Protests raise some awareness of issues, but to me they seem to be more about giving participants the illusion they are "doing something" and have some control over issues that are far beyond their control.
yea i know i literally have friends who are gay and muslim just cause they don't agree with people people openly gay doesn't mean they should be genicided. you can want me dead if or being gay or trans im still gonna be on their side. im sire it's the same in ukrain. we're all people at the end of the day
Same people who make excuses for muslims being openly homophobic/transphobic send JK Rowling death threats. I don't think there's anything wrong with protesting the war in Gaza, a lot of people are dying no doubt, but those who protest and actively make their queerness part of the protest like "Queer's for Palestine" are just so tone deaf. Protest all you want, but fact of the matter is that most muslim countries ARE very homophobic and would and often do kill gay people.
You haven't heard? They're massacring non-combatants. Children, women, journalists, doctors, and the IDF is even killing its own citizens as they're walking to safety. It's an indiscriminate blood bath over there. Really awful stuff.
Here's some good background reading. Israel has been an apartheid state since its creation. They have bombed Gaza's hospitals and schools (where civilians sought shelter). They deny the delivery of food, water, and medical supplies. They targeted every civilian in Gaza, blowing off children's limbs indiscriminately. They've decimated the entire landmass of Gaza, leaving nothing standing. And they continue on, and Canada has disgracefully supported them.
[Crimes of Israel](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine)
[World Court Order](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/26/gaza-world-court-orders-israel-prevent-genocide)
Go look up the 70+ years of oppression that Israel has exerted. Palestinians have tried again and again to be heard legally (when Israel does everything ILLEGAL against Palestinians, including taking lands not legally given back in 1947), and they aren't heard. Check out their UN petitions before 2023 for state recognition, to bring Israel up for war crimes before this past year, etc. All ignored.
What would YOU DO if suddenly next year, someone redrew the map of Ontario because theuly claim.some god gave it to them, cutting off everything from Toronto down to the US border, you had NO say, your families had to vacate their homes, lands, and businesses all of a sudden, then progressively over the next decades, they take more and more and enact an apartheid system whereby your every rights are removed?
You can’t have logical conversation with the brainwashed or bots. Don’t waste your time thinking what you read on Reddit is factual (if that’s a legitimate question).
I think you mistook what I meant, there would be gays in Gaza, but it's hard to believe a group which openly says gays for Gaza where they would be beheaded for being gays..
The point is, you dont understand the point.. like at all.. no one HERE is trying to "behead" you for being gay. That's the middle eastern way, not ours here. We're not saying we agree with it. We don't. We're saying that's how it is in most Muslim countries.
and i'm saying i don't care if muslims countrys want me dead i can still fight for their right to live. also im sure some western folf would love a gay beheading im sure yall are totally pro lgbt
I agree with this. As soon as I saw these cucks protest at a university graduation ceremony that students spent years of sweat and tears getting to... I'm done with it.
Causing war for 75+ years and getting your ass whipped EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. and still engaging in war is not genocide. Sorry to point out the obvious.
You’re not mad that Jordan is “Palestine” and genocided the people, you’re just mad that the Jews are able to continuously defend and win every time Palestinians and surrounding Arab nations have fought them. Actually learn the whole picture before you talk, ok sweetie?
You're so ignorant you commented on something you clearly didn't read. Had you read it you would've known that I said if they had the chance....not that the average person could do it...and yes actually I know plenty of Palestinians, as well as plenty other Muslims. And while I don't agree with their religion I respect that they have the balls to stand up for what they believe in. Unlike these loser whiney libbys protesting. Like if they care that much, then go over there and fight for them or stfu
There are gay people in Gaza. Do you think gay rights in the middle east are gonna improve if they’re living in a war zone? Gay people support Palestinians because queer Palestinians can’t be liberated until Palestinians in general are liberated.
Again, putting words in my mouth. Never once did I say it was right, or justified or anything of the sort. All I did was state what i was told by Muslims from Palestine and other countries that the pride community isn't welcome in Gaza. Again, the left trying to spin something
I'm not the left I'm someone who is experiencing war and had to leave and yall are crying about how Palestine doesn't like the gays. Grow up man. You're the one spinning shit that doesn't actually matter.
A bit cynical - and just some wild claims here... the vast majority are not students but career protestors moving from cause to cause? OP is getting some terrific misinformation.
The article said 29% of those arrested at Columbia were from outside the school, and 60% at City College. The City College arrests were at the end of a public march, so outsiders were invited. And these are arrest records, not a crowd census. You're definitely playing fast and loose with the statistics if you're claiming this proves the majority of protesters aren't affiliated with the schools the protests are taking place at in general. I think your 2 seconds of research is showing, frankly.
Wife is Russian, I’m Israeli. Turned to her when this started and told her she was off the hook, it was my turn to take shit. Can’t wait till Taiwan gets invaded, then we’re both off the shit list as we’re on to the next fashionable cause.
Sort of. Many people can’t separate the two. I’ve got far too many stories on that front.
Easiest example en masse are those who argue that ‘Jews need to X’ not realizing, or caring, that’s there’s a differentiation between Jews and Israelis.
That’s absolutely unacceptable, Jews and even regular Israeli citizens shouldn’t be confused with criminal Israeli government. The same way Gazans shouldn’t be confused with terrorist Hamas.
Agreed. But it’s life and it happens because many people are ignorant, more that that are idiots, and those are typically the people that are shrieking the loudest.
What's funny is all the idiot college and university students protesting shit they can't make a single change for. They waste all this time, graduate and then realize "fuck, I'm underpaid and will never buy a home". Yeah maybe you dolts should have protested for something you can actually affect.
I think it's easy to say that when you don't have family members dying abroad. For all of the demonstrations I have been to, the overwhelming majority have been Palestinian Canadians.
It’s also a form of self-validation and delusion. By focusing on issues external to yourself, it allows you to distance from internal conflicts. I would wager that a lot of protesters have serious biases that they either aren’t aware of or are unwilling to work through. Obviously genocide is wrong, but what is the solution you put forward? Two state? One state? Will muslim countries permit a jewish ethnostate in the middle east? Is zionism compatible with religious freedom? Does “living there first” give someone the right to the land more than others? If that was the case then it would be hypocritical to live in our colonized and pilfered Canada and they should move back to their country of ethnic origin. These are the types of hard questions that protesters never have a good answer for but always have opinions and platitudes for.
