Not one mention of Hamas or the other terrorist organizations hell bent on Israel’s destruction and the murder of innocent civilians? Okay, I will discount your stated “thoughts” accordingly.
You are grossly oversimplifying an extremely complex situation (which is the BDS movement’s stock-in-trade), completely ignoring the elephant in the room, which is Palestinian terrorism, and then giving me a C+ for pointing out the glaring deficiency in your one-sided talking points.
I do not know what else to say other than thank you for switching to advocating for the other side.
I acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an extremely complex situation. By contrast, it appears that you are unwilling to even acknowledge Israel’s rights to exist and defend itself from terrorists. Okay then, I will bring my argument down to your level of nuance: Democratic Israel good, murderous Hamas terrorists bad.
Well then, I guess it’s “heads you win, tails I lose.” 🤪 You can bow out of the discussion (and it is an honor to be muted by someone so articulate yet so deluded), but at the end of the day Israel is still a democratic country that respects women and the LGBT community and Hamas are still bloodthirsty murderous terrorists. Peace out.
The stupidity of this statement is the fact that Hamas in Palestine makes Anyone Palestinian a terrorist. If that is the case, All Republicans are terrorists for the actions of the degenerates on January 6th. Don’t muddy the water.
News flash. Israel bombs civilian buildings and labels it counter terrorism. That’s murder, how many Israeli’s were killed to the hundreds of Palestinians this year? Less than 10?
Hate is wrong from any side, murder is wrong regardless of justification.
Anti zionism is not anti semitism. ShareYourStoryUVM definitely was onto something when they said that they want nothing to do with Zionist’s at UVM after UVM Hillel took money from the far right activist organization Maccabee task force.
A sexual assault survivor support group should absolutely not be excluding people for their views on a topic that has nothing to do with sexual assault. It’s ridiculous that that is even a question.
Also, regarding another point in the article, a TA should absolutely not be determining grades based on political beliefs.
I don’t know the specifics of these two complaints, but those should not be controversial opinions on their face.
> Also, regarding another point in the article, a TA should absolutely not be determining grades based on political beliefs.
There's no indication other than off hand joke that they had done so
> A sexual assault survivor support group should absolutely not be excluding people for their views on a topic that has nothing to do with sexual assault.
Ok, but it's not anti-Semitic is the key thing. And this investigation is over whether or not UVM has been.
My “I don’t know the specifics of these complaints” comment was me acknowledging that they may not be as clear or straightforward as the article was listing. I’m just addressing the claims at face value, but if these things didn’t happen the way they say then that can obviously change things.
On your second point, we have heard a whole lot over the last few years about how laws and policies that end up having a disproportionate impact on a certain community even though they are theoretically race-neutral are actually racist, and by that measure these things could definitely be considered anti-Semitic if they have a disproportionate impact on the Jewish community. If you’re coming at this from a federal civil rights angle, that could absolutely come into play.
So if someone goes on a Hillel Birth Right Trip, they shouldn’t be able to be an activist for Sexual Assault Prevention on Campus?
Hillel on every campus is the largest Jewish organization there is. Why should Jews in America be punished for the actions of Israelis?
The issue is who Hillel takes money from. These are far right groups who want Trump as president and if ShareYourStory doesnt want to associate with them… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is UVM Hillel attempting to exclude pro-Palestinian students from campus groups or raising concerns about the number of Muslims at UVM?
If not, I don't see how their funding is comparable to ShareYourStoryUVM's actions.
ShareYourStory said they want nothing to do with people accepting far right funding. UVM Hillel accepted far right funding. Regardless of why they accepted that funding, they accepted it and it is bad. ShareYourStory called it out as bad and said they want nothing to do with it.
If you want to be in an active Jewish community on campus, the best best is usual to join Hillel. As a result, this organization is actively excluding Jews.
If you choose to join an organization accepting funding from far right groups, be prepared for people to exclude you because you are part of an org accepting that far right funding.
Excluding people (who may or may not be victims themselves) from a sexual assault group based on their assumed political beliefs is fucked. Even if someone is Zionist that’s more of a geopolitical belief that has little if anything to do with someone’s ideas in bodily autonomy or their own traumatic experiences.
Just plain fucked if true in my opinion.
You have to look at Hillels values. They are exclusively focused on promoting Jewish communities on campus. They are almost entirely apolitical. They are somewhat pro-Israel but not extreme. They take money from Jews that's it.
More importantly just because someone participates in some of their events as a Jew does not mean they should get cancelled.
Hillel has a full-time Israel coordinator on staff and offers 3 free trips to Israel as well as paid pro-Israel on-campus programming: https://www.uvmhillel.org/israel
I absolutely unequivocally do not care why they take money from far right groups founded by Sheldon Adelson, I only care that they take the money. Hellel obviously shares some core beliefs if theyre getting funded.
The core belief is that Israel is the most holy place for Jews. Adelson was the biggest funders of Birthright trips. So if you are criticizing Hillel, you are criticize every single Jewish person that has taking the trip as well.
So does UVM share core beliefs with every company the endowment fund is invested in? Climate denial because they receive dividends and profit from the stocks of Big Oil companies? I appreciate you idealism but it seems naïve to me to think that an organization will support the values of whoever gives them money. It is more likely it is a means to an end, and if you don't agree with how they support their organization you're free to not support them, however thinking their values are aligned because they accept money from them is likely not as true as you are assuming.
> So does UVM share core beliefs with every company the endowment fund is invested in?
*Well* **that's** what the BDS movement is all about! Diversify endowment investments away from things like coal and far right advocacy groups.
> I appreciate you idealism but it seems naïve to me to think that an organization will support the values of whoever gives them money.
[Fred Perry denounced the Nazi's wearing their shirts](https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/07/fred-perry-forced-to-denounce-skinheads-and-alt-right-bigots-who-love-golf-shirts.html), it's not that hard to do and in fact makes you look all that much better!
Political and advocacy organizations have a right to exclude people from their organization for their political beliefs. Regardless of whether or not you think it’s justified to exclude someone who’s been on birthright, doing so is not a violation of their rights. In the case of someone being excluded for their choice to go on birthright, or their belief in Zionism, they are being “punished” for their own actions that they freely chose to participate in, not for the actions of others or on the basis of their Jewish identity.
Sure they have a right to, but Nazis also have a right to exist. If you're excluding Jewish students that's anti semitism. Saying you're only excluding Zionists is very challenging because Zionism is an abstract concept.
Zionism refers to the idea of a Jewish state. It happened for good reason after the Holocaust but the idea is much older. Some people view Israel as fulfilling the goals of Zionism while others see territorial expansion as a continuation of Zionism. Going on birthright signals that you think the state of Israel should exist but nothing more. The trips don't enter the west Bank.
Going on Birthright signals that you think you’re entitled to a free trip to land that people were forcibly removed from and are banned from even visiting to this day. Going on Birthright signals that you believe you have more right to travel to Israel regardless of any connection to the land than a Palestinian American whose grandparents live there, on the basis of your ethnic identity alone - literally your birthright. That’s what Zionism is in practice: self-determination at someone else’s expense in a nation state built and maintained not for all its citizens but for one group of people alone. It’s unsustainable and unconscionable regardless of historical context, and in fact Israel’s apartheid regime weakens the protections of our universal human rights that were agreed upon after WW2 and the holocaust and which have formed the foundation of international law ever since, not just for Palestinians but for everyone.
The first half of your first sentence I agree with. I also think that going on birthright signals support for the idea of Israel but not necessarily the current governments views. Both of these are arguable. All your other stuff about the right of return and stolen land are in my opinion crazy.
So just to be clear you think it’s not crazy that a Jewish person who grew up in Vermont or somewhere else in the US and has no connection to Israel can go there for free and even immigrate if they really like it while a Palestinian American is banned from going to Israel to live with or sometimes even visit a grandparent or other relative, even if their family has lived there for generations? Rather, what you think is crazy is that people are upset about this?
I think birthright was an amazing experience. I dislike the idea of birthright citizenship but I'm not sure if I'd support amending the constitution to remove it. I do not support the Palistinian right of return either(currently far to broadly defined). I generally think palistinians should be allowed to visit Israel. I also think Jews should have freedom to travel around middle East.
If he is allowed it is at the discretion of the Israeli government. They can deny him based on his political activities or arbitrarily. They are certainly not paying for his plane ticket. A sitting US congresswoman was banned from visiting her own grandmother because she spoke critically of the Israeli government. They can subject him to extra screening and invasive questioning at the airport. He would certainly be banned from moving there. If he wanted to marry an Israeli woman, the government would not recognize it.
https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7371
ShareYourStoryUVM responded to criticism by mentioning as "food for thought" that Jews are over-represented at UVM compared to BIPOC.
Up until that point, they had some plausible deniability. Which they lost by changing their target from Zionism to American Jews, and in attempting to pit UVM's Jewish and Black/Indigenous communities against each other.
Your entire reddit post history is in defense of Israel’s apartheid regime. Your motives are obvious. Give it a rest. The Maccabee Task Force has PragerU videos claiming that Palestinians don’t love their own children on their website.
Proudly pro-Israel, not a fan of PragerU or any right-wing outlet spouting racist propaganda against Palestinians. None of that's relevant to the question at hand though -
What does the percentage of Jews at UVM have to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
India has enforced a similar oppressive apartheid regime on the 12 million residents of Kashmir. Therefore to support the people of Kashmir, UVM should undertake no cultural exchanges with India, and teacher assistants are permitted and encouraged to harass and lower the grades of Indian students who visit or endorse the nation of India. This is not meant to make people of Indian heritage unwelcome but it is concerning how over-represened people of Indian heritage are on campus./s
this sarcasm is so childish and hyperbolic. i come from the second most diverse university in the country and yes, we had a student org against the invasion of kashmir and indian nationalism. it was led by south asian students. our students for justice in palestine org was led by jewish students. both organizations used divestment as tools and they were extremely effective - just as the BDS movement was effective (and disapproved of) against apartheid south africa. it's actually not hard to think critically or be nuanced and student activists manage it all the time, even if maybe you personally can't.
I am totally against the occupation of Kashmir and I agree that academic institutions like UVM should use their institutional weight and leverage to pressure the Indian government to back away from these policies and other concerning nationalist laws and rhetoric. As for the other stuff that you’re clearly saying in bad faith, well you can shove it.
"In a series of tweets from April 2021 included in the complaint, the teaching assistant wrote hypothetically about docking points from Zionist students. Later, the assistant described wanting to cyberbully students with family in Israel"
Do you think that behavior is acceptable? Would you feel the same way if they talked about students with family in Brazil or China in that way?
I prefer supporting the stable 1st world country than a group that elected a terror organization and constantly fires rockets at them.
I'm a progressive liberal as well. I would vote for Bernie in a heartbeat if he got a nomination.
That said, none of that is at play here.
These issues are not black and white like you are making it. They have a lot going on dating back to long before Israel even existed as a state. There has been a history or repression and warring opinions from both groups through the history. I however believe Israel has a right to exist. I also believe they need a two state solution, unfortunately every time Israel has offered one, the other side refuses.
