A serious red line has been crossed: America’s democratic freedoms, expansive on paper, will simply not tolerate serious dissent on the U.S.–Israel relationship. As criticisms of Israel have become more mainstream, the attempt to shut them down entirely has become more extreme.

In pursuit of this blank-check relationship with an Israeli government that is becoming ever-more intransigent with each passing year, pro-Israel forces in the U.S. are attacking our own democratic freedoms in order to suppress public outcry about apartheid and potential genocide 6,000 miles away. And, if the recent campus crackdowns are any indication, these forces are winning their battle.

With tens of thousands of Palestinians left dead and the Israeli assault on Gaza ongoing, the U.S. protests targeting university ties with Israel over the last month — voluble and outspoken — have been overwhelmingly nonviolent.

Yet these nonviolent protests have met with the full brutal force of the U.S. security state. Dispersing the protest encampments, police have viciously beaten protesters, fired rubber bullets, and enveloped students in dense clouds of tear gas.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Gee, who could have predicted electing someone that spent 50 fucking years loudly declaring that there is absolutely nothing that would ever make him support Israel any less…

    Biden talking about current protestors sounds a hell of a lot like trump talking about BLM tho

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      “Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”

      “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”

      Yup. Indistinguishable.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Mr. Biden said into cameras in his first personal remarks on the campus fray in 10 days. “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.” Antisemitism, he added, “has no place” in America.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-campus-protests.html

        It’s peaceful protests to get him to stop funding a genocide, and he’s saying the protestors are the violent ones…

        Like, you realize racists said the same thing about MLK and the civil rights movement?

        Biden was friends with most of those senators. When he talks about the “good ole days” he’s talking about hanging out with Strom Thurmond and fighting school integration.

        This is who he’s always been.

        If protests arent inconvenient, how is it going to work?

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          He’s not talking about peaceful protest there. He’s clearly addressing attacks on Jewish people. In case you’re not aware, antisemitism is prejudice against Jews, prejudice against Israel is nationalism. I know Netanyahu likes to conflate the two, but Biden knows the difference.