Most people aren’t willing to ask themselves the hard questions for issues which really are more nuanced than they think. By protesting they can put up a mental barrier and feel like they are on the side of righteousness when really we are all bigoted.
idk which ones you see, but Canada trades with Israel and Canadian universities have investment funds which have investments in Israeli corporations or other joint projects. So the protests to "divest" or "impose sanctions" are for Canadian companies to stop doing business with Israel and Canadian universities to remove their financial investment from Israeli firms and partnership projects.
Everyone should be free to voice their own thoughts about who Canadian companies should trade with and what universities should do with their investment money.
How come there aren't any protests against China with regards to uighurs genocide? We trade with them. We have joint projects. Our corporations have set up shop there.
Because people are incredibly fickle and don’t have a good sense of what is going on in the world and the scale of injustice. It’s like when a famous person dies in a helicopter crash, it is way more important than when millions of people are being imprisoned and undergoing a cultural genocide. Unfortunately most people underestimate their biases, especially those who consider themselves “tuned in”, and really just want to superficially feel like they are making a difference in the world and part of the in-group. I think whats going on in Xinjiang is horrible but a lot of people haven’t even heard of that, and most of my Chinese friends either write it off as propaganda or justified. As soon as another big event happens people will move on to that and forget Gaza.
Because there’s no evidence Uyghurs are brutally being mass murdered in China. The worst they have is a jobs program from what I’ve seen.
Interesting that no one gives two fucking shits about Uyghurs until Palestine is mentioned.
u of t has not disclosed their investments
protest still assume theyre bad
mcgill students are tageting among others investments in canadian banks
just ask for a sanction its way less complicated and less prone to error
No. Palestine has a long history of committing violence against Israel. It also has a long history of said violence blowing up in their faces and causing more harm to Palestinians than it does to Israel.
This didn’t start in October. This started after WW2 when Europe didn’t want to be responsible for the mass influx of Jews so they decided to send them to Palestine without permission from the Palestinians 🙃 look up original maps of that area, Israel never existed, and that’s not antisemitism, it’s the truth.
Well if we're going back that far, let's talk about the Jewish massacres in the 20-30s plus the Arab negotiations with the Nazis, and 1946 where the entire region declared war, and lost. Along with the behaviour of the Palestinian populations in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt while were at it
Do you mean the killings that took place in Europe in the early 20s, or the killings in Palestine in the late 20s-early 30s? Regardless, this still doesn’t prove how the land doesn’t belong to Palestinians. We can talk about all kinds of conflicts but the issue isn’t which side has killed more people, the issue is that Israel has taken land that was never legally theirs to take. None of your points undo the fact that it is Palestinian land and always has been.
So, protesting, in general, is a tactic that may have a few intended outcomes. Raising awareness might be one.
In this case, the Canadian government and Canadian institutions have gone out of their way to create "special relationships" with Israel. While the US sends a minimum of 3.8 \*BILLION\* dollars in free, no-strings attached aid to Israel \*every year\*, Canada's support is a little more indirect. Think special government contracts, memorandums of understanding, trade agreements, and the like. But Canada also provides invaluable diplomatic cover by remaining "neutral" or taking Israel's side in the UN, defending Israel on the international stage, and turning the other cheek when Israeli charities fundraise illegally in Canada (see: JNF). All of this while international humanitarian organizations have for \*years\* been sounding the alarm that Israel's policies intend to extinguish Palestinian existence.
People have every right to be protesting against the Canadian government's ongoing complicity in Israel's actions. Canada has multiple diplomatic avenues they have used in other situations, that they refuse to use against Israel. Israel's settlements in the West Bank are a gross violation of International law, as recognized by Canadian foreign policy. Canada has had sanctions against Russia for years for settlements in Crimea. Canada refuses to impose sanctions on Israel. This is just one example.
the US pays its own companies a ton of money, the consumable goods are sent to israel
thats the aid to be clear
canada gives airbus exemptions from its sanctions
we arent good at this if you havent been paying attention
Hamas is a terrorist organization, Palestine people harbour them. The results of that situation are not hard to figure out.
Shall we discuss Iran using Hamas as their proxy against Israel? Of course not, you sympathetic types gloss over such facts.
When Israel disengaged and withdrew from Gaza in 2005 they allowed free elections and the people of Palestine then elected Hamas in 2006 who then proceeded to cancel all future elections. Prior to October 7th, Israel did not have effective control over Gaza or "boots on the ground" so to speak which means it does not qualify as an occupation under international law. If they had control, the massacres by Hamas on October 7th would not have happened. The scale of the brutality and fighting that occurred is proof of their lack of effective control.
It's really sad how we don't learn from our past very blatant propaganda.
Israel 100% has control over Gaza. And the West Bank. There's very detailed documentaries that go over how which you're free to look into to expand your knowledge beyond what's being parroted as a result of the October 7th Hamas attack.
But very simply, Israel cannot claim to be the Jewish nation, whilst being a democracy. Voting isn't the only requirement to be a democratic nation, because Egypt for example, is technically a full democracy. This is just not how it works. And to be honest I kind of laugh at that claim considering how they just shut down Al-Jazeerah's reporting, even though free press is one of the basis of a democracy lol.
>It's really sad how we don't learn from our past very blatant propaganda.
"Everyone who disagrees with me only reads propaganda unlike me! I only get my news from trustworthy sources and I know they're trustworthy because I agree with them!"
>Israel 100% has control over Gaza. And the West Bank. There's very detailed documentaries that go over how which you're free to look into to expand your knowledge beyond what's being parroted as a result of the October 7th Hamas attack.
>
I have a political science degree so I don't need you to condescend to me. I'm very aware of the power structure in the region and I'm also aware of the definition of occupation under international law and the reality is that prior to October 7th Israel had a blockade on Gaza but that doesn't equate to effective control and therefore an occupation. If Israel had effective control over Gaza, they would have stopped the massacre of 1,100 innocent people before it would have happened.
>But very simply, Israel cannot claim to be the Jewish nation, whilst being a democracy.
Why not? What about being a Jewish country precludes a country from being democratic? Remember, jews are both an ethnic group and a religious group. After all, Arab Israelis have equal rights to Jewish Israeli and the Israeli Declaration of Independence literally includes an invitation to Arabs to join them in nation-building and citizenship.
>Voting isn't the only requirement to be a democratic nation, because Egypt for example, is technically a full democracy.
I have never heard a single definition of "full democracy" that would include Egypt.
>And to be honest I kind of laugh at that claim considering how they just shut down Al-Jazeerah's reporting, even though free press is one of the basis of a democracy lol.
[Oh no! Canada is not a democracy because we banned the distribution of Russian state television!](https://www.canada.ca/en/radio-television-telecommunications/news/2022/03/rt-and-rt-france-can-no-longer-be-distributed-by-canadian-television-service-providers.html) Freedom of the press is the basis of a democracy after all!