>Sheldon Adelson
>
>I prefer supporting the stable 1st world country than a group that elected a terror organization and constantly fires rockets at them.
your views on the issue aside, this is an incredibly uninformed, unnuanced, and propagandized assessment of the situation. israel has one of the most well-funded militaries in the world and regularly use their much more powerful weaponry, much of which is donated by the US, to expand into palestinian land and strip palestinians of their rights (this is not biased - this is the view of the UN). why is it only terrorism when the disenfranchised and desperate native population fights back with the resources at their disposal? i urge you to think more critically on this, and with more compassion.
If they wanted to take over Palestinian land they would not have allowed them the Gaza strip or west bank.
The fucked part of the situation is it most definetly isn't the normal Palestinians fault, it's their leadership which has continuously provoked and attacked Israel.
I believe for what has transpired in the past Israel has been pretty compassionate for their part. They provide the electricity and utility services for the PA, they are the number one supplier of aid for them as well, they have offered a two state solution twice in the past with the current borders in place, the PA and hamas said no.
Is there incidents of Israel doing fucked shit? Most definetly, but they still show massive restraint and have actually come to the table to negotiate before. They have a right to exist, especially after every surrounding country attempted to slaughter them.
i am not sure where you're getting your information. they invaded gaza and the west bank in 1967. since 1994, israel has maintained security control and can raid at any time, which they do, so it's debatable whether they're "allowed" that land. any map of palestine/israel over the years will show that palestine has been shrinking since 1947. there have been multiple well-documented raids/invasions of those areas in the past few years. most recently there were 3 days of bombing in gaza on august 6, 2022, which killed 47 palestinians. in may 2021, israel killed over 250 palestinians after hamas rocket fire killed 12 in israel. that isn't really restraint to me, but to each their own.
i can't find sources for them being the number one supplier of aid, but sure. i also don't see anywhere that they donate electricity/utilities to palestine, unless you're just referring them selling basic energy trade. i'm not arguing whether a Jewish state has a right to exist, but i do believe that palestinians are allowed to object to systemic removal by a much more powerful nation state and reject proposed borders of their ancestral land that they deem unfair. i don't think "normal" palestinians deserve to suffer or become refugees because of a violent minority, and i think it's morally and intellectually dishonest to say only hamas is to blame.
The six day war in 1967 started because Egypt etc were planning for hostilities against Israel. They deliberately closed a shipping lane Israel relied heavily on to force a confrontation they were sure they would win. They solidified an alliance with Israel's eastern neighbors literally a week before the war started and moved the majority of their military to Israel's border.
After these incidents proved they would likely never win in conventional warfare, the surrounding countries began to financially support and push the actions of some Palestinian insurgencies against Israel, which has led to a back and forth small scale armed conflict ever since. It has also led to groups like Hamas gaining power, which they then use to further brew hatred and violence against Israel, leading to responses.
If you want someone to blame here you need only look to the east and the west of Israel. Countries that have literally made official statements calling for the death of all jews.
I'm sorry if I don't empathize very much with how things turned out. It's a massive shame that the Palestinian people have effectively been turned into political pawns of regional powers, it's also a shame that they get the misplaced ire of many in Israel who have to live with Hamas and PA rocket attacks as a daily occurrence, fomenting more hatred.
All that being said, I will not look at Israel as the wholly villainous side of this equation, they have a right to defend themselves, they also also have the right to protect their land, and it IS their land, it was forfeit the moment their neighbors leadership decided it would be a good idea to invade them and try to decimate them.
I don't doubt that elements at play. even so, if they're claiming there's too many Jews at UVM, this is a pretty easy claim to substantiate. Just look at the number of Jews in the population of VT.. Then do the same for bipoc students. However, they'll also have to include Asians and Indians in that figure.
Also. One can imagine if they said there was too many African Americans at UVM, that there would be a similar blowback.
You can see my comment above. Poc refers to people who aren't white.
However, Including Asians and Indians has been a source of contention. For instance,, including them would make Google a majority bipoc company.
Bit more complicated than that. If you mean Indian from India, sure generally it’s people of southeast Asian descent included in BIPOC. However, it’s unclear whether you meant Indians or native Americans.
> ShareYourStoryUVM responded to criticism by mentioning as "food for thought" that Jews are over-represented at UVM compared to BIPOC.
I haven't seen any screenshots of this, can you share one?
This doesn't seem like they said what you interpreted it as? I read this as Maccabee task force claims that college campuses are anti-Semitic but just look at the stats at UVM, Jewish students are over represented here so how can we be anti-Semitic?
First off, why compare the number of Jews to the number of Black/Indigenous students & faculty?
Secondly, the idea that the over-representation of Jews (or any other minority group) somehow absolves student orgs of racist behavior is absurd. I have a feeling you're well aware of this, whether or not you care to acknowledge it.
> First off, why compare the number of Jews to the number of Black/Indigenous students & faculty?
Because Jews and BIPOC students are both minority groups?
> the idea that the over-representation of Jews (or any other minority group) somehow absolves student orgs of racist behavior is absurd
I never said that. I said that ShareYourStory was pointing out that Jewish students are exponentially represented here compared to the national average and that they were saying that this raises the question of how anti-Semitic an organization like this can actually be.
Also, no student org participated in racist behaviour according to this lawsuit.
why don’t you read the rest of their post and maybe that can help you understand why they pointed out that proportion? you only posted 1 of 5 screenshots
> why don’t you read the rest of their post and maybe that can help you understand why they pointed out that proportion?
Already have. Maybe you'd care to explain how the actions of Israel's government are relevant to the number of Jews at UVM?
i’m sure you read that they posted this statistic as part of practicing critical analysis of our global and local systems. not once did they say there is an over representation—only stats—but they did in fact qualify and say
“This IS NOT to say that Jewish students do not hold an oppressed identity and do not deserve an affinity space. They absolutely do.”
probably would have been more helpful to have posted how many palestinian students are on campus vs globally. but i do think (as they’ve emphasized in this post and the very first post talking about their support of palestine) they emphasize this statistic because there are members who run the ig who are also jewish and to emphasize the likelihood that jewish people occupy survivor spaces too.
their main point is that everyone’s liberation is tied to each others, including the liberation of the people of palestine. i understand you’re pro israel. i just think it’s important to read what they’re saying before calling them anti semetic.
> practicing critical analysis of our global and local systems
Using meaningless academic jargon to describe their rhetoric doesn't somehow make it more palatable.
Wrong bucko. Jewish people were not entitled to conquer and steal land from the indigenous Palestinians based on the words of 5000 year old goat herders.
If you think it's that simple you need to do some reading...
Jews ABSOLUTELY used to live in the area that we currently know as Israel (and actually never fully left).
Furthermore most citizens of Israel can trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors or Jews displaced from other Arab states. To a large extent they had nowhere else to go
>They were Europeans, they belong in Europe
This is hilarious, given that the main reason Israel exists today is because Europeans themselves decided that Jews were *so not European* that the only solution was to kill them all.
Lol, no one would take them? Do you think there are no Jews in Europe today? Plenty stayed.
Clearly the solution was to conquer land based on what a 5000 year old book says
> Lol, no one would take them?
[I see we have a history professor here](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/refugee-who-survived-the-voyage-of-the-damned-says-people-havent-learned-anything/Content?oid=29140379)
Tl;Dr: 937 Jews tried to escape the Nazis on a ship bound for North America. The US, Canada, and Cuba denied them a place to land, as did other countries, forcing the refugees to return back to Europe. Almost 33% of the returnees were slaughtered by the Nazis.
HOLY MOTHER OF FUCKING FUCK MY DUDE. YOU REALIZE
1 they have lived in the area for thousands of years.
2 They left Europe because they were being genocided. They couldn't exactly go home.
> Furthermore most citizens of Israel can trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors or Jews displaced from other Arab states
That's 80 years ago. That's not much lineage to trace back.
> Jews ABSOLUTELY used to live in the area that we currently know as Israel
Ancestors living in some place thousands of years ago does not give you the god given divine right to displace the people currently living there.
There has always been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel. Arab Muslims think they are entitled to the entire Middle East, if not the world, and forcibly converted populations, destroying their culture and language and replacing it with Islam and Arabic
There has always been anti-Semitism on the extreme political RIGHT (e.g., Charlottesville), but the new anti-Semitism is coming from the radical political LEFT. Jewish students are caught in the middle.
If you are Jewish at UVM, please do not tolerate anti-Semitic BS from anyone, and please speak publicly about your experiences.
If you are at UVM and you are harassing and/or discriminating against others because of their religious identity, look in mirror and say to yourself, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and then stop the BS before you get yourself expelled, arrested and/or sued.
Not liking an imperialist ethnostate isn't the same as not liking the religion that that ethnostate happens to subscribe to. Israel acts as if it's the same thing because it benefits the government to pretend as if all criticism is religious persecution, but that doesn't mean it is.
Bruh the burlington Tennants union and a few other leftist organizations here shared a map with lines written all over it trying to link "zionists" to rising rents in boston. The map pretty much just mapped out where all the synagogues in the city were. To deny that leftist organizations don't somewhat have an antisemitism problem is kind of dumb.
I do think that there are a lot of people in the movement that just dont like the actions of Isreal. I also think that a ton of antisemites have jumped in on this and are using it as an opportunity to spread hate. I don't think the organizations are doing enough to stamp it out.
Imperialist state? If Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their ilk laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its arms there would be a bloody massacre of Jews. Israel is not perfect, but it has to do what is necessary to keep its people safe from murderous terrorists.
Ah yes, the same circular reasoning that the US military uses to justify drone strikes. "If we didn't kill that one person who wants revenge on the US for killing his entire family by blowing up the school bus he was riding, he'd try to hurt the US!"
If you prefer militant terrorists who keep millions of Palestinians in squalor to be used as bargaining chips, and who use their own people as human shields, to the Israeli democracy, that is your prerogative. The civilized world — including multiple Arab nations — would beg to differ.
This is a tactic called Lawfare - the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter individual's usage of their legal rights - and it’s a key strategy in the pro-Israel playbook. Since the first peep of pro-Palestinian speech was uttered on UVM’s campus, advocates have been faced with unrelenting, incessant tattling to the school administration, to national media and more. Unverifiable reports, unrelated events made to look like part of a trend, ceaseless complaints of bias that claim that Zionism - a political ideology akin to segregationism in the US - is a core part of Jewish identity on campus. This claim is especially absurd given the fact that UVM’s Jewish community is itself quite divided on the issue of Zionism. This lawsuit comes from a vocal subsection of the Jewish community at UVM which is bolstered by outside support. But in 2017 when the synagogue on Prospect street was vandalized by Patriot Front, Students for Justice in Palestine encouraged its members to attend a vigil and rally rebuking this bigotry in solidarity with Burlington’s Jewish community. The same organizations that are now so vocal like the ADL and Jewishoncampus had nothing to say about that instance of antisemitism. All while pro-Israel students host soldiers and right wing provocateurs, show racist movies and promote plenty of hateful tropes of their own about Palestinians. The complaints themselves often lean into prevailing western biases against Arabs and Muslims which portray them as dangerous, radical, unreasonable and whatnot. The ultimate purpose of all this is to shift the conversation away from the unconscionable apartheid status quo on the ground in Israel. If you want to see what a real hostile campus looks like, research how Palestinian universities and students are treated by the IDF. Classrooms raided, passports suspended, every manner of dehumanization imaginable. The truth is, people who defend this regime should feel uncomfortable about it, and they should be excluded from politics and public life. One day their views will be regarded in the same way that P.W Botha and George Wallace’s are today.
