Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan?
What does it actually look like?
I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.
In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; the militaristic behaviour undermines Palestinian efforts at independence (and this is an avenue for exploitation by those who don't want to see an independent Palestine).
It is a similar situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
You can argue that the government of Israel isn't the will of the people of Israel (in the same way the US government isn't the will of the people of the US), but in my opinion there's more of a separation between 'Palestine' and 'Hamas' than there is between 'Israel' and 'the will of the people of Israel'.
There's a lot of wrongdoing, which means there are a lot of innocents being harmed, and the harming of innocents is the greatest wrongdoing. Harm by inaction is also wrong. Harm by preventing aid and assistance is also wrong.
None of this stuff is easily answered.
The joys of ideology, or maybe more correctly, the joys of living amongst those who take ideology so seriously that they attempt to enforce their fantasies upon the real world.
In my personal logic bubble: Protesting in support of Palestine is not protesting in support of Hamas. Declaring support for Israel is protesting against Hamas and their acts of terrorism against Israel. I can do both of these things without being hypocritical (like I said, in my personal logic bubble).
"democratically elected" being an extremely load bearing sentiment if you know anything about what people's lives are actually like on the ground. did you know a large majority of the populace didn't even vote in 2006? since 2006? there hasn't been elections since. The median age is 18.
Pulled all their military out? Oh, they still controlled their airspace, critical infra, borders tho? Sounds very self determined!
Serious, bad faith or extremely reductive misrepresentation that I can't tell is borne from ignorance willful or accidental.
your comment is the equivalent of acting like cuba's economy is all their own choosing, without analyzing the immense damage sanctions (and why sanctions were there in the first place) have done to the country, or accosting haiti without knowing why their struggles exist. context matters.
No, it's actually really simple. You start with these two questions:
1. Is Israel an apartheid state?
2. Is Israel committing a genocide?
At this point (IMHO) you need to do some serious mental gymnastics not to answer "yes" to both questions. As soon as you do, it gets real simple. The existence of Hamas doesn't justify either of these things.
The people who bring this up are engaging in respectability politics or engaging in weaponized cvility. Instead of addressing the underlying issues, the focus is on the methods and the actions of the oppressed when it is the oppressor that sets the level of violence. As Nelson Mandela put it:
> A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.
People understood this quite clearly with apartheid South Africa. Can you imagine protesters having to do the performative "does apartheid South Africa have a right to exist?" pledge? No, me neither.
I've never seen any protest by students that protested against Palestine.
In fact, at University of Washington, a protest was organized to support Palestine after the Oct 7 massacre on Oct 8; they chose to show support Palestine after Palestine did a massacre. And there was a very little criticism on that kind of actions.
We all know why, and the reason doesn't fit what you want to believe. That's why you pretend to be obscure about it. Otherwise, you would have just said so out loud already.
I was answering why you don't see people protesting Hamas, which is what you brought up. If you didn't want to discuss that, then you shouldn't have brought it up.
Both governments may be but there isn’t a power balance between the two in any appreciable way nor in a civilian casualty balance, especially concerning children casualties.
I think Stanford students are not out of touch. Google has enough revenue to sustain itself but yet they decided to become an arms dealer. CEOs only care about the shareholder.
> Only one side is being armed and funded by our tax dollars
I mean, yeah, I would heavily prefer for one of the sides in this conflict to be much better funded and armed than the other. Specifically, the side that I consider to be fundamentally in the right in the conflict.
Whichever side I am talking about is not relevant to the point. What's relevant to the actual point I am trying to make, is that I don't think that one side being better armed and funded serves as a reasonable indicator of which side is right/wrong in a given conflict.
Let's not victim blame here. Would you have called the Indians evil for wanting to have liberty from the british occupiers? What about the many other european colonies in Asia and Africa, were the locals "evil" for wanting to resist and get liberty?
I wonder what percentage of total graduates walked out? The video shows maybe around 50 people at all. The title makes it seem like everyone graduating walked out.
There's two opposing forces at work. Everyone wants to be Steve Jobs, and no one wants to be Steve Ballmer. So the only choice is to go to the extreme to stay as far away from the other end as possible.
Pretty light hearted, and honestly considering that he's given a speech to an empty stadium before (as referenced in the first few sentences, I think he'll have handled it just fine.
> But people have also been giving me a lot of advice on what to say. Actually, it’s been the same advice, and it’s about what not to say. People thought it would be really difficult for me; it is the last two letters of my last name, after all.