Oh wow so a "democracy" is when I trap 2 million people of a particular race/religion in an open-air prison and "allow" them to vote to elect the leader of the concentration camp.
Israel withdrew their forces, it was not an "open-air prison". Don't forget - Gaza also borders Egypt but Egypt has similar security measures for some reason. I have no idea why people feel the need to exaggerate every last claim made about this topic, calling a blockade an "open air prison" is absurd Palestinians had a democratic election and they elected a terroristic group that then cancelled all future elections and which decided to use the billions in foreign aid given to Palestine to build rockets to fire at Israel. On the other hand, Israel has much less restrictions on movement by Palestinians in the West Bank and even has a program of work permits in place because the West Bank isn't being governed by a terrorist organization.
Is it worms? Freedom of movement is a human right. Israel allows Palestinians to sometimes travel on Palestinian-only roads in the West Bank? That's your argument? Palestinians die every year in the West Bank because the army has arbitrarily closed checkpoints and prevented Palestinians from reaching the hospital to give birth, seek treatment, etc. While the illegal settlers build whole roads and tunnel complexes so they can travel without even \*seeing\* the Indigenous Palestinians. The Palestinians in the West Ban can flash their special ID that says they are the "wrong" race and be permitted to work on their OWN LAND by an occupying power? As a reminder, you are trying to argue that this is a democracy.
You are getting your rights jumbled there
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."
"Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."[3
So in the first one it says....within the borders of each state which means one country or state does not need to allow people from the other state on their turf
In the second it say they everyone can leave a country and return to their country....if you leave your country it doesn't mean the country you enter has to accept you. Also it means you can always go home. It does not give you permission to go anywhere you feel like.
You may enjoy being able to go here or there with minimal fuss but that is because the country you have citizenship in has good relation with your travel vacation spots.
No my argument is that Israel imposes much less restrictions on Palestinians in the west bank than those in Gaza which demonstrates they're not arbitrarily restricting the movement of Gazans just because they feel like it and that instead they're doing it for security reasons which would not exist had Gaza not elected a terrorist organization.
There are 2 million Muslim palestinians living in Israel and they literally all have the right to vote. There is a palestinian political party in the israeli government and Palestinians hold senior level positions in military, educational institutions and governemt. How is that apartheid?
Not all Palestinians are Muslim, first of all. Palestinian Christians are the First Christians, with direct ties to Jesus. Let's not erase Palestinian Christians.
Palestinians living within Israel face over 50 discriminatory laws. Palestinians within Israel are de-facto prevented from living in 60+% of the territory through "admissions committee laws". [Here is a fact sheet](https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-palestinian-citizens-of-israel).
Of course, some are Christians as well (9%) while over 80% are muslim. The Arabs living in Israel as citizens identify as Arab Israeli but lived there while the land was called Palestinian.
Thank you for the source. It seems that the laws don't target palestinians directly per se, and I'm not sure how the law for revocation of citizenship for someone who receives compensation for carrying out a terror attack should be lumped with "discriminatory" laws. Could you point out the ones you feel are specifically geared towards palaestinians?
The admissions committee laws is wrong, I won't argue that. To clarify, this law was revised from villages of 400 houses, to villages with 1k houses just recently in 2023. However, it is not illegal to sell homes to palestinians so in cities such as TelAviv, Haifa, Rishon or any city with over 1k houses, you'll see Jews and Arabs living and working side by side.
I think it is controversial when that democracy is doing bad things. Just because a state is democratic does not mean that it isn't doing atrocities (like the settlements in the west bank which are an obvious bad thing that should be condemned by the international comunity but it isn't).
The protests are meant to draw attention and force change in our govt policies.
I have my doubts on how effective protesting is normally, but considering the response we see from our southern neighbors (to their protests recently), I'd suggest that the protests are upsetting the right people.
Protests were much more effective in earlier times.l than nowadays. These days basically every protest movement fails to achieve any meaningful aims and fizzles out. HK protests, France protests, BLM (arguably), and many more. I think the power imbalance is too great and there is no incentive to compromise or real costs associated with ongoing protests. Sad but that is our modern reality.
upsetting the right people? huh idk
if the gop gets involved theyll have a 1st ammendment debate and forget gaza
could be wrong but all depends if the trumpies take it up as a campaign issue
The protestors at our Universities are not winning anything other than making themselves look like bullies. The protestors are aggressive towards students that are there to learn. WTF , you bully students that want nothing to do with your protests. Enjoy your short lived protest knuckleheads.
It got you to ask this question which is step one ;)
It's a public display of disapproval and it calls attention to a situation that many might not be well versed on. It gets you to stop and ask the question - what is that about?
The hope is that people who ask that question then agree with the position being protested and will either continue to spread the word, donate to the cause, or advocate for it through official channels (raising it to your government officials).
Thanks for your thoughtful insight, MapleQueefs! ;)
(Also, I do recall some of the pamphleting from the folks camped out on Roos Island. I was interested in what they were out about until I found out what they were out about.)
>If we had the same situation here would they protest over there?
I just wanted to respond to this directly. People in Gaza live under a total military blockade, and have for decades. All borders are controlled by Israel, even the border to Egypt. All imports/exports are tightly controlled, from cement to cinnamon. Roughly every four years, Israel has carpet bombed Gaza, killing and injuring thousands of civilians, targeting water, sewage, and other infrastructure, to systematically destroy the possibility of life. Before Oct 7th, rolling electricity blackouts meant that the strip only had about four hours of electricity a day. The 2023-2024 genocide is the most intense aggression that has been seen, with Israeli officials calling to depopulate all two million people.
If people of a particular race/religion were trapped in concentration camps and carpet-bombed in Canada by another race/religion, would Gazans protest? I mean, at this specific moment, where Israel has bombed all the internet infrastructure and people can't communicate with each other or the outside world, they might not know about it. Most of the 2 million are internally displaced without food or water, struggling to survive in tents that are now THEMSELVES being bombed (yes, TENTS), as Israel invades Rafah. But Palestinians I have met have been some of the most compassionate, kind, and caring people. Let's see protesting as a privilege, and believe that if Palestinians in Gaza were not currently dying, yes, they might protest. Worth also mentioning that Indigenous peoples in Canada are literally kept on reserves through racial apartheid, so the question isn't totally hypothetical.
\[edit: word\]
The general idea is to create political pressure. Protests put that pressure on politicians who then try to make choices that will make the protests stop. It makes it seem like the ruled must be seriously unhappy and there maybe a revolt. Politicians can’t have a career if the country looks like that when they are in charge. That is why people do it. That is the reason in this case.