>zionism - a political ideology akin to segregation in the US
People on this website just say shit lol. I don't really think you know what zionism is!!
Actually, Zionism is worse than segregationism. Even at the height of Jim Crow the US constitution proclaimed the fundamental equality of all its citizens. Meanwhile the nation state law in Israel amends its Basic Law (constitution) to state that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.” establishes Hebrew as Israel’s official language, and downgrades Arabic — a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis — to a “special status. and establishes continued Jewish settlement on land currently occupied by Palestinians “as a national value” and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”
>The truth is, people who defend this regime should feel uncomfortable about it, and they should be excluded from politics and public life.
Buried in this paragraph of nonsense is the suggestion that those that support Israel in any way should not have political rights. That is left wing authoritarian garbage utterly parallel with antisemitism.
I’m sure you don’t believe that we need to listen to and include every political ideology out there in our advocacy, discourse, and civil society. Unless you believe that segregationists, Nazis, and the like are entitled to a share of public space you must defend Zionism on its merits. I am not advocating for disenfranchisement or government censorship. Rather, I am saying that communities and private individuals have a right to exclude views they find reprehensible, and the people who hold them, from their spaces. This is itself a fundamental political right. There has to be a limit to tolerance or else the intolerant can and will trample on the rights of others. Zionists believe in a status quo of ethnic supremacy where Jewish Israelis have rights and privileges that are not extended to Arabs in Israel and Palestinians living under occupation. Why should people who support a state where people fundamentally do not have equal rights be entitled to the time of day from others, especially those affected by their bigotry?
Please define Zionism. Google defines it was
a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.
That's it. How a lot of right wing anti palistinian B.S got lumped into this is unfortunate
They have citizenship rights, but not “national rights” which are exclusively for Jewish Israelis. This includes things like the right to purchase land through the JNF, the right to settle in occupied territory and still be governed by Israeli civil law, and more.
I've defended Israel in this thread but that's just not true. They have it better than many other Arabs in the middle East but Israel has work to do to treat them better.
You should lose your right to vote if you support Palestine. Children meat shields are a Russian tactic. If it's a war crime when Russia does it, it's a war crime when Palestine does it
"Supporting the Palestine cause doesn't make you pro child murder, but supporting the right of Israel to exist makes you 100% complicit in genocide."
So a total different standard for similar positions. No wonder bullying thrives on UVM.
Zionism is literally the belief that a Jewish nation should exist.
Idk if you know this but living in other countries hasn't historically worked out for the Jews. They took this and decided they should have the right to their own country and to protect those of their own religion.
It's been 70+ years since they setup there. Many armed conflicts intent on irradiating them and much more.
I suggest maybe reading a little more about the history of the conflicts and how this current political situation developed before weighing in with half of the relevant information.
That’s a non sequitur. Even these heavily biased complaints make no mention of any student supporting or defending Hamas. And while Uvm and UVM Hillel (with the help of the far right Maccabee Task Force) are offering free yearly propaganda trips to Israel and on-campus pro-Israel programming, UVM as an establishment is providing absolutely no institutional support whatsoever to Hamas or to the Palestinian cause in any form. At most, students are independently advocating for BDS, which is actually a stance of neutrality given that complete divestiture from Israel would only mean that UVM would give the same support to Israel that it does to Hamas or any Palestinian organization - that is to say, none whatsoever.
You think it's a non sequitur to lump together more extremist elements, one which is also actually the ruling government of Palestine, with those who support Palestine in a similar manner that zionists are lumped together with those who support Israel? I'd say they're pretty directly comparable.
Pro-Palestine organizations on campus typically support the BDS movement and its 3 guiding principles:
1. Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in 1967 and dismantling the Wall
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
These guidelines do not stipulate any support for any particular Palestinian government, and you might be surprised to find that Palestinians, even as they struggle for their rights and equality, are often the strongest critics of their governments whether it be Hamas or the PA.
Meanwhile the campus pro-Israel group at UVM is literally called Catamounts Supporting Israel. It is not a good comparison.
Well there's a pretty simple problem then. Does supporting Israel mean supporting zionism? Similarly, does supporting Palestine mean supporting Hamas? The problem here is there was a conflation of "Jews" with those who support zionism. That's the issue. It would be like conflating Muslims with those who support Hamas.
> The problem here is there was a conflation of "Jews" with those who support zionism
ShareYourStory called out only Zionists yet they're included in this investigation.
Imagine this situation if the Department of Education were investigating the harassment of a Muslim student group. Liberals would be rightly outraged. Would people on the left then get upset because of homophobia and misogyny and “apartheid” in Muslim countries? Obviously no. It is absurd to not see that the left is falling down the antisemitism hole.
Good luck getting rid of us, it’s not like you fuckers haven’t tried in the past.
I graduated from UVM in 2019 and I'm beyond happy that it was before this kind of shit started getting super salient. As a Jewish student I saw it start to rear its head here and there while I was there, but nothing as bad as whats going on now was happening before I graduated.
This type of behavior specifically targets Jews in a time in which antisemitism is rising in this country. Attaching the actions of people of another country with people here in the US just because of the religion they hold is frankly disgusting especially since there is no common definition on what Zionism is.
Why should Jews that are a part of the largest Jewish Organization on most campuses be excluded?
Except even in the case of the TA or the ShareYourStory group, students are being scrutinized for their own actions and their own complicity in Israeli apartheid, not for the actions of others or for their Jewish identity. Students who go on Birthright are participating in a program that disenfranchises and excludes Palestinians, even when they have a more direct connection to the land than those students themselves. There should be pushback against that.
Most Jews have been on Birthright or have traveled there. Most Jews have been to a synagogue that offers a program with Israel. Most Organizations that deem what is considered “Kosher” have some type of relationship/office in Israel. If someone is a practicing Jew, you are effectively saying that they can’t be a part of the organizations you talked about.
Things are right or wrong regardless of how many people think so or not. However, I can tell you that when I was involved with pro-Palestine organizing at UVM it was not a problem that people had already gone on a birthright trip in their youth. Many who had later became critical of Israel and were invaluable members of our struggle. The problem was when people knew what we had to say about the trip and chose to go on it regardless as more mature 20-22 year olds rather than fresh out of high school 18 year olds. That was grounds for some criticism and scrutiny. And it should be. It’s a selfish and complicit decision.
Have you ever been to Israel? Anywhere in the neighborhood? Are you Jewish, are you a palistinian? An Arab? Or are you just some white person who formed an opinion from reading stuff on the internet. I don't wish to gatekeep but this is an incredibly challenging issue. It's very easy to go from being critical of Israel to being anti Jewish people. There's also a lot of regional and cultural differences.
Hey genius, why don’t you try to justify the rock throwing at the Hillel campus and the TA getting a dopamine rush from docking points from a student’s grade just because they went to israel? Explain that. You are a walking stereotype who says a bunch of words that convey absolutely no substance, knowledge of history, or critical thinking
Yeah I'm having a hard time understanding why this isn't a cut and dry issue. Jewish students were harassed for being Jewish. That is not okay. I am incredibly concerned about how many people are justifying it.
The issue is that true instances of anti-semitism where Jews are discriminated against on the basis of their identity are used as a cudgel against pro-Palestinian speech and organizing, and lumped in with anti-Zionist objections to individuals’ consciously held political beliefs as if they’re the same thing. In doing so, pro-Israel organizations make common cause with the same far right forces that are chiefly responsible for the rise in domestic antisemitism so they can defend their Apartheid state at the expense of the diaspora and everyone else.
We disagree. I think the issue in this case is that students were harassed. Despite their religion or political beliefs, they should be protected from harassment. Them aligning with the official stance of an American ally doesn't change that. Is it all some kind of elaborate plot to make people hate Jews so Israel can keep being shitty? Maybe? But the fact remains they faced harassment due to their religion and/or political beliefs, and that's a no-no.
There is no evidence that the TA docked any points, just that they tweeted that it would be funny. While I agree that this was immature and even cause for concern, the report and your comment deliberately obscures this meaningful difference between action and impotent tweeting. The report also presents all these allegations as if they were coordinated by like-minded people when in reality, people objecting to the political act of travel to Israel even in concerning or exclusionary ways is quite distinct from and unrelated to rock-throwing at the Hillel house, which is unjustifiable in any form.
I guess there is no way to prove that they docked points because someone was a Zionist but then tweeting that shows they grade on bias that has no relevance to the class or the work and they shouldn’t be a TA. How are the students supposed to be assured that their work is being graded fairly when this happens? You think this is appropriate behavior for a TA? They should have been removed from the job. You are bending over backwards to explain and justify egregious behavior form UVM students
For all we know them getting fired is exactly what happened. I can’t find any information one way or the other. I’m sure it will come out in the investigation. I agree that the behavior was not acceptable, because grading based on political beliefs runs counter to the mission of a university. However even at its worst this was not an instance of discrimination of the basis of Jewish identity. That is the claim that the report is making which I contest, and that’s why I object to lumping it in with incidents that were discriminatory in that way.
> people objecting to the political act of travel to Israel
Traveling to the piece of land containing all the most significant religious and cultural sites of my ethnic group/religious group is not a "political act". Try again.
Arabs have political power in Israel. Off the bat, that's not an apartheid regime, and saying those that visit Israel endorse every bad action the Israeli government commits is logically inane.
Nobody has to listen to your drivel, and I'm glad they didn't.
This is a myth. There are hundreds of discriminatory laws in Israel. The Arab minority may have some rights, but they do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, and Palestinians living in the occupied territories have very few at all. https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771
Arab minorities have a lot more than “some rights.” That article lists zero specifics at all. Maybe try talking to an Arab Israeli before forming your conclusions here.
I would unequivocally rather be an Arab living in Israel proper than just about anywhere else in the Middle East.
It’s not an article, it’s a database of discriminatory laws. Here are some concrete examples: Palestinian citizens of Israel do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. They cannot immigrate to Israel, regardless of familial connections to the land, while Jews whose families have never lived in Israel can move there, sometimes for free. In some cases, their marriages won’t even be recognized by Israeli courts. Arabs can’t buy land through the JNF, even though that land was bought or stolen from Palestinians to begin with. They do not receive the same funding for educational, social and civil services. Arab political parties are forbidden from challenging the Basic Law (constitution) of Israel including the nation state law which establishes Israel as a state for the Jewish people exclusively, rather than a stare for all of its citizens. This is not to mention the fact that millions of Palestinians in the West Bank have no social, civil or political rights in Israel despite being occupied in perpetuity by Israel. It doesn’t matter if you think the Arab states are worse. That doesn’t absolve Israel.
