, responses to judicial rulings, responses to acts by the UC Regents, cost of living for graduate students, etc... You name it, there was a protest. The number of arrests and charges due to these tended to be low, but when they weren't they were over reaching and violent. Out of curiosity what's the other UCB that isn't a UC? Also just a clarification I'm speaking specifically about the University of California system and the overstep by the Regents.

            3 votes
            1. updawg
              Link Parent
              University of Colorado Boulder, almost always known as CU, except when the administration wants to make sure everyone knows that UCCS is a real school, too. The biggest planned protest I heard...

              University of Colorado Boulder, almost always known as CU, except when the administration wants to make sure everyone knows that UCCS is a real school, too.

              The biggest planned protest I heard about was when they were going to close campus for 4/20, but, like, they closed campus, so there wasn't a protest. We got plenty of Californians, so I suspect we got the UC rejects who liked to act like UC students, which is why the school projected an image of being a top-tier school with politically active students, when, in reality, it was just kinda...fine. That describes a lot of Boulder, to be honest.

              1 vote
      2. [3]
        LukeZaz
        Link Parent
        Yeah, that's what a protest is. Disruptive. That's the point. Otherwise it's a parade. Things don't change when protests aren't disruptive.

        Any sufficiently motivated small group could shut down anything if there's no established boundaries,

        Yeah, that's what a protest is. Disruptive. That's the point. Otherwise it's a parade.

        Things don't change when protests aren't disruptive.

        7 votes
        1. [2]
          gary
          Link Parent
          Being a protest is not grounds to surpass all limits. My assertion is merely that limits exist somewhere. January 6 was a "protest" that aimed to be more than a parade, in some eyes. Obviously I...

          Being a protest is not grounds to surpass all limits. My assertion is merely that limits exist somewhere. January 6 was a "protest" that aimed to be more than a parade, in some eyes. Obviously I disagree with that, as do many on this site, but it demonstrates that limits must exist in any functional society.

          5 votes
          1. LukeZaz
            Link Parent
            Of course. It'd generally be frowned upon to, say, murder people, as some at Jan 6th came to try and do. But that's not what we're talking about, here. These students weren't protesting their...

            Of course. It'd generally be frowned upon to, say, murder people, as some at Jan 6th came to try and do.

            But that's not what we're talking about, here. These students weren't protesting their wannabe-dictator losing an election, they were protesting a genocide. And I rather consider barricading a lecture hall to be significantly less of a concern than anything that happened at January 6th.

            We're not talking about protesters hurting people, here. We're talking about protesters being hurt because the way they protested made things too inconvenient for a select few.

            9 votes
  5. skybrian
    Link
    Civilian effort to equip Israeli soldiers for war with Hezbollah ratchets up alongside hostilities (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) ... ... ...

    Civilian effort to equip Israeli soldiers for war with Hezbollah ratchets up alongside hostilities (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

    As tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have shot up to new highs, Israeli soldiers anticipating being deployed to the north are increasingly turning for help to the civilian donation efforts that have kept them stocked in Gaza.

    ...

    The Israeli cabinet has declared as a war aim the return of 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes by Hezbollah’s rockets. Hundreds of pagers have exploded across Lebanon in attacks targeting Hezbollah operatives. Israel assassinated a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared Israel has “crossed a red line.” And the Israeli military has redeployed a large fighting division from Gaza to the northern border.

    Over the weekend, tensions escalated sharply. Israel battered Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon, including in Beirut far from the border and of a meeting of Hezbollah commanders who Israel said were planning an Oct. 7-style invasion of the north. Meanwhile, Hezbollah sent dozens of rockets deep into Israeli territory, injuring several and sparking fires in populated areas.

    ...

    Jews in the Diaspora who have been asked repeatedly since Hamas’s attack last October to help buy soldiers combat gear have largely responded with an open checkbook, but they have also expressed alarm about the implication that the military cannot supply itself.

    ...

    In another possible sign of how serious the need for more equipment is, earlier efforts by the military to stop the flow of donations to individual units appear to have receded. In July, the commander of Israel’s ground forces, Tamir Yadai, warned his troops about rules against accepting donations and threatened heightened enforcement. He also called for officers to inventory all donated supplies and confiscate equipment that doesn’t match IDF standards.

    Yadai’s order had a chilling effect on donors, who feared that their contributions would go to waste, according to multiple fundraising groups.

    Since then, however, Yadai has resigned from the military. And officers are not taking action to stop donations, according to the civilian aid groups.

    2 votes