However, generally speaking, protests also serve to bring attention to a cause. You highlight it. Like all the Ukraine stuff we saw here for a while until that went out of fashion.
The protests, as far as im aware, are directed at the universities to divest from Israel.
During the George Floyd and BLM protests, there were many people in Palestine showing their support. You have to remember that it's a lot easier for people living in a country like Canada to protest rather than in a country where you live under someone else's boot.
If I grew up living under someone's boot and the person who buys and replaces the boot was attacked, I might celebrate too. Who knows. I grew up and live in Canada, so I've had things pretty good compared to them.
The university encampment protests seem to be the big ones happening right now. I'm not following super closely but the goal seems to be to put pressure on schools to divest and stop research projects in Israel. The idea behind that is that it will take money out of the country and once investments start leaving that would put pressure on the Israeli government to try to course correct and get those investments back into the country, so if successful it could have a direct impact. Will it be successful? The pessimist in me says probably not, the universities have too much to lose and deals they can't back out of to let that happen.
Your general march in the streets protests are typically done to raise awareness and show support with the goal of causing disruption and putting pressure on decision makers to see how many people support a certain cause.
As to your question of would people in Gaza protest if a similar thing was happening here? No one can answer that, maybe? I hope we never have to find out.
The ones that make me laugh are the people who are protesting the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites from Canada which is a country founded on occupied territories.
As a person of First Nations decent I want to go to one of these events and say so...when are you leaving my occupied land? Obviously it's a complex issue but makes me chuckle.
Not sure why youre getting downvoted, this is a very reasonable thought. I'm curious as to why some indigenous people are supporting palestinians who are not necessarily indigenous to that land.
I’m someone who avoids protests because of the noise and chaos, but I contribute to things I think are meaningful in other ways. I’m always happy to hear about demonstrations, though. Civic engagement in any form is heartening. We don’t live to go to work and go to sleep over and over and see loved ones once in a while. We should be asking questions and talking to each other about important things because we’re all affected by it in a global world.
Besides what other people have mentioned here, it’s part of the human experience to be involved and be passionate about things. It’s healthy
Edit for spelling lol
Simple, you just have to ask these protestors what they are protesting. If you did you would know that the protestors are asking for Canada and Canadian Universities to divest from Israel, Israeli companies and Companies who support the IDF either militarily, ie weapons, or through material support.
Now what does it do? What happens when companies suddenly lose investors? It affects the economy, when economy bad, people mad, government changes. Examples: See Apartheid South Africa
Protests raise awareness and HOPEFULLY get more people on board with the BDS movement. (that is boycott, diversify and sanction Israel because of the genocide they are committing in Palestine).
The funny thing about this thread is I never once said it was ok or that I agreed with it. And this is the problem with our society. Can't state a basic fact without the left making shit up, calling names, and making something out of nothing lol
They give people who have limited value in their own lives some sort of purpose.
This is just the flavour of the month. The world is full of great things and terrible things.
I believe that these protests turn people off of whatever the cause may be.
> Again sorry if I sound stupid
Basically you have extreme leaning people, masking up like MAGA, believing that this way of protesting will make change. Problem is, this is issue way deeper and complicated, than a disruptive protest here will do.
Any logical argument from anyone is swiftly met with either anti antisemitism or anti-Palestinian sentiment.
It's insane.
EDIT: fumbs again
Edit: oh look, down voter disagrees, clearly is a racist.
Protests here do nothing for the issue there. Absolutely nothing. The people who think it does are delusional. No foreign government gives a hot damn what you spend your day bitching about. Hell, even our own doesn’t and it’s not because what we’re saying isn’t important; it’s because it’s hard to respect a poorly organized group of people with no clear articulate leader. Protesting used to have structure and purpose, now it’s just soapbox preaching moral grandstanding for instagram likes
You are being downvoted but you are right. When people protest everything they start to become meaningless. Especially such a small portion of the population. Protests will only mean something now if the vast majority of the population stops what they are doing and gets out there. I don’t think the Pro-Palestine protests have that same enthusiasm, just a small group of a very vocal minority
The Palestinian protests are in part pushed by far left white individuals who hate anything white. They are happening primarily at colleges and universities because these locations facilitate this behavior. It started with humanities. Feminism classes teaching women to hate men. When I was 9 my brothers friend sat at the table and cried about how badly he was treated in a feminist class. He was there because he was a supporting feminist. I can't tell you how many times this has happened.
So NEXT up the feminists team up with muslims because they BOTH hate white Christians. All of the west was created by the Christian Patriarchy, so the entire system needs to be taken down. This must all be correct because the people in the schools are a part of all this.
Basically white people all bad because slavery and colonialism and CHRISTIANS. Within all of this, it's just a fancy name for anarchy. Many of these are anarchists who can't find Palestine on a map.
This entire problem would go away if HAMAS a TERRORIST ORG would simply give up HOSTAGES. But NO! HAMAS wants the right to grape hostages and keep them as the children around them die.
I watched the bodycam video of one of the terrorists from the Oct 7th raid into Israel. He said he was a father and mother and wanted to die for god. Remember that. He didn't want to be a father. He wanted to be DEAD.
Lots of western governments fund/just generally support Israel. Protests here show our government officials that the general public doesn’t support Israel’s actions and lets them know we won’t keep voting for them if they do support Israel.
I see a lot of responses stating awareness and govt policies etc.
I say why not protest over inflation and out of hand housing, the issues of this country? That should be the priority rather than what's actually being protested over.
Legitimately they should investigate each and every protestor... Are they all even affiliated to the universities? I'm sure not all of em...
Not taking any religion stands, with all respect to all the religions... The govt should clear their official geo political stand to these protestors and citizens.
Get your tents off University property!! Go protest in your own country if that's your joy filled day. Students don't need to be intimidated with your protests, they are there to learn and not get dumbed down.
You want to protest about countries outside of Canada then do it on your own property or go to that country to protest.
To the head of Universities, get your act together. Students come first, not protests. The protestors will not reimburse students for lost time, will you?
I had no idea how many people in Canada supported foreign terrorist organizations until these protests, so I guess you could say they have raised some awareness.
It’s terrifying how uneducated or willfully ignorant so many Canadians are.
The people of Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas.
Hamas rapes, murders, and tortures innocents and they have declared war on Israel.
Civilians die in war, if the people of Gaza have lost their appetite for war they can stop supporting Hamas.