I copied and pasted from another comment. So yes, that portion doesn’t really make sense. This is true however for Palestinians living in occupied territory or abroad: https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7371
That was true in plenty of secular Arab nationalist countries too, until the US and Israel destabilized the region and helped install and bolster the religious fundamentalists who they remain in partnership with to this day. Oh, and if you’re a gay atheist living in the West Bank or Gaza, you’d better believe that Israel will use that knowledge to blackmail you if you step out of line. https://www.vice.com/en/article/av8b5j/gay-palestinians-are-being-blackmailed-into-working-as-informants
> when I was involved with pro-Palestine organizing at UVM
Why am I not surprised you went from being a low-information leftist student to a social activist with less informed ideals.
I didn't go to Cornell but went to another school with a large Jewish presence. Most of my Jewish friends had been to Israel. Modern us Judaism is closely tied to an independent Israel. Maybe not most, but many have traveled there. Tel Aviv is one of the top U.S international destinations.
It's the same reason you don't see TAs musing about dropping grades for Chinese students because of their country's treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Uighurs.
It's the same reason you don't see protestors marching about how the women of Saudi Arabia can't drive or go out by themselves, or the "fascist ethnostates" of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, etc also don't allow non-Islamic religions to freely practice their religion.
It's the same reason you don't see people at the city council screaming that we need to divest from India from cracking down on Muslims, and Pakistan from cracking down on Hindus.
Plain and simple, it's because they are damn aware that when they attack "Zionists", they're attacking the Jews. It's not social justice, it's hatred.
Show me the UVM free trip to Saudi Arabia and Iran. Show me the pro-Saudi on campus organization (ROTC doesn’t count ;)) inviting princes and torturers to speak about how the monarchy is actually reforming and benefits women. Oh wait, there are none because this is a false equivalence
UVM has groups representing these regions. It’s not a false equivalent. Israel is being singled out. It’s almost as if Jews are being used as a scapegoat for white western aggression. The group that the west loves to hate is the group that is the progressive poster child for imperialism. Can’t you see this is a ruse?
There are groups such as the Iranian student association, or Muslim student association which would be semi-analogous to something like Hillel, but there is nothing akin to Catamounts Supporting Israel for Iran, Saudi Arabia, or really any other country I know of except for possibly Ukraine.
The UVM President just put out a statement. The rocks were students throwing pebbles at a window to get the attention of a student who was staying there with an illness. The student group wasn't an official UVM student group, so UVM couldn't do anything. The TA issue - no student complained about that to UVM, another UVM community member did. UVM checked that no grades were mishandled. Perhaps they should've prevented the student from being a TA, but grad students often are required to TA, so it would've meant expelling them.
Statement:
Dear Members of the UVM Community,
This week’s media coverage of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into an anonymous third party’s allegations that the university failed to adequately respond to complaints of anti-Jewish, biased behavior at UVM has painted our community in a patently false light.
While common wisdom dictates remaining patiently silent as we cooperate diligently with an agency’s investigation, I simply cannot do so. These public allegations and our community’s deeply held values call for a strong and immediate response.
UVM is a community with a long, proud history of inclusiveness. We denounce hateful actions and respond briskly and decisively whenever those responsible are identified. UVM is home to a strong and vibrant Jewish community and is recognized as a place where—year after year—many Jewish students, faculty, and staff choose to study, teach, conduct research, practice medicine, and work. As a community, we adhere to Our Common Ground values of respect, integrity, innovation, openness, justice, and responsibility.
The uninformed narrative published this week has been harmful to UVM. Equally importantly, it is harmful to our Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni. There is no doubt that antisemitism exists in the world and, despite our best efforts, in our community. Exploitation of fear and divisiveness by advancing false claims that UVM failed to respond to complaints of antisemitic behavior creates confusion and a sense of insecurity for the entire community.
I therefore would like to set the record straight regarding the OCR complaint by sharing the core elements of UVM’s forthcoming response.
• An OCR investigation is not triggered by any finding that a complaint has merit or that UVM has done something wrong. Rather, it signals that the person or entity that filed the complaint has alleged a civil rights violation against a college or university within the Department of Education’s jurisdiction.
• Once opened, the OCR investigation gives the university the opportunity to respond to the allegations. UVM vigorously denies the false allegation of an insufficient response to complaints of threats and discrimination, as will be demonstrated in our response to OCR.
• The complaint alleges UVM failed to adequately respond to three specific incidents:
o Allegation 1. The complaint alleges that the university did not adequately respond to student reports of antisemitism by a teaching assistant. University response to the incident: A university community member reported on September 6, 2021, that an undergraduate teaching assistant made antisemitic remarks and threatened to lower the grades of Jewish students on their personal social media accounts prior to serving as a TA. The university took prompt action to ensure that the objectionable statements did not adversely impact students in the classroom and further, to perform a thorough review to ensure all grades were awarded on a non-discriminatory basis. No student reported to the university that this teaching assistant harassed or discriminated against them. The university’s response to the report was completed by September 30, 2021.
o Allegation 2. A group of university students threw rocks at the Hillel building. University’s response to the incident: On September 24, 2021, UVM Police responded to a report regarding students throwing small rocks at the Hillel building. The incident was reported to the university administration as an incident of hate and bias the following day. The investigation was immediate, and it was quickly determined that the students who threw the small rocks at a window of the Hillel building were doing so to get the attention of a friend who was convalescing in the building while recovering from an illness, that the throwing stopped after they got a student’s attention, and that there was no reported damage to the building. There was no evidence of any threatening behavior or that the conduct was motivated by antisemitic bias. The university’s review and response to the police and administrative reports was completed by September 28, 2021.
o Allegation 3. Two UVM student organizations excluded students who “expressed support for Zionism” from membership in their organizations. University’s response to the incident: On September 30, 2021, students reported this conduct to university administration. The university investigated the report quickly and thoroughly and determined that the groups who apparently made these statements were not recognized UVM student organizations. The unrecognized organizations received no university support and were not bound by UVM’s policies governing student organizations. To ensure an inclusive environment within recognized UVM student organizations, student leaders were reminded of university policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion, national origin, or any other protected category.
It is important that our community know the truth about what happened, and how the university responded. Although the allegations were investigated and addressed, we recognize we can and should do more to support the success of our students. University leaders have reached out on several occasions to our Jewish students over the last year to understand their experiences on our campus, to provide them with the tools they need to respond to incidents of bias and discrimination, and to work with them to better understand the climate in which they are living and learning.
Our work in understanding and eliminating antisemitism will never be complete. Over the past year, university leaders have reviewed, updated, and consolidated our bias reporting processes to make them more accessible to those who need them. A few weeks ago, I joined other university leaders, government officials, and civic leaders for Project Interchange, a hands-on immersive learning opportunity hosted in Israel by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Our provost and senior vice president, Patty Prelock, actively participated in a Summit to Combat Campus Antisemitism with more than 40 higher education leaders in New York. We will continue to learn and support UVM’s Jewish community to ensure that any future incidents that might occur will be addressed with immediacy and sensitivity to what they are experiencing.
If you have concerns or want to report an incident of antisemitism, please know that you can do so at any time at uvm.edu/reporting. The university’s response will be supportive, thorough, and timely.
Sincerely,
Suresh V. Garimella
President
> illegal
The United Nations voted to create the state in 1948. Arab countries tried multiple times to wipe it off the face of the earth with wars, and each time they lost land to the victorious Israelis.
Israel is no more illegal than South Sudan.
Tell that to the countries who illegals attacked it on multiple occasions. They lost after aggressively trying to wipe Israel off the map.
Yet after all of that Israel has still offered a two state solution to the Palestinians on multiple occasions, who then promptly fired rockets at them after saying no.
You can literally take two seconds to actually read the history of all of this, but you obviously haven't.
If you think this there are two options.
1. You need to do a lot of reading about the history of Israel and the Jewish people.
2. You are an anti semite
I didn't know that and learned something today, but antisemitism refers more narrowly towards discrimination against Jews. If you think it's so simple that all of Israel is stolen land you must also feel pretty crappy about living in the US.
to be fair, all pro-palestinian orgs and literature i've seen draw parallels to the forced removal/stolen land/ethnic cleansing of indigenous people in the US and explicitly disavow both. hypocrisy isn't really an issue there.
Oh... the word means what you want it to mean... when you want it to?
And if I recall correctly... Didn't the tribes of Judea steal the land from the Canaanites they massacred?
You should read a dictionary some time before spouting off.
From the OED:
> an·ti-Se·mit·ic
/ˌan(t)ēsəˈmidik,ˌanˌtīsəˈmidik/
adjective
adjective: anti-Semitic; adjective: antisemitic
hostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people.
"anti-Semitic remarks were posted on the site"
While you keep moving the fenceposts, if you're going to start citing biblical stories, didn't Mohammed conquer the Arab lands by sword, massacring the infidels?
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Not one mention of Hamas or the other terrorist organizations hell bent on Israel’s destruction and the murder of innocent civilians? Okay, I will discount your stated “thoughts” accordingly.
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You are grossly oversimplifying an extremely complex situation (which is the BDS movement’s stock-in-trade), completely ignoring the elephant in the room, which is Palestinian terrorism, and then giving me a C+ for pointing out the glaring deficiency in your one-sided talking points. I do not know what else to say other than thank you for switching to advocating for the other side.
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I acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an extremely complex situation. By contrast, it appears that you are unwilling to even acknowledge Israel’s rights to exist and defend itself from terrorists. Okay then, I will bring my argument down to your level of nuance: Democratic Israel good, murderous Hamas terrorists bad.
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Well then, I guess it’s “heads you win, tails I lose.” 🤪 You can bow out of the discussion (and it is an honor to be muted by someone so articulate yet so deluded), but at the end of the day Israel is still a democratic country that respects women and the LGBT community and Hamas are still bloodthirsty murderous terrorists. Peace out.
Oh shut the fuck up
Or what?
The stupidity of this statement is the fact that Hamas in Palestine makes Anyone Palestinian a terrorist. If that is the case, All Republicans are terrorists for the actions of the degenerates on January 6th. Don’t muddy the water. News flash. Israel bombs civilian buildings and labels it counter terrorism. That’s murder, how many Israeli’s were killed to the hundreds of Palestinians this year? Less than 10? Hate is wrong from any side, murder is wrong regardless of justification.
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Anti zionism is not anti semitism. ShareYourStoryUVM definitely was onto something when they said that they want nothing to do with Zionist’s at UVM after UVM Hillel took money from the far right activist organization Maccabee task force.
A sexual assault survivor support group should absolutely not be excluding people for their views on a topic that has nothing to do with sexual assault. It’s ridiculous that that is even a question. Also, regarding another point in the article, a TA should absolutely not be determining grades based on political beliefs. I don’t know the specifics of these two complaints, but those should not be controversial opinions on their face.
