Here’s some hour-by-hour reporting from MIT.
I think a major reason it has remained peaceful is that the police have not escalated.
Okay. I have to push back on this. It’s actually really possible for coordinated groups of people to push for and enact legislative change. I see it happen a lot. Letters and phone calls do matter, in aggregate. So do strategic meetings with political leaders. The idea is to get your position on their radar so that they think of you and that conversation you had whenever the issue is raised to them. If you’re really persuasive, they might even use you as a consultant in the future. I think you’re doing a disservice to the people who are actively working to make this kind of change by implying the process doesn’t work.
The problem with a lot of recent protests is that they aren’t coordinated or strategic and are fueled more by outrage than a cohesive plan. It’s common and normative to feel outraged by death and oppression, but outrage alone isn’t going to make change happen. This is my frustration with a certain strain of modern day progressivism in a nutshell.
I love Jon Stewart, but surely he knows you can arrange an appointment ahead of time to speak with a legislator. To suggest it’s some kind of outrage that the legislator is prioritizing the guys who made an appointment is really silly.
Historically, the Kennedys’ reaction to the sit-ins, firehoses, German Shepherds, etc. was “how do we keep a lid on this?” But what mattered was when Harry Belefonte got Bobby into a hotel room with some smart people to talk.
And there’s probably a LOT of ambiguity about what needs to be divested. Would it be a multinational with a significant presence in Israel? An Israeli-owned company? A company that’s owned by a significant number of Israeli shareholders? Public companies headquartered in Israel? And what constitutes significance?
The thing is, these protests look largely like there’s a lot of unfocused anger, outrage, and sympathy, but not a lot of clear-headedness, logic, or willingness to compromise. Things that appear like that rarely actually win public sympathy from what I’ve seen, because the line between intentional non-violent disruption and just disruption for the sake of doing something is pretty blurred. And without clear and achievable goals and negotiating positions, that’s exactly how these protests look to a lot of people.
Probably doesn’t help that student protests have always seemed like one of the more privileged things to engage in here in the US, regardless of the cause.
While it is true that grassroots organizing can sometimes get legislative pull and responsiveness for change, it rarely if ever does so in the face of already entrenched interests, and especially those that are well monied and have managed to gain influence on both sides of the legislative aisle. In the case of Israel and Palestine, there is a deeply influential Israel lobby which is bolstered by the industrial interests doing direct business with Israel, especially the defense industry. There is no such influence for Palestine, nor are their any resources that could support a broad enough effort to sway even a substantial minority of legislators, and frankly, most legislators (and people in general) have long since made up their mind on the issue with little interest in reexamining their views.
The clip of Stewart doing some performative humiliation of Congresspeople might seem trite if you aren’t aware of the backstory, but in fact the 9/11 Responders and Rescuers had been trying for years via letters, scheduled appointments, public demonstrations, et cetera to just get the Zadroga Act refunding out of committee and on the floors of the House and Senate for a vote without getting any real traction or firm commitments. They followed the process and did the kind of coordination you suggest with virtually no effect (and almost zero media interest) before Stewart raised the issue into public awareness by being an ass, something he was initially reluctant to do for fear of it overshadowing the actual people who Congress should be responding to. And this is the problem; it took the public shaming by a semi-retired has-been comedic figure to get the Congress to respond to a basic issue of their constituency that they had already committed to supporting and just needed to approve a budget item.
When (mostly white) college students do it, it’s a “protest”; when others do it, it’s a “riot” or “street violence”. Privilege offers the mitigation of consequences and a certain degree of protection (and despite the complaints of police overreach and misconduct, it is nothing compared to responses in the 2020 summer demonstrations) but it doesn’t mean that the intent is less sincere.
That being said, I don’t think these protests and encampments are going to accomplish anything with respect to divesting university endowments in Israeli business or research interests, and would not have any impact upon the policy and action of the Israel government toward Palestine or prevent further military action in Gaza even if they did. To describe them as “unfocused anger, outrage, and sympathy” is accurate, but frankly, I don’t see that there is a lot of logic (or any way to negotiate) a ‘compromise’. To the extent they are having any effect it is to ensure that there is continued media focus on the issue, although I think that you are correct that it is unlikely to attract greater public sympathy, and if anything is likely to upset and enrage affected people who might otherwise be neutral on the issue.
Student protests weren’t of much effect on the US involvement in Vietnam, and public sentiment didn’t really go against the war until average families were watching their sons being drafted en masse and coming back injured and traumatized. I’m hard-pressed to find an example where public protest actually rendered an actual change in government policy unless it underlaid previously existing deep public sentiment or harkened mass civil unrest or insurrection.
Stranger
Oh, no. I wasn’t trying to imply they were insincere, just that to many people, a bunch of college students who have the wherewithal and time to protest something going on in another country probably seems very privileged and somewhat disconnected from their own reality, which isn’t so likely to gain them or their cause sympathy.
I recall yet other, and apparently less-well-off, protesters getting met with a dismissive ‘oh, they have time to protest in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, because they don’t have jobs; go get a job!’ You know, as if the messenger were everything an the message nothing — if, that is, the message is disagreeable.
Any excuse, will satisfy, and et cetera.
That does put it in a different light, yes.
At UNC some professors are threatening to withhold student grades as a protest for suspension of protestors.