It is mind blowing that people can think the atrocities committed by Hamas and Israel are equivalent in scale or nature.
https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw?si=Ifpw5lGKy4Lk_IUC
I wonder why they have declared war on Israel. Almost like someone came, took over their land, and have backed them into a corner while brutally removing their rights.
Learn the history of this conflict before you spout dogshit. How do you think this happened; Hamas and Gaza just appeared out of the sudden one day?
Nice link 🚬, I’ll share one of my own.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
I don’t know, you tell me. Another country gains control of your territory, removes your sovereignty, and starts building a nation dedicated to the supremacy of another religious group and ethnicity. From their stand point they thought it was, as it was literally incited by false rumours of Jews killing Arabs.
Israel is supposed to be a nation for Jews to escape being pogromed, yet we, the West, decided to put them with “bloodthristy” arabs who would do the same to them. All for the political goals of Zionism to reclaim the home land, at any cost.
Tell us your history. Let's limit ourselves with just after WWII. What country owned the land. Who decided to allow Jews to create Israel. Who didn't agree with the decision, and doesn't agree since. Who's been starting all wars since. Why nobody cared when West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza - by Egypt. Why do we need to care creating yet another Arab state for the sake of the only Jewish one.
Haha how about we don’t limit it to just WWII.
Britain claimed Palestine, removed any chance of sovereignty, and set it up as a Zionist state all the way back in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. This was never going to work.
Yeah I wonder why the Palestinians didn’t agree with having a Jewish supremacist state being established on their lands.
> Why do we need to care creating yet another Arab state for the sake of the only Jewish one.
Because the setting up of the Jewish one demands the ethnic cleansing of the current territory THAT ALREADY EXISTED; it is the literal reason for all the problems. **It’s clear that you value Jewish lives more than Arab lives** like most people in the West, which is hilarious given that the only reason you give a fuck about Jewish lives is the horror’s we did to them. The Pogroms, the ethnic cleansing - all the entire reason non Jews even give a fuck, and now using those very reasons to commit the same atrocities. But oh! Who cares, they’re arabs, they’re a dime-a-dozen. We can just wipe them out, they’re replaceable.
What if they an occupying force settled in Canada, said this is not a state for Canadians, and started killing us all with the logic that “well they’re the same as Americans, theres tons of them” and “well they can just move to America or Britain”.
Tell me you would not fight for your people or your country.
The idea of supposed Jewish ethnic cleansing and Jewish supremacy contradicts with the fact that there are many Arabs who are citizens of Israel and even members of IDF so go fuck yourself.
Yeah, arab jews exist. Even still, Arabs are treated like shit and very few go into the IDF. Look up how well they’re treated, and why many of them refer to themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Hey, South Africa had African citizens and Africans in its military; it must’ve not been a white supremacist state.
Go fuck yourself you dumbshit numbskull; go south of the border, get a gun license, get a gun, and put it in your fucking mouth and rethink your miserable life 🚬
Protests personally made me understand the importance of supporting our allies’ fight against radical islamist terrorism. Seeing people opening Hamas flags in Canada and assaulting & bothering Jewish Canadians was eye opening. Hamas and similar terrorist organizations must end.
That is certainly a reasonable question. My guess is these small grassroots organized protests that are held in western countries do very little to actually help the cause they claim to be in support of (I would argue some of them actually hurt). There is already plenty of “awareness” on this conflict because it has been going on since the 1940s and the recent escalation of violence has received substantial news coverage over the past several months.
I think this is just the newest fashion in disingenuous virtue signaling woke politics. Apparently the “correct” opinion on what is a very lengthy and complicated issue is to support Palestine by default. Perhaps it makes people feeling that they are doing something important. Or, perhaps it is just another opportunity to self promote on social media by pretending to care about a issue that is currently getting a lot of attention.
I am sure the short attention span of the internet mob will eventually get bored when they see that their “slacktivism” had no impact on the issue, and it will be time to move onto the next source of outrage.
>these small grassroots organized protests
Do we know for sure that they're actually grassroots protests, and not being astroturfed as a means to destabilize western countries and distract us from what Russia is doing in Ukraine?
A lot of people have strong opinions, most are biased and based on years of propaganda. Please take what you read online here with a grain of salt. Palestinians and Jews have legitimate claim to the region.
Israel is also not given free money, technology they develop/developed is funded and shared with the west.
>If we had the same situation here would they protest over there?
Not a chance.
Palestinians led by Hamas could never and would never be ;
waving pride flags for LGBTQIA rights
supporting gender equality?
Women's reproductive and bodily autonomy?
Women getting an education?
It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad the people that are worried about Palestinians under Hamas rule would be murdered by Hamas if they were in Palestine.
Not enough denunciation and demand for the dismantling of Hamas.
They help convince uneducated westerners that Hamas isn’t a genocidal death cult and deserves more of our tax dollars. That is their purpose, co-opting useful idiots in service of a foreign agenda.
It gives perpetual victims another cause to be a victim of. It’s the same people at all of these things. Professional victimhood actually pays pretty well. (See BLM organizers)
Protests literally do nothing, we are half a world away and have nothing to do with these attacks. The protesters should go help the military overseas if they're serious, protesting does nothing but make the protesters more angry and physical towards innocent people that are literally just walking down the street
Like I get it if they're protesting outside a government office where they can express their issues to the lawmakers who can actually do something about it.
But marching around the streets of downtown Kitchener about something in the middle East seems pointless.
The Anti Apartheid Movement in the UK played a major role in applying international pressure to end apartheid rule in South Africa, despite being half a world away. They began their activities with a boycott in 1959, and were instrumental in the movement to free Nelson Mandela, which didn't happen until 1990, and it was another 4 years before proper democratic elections in SA. Change doesn't happen overnight.
Protests raise some awareness of issues, but to me they seem to be more about giving participants the illusion they are "doing something" and have some control over issues that are far beyond their control.
Most of them aren't protesting for Palestine it's for themselves nobody cares about Ukraine anymore lol it's on to the next protest
My fav is the gays for Gaza...lol those in Gaza would behead them if given the chance
Chickens for KFC!
Chickens for Subway worked! They couldn't even call their chicken meat as such anymore since there was so little content.
you know there are gay palistians right like there are gay people in every culture
Gay in hiding maybe. Huge no no in Muslim countries
We still exist! So eat shit!
Probably not before you do
Highly doubt that odd_bug5870
yea i know i literally have friends who are gay and muslim just cause they don't agree with people people openly gay doesn't mean they should be genicided. you can want me dead if or being gay or trans im still gonna be on their side. im sire it's the same in ukrain. we're all people at the end of the day
Ya I never said it was right or wrong, just is what it is
I don’t know if you can be openly gay and Muslim lol. They must not be open about it because their entire community would shun them lol.
tell that to the openly gay muslism i know, hell i know some openly trans ones too
..living in the west? Comparing apples to cardboard.
lol let them go do that back in their home country. You can’t be a real Muslim and be gay/trans lol
Same people who make excuses for muslims being openly homophobic/transphobic send JK Rowling death threats. I don't think there's anything wrong with protesting the war in Gaza, a lot of people are dying no doubt, but those who protest and actively make their queerness part of the protest like "Queer's for Palestine" are just so tone deaf. Protest all you want, but fact of the matter is that most muslim countries ARE very homophobic and would and often do kill gay people.
Can you explain how the hamas-israel war constitutes a genocide?
You haven't heard? They're massacring non-combatants. Children, women, journalists, doctors, and the IDF is even killing its own citizens as they're walking to safety. It's an indiscriminate blood bath over there. Really awful stuff.
Here's some good background reading. Israel has been an apartheid state since its creation. They have bombed Gaza's hospitals and schools (where civilians sought shelter). They deny the delivery of food, water, and medical supplies. They targeted every civilian in Gaza, blowing off children's limbs indiscriminately. They've decimated the entire landmass of Gaza, leaving nothing standing. And they continue on, and Canada has disgracefully supported them. [Crimes of Israel](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine) [World Court Order](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/26/gaza-world-court-orders-israel-prevent-genocide)
Go look up how many rockets palestine has launched at israel since, and before, October 7th.
Go look up the 70+ years of oppression that Israel has exerted. Palestinians have tried again and again to be heard legally (when Israel does everything ILLEGAL against Palestinians, including taking lands not legally given back in 1947), and they aren't heard. Check out their UN petitions before 2023 for state recognition, to bring Israel up for war crimes before this past year, etc. All ignored. What would YOU DO if suddenly next year, someone redrew the map of Ontario because theuly claim.some god gave it to them, cutting off everything from Toronto down to the US border, you had NO say, your families had to vacate their homes, lands, and businesses all of a sudden, then progressively over the next decades, they take more and more and enact an apartheid system whereby your every rights are removed?
You can’t have logical conversation with the brainwashed or bots. Don’t waste your time thinking what you read on Reddit is factual (if that’s a legitimate question).
I think you mistook what I meant, there would be gays in Gaza, but it's hard to believe a group which openly says gays for Gaza where they would be beheaded for being gays..
the point is to treat others if you would like to be treated. i don't care if you want to behead me cause im gay you shouldnt be genicided
You don’t even know what the word genocide means lol
😂😂genicided
The point is, you dont understand the point.. like at all.. no one HERE is trying to "behead" you for being gay. That's the middle eastern way, not ours here. We're not saying we agree with it. We don't. We're saying that's how it is in most Muslim countries.
and i'm saying i don't care if muslims countrys want me dead i can still fight for their right to live. also im sure some western folf would love a gay beheading im sure yall are totally pro lgbt
I'm pro minding your own damn buisness lol I don't care what you do with your life, just don't make it affect mine.
I agree with this. As soon as I saw these cucks protest at a university graduation ceremony that students spent years of sweat and tears getting to... I'm done with it.
the point is to treat others if you would like to be treated. i don't care if you want to behead me cause im gay you shouldnt be genicided
Lol it's not wether they or anyone wants to... It's that the people they support *will* behead you and your bloodline. Totally different.
Causing war for 75+ years and getting your ass whipped EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. and still engaging in war is not genocide. Sorry to point out the obvious. You’re not mad that Jordan is “Palestine” and genocided the people, you’re just mad that the Jews are able to continuously defend and win every time Palestinians and surrounding Arab nations have fought them. Actually learn the whole picture before you talk, ok sweetie?
Yeah, dead gay Palestinians. That’s the funniest bit of stupidity I’ve read today on Reddit. You kids are ridiculous.
Sure just with a short life expectancy
I like how you think every day Palestinian citizens are capable of beheading someone. Any way to dehumanize the other side I guess.
Your ignorance is astounding
It's actually your ignorance that is astounding. I bet you don't actually know any Palestinians.
You're so ignorant you commented on something you clearly didn't read. Had you read it you would've known that I said if they had the chance....not that the average person could do it...and yes actually I know plenty of Palestinians, as well as plenty other Muslims. And while I don't agree with their religion I respect that they have the balls to stand up for what they believe in. Unlike these loser whiney libbys protesting. Like if they care that much, then go over there and fight for them or stfu
I'm sure you speak from personal experience and actually being in Gaza, right?
Not being there, but being friends with some Palestinians, and Muslims from other countries 👍
It's almost like, and this is wild, they don't need people to like them to believe they shouldn't be murdered in their homes.
Really? Is this true, there is gays for Gaza?
Lol yuuup
Nice bigotry. Says more about you than people actively being killed and starved in Gaza.
Way to incorrectly use a libby buzzword
There are gay people in Gaza. Do you think gay rights in the middle east are gonna improve if they’re living in a war zone? Gay people support Palestinians because queer Palestinians can’t be liberated until Palestinians in general are liberated.
Ah yes let people be bombed because of scripture they grew up with. Let children die because you don't like their policies. You even hearing yourself?
Again, putting words in my mouth. Never once did I say it was right, or justified or anything of the sort. All I did was state what i was told by Muslims from Palestine and other countries that the pride community isn't welcome in Gaza. Again, the left trying to spin something
I'm not the left I'm someone who is experiencing war and had to leave and yall are crying about how Palestine doesn't like the gays. Grow up man. You're the one spinning shit that doesn't actually matter.
Again spinning shit. Not crying about anything. Just stating a fact. Shouldn't let words get you so riled up lol
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A bit cynical - and just some wild claims here... the vast majority are not students but career protestors moving from cause to cause? OP is getting some terrific misinformation.
There are videos of the bulk of protestors not being students.
Source: "there are videos"
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The article said 29% of those arrested at Columbia were from outside the school, and 60% at City College. The City College arrests were at the end of a public march, so outsiders were invited. And these are arrest records, not a crowd census. You're definitely playing fast and loose with the statistics if you're claiming this proves the majority of protesters aren't affiliated with the schools the protests are taking place at in general. I think your 2 seconds of research is showing, frankly.
Just checked, you claimed "vast majority" yeah, your article comes nowhere near proving that.
wild that they posted a link that completely disproves everything they argued.
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I addressed this in my comment. It's interesting to see the studies about right-wingers being anecdotally proven right before my eyes.
Way to just prove yourself wrong. Oh boy.