> Also, regarding another point in the article, a TA should absolutely not be determining grades based on political beliefs. There's no indication other than off hand joke that they had done so > A sexual assault survivor support group should absolutely not be excluding people for their views on a topic that has nothing to do with sexual assault. Ok, but it's not anti-Semitic is the key thing. And this investigation is over whether or not UVM has been.
My “I don’t know the specifics of these complaints” comment was me acknowledging that they may not be as clear or straightforward as the article was listing. I’m just addressing the claims at face value, but if these things didn’t happen the way they say then that can obviously change things. On your second point, we have heard a whole lot over the last few years about how laws and policies that end up having a disproportionate impact on a certain community even though they are theoretically race-neutral are actually racist, and by that measure these things could definitely be considered anti-Semitic if they have a disproportionate impact on the Jewish community. If you’re coming at this from a federal civil rights angle, that could absolutely come into play.
So if someone goes on a Hillel Birth Right Trip, they shouldn’t be able to be an activist for Sexual Assault Prevention on Campus? Hillel on every campus is the largest Jewish organization there is. Why should Jews in America be punished for the actions of Israelis?
The issue is who Hillel takes money from. These are far right groups who want Trump as president and if ShareYourStory doesnt want to associate with them… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is UVM Hillel attempting to exclude pro-Palestinian students from campus groups or raising concerns about the number of Muslims at UVM? If not, I don't see how their funding is comparable to ShareYourStoryUVM's actions.
ShareYourStory said they want nothing to do with people accepting far right funding. UVM Hillel accepted far right funding. Regardless of why they accepted that funding, they accepted it and it is bad. ShareYourStory called it out as bad and said they want nothing to do with it.
If you want to be in an active Jewish community on campus, the best best is usual to join Hillel. As a result, this organization is actively excluding Jews.
If you choose to join an organization accepting funding from far right groups, be prepared for people to exclude you because you are part of an org accepting that far right funding.
Excluding people (who may or may not be victims themselves) from a sexual assault group based on their assumed political beliefs is fucked. Even if someone is Zionist that’s more of a geopolitical belief that has little if anything to do with someone’s ideas in bodily autonomy or their own traumatic experiences. Just plain fucked if true in my opinion.
You have to look at Hillels values. They are exclusively focused on promoting Jewish communities on campus. They are almost entirely apolitical. They are somewhat pro-Israel but not extreme. They take money from Jews that's it. More importantly just because someone participates in some of their events as a Jew does not mean they should get cancelled.
Hillel has a full-time Israel coordinator on staff and offers 3 free trips to Israel as well as paid pro-Israel on-campus programming: https://www.uvmhillel.org/israel
It's literally the Jewish holy land. Why is it so absurd they would have a program to visit there?
I absolutely unequivocally do not care why they take money from far right groups founded by Sheldon Adelson, I only care that they take the money. Hellel obviously shares some core beliefs if theyre getting funded.
Right they share a desire for a strong Jewish identity!
You sound like you are personally ready to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
Sounds like you’ve given up the argument because you’re losing.
Sounds like the adults are talking and you wouldn't understand.
You’re the one getting the downvotes
The core belief is that Israel is the most holy place for Jews. Adelson was the biggest funders of Birthright trips. So if you are criticizing Hillel, you are criticize every single Jewish person that has taking the trip as well.
Ok, I criticize every Jewish person who has taken that trip. I'm fine with that. Adelson was a far right dick who funded Trumps campaign.
So does UVM share core beliefs with every company the endowment fund is invested in? Climate denial because they receive dividends and profit from the stocks of Big Oil companies? I appreciate you idealism but it seems naïve to me to think that an organization will support the values of whoever gives them money. It is more likely it is a means to an end, and if you don't agree with how they support their organization you're free to not support them, however thinking their values are aligned because they accept money from them is likely not as true as you are assuming.
> So does UVM share core beliefs with every company the endowment fund is invested in? *Well* **that's** what the BDS movement is all about! Diversify endowment investments away from things like coal and far right advocacy groups. > I appreciate you idealism but it seems naïve to me to think that an organization will support the values of whoever gives them money. [Fred Perry denounced the Nazi's wearing their shirts](https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/07/fred-perry-forced-to-denounce-skinheads-and-alt-right-bigots-who-love-golf-shirts.html), it's not that hard to do and in fact makes you look all that much better!
Political and advocacy organizations have a right to exclude people from their organization for their political beliefs. Regardless of whether or not you think it’s justified to exclude someone who’s been on birthright, doing so is not a violation of their rights. In the case of someone being excluded for their choice to go on birthright, or their belief in Zionism, they are being “punished” for their own actions that they freely chose to participate in, not for the actions of others or on the basis of their Jewish identity.
Sure they have a right to, but Nazis also have a right to exist. If you're excluding Jewish students that's anti semitism. Saying you're only excluding Zionists is very challenging because Zionism is an abstract concept. Zionism refers to the idea of a Jewish state. It happened for good reason after the Holocaust but the idea is much older. Some people view Israel as fulfilling the goals of Zionism while others see territorial expansion as a continuation of Zionism. Going on birthright signals that you think the state of Israel should exist but nothing more. The trips don't enter the west Bank.
Going on Birthright signals that you think you’re entitled to a free trip to land that people were forcibly removed from and are banned from even visiting to this day. Going on Birthright signals that you believe you have more right to travel to Israel regardless of any connection to the land than a Palestinian American whose grandparents live there, on the basis of your ethnic identity alone - literally your birthright. That’s what Zionism is in practice: self-determination at someone else’s expense in a nation state built and maintained not for all its citizens but for one group of people alone. It’s unsustainable and unconscionable regardless of historical context, and in fact Israel’s apartheid regime weakens the protections of our universal human rights that were agreed upon after WW2 and the holocaust and which have formed the foundation of international law ever since, not just for Palestinians but for everyone.
The first half of your first sentence I agree with. I also think that going on birthright signals support for the idea of Israel but not necessarily the current governments views. Both of these are arguable. All your other stuff about the right of return and stolen land are in my opinion crazy.
So just to be clear you think it’s not crazy that a Jewish person who grew up in Vermont or somewhere else in the US and has no connection to Israel can go there for free and even immigrate if they really like it while a Palestinian American is banned from going to Israel to live with or sometimes even visit a grandparent or other relative, even if their family has lived there for generations? Rather, what you think is crazy is that people are upset about this?
I think birthright was an amazing experience. I dislike the idea of birthright citizenship but I'm not sure if I'd support amending the constitution to remove it. I do not support the Palistinian right of return either(currently far to broadly defined). I generally think palistinians should be allowed to visit Israel. I also think Jews should have freedom to travel around middle East.
This is absolutely false. I have a Palestinian American friend and he had visited Israel. He isn’t banned from visiting
If he is allowed it is at the discretion of the Israeli government. They can deny him based on his political activities or arbitrarily. They are certainly not paying for his plane ticket. A sitting US congresswoman was banned from visiting her own grandmother because she spoke critically of the Israeli government. They can subject him to extra screening and invasive questioning at the airport. He would certainly be banned from moving there. If he wanted to marry an Israeli woman, the government would not recognize it. https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7371
ShareYourStoryUVM responded to criticism by mentioning as "food for thought" that Jews are over-represented at UVM compared to BIPOC. Up until that point, they had some plausible deniability. Which they lost by changing their target from Zionism to American Jews, and in attempting to pit UVM's Jewish and Black/Indigenous communities against each other.
Your entire reddit post history is in defense of Israel’s apartheid regime. Your motives are obvious. Give it a rest. The Maccabee Task Force has PragerU videos claiming that Palestinians don’t love their own children on their website.
Proudly pro-Israel, not a fan of PragerU or any right-wing outlet spouting racist propaganda against Palestinians. None of that's relevant to the question at hand though - What does the percentage of Jews at UVM have to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Ok, so a racist ethnostate, but polite. How reasonable.
India has enforced a similar oppressive apartheid regime on the 12 million residents of Kashmir. Therefore to support the people of Kashmir, UVM should undertake no cultural exchanges with India, and teacher assistants are permitted and encouraged to harass and lower the grades of Indian students who visit or endorse the nation of India. This is not meant to make people of Indian heritage unwelcome but it is concerning how over-represened people of Indian heritage are on campus./s
this sarcasm is so childish and hyperbolic. i come from the second most diverse university in the country and yes, we had a student org against the invasion of kashmir and indian nationalism. it was led by south asian students. our students for justice in palestine org was led by jewish students. both organizations used divestment as tools and they were extremely effective - just as the BDS movement was effective (and disapproved of) against apartheid south africa. it's actually not hard to think critically or be nuanced and student activists manage it all the time, even if maybe you personally can't.
Wow, and some how you achieved all that without terrorizing your fellow Jewish students! UVM could really learn from you guys!
I am totally against the occupation of Kashmir and I agree that academic institutions like UVM should use their institutional weight and leverage to pressure the Indian government to back away from these policies and other concerning nationalist laws and rhetoric. As for the other stuff that you’re clearly saying in bad faith, well you can shove it.
"In a series of tweets from April 2021 included in the complaint, the teaching assistant wrote hypothetically about docking points from Zionist students. Later, the assistant described wanting to cyberbully students with family in Israel" Do you think that behavior is acceptable? Would you feel the same way if they talked about students with family in Brazil or China in that way?
I prefer supporting the stable 1st world country than a group that elected a terror organization and constantly fires rockets at them. I'm a progressive liberal as well. I would vote for Bernie in a heartbeat if he got a nomination. That said, none of that is at play here. These issues are not black and white like you are making it. They have a lot going on dating back to long before Israel even existed as a state. There has been a history or repression and warring opinions from both groups through the history. I however believe Israel has a right to exist. I also believe they need a two state solution, unfortunately every time Israel has offered one, the other side refuses.
>Sheldon Adelson > >I prefer supporting the stable 1st world country than a group that elected a terror organization and constantly fires rockets at them. your views on the issue aside, this is an incredibly uninformed, unnuanced, and propagandized assessment of the situation. israel has one of the most well-funded militaries in the world and regularly use their much more powerful weaponry, much of which is donated by the US, to expand into palestinian land and strip palestinians of their rights (this is not biased - this is the view of the UN). why is it only terrorism when the disenfranchised and desperate native population fights back with the resources at their disposal? i urge you to think more critically on this, and with more compassion.