Ha, chuckle-worthy. Of course he'd find it hard to not pitch AI.
The only thing I find surprising is no-one points out that Stanford is a truly elite education system: Some 2 in 5 of students enter disabled, but almost all of them end up successful over time.
I went to the Electrical Engineering ceremony, the only speakers were from the faculty and one newly minted B.S.E.E. I biked there and saw there were a lot of smaller ceremonies across the campus outside of the stadium the photo captures.
What does it actually look like?
I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.
It is a similar situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
You can argue that the government of Israel isn't the will of the people of Israel (in the same way the US government isn't the will of the people of the US), but in my opinion there's more of a separation between 'Palestine' and 'Hamas' than there is between 'Israel' and 'the will of the people of Israel'.
There's a lot of wrongdoing, which means there are a lot of innocents being harmed, and the harming of innocents is the greatest wrongdoing. Harm by inaction is also wrong. Harm by preventing aid and assistance is also wrong.
None of this stuff is easily answered.
The joys of ideology, or maybe more correctly, the joys of living amongst those who take ideology so seriously that they attempt to enforce their fantasies upon the real world.
In my personal logic bubble: Protesting in support of Palestine is not protesting in support of Hamas. Declaring support for Israel is protesting against Hamas and their acts of terrorism against Israel. I can do both of these things without being hypocritical (like I said, in my personal logic bubble).
Pulled all their military out? Oh, they still controlled their airspace, critical infra, borders tho? Sounds very self determined!
Serious, bad faith or extremely reductive misrepresentation that I can't tell is borne from ignorance willful or accidental.
your comment is the equivalent of acting like cuba's economy is all their own choosing, without analyzing the immense damage sanctions (and why sanctions were there in the first place) have done to the country, or accosting haiti without knowing why their struggles exist. context matters.
1. Is Israel an apartheid state?
2. Is Israel committing a genocide?
At this point (IMHO) you need to do some serious mental gymnastics not to answer "yes" to both questions. As soon as you do, it gets real simple. The existence of Hamas doesn't justify either of these things.
The people who bring this up are engaging in respectability politics or engaging in weaponized cvility. Instead of addressing the underlying issues, the focus is on the methods and the actions of the oppressed when it is the oppressor that sets the level of violence. As Nelson Mandela put it:
> A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.
People understood this quite clearly with apartheid South Africa. Can you imagine protesters having to do the performative "does apartheid South Africa have a right to exist?" pledge? No, me neither.
In fact, at University of Washington, a protest was organized to support Palestine after the Oct 7 massacre on Oct 8; they chose to show support Palestine after Palestine did a massacre. And there was a very little criticism on that kind of actions.
sure it was reprehensible, but is it on the same scale even? both before and after?
criticising hamas seems like premature optimization, and picking something basically irrelevant to the overall conflict
you should think long and hard why that is but answer is as always quite simple
The other of the two governments works tirelessly to maximize casualties, especially children.
Both sides, of course, occasionally fuck it up too.
Only one side is being armed and funded by our tax dollars, and that’s good enough reason to protest.
I mean, yeah, I would heavily prefer for one of the sides in this conflict to be much better funded and armed than the other. Specifically, the side that I consider to be fundamentally in the right in the conflict.
Whichever side I am talking about is not relevant to the point. What's relevant to the actual point I am trying to make, is that I don't think that one side being better armed and funded serves as a reasonable indicator of which side is right/wrong in a given conflict.
You only think that in order to fit your narrative... even I already stated the contrary.
> that’s good enough reason to protest.
Clearly, this protest isn't about that. The protest is about criticizing Israel's actions.
It's you who should stop being disingenuous
This is the time of moral fortitude of a 12 year old.
At least in the 1990s and 2000s it felt they were doing some good stuff for humanity. But the 2010s and 2020s the masked pretty much slipped.
Pretty light hearted, and honestly considering that he's given a speech to an empty stadium before (as referenced in the first few sentences, I think he'll have handled it just fine.
> But people have also been giving me a lot of advice on what to say. Actually, it’s been the same advice, and it’s about what not to say. People thought it would be really difficult for me; it is the last two letters of my last name, after all.
Ha, chuckle-worthy. Of course he'd find it hard to not pitch AI.
The only thing I find surprising is no-one points out that Stanford is a truly elite education system: Some 2 in 5 of students enter disabled, but almost all of them end up successful over time.