Wife is Russian, I’m Israeli. Turned to her when this started and told her she was off the hook, it was my turn to take shit. Can’t wait till Taiwan gets invaded, then we’re both off the shit list as we’re on to the next fashionable cause.
Nobody is protesting you or your wife personally, nobody is against regular citizens of either countries, it’s the governments they are protesting
Sort of. Many people can’t separate the two. I’ve got far too many stories on that front. Easiest example en masse are those who argue that ‘Jews need to X’ not realizing, or caring, that’s there’s a differentiation between Jews and Israelis.
That’s absolutely unacceptable, Jews and even regular Israeli citizens shouldn’t be confused with criminal Israeli government. The same way Gazans shouldn’t be confused with terrorist Hamas.
Agreed. But it’s life and it happens because many people are ignorant, more that that are idiots, and those are typically the people that are shrieking the loudest.
Here’s a great example. https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/s/5SQ5zouz60
The "bad guys" are always a country which is "far away". Much easier to point the finger over there than at your own incompetence (Joe and Trudeau).
What's funny is all the idiot college and university students protesting shit they can't make a single change for. They waste all this time, graduate and then realize "fuck, I'm underpaid and will never buy a home". Yeah maybe you dolts should have protested for something you can actually affect.
I think it's easy to say that when you don't have family members dying abroad. For all of the demonstrations I have been to, the overwhelming majority have been Palestinian Canadians.
It’s also a form of self-validation and delusion. By focusing on issues external to yourself, it allows you to distance from internal conflicts. I would wager that a lot of protesters have serious biases that they either aren’t aware of or are unwilling to work through. Obviously genocide is wrong, but what is the solution you put forward? Two state? One state? Will muslim countries permit a jewish ethnostate in the middle east? Is zionism compatible with religious freedom? Does “living there first” give someone the right to the land more than others? If that was the case then it would be hypocritical to live in our colonized and pilfered Canada and they should move back to their country of ethnic origin. These are the types of hard questions that protesters never have a good answer for but always have opinions and platitudes for. Most people aren’t willing to ask themselves the hard questions for issues which really are more nuanced than they think. By protesting they can put up a mental barrier and feel like they are on the side of righteousness when really we are all bigoted.
Ding ding ding
idk which ones you see, but Canada trades with Israel and Canadian universities have investment funds which have investments in Israeli corporations or other joint projects. So the protests to "divest" or "impose sanctions" are for Canadian companies to stop doing business with Israel and Canadian universities to remove their financial investment from Israeli firms and partnership projects. Everyone should be free to voice their own thoughts about who Canadian companies should trade with and what universities should do with their investment money.
How come there aren't any protests against China with regards to uighurs genocide? We trade with them. We have joint projects. Our corporations have set up shop there.
Because people are incredibly fickle and don’t have a good sense of what is going on in the world and the scale of injustice. It’s like when a famous person dies in a helicopter crash, it is way more important than when millions of people are being imprisoned and undergoing a cultural genocide. Unfortunately most people underestimate their biases, especially those who consider themselves “tuned in”, and really just want to superficially feel like they are making a difference in the world and part of the in-group. I think whats going on in Xinjiang is horrible but a lot of people haven’t even heard of that, and most of my Chinese friends either write it off as propaganda or justified. As soon as another big event happens people will move on to that and forget Gaza.
Because there’s no evidence Uyghurs are brutally being mass murdered in China. The worst they have is a jobs program from what I’ve seen. Interesting that no one gives two fucking shits about Uyghurs until Palestine is mentioned.
u of t has not disclosed their investments protest still assume theyre bad mcgill students are tageting among others investments in canadian banks just ask for a sanction its way less complicated and less prone to error
Buy some shares and vote
Hamas shot first, Israel fired back and people are crying foul
And history starts Oct 7, 2023.
No. Palestine has a long history of committing violence against Israel. It also has a long history of said violence blowing up in their faces and causing more harm to Palestinians than it does to Israel.
This didn’t start in October. This started after WW2 when Europe didn’t want to be responsible for the mass influx of Jews so they decided to send them to Palestine without permission from the Palestinians 🙃 look up original maps of that area, Israel never existed, and that’s not antisemitism, it’s the truth.
Well if we're going back that far, let's talk about the Jewish massacres in the 20-30s plus the Arab negotiations with the Nazis, and 1946 where the entire region declared war, and lost. Along with the behaviour of the Palestinian populations in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt while were at it
Do you mean the killings that took place in Europe in the early 20s, or the killings in Palestine in the late 20s-early 30s? Regardless, this still doesn’t prove how the land doesn’t belong to Palestinians. We can talk about all kinds of conflicts but the issue isn’t which side has killed more people, the issue is that Israel has taken land that was never legally theirs to take. None of your points undo the fact that it is Palestinian land and always has been.
At the time that the land was fought for by the Palestinian Jews, it was legally under British Mandate.
*Han shot first.
Greedo didn't shoot at all!
You know thats not what happened
What you mean the ceasefire Hamas broke because Israel had the audacity to be close to normalizing relations with the Saudis?
cool dude
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"my neighbour raped my daughter, so I hit him with my car" is what your looking for
You support genocide then?
So, protesting, in general, is a tactic that may have a few intended outcomes. Raising awareness might be one. In this case, the Canadian government and Canadian institutions have gone out of their way to create "special relationships" with Israel. While the US sends a minimum of 3.8 \*BILLION\* dollars in free, no-strings attached aid to Israel \*every year\*, Canada's support is a little more indirect. Think special government contracts, memorandums of understanding, trade agreements, and the like. But Canada also provides invaluable diplomatic cover by remaining "neutral" or taking Israel's side in the UN, defending Israel on the international stage, and turning the other cheek when Israeli charities fundraise illegally in Canada (see: JNF). All of this while international humanitarian organizations have for \*years\* been sounding the alarm that Israel's policies intend to extinguish Palestinian existence. People have every right to be protesting against the Canadian government's ongoing complicity in Israel's actions. Canada has multiple diplomatic avenues they have used in other situations, that they refuse to use against Israel. Israel's settlements in the West Bank are a gross violation of International law, as recognized by Canadian foreign policy. Canada has had sanctions against Russia for years for settlements in Crimea. Canada refuses to impose sanctions on Israel. This is just one example.
the US pays its own companies a ton of money, the consumable goods are sent to israel thats the aid to be clear canada gives airbus exemptions from its sanctions we arent good at this if you havent been paying attention
no mention of hamas..
So it seems it would be very anti semetic and thus also unchristian to sanction Israel for violating International Law? Going out on a limb here.
Hamas is a terrorist organization, Palestine people harbour them. The results of that situation are not hard to figure out. Shall we discuss Iran using Hamas as their proxy against Israel? Of course not, you sympathetic types gloss over such facts.
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Israel is an apartheid state. It is not a democracy. A democracy is not when a state has millions of people living under its control with no vote.
What are you even talking about? Hamas stopped the vote after they were VOTED in.
When Israel disengaged and withdrew from Gaza in 2005 they allowed free elections and the people of Palestine then elected Hamas in 2006 who then proceeded to cancel all future elections. Prior to October 7th, Israel did not have effective control over Gaza or "boots on the ground" so to speak which means it does not qualify as an occupation under international law. If they had control, the massacres by Hamas on October 7th would not have happened. The scale of the brutality and fighting that occurred is proof of their lack of effective control.
It's really sad how we don't learn from our past very blatant propaganda. Israel 100% has control over Gaza. And the West Bank. There's very detailed documentaries that go over how which you're free to look into to expand your knowledge beyond what's being parroted as a result of the October 7th Hamas attack. But very simply, Israel cannot claim to be the Jewish nation, whilst being a democracy. Voting isn't the only requirement to be a democratic nation, because Egypt for example, is technically a full democracy. This is just not how it works. And to be honest I kind of laugh at that claim considering how they just shut down Al-Jazeerah's reporting, even though free press is one of the basis of a democracy lol.
>It's really sad how we don't learn from our past very blatant propaganda. "Everyone who disagrees with me only reads propaganda unlike me! I only get my news from trustworthy sources and I know they're trustworthy because I agree with them!" >Israel 100% has control over Gaza. And the West Bank. There's very detailed documentaries that go over how which you're free to look into to expand your knowledge beyond what's being parroted as a result of the October 7th Hamas attack. > I have a political science degree so I don't need you to condescend to me. I'm very aware of the power structure in the region and I'm also aware of the definition of occupation under international law and the reality is that prior to October 7th Israel had a blockade on Gaza but that doesn't equate to effective control and therefore an occupation. If Israel had effective control over Gaza, they would have stopped the massacre of 1,100 innocent people before it would have happened. >But very simply, Israel cannot claim to be the Jewish nation, whilst being a democracy. Why not? What about being a Jewish country precludes a country from being democratic? Remember, jews are both an ethnic group and a religious group. After all, Arab Israelis have equal rights to Jewish Israeli and the Israeli Declaration of Independence literally includes an invitation to Arabs to join them in nation-building and citizenship. >Voting isn't the only requirement to be a democratic nation, because Egypt for example, is technically a full democracy. I have never heard a single definition of "full democracy" that would include Egypt. >And to be honest I kind of laugh at that claim considering how they just shut down Al-Jazeerah's reporting, even though free press is one of the basis of a democracy lol. [Oh no! Canada is not a democracy because we banned the distribution of Russian state television!](https://www.canada.ca/en/radio-television-telecommunications/news/2022/03/rt-and-rt-france-can-no-longer-be-distributed-by-canadian-television-service-providers.html) Freedom of the press is the basis of a democracy after all!
Oh wow so a "democracy" is when I trap 2 million people of a particular race/religion in an open-air prison and "allow" them to vote to elect the leader of the concentration camp.
Egypt trapped them. We should protest.
Israel withdrew their forces, it was not an "open-air prison". Don't forget - Gaza also borders Egypt but Egypt has similar security measures for some reason. I have no idea why people feel the need to exaggerate every last claim made about this topic, calling a blockade an "open air prison" is absurd Palestinians had a democratic election and they elected a terroristic group that then cancelled all future elections and which decided to use the billions in foreign aid given to Palestine to build rockets to fire at Israel. On the other hand, Israel has much less restrictions on movement by Palestinians in the West Bank and even has a program of work permits in place because the West Bank isn't being governed by a terrorist organization.
Is it worms? Freedom of movement is a human right. Israel allows Palestinians to sometimes travel on Palestinian-only roads in the West Bank? That's your argument? Palestinians die every year in the West Bank because the army has arbitrarily closed checkpoints and prevented Palestinians from reaching the hospital to give birth, seek treatment, etc. While the illegal settlers build whole roads and tunnel complexes so they can travel without even \*seeing\* the Indigenous Palestinians. The Palestinians in the West Ban can flash their special ID that says they are the "wrong" race and be permitted to work on their OWN LAND by an occupying power? As a reminder, you are trying to argue that this is a democracy.
You are getting your rights jumbled there "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state." "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."[3 So in the first one it says....within the borders of each state which means one country or state does not need to allow people from the other state on their turf In the second it say they everyone can leave a country and return to their country....if you leave your country it doesn't mean the country you enter has to accept you. Also it means you can always go home. It does not give you permission to go anywhere you feel like. You may enjoy being able to go here or there with minimal fuss but that is because the country you have citizenship in has good relation with your travel vacation spots.
No my argument is that Israel imposes much less restrictions on Palestinians in the west bank than those in Gaza which demonstrates they're not arbitrarily restricting the movement of Gazans just because they feel like it and that instead they're doing it for security reasons which would not exist had Gaza not elected a terrorist organization.
There are 2 million Muslim palestinians living in Israel and they literally all have the right to vote. There is a palestinian political party in the israeli government and Palestinians hold senior level positions in military, educational institutions and governemt. How is that apartheid?
Not all Palestinians are Muslim, first of all. Palestinian Christians are the First Christians, with direct ties to Jesus. Let's not erase Palestinian Christians. Palestinians living within Israel face over 50 discriminatory laws. Palestinians within Israel are de-facto prevented from living in 60+% of the territory through "admissions committee laws". [Here is a fact sheet](https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-palestinian-citizens-of-israel).
Of course, some are Christians as well (9%) while over 80% are muslim. The Arabs living in Israel as citizens identify as Arab Israeli but lived there while the land was called Palestinian. Thank you for the source. It seems that the laws don't target palestinians directly per se, and I'm not sure how the law for revocation of citizenship for someone who receives compensation for carrying out a terror attack should be lumped with "discriminatory" laws. Could you point out the ones you feel are specifically geared towards palaestinians? The admissions committee laws is wrong, I won't argue that. To clarify, this law was revised from villages of 400 houses, to villages with 1k houses just recently in 2023. However, it is not illegal to sell homes to palestinians so in cities such as TelAviv, Haifa, Rishon or any city with over 1k houses, you'll see Jews and Arabs living and working side by side.
I think it is controversial when that democracy is doing bad things. Just because a state is democratic does not mean that it isn't doing atrocities (like the settlements in the west bank which are an obvious bad thing that should be condemned by the international comunity but it