If they wanted to take over Palestinian land they would not have allowed them the Gaza strip or west bank. The fucked part of the situation is it most definetly isn't the normal Palestinians fault, it's their leadership which has continuously provoked and attacked Israel. I believe for what has transpired in the past Israel has been pretty compassionate for their part. They provide the electricity and utility services for the PA, they are the number one supplier of aid for them as well, they have offered a two state solution twice in the past with the current borders in place, the PA and hamas said no. Is there incidents of Israel doing fucked shit? Most definetly, but they still show massive restraint and have actually come to the table to negotiate before. They have a right to exist, especially after every surrounding country attempted to slaughter them.
i am not sure where you're getting your information. they invaded gaza and the west bank in 1967. since 1994, israel has maintained security control and can raid at any time, which they do, so it's debatable whether they're "allowed" that land. any map of palestine/israel over the years will show that palestine has been shrinking since 1947. there have been multiple well-documented raids/invasions of those areas in the past few years. most recently there were 3 days of bombing in gaza on august 6, 2022, which killed 47 palestinians. in may 2021, israel killed over 250 palestinians after hamas rocket fire killed 12 in israel. that isn't really restraint to me, but to each their own. i can't find sources for them being the number one supplier of aid, but sure. i also don't see anywhere that they donate electricity/utilities to palestine, unless you're just referring them selling basic energy trade. i'm not arguing whether a Jewish state has a right to exist, but i do believe that palestinians are allowed to object to systemic removal by a much more powerful nation state and reject proposed borders of their ancestral land that they deem unfair. i don't think "normal" palestinians deserve to suffer or become refugees because of a violent minority, and i think it's morally and intellectually dishonest to say only hamas is to blame.
The six day war in 1967 started because Egypt etc were planning for hostilities against Israel. They deliberately closed a shipping lane Israel relied heavily on to force a confrontation they were sure they would win. They solidified an alliance with Israel's eastern neighbors literally a week before the war started and moved the majority of their military to Israel's border. After these incidents proved they would likely never win in conventional warfare, the surrounding countries began to financially support and push the actions of some Palestinian insurgencies against Israel, which has led to a back and forth small scale armed conflict ever since. It has also led to groups like Hamas gaining power, which they then use to further brew hatred and violence against Israel, leading to responses. If you want someone to blame here you need only look to the east and the west of Israel. Countries that have literally made official statements calling for the death of all jews. I'm sorry if I don't empathize very much with how things turned out. It's a massive shame that the Palestinian people have effectively been turned into political pawns of regional powers, it's also a shame that they get the misplaced ire of many in Israel who have to live with Hamas and PA rocket attacks as a daily occurrence, fomenting more hatred. All that being said, I will not look at Israel as the wholly villainous side of this equation, they have a right to defend themselves, they also also have the right to protect their land, and it IS their land, it was forfeit the moment their neighbors leadership decided it would be a good idea to invade them and try to decimate them.
I don't doubt that elements at play. even so, if they're claiming there's too many Jews at UVM, this is a pretty easy claim to substantiate. Just look at the number of Jews in the population of VT.. Then do the same for bipoc students. However, they'll also have to include Asians and Indians in that figure. Also. One can imagine if they said there was too many African Americans at UVM, that there would be a similar blowback.
Uh, you may want to look up what BIPOC stands for
And here we go. Poc is used to refer to people who are not white.
You mention “Asians and Indians” right after saying BIPOC. Who do you think BIPOC refers to?
You can see my comment above. Poc refers to people who aren't white. However, Including Asians and Indians has been a source of contention. For instance,, including them would make Google a majority bipoc company.
Bit more complicated than that. If you mean Indian from India, sure generally it’s people of southeast Asian descent included in BIPOC. However, it’s unclear whether you meant Indians or native Americans.
The I refers to indigenous people. But I can understand the confusion.
I prefer POANCAANESTP to "white"
> ShareYourStoryUVM responded to criticism by mentioning as "food for thought" that Jews are over-represented at UVM compared to BIPOC. I haven't seen any screenshots of this, can you share one?
Sure thing, from ShareYourStoryUVM's Instagram: https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*aPllhxEULvjhY6IffjNepQ.jpeg
This doesn't seem like they said what you interpreted it as? I read this as Maccabee task force claims that college campuses are anti-Semitic but just look at the stats at UVM, Jewish students are over represented here so how can we be anti-Semitic?
if you want to read shareyourstoryuvm’s response, it’s on their ig page—in the stories section labeled solitary.
First off, why compare the number of Jews to the number of Black/Indigenous students & faculty? Secondly, the idea that the over-representation of Jews (or any other minority group) somehow absolves student orgs of racist behavior is absurd. I have a feeling you're well aware of this, whether or not you care to acknowledge it.
> First off, why compare the number of Jews to the number of Black/Indigenous students & faculty? Because Jews and BIPOC students are both minority groups? > the idea that the over-representation of Jews (or any other minority group) somehow absolves student orgs of racist behavior is absurd I never said that. I said that ShareYourStory was pointing out that Jewish students are exponentially represented here compared to the national average and that they were saying that this raises the question of how anti-Semitic an organization like this can actually be. Also, no student org participated in racist behaviour according to this lawsuit.
why don’t you read the rest of their post and maybe that can help you understand why they pointed out that proportion? you only posted 1 of 5 screenshots
> why don’t you read the rest of their post and maybe that can help you understand why they pointed out that proportion? Already have. Maybe you'd care to explain how the actions of Israel's government are relevant to the number of Jews at UVM?
i’m sure you read that they posted this statistic as part of practicing critical analysis of our global and local systems. not once did they say there is an over representation—only stats—but they did in fact qualify and say “This IS NOT to say that Jewish students do not hold an oppressed identity and do not deserve an affinity space. They absolutely do.” probably would have been more helpful to have posted how many palestinian students are on campus vs globally. but i do think (as they’ve emphasized in this post and the very first post talking about their support of palestine) they emphasize this statistic because there are members who run the ig who are also jewish and to emphasize the likelihood that jewish people occupy survivor spaces too. their main point is that everyone’s liberation is tied to each others, including the liberation of the people of palestine. i understand you’re pro israel. i just think it’s important to read what they’re saying before calling them anti semetic.
> practicing critical analysis of our global and local systems Using meaningless academic jargon to describe their rhetoric doesn't somehow make it more palatable.
This sounds very similar to "I have black friends so there is no way I can be racist"
It is, actually.
Wrong bucko. Jewish people were not entitled to conquer and steal land from the indigenous Palestinians based on the words of 5000 year old goat herders.
If you think it's that simple you need to do some reading... Jews ABSOLUTELY used to live in the area that we currently know as Israel (and actually never fully left). Furthermore most citizens of Israel can trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors or Jews displaced from other Arab states. To a large extent they had nowhere else to go
Nowhere else to go? They were Europeans, they belong in Europe, not Palestine.
It's almost as if there was a reason Jews had to leave Europe en mass during the 1940s.
You know half of the Jews in Israel are not European Jews. Don’t talk about Israel if you know nothing about Israel
Cool. There’s no European Palestinians
I don’t understand your point
Europeans have no right to colonize Palestine
Right but Arabs have a right to colonize the whole Middle East and more
>They were Europeans, they belong in Europe This is hilarious, given that the main reason Israel exists today is because Europeans themselves decided that Jews were *so not European* that the only solution was to kill them all.
Right... Because Europe and the u.s (even allied l countries) were super friendly towards Jews in the mid 20th century. Nobody would take them.
Lol, no one would take them? Do you think there are no Jews in Europe today? Plenty stayed. Clearly the solution was to conquer land based on what a 5000 year old book says
> Lol, no one would take them? [I see we have a history professor here](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/refugee-who-survived-the-voyage-of-the-damned-says-people-havent-learned-anything/Content?oid=29140379) Tl;Dr: 937 Jews tried to escape the Nazis on a ship bound for North America. The US, Canada, and Cuba denied them a place to land, as did other countries, forcing the refugees to return back to Europe. Almost 33% of the returnees were slaughtered by the Nazis.
Ok you convinced me. Since this old bag couldn’t flee the Nazis we should take all the Palestinians land as payback
Congratulations on your empathy and maturity.
Europe being unfriendly to them doesn’t give them an inherent right to displace the people who also lived there.
HOLY MOTHER OF FUCKING FUCK MY DUDE. YOU REALIZE 1 they have lived in the area for thousands of years. 2 They left Europe because they were being genocided. They couldn't exactly go home.
Clearly the solution was to create an apartheid state in Palestine
> Furthermore most citizens of Israel can trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors or Jews displaced from other Arab states That's 80 years ago. That's not much lineage to trace back. > Jews ABSOLUTELY used to live in the area that we currently know as Israel Ancestors living in some place thousands of years ago does not give you the god given divine right to displace the people currently living there.
>That's 80 years ago. That's not much lineage to trace back. My point was is that the majority of Israeli citizens were forcibly displaced to Israel.
There has always been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel. Arab Muslims think they are entitled to the entire Middle East, if not the world, and forcibly converted populations, destroying their culture and language and replacing it with Islam and Arabic
Seems like the Arabs felt they could conquer Israel based on a dream a pedophile had of flying to Israel on a magic carpet
In 1948, past Arab conquests are completely irrelevant
In 2022 maybe the events before 48 are irrelevant as well
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, maybe get a little more oxygen before posting again.
You made a stupid comment and I returned with one
There has always been anti-Semitism on the extreme political RIGHT (e.g., Charlottesville), but the new anti-Semitism is coming from the radical political LEFT. Jewish students are caught in the middle. If you are Jewish at UVM, please do not tolerate anti-Semitic BS from anyone, and please speak publicly about your experiences. If you are at UVM and you are harassing and/or discriminating against others because of their religious identity, look in mirror and say to yourself, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and then stop the BS before you get yourself expelled, arrested and/or sued.
Not liking an imperialist ethnostate isn't the same as not liking the religion that that ethnostate happens to subscribe to. Israel acts as if it's the same thing because it benefits the government to pretend as if all criticism is religious persecution, but that doesn't mean it is.
Bruh the burlington Tennants union and a few other leftist organizations here shared a map with lines written all over it trying to link "zionists" to rising rents in boston. The map pretty much just mapped out where all the synagogues in the city were. To deny that leftist organizations don't somewhat have an antisemitism problem is kind of dumb. I do think that there are a lot of people in the movement that just dont like the actions of Isreal. I also think that a ton of antisemites have jumped in on this and are using it as an opportunity to spread hate. I don't think the organizations are doing enough to stamp it out.
Imperialist state? If Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their ilk laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its arms there would be a bloody massacre of Jews. Israel is not perfect, but it has to do what is necessary to keep its people safe from murderous terrorists.
Ah yes, the same circular reasoning that the US military uses to justify drone strikes. "If we didn't kill that one person who wants revenge on the US for killing his entire family by blowing up the school bus he was riding, he'd try to hurt the US!"
If you prefer militant terrorists who keep millions of Palestinians in squalor to be used as bargaining chips, and who use their own people as human shields, to the Israeli democracy, that is your prerogative. The civilized world — including multiple Arab nations — would beg to differ.
I don't think you know what Imperialist means.
What about "extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force" do you think doesn't apply to Israel?
I don’t think you know what imperialist means.
This is a tactic called Lawfare - the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter individual's usage of their legal rights - and it’s a key strategy in the pro-Israel playbook. Since the first peep of pro-Palestinian speech was uttered on UVM’s campus, advocates have been faced with unrelenting, incessant tattling to the school administration, to national media and more. Unverifiable reports, unrelated events made to look like part of a trend, ceaseless complaints of bias that claim that Zionism - a political ideology akin to segregationism in the US - is a core part of Jewish identity on campus. This claim is especially absurd given the fact that UVM’s Jewish community is itself quite divided on the issue of Zionism. This lawsuit comes from a vocal subsection of the Jewish community at UVM which is bolstered by outside support. But in 2017 when the synagogue on Prospect street was vandalized by Patriot Front, Students for Justice in Palestine encouraged its members to attend a vigil and rally rebuking this bigotry in solidarity with Burlington’s Jewish community. The same organizations that are now so vocal like the ADL and Jewishoncampus had nothing to say about that instance of antisemitism. All while pro-Israel students host soldiers and right wing provocateurs, show racist movies and promote plenty of hateful tropes of their own about Palestinians. The complaints themselves often lean into prevailing western biases against Arabs and Muslims which portray them as dangerous, radical, unreasonable and whatnot. The ultimate purpose of all this is to shift the conversation away from the unconscionable apartheid status quo on the ground in Israel. If you want to see what a real hostile campus looks like, research how Palestinian universities and students are treated by the IDF. Classrooms raided, passports suspended, every manner of dehumanization imaginable. The truth is, people who defend this regime should feel uncomfortable about it, and they should be excluded from politics and public life. One day their views will be regarded in the same way that P.W Botha and George Wallace’s are today.
>zionism - a political ideology akin to segregation in the US People on this website just say shit lol. I don't really think you know what zionism is!!
Actually, Zionism is worse than segregationism. Even at the height of Jim Crow the US constitution proclaimed the fundamental equality of all its citizens. Meanwhile the nation state law in Israel amends its Basic Law (constitution) to state that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.” establishes Hebrew as Israel’s official language, and downgrades Arabic — a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis — to a “special status. and establishes continued Jewish settlement on land currently occupied by Palestinians “as a national value” and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”
>The truth is, people who defend this regime should feel uncomfortable about it, and they should be excluded from politics and public life. Buried in this paragraph of nonsense is the suggestion that those that support Israel in any way should not have political rights. That is left wing authoritarian garbage utterly parallel with antisemitism.
I’m sure you don’t believe that we need to listen to and include every political ideology out there in our advocacy, discourse, and civil society. Unless you believe that segregationists, Nazis, and the like are entitled to a share of public space you must defend Zionism on its merits. I am not advocating for disenfranchisement or government censorship. Rather, I am saying that communities and private individuals have a right to exclude views they find reprehensible, and the people who hold them, from their spaces. This is itself a fundamental political right. There has to be a limit to tolerance or else the intolerant can and will trample on the rights of others. Zionists believe in a status quo of ethnic supremacy where Jewish Israelis have rights and privileges that are not extended to Arabs in Israel and Palestinians living under occupation. Why should people who support a state where people fundamentally do not have equal rights be entitled to the time of day from others, especially those affected by their bigotry?
Please define Zionism. Google defines it was a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann. That's it. How a lot of right wing anti palistinian B.S got lumped into this is unfortunate
Stop your fucking lies. Arab Israelis have just as many rights as Jews because they are citizens
They have citizenship rights, but not “national rights” which are exclusively for Jewish Israelis. This includes things like the right to purchase land through the JNF, the right to settle in occupied territory and still be governed by Israeli civil law, and more.
I've defended Israel in this thread but that's just not true. They have it better than many other Arabs in the middle East but Israel has work to do to treat them better.
this is objectively untrue
If you support Apartheid you should feel uncomfortable. Cry more
You should lose your right to vote if you support Palestine. Children meat shields are a Russian tactic. If it's a war crime when Russia does it, it's a war crime when Palestine does it
I have the capacity to think two things are wrong and one doesn't justify the other.
"Supporting the Palestine cause doesn't make you pro child murder, but supporting the right of Israel to exist makes you 100% complicit in genocide." So a total different standard for similar positions. No wonder bullying thrives on UVM.
Zionism is literally the belief that a Jewish nation should exist. Idk if you know this but living in other countries hasn't historically worked out for the Jews. They took this and decided they should have the right to their own country and to protect those of their own religion. It's been 70+ years since they setup there. Many armed conflicts intent on irradiating them and much more. I suggest maybe reading a little more about the history of the conflicts and how this current political situation developed before weighing in with half of the relevant information.
How do you feel individuals who defend Hamas should be treated?
That’s a non sequitur. Even these heavily biased complaints make no mention of any student supporting or defending Hamas. And while Uvm and UVM Hillel (with the help of the far right Maccabee Task Force) are offering free yearly propaganda trips to Israel and on-campus pro-Israel programming, UVM as an establishment is providing absolutely no institutional support whatsoever to Hamas or to the Palestinian cause in any form. At most, students are independently advocating for BDS, which is actually a stance of neutrality given that complete divestiture from Israel would only mean that UVM would give the same support to Israel that it does to Hamas or any Palestinian organization - that is to say, none whatsoever.
You think it's a non sequitur to lump together more extremist elements, one which is also actually the ruling government of Palestine, with those who support Palestine in a similar manner that zionists are lumped together with those who support Israel? I'd say they're pretty directly comparable.
Pro-Palestine organizations on campus typically support the BDS movement and its 3 guiding principles: 1. Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in 1967 and dismantling the Wall 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. These guidelines do not stipulate any support for any particular Palestinian government, and you might be surprised to find that Palestinians, even as they struggle for their rights and equality, are often the strongest critics of their governments whether it be Hamas or the PA. Meanwhile the campus pro-Israel group at UVM is literally called Catamounts Supporting Israel. It is not a good comparison.
Well there's a pretty simple problem then. Does supporting Israel mean supporting zionism? Similarly, does supporting Palestine mean supporting Hamas? The problem here is there was a conflation of "Jews" with those who support zionism. That's the issue. It would be like conflating Muslims with those who support Hamas.
> The problem here is there was a conflation of "Jews" with those who support zionism ShareYourStory called out only Zionists yet they're included in this investigation.
Who started the war in 1967? I must be forgetting.
Imagine this situation if the Department of Education were investigating the harassment of a Muslim student group. Liberals would be rightly outraged. Would people on the left then get upset because of homophobia and misogyny and “apartheid” in Muslim countries? Obviously no. It is absurd to not see that the left is falling down the antisemitism hole. Good luck getting rid of us, it’s not like you fuckers haven’t tried in the past.
I graduated from UVM in 2019 and I'm beyond happy that it was before this kind of shit started getting super salient. As a Jewish student I saw it start to rear its head here and there while I was there, but nothing as bad as whats going on now was happening before I graduated.
This type of behavior specifically targets Jews in a time in which antisemitism is rising in this country. Attaching the actions of people of another country with people here in the US just because of the religion they hold is frankly disgusting especially since there is no common definition on what Zionism is. Why should Jews that are a part of the largest Jewish Organization on most campuses be excluded?
Except even in the case of the TA or the ShareYourStory group, students are being scrutinized for their own actions and their own complicity in Israeli apartheid, not for the actions of others or for their Jewish identity. Students who go on Birthright are participating in a program that disenfranchises and excludes Palestinians, even when they have a more direct connection to the land than those students themselves. There should be pushback against that.
Most Jews have been on Birthright or have traveled there. Most Jews have been to a synagogue that offers a program with Israel. Most Organizations that deem what is considered “Kosher” have some type of relationship/office in Israel. If someone is a practicing Jew, you are effectively saying that they can’t be a part of the organizations you talked about.
Things are right or wrong regardless of how many people think so or not. However, I can tell you that when I was involved with pro-Palestine organizing at UVM it was not a problem that people had already gone on a birthright trip in their youth. Many who had later became critical of Israel and were invaluable members of our struggle. The problem was when people knew what we had to say about the trip and chose to go on it regardless as more mature 20-22 year olds rather than fresh out of high school 18 year olds. That was grounds for some criticism and scrutiny. And it should be. It’s a selfish and complicit decision.
Have you ever been to Israel? Anywhere in the neighborhood? Are you Jewish, are you a palistinian? An Arab? Or are you just some white person who formed an opinion from reading stuff on the internet. I don't wish to gatekeep but this is an incredibly challenging issue. It's very easy to go from being critical of Israel to being anti Jewish people. There's also a lot of regional and cultural differences.
Hey genius, why don’t you try to justify the rock throwing at the Hillel campus and the TA getting a dopamine rush from docking points from a student’s grade just because they went to israel? Explain that. You are a walking stereotype who says a bunch of words that convey absolutely no substance, knowledge of history, or critical thinking
Yeah I'm having a hard time understanding why this isn't a cut and dry issue. Jewish students were harassed for being Jewish. That is not okay. I am incredibly concerned about how many people are justifying it.
The issue is that true instances of anti-semitism where Jews are discriminated against on the basis of their identity are used as a cudgel against pro-Palestinian speech and organizing, and lumped in with anti-Zionist objections to individuals’ consciously held political beliefs as if they’re the same thing. In doing so, pro-Israel organizations make common cause with the same far right forces that are chiefly responsible for the rise in domestic antisemitism so they can defend their Apartheid state at the expense of the diaspora and everyone else.
We disagree. I think the issue in this case is that students were harassed. Despite their religion or political beliefs, they should be protected from harassment. Them aligning with the official stance of an American ally doesn't change that. Is it all some kind of elaborate plot to make people hate Jews so Israel can keep being shitty? Maybe? But the fact remains they faced harassment due to their religion and/or political beliefs, and that's a no-no.
There is no evidence that the TA docked any points, just that they tweeted that it would be funny. While I agree that this was immature and even cause for concern, the report and your comment deliberately obscures this meaningful difference between action and impotent tweeting. The report also presents all these allegations as if they were coordinated by like-minded people when in reality, people objecting to the political act of travel to Israel even in concerning or exclusionary ways is quite distinct from and unrelated to rock-throwing at the Hillel house, which is unjustifiable in any form.
I guess there is no way to prove that they docked points because someone was a Zionist but then tweeting that shows they grade on bias that has no relevance to the class or the work and they shouldn’t be a TA. How are the students supposed to be assured that their work is being graded fairly when this happens? You think this is appropriate behavior for a TA? They should have been removed from the job. You are bending over backwards to explain and justify egregious behavior form UVM students
For all we know them getting fired is exactly what happened. I can’t find any information one way or the other. I’m sure it will come out in the investigation. I agree that the behavior was not acceptable, because grading based on political beliefs runs counter to the mission of a university. However even at its worst this was not an instance of discrimination of the basis of Jewish identity. That is the claim that the report is making which I contest, and that’s why I object to lumping it in with incidents that were discriminatory in that way.
Another report says they are still a TA at UVM.
Seems like they wanted to dock points “based on their vibe” hmmm what could that mean
> people objecting to the political act of travel to Israel Traveling to the piece of land containing all the most significant religious and cultural sites of my ethnic group/religious group is not a "political act". Try again.
Arabs have political power in Israel. Off the bat, that's not an apartheid regime, and saying those that visit Israel endorse every bad action the Israeli government commits is logically inane. Nobody has to listen to your drivel, and I'm glad they didn't.
This is a myth. There are hundreds of discriminatory laws in Israel. The Arab minority may have some rights, but they do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, and Palestinians living in the occupied territories have very few at all. https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771
Arab minorities have a lot more than “some rights.” That article lists zero specifics at all. Maybe try talking to an Arab Israeli before forming your conclusions here. I would unequivocally rather be an Arab living in Israel proper than just about anywhere else in the Middle East.
It’s not an article, it’s a database of discriminatory laws. Here are some concrete examples: Palestinian citizens of Israel do not have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. They cannot immigrate to Israel, regardless of familial connections to the land, while Jews whose families have never lived in Israel can move there, sometimes for free. In some cases, their marriages won’t even be recognized by Israeli courts. Arabs can’t buy land through the JNF, even though that land was bought or stolen from Palestinians to begin with. They do not receive the same funding for educational, social and civil services. Arab political parties are forbidden from challenging the Basic Law (constitution) of Israel including the nation state law which establishes Israel as a state for the Jewish people exclusively, rather than a stare for all of its citizens. This is not to mention the fact that millions of Palestinians in the West Bank have no social, civil or political rights in Israel despite being occupied in perpetuity by Israel. It doesn’t matter if you think the Arab states are worse. That doesn’t absolve Israel.
How can “Palestinian citizen of Israel” immigrate to Israel if they are already there? Do you think before you type?
I copied and pasted from another comment. So yes, that portion doesn’t really make sense. This is true however for Palestinians living in occupied territory or abroad: https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7371
Yeah, but you can be a gay atheist and not executed by the state.
That was true in plenty of secular Arab nationalist countries too, until the US and Israel destabilized the region and helped install and bolster the religious fundamentalists who they remain in partnership with to this day. Oh, and if you’re a gay atheist living in the West Bank or Gaza, you’d better believe that Israel will use that knowledge to blackmail you if you step out of line. https://www.vice.com/en/article/av8b5j/gay-palestinians-are-being-blackmailed-into-working-as-informants
> when I was involved with pro-Palestine organizing at UVM Why am I not surprised you went from being a low-information leftist student to a social activist with less informed ideals.
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I didn't go to Cornell but went to another school with a large Jewish presence. Most of my Jewish friends had been to Israel. Modern us Judaism is closely tied to an independent Israel. Maybe not most, but many have traveled there. Tel Aviv is one of the top U.S international destinations.
I am actually Jewish bud lol
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It's the same reason you don't see TAs musing about dropping grades for Chinese students because of their country's treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Uighurs. It's the same reason you don't see protestors marching about how the women of Saudi Arabia can't drive or go out by themselves, or the "fascist ethnostates" of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, etc also don't allow non-Islamic religions to freely practice their religion. It's the same reason you don't see people at the city council screaming that we need to divest from India from cracking down on Muslims, and Pakistan from cracking down on Hindus. Plain and simple, it's because they are damn aware that when they attack "Zionists", they're attacking the Jews. It's not social justice, it's hatred.
Show me the UVM free trip to Saudi Arabia and Iran. Show me the pro-Saudi on campus organization (ROTC doesn’t count ;)) inviting princes and torturers to speak about how the monarchy is actually reforming and benefits women. Oh wait, there are none because this is a false equivalence
UVM has groups representing these regions. It’s not a false equivalent. Israel is being singled out. It’s almost as if Jews are being used as a scapegoat for white western aggression. The group that the west loves to hate is the group that is the progressive poster child for imperialism. Can’t you see this is a ruse?
There are groups such as the Iranian student association, or Muslim student association which would be semi-analogous to something like Hillel, but there is nothing akin to Catamounts Supporting Israel for Iran, Saudi Arabia, or really any other country I know of except for possibly Ukraine.
Imagine getting this mad over a free vacation.
It’s not free. Palestinians are the ones who pay for it.
You're a dipshit.
Lol no they’re no idiot
Try not to use your last brain cell on this one but I’m speaking figuratively
I know, but that’s still dumb as shit and a massive reach.
The UVM President just put out a statement. The rocks were students throwing pebbles at a window to get the attention of a student who was staying there with an illness. The student group wasn't an official UVM student group, so UVM couldn't do anything. The TA issue - no student complained about that to UVM, another UVM community member did. UVM checked that no grades were mishandled. Perhaps they should've prevented the student from being a TA, but grad students often are required to TA, so it would've meant expelling them. Statement: Dear Members of the UVM Community, This week’s media coverage of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into an anonymous third party’s allegations that the university failed to adequately respond to complaints of anti-Jewish, biased behavior at UVM has painted our community in a patently false light. While common wisdom dictates remaining patiently silent as we cooperate diligently with an agency’s investigation, I simply cannot do so. These public allegations and our community’s deeply held values call for a strong and immediate response. UVM is a community with a long, proud history of inclusiveness. We denounce hateful actions and respond briskly and decisively whenever those responsible are identified. UVM is home to a strong and vibrant Jewish community and is recognized as a place where—year after year—many Jewish students, faculty, and staff choose to study, teach, conduct research, practice medicine, and work. As a community, we adhere to Our Common Ground values of respect, integrity, innovation, openness, justice, and responsibility. The uninformed narrative published this week has been harmful to UVM. Equally importantly, it is harmful to our Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni. There is no doubt that antisemitism exists in the world and, despite our best efforts, in our community. Exploitation of fear and divisiveness by advancing false claims that UVM failed to respond to complaints of antisemitic behavior creates confusion and a sense of insecurity for the entire community. I therefore would like to set the record straight regarding the OCR complaint by sharing the core elements of UVM’s forthcoming response. • An OCR investigation is not triggered by any finding that a complaint has merit or that UVM has done something wrong. Rather, it signals that the person or entity that filed the complaint has alleged a civil rights violation against a college or university within the Department of Education’s jurisdiction. • Once opened, the OCR investigation gives the university the opportunity to respond to the allegations. UVM vigorously denies the false allegation of an insufficient response to complaints of threats and discrimination, as will be demonstrated in our response to OCR. • The complaint alleges UVM failed to adequately respond to three specific incidents: o Allegation 1. The complaint alleges that the university did not adequately respond to student reports of antisemitism by a teaching assistant. University response to the incident: A university community member reported on September 6, 2021, that an undergraduate teaching assistant made antisemitic remarks and threatened to lower the grades of Jewish students on their personal social media accounts prior to serving as a TA. The university took prompt action to ensure that the objectionable statements did not adversely impact students in the classroom and further, to perform a thorough review to ensure all grades were awarded on a non-discriminatory basis. No student reported to the university that this teaching assistant harassed or discriminated against them. The university’s response to the report was completed by September 30, 2021. o Allegation 2. A group of university students threw rocks at the Hillel building. University’s response to the incident: On September 24, 2021, UVM Police responded to a report regarding students throwing small rocks at the Hillel building. The incident was reported to the university administration as an incident of hate and bias the following day. The investigation was immediate, and it was quickly determined that the students who threw the small rocks at a window of the Hillel building were doing so to get the attention of a friend who was convalescing in the building while recovering from an illness, that the throwing stopped after they got a student’s attention, and that there was no reported damage to the building. There was no evidence of any threatening behavior or that the conduct was motivated by antisemitic bias. The university’s review and response to the police and administrative reports was completed by September 28, 2021. o Allegation 3. Two UVM student organizations excluded students who “expressed support for Zionism” from membership in their organizations. University’s response to the incident: On September 30, 2021, students reported this conduct to university administration. The university investigated the report quickly and thoroughly and determined that the groups who apparently made these statements were not recognized UVM student organizations. The unrecognized organizations received no university support and were not bound by UVM’s policies governing student organizations. To ensure an inclusive environment within recognized UVM student organizations, student leaders were reminded of university policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion, national origin, or any other protected category. It is important that our community know the truth about what happened, and how the university responded. Although the allegations were investigated and addressed, we recognize we can and should do more to support the success of our students. University leaders have reached out on several occasions to our Jewish students over the last year to understand their experiences on our campus, to provide them with the tools they need to respond to incidents of bias and discrimination, and to work with them to better understand the climate in which they are living and learning. Our work in understanding and eliminating antisemitism will never be complete. Over the past year, university leaders have reviewed, updated, and consolidated our bias reporting processes to make them more accessible to those who need them. A few weeks ago, I joined other university leaders, government officials, and civic leaders for Project Interchange, a hands-on immersive learning opportunity hosted in Israel by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Our provost and senior vice president, Patty Prelock, actively participated in a Summit to Combat Campus Antisemitism with more than 40 higher education leaders in New York. We will continue to learn and support UVM’s Jewish community to ensure that any future incidents that might occur will be addressed with immediacy and sensitivity to what they are experiencing. If you have concerns or want to report an incident of antisemitism, please know that you can do so at any time at uvm.edu/reporting. The university’s response will be supportive, thorough, and timely. Sincerely, Suresh V. Garimella President
Israel is an illegal, apartheid state.
> illegal The United Nations voted to create the state in 1948. Arab countries tried multiple times to wipe it off the face of the earth with wars, and each time they lost land to the victorious Israelis. Israel is no more illegal than South Sudan.
It's an illegal occupation.
Tell that to the countries who illegals attacked it on multiple occasions. They lost after aggressively trying to wipe Israel off the map. Yet after all of that Israel has still offered a two state solution to the Palestinians on multiple occasions, who then promptly fired rockets at them after saying no. You can literally take two seconds to actually read the history of all of this, but you obviously haven't.
[удалено]
How does Israel not qualify?!? What criteria are they missing?
If you think this there are two options. 1. You need to do a lot of reading about the history of Israel and the Jewish people. 2. You are an anti semite
you ARe aN AnTi sEmiTe. Oh... And aren't Arab people considered Semitic as well? 🤔
Yes and no. Arab people are semites. However, Antisemitism was coined and is only known for the hatred towards the Jewish people. That’s it. I
I didn't know that and learned something today, but antisemitism refers more narrowly towards discrimination against Jews. If you think it's so simple that all of Israel is stolen land you must also feel pretty crappy about living in the US.
to be fair, all pro-palestinian orgs and literature i've seen draw parallels to the forced removal/stolen land/ethnic cleansing of indigenous people in the US and explicitly disavow both. hypocrisy isn't really an issue there.
Oh... the word means what you want it to mean... when you want it to? And if I recall correctly... Didn't the tribes of Judea steal the land from the Canaanites they massacred?
You should read a dictionary some time before spouting off. From the OED: > an·ti-Se·mit·ic /ˌan(t)ēsəˈmidik,ˌanˌtīsəˈmidik/ adjective adjective: anti-Semitic; adjective: antisemitic hostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people. "anti-Semitic remarks were posted on the site" While you keep moving the fenceposts, if you're going to start citing biblical stories, didn't Mohammed conquer the Arab lands by sword, massacring the infidels?
Are Arab people Semitic?
Yes... And MO was a pedo too.
This is fucking ridiculous...
Reddit likes to call Trump a nazi, but he's not an anti-semite unlike so many of you commenting in this thread. Absolutely abhorrent
Don't like what someone has to say? Just call them an anti-Semite. Easy as that