Notice how moderate the pro-Gaza language was in the NYU students' demands. Nothing about divestment.
By demanding
investigation into war and genocide profiteers, providing aid to Gaza,
and offering scholarships to Palestinian students, we are demanding
that the University heed our own voices immediately. Through
these demands we are also stating our solidarity with the students who
have occupied their universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere
demanding aid for war-torn Gaza.
And notice in the comments under that declaration, how controversial even this was, in the New York community, which is so heavily Jewish. And notice that the Kimmel Center the students occupied was endowed by Martin Kimmel, who seems to have been a Zionist. That's New York. Zionists are thick on the ground.
Zionism pervades the left, too. Blogger Kit Gallant on Huffpo is angry at the NYU lefties for daring to break up the beautiful coalition that gave us Barack Obama. It was so much fun when we were all together for Obama! Gallant says, then calls the occupiers "marginal" and warns them that their Palestinian agenda is going to make them no friends.
through their myopic, ineffective, and immature political platform and
by implying without a shred of evidence that they suspect the NYU
administration is investing in war and genocide profiteers, they have
demonstrated and therefore deepened a saddening intellectual and
strategic failure of my and their generation.
It's time to challenge the Obama coalition over this issue and let the people who support the Gaza slaughter find a different base. This is the Mark Green of Air America problem: Out of unexamined love for Israel, the left refuses to acknowledge the wedge issue in our ranks. Here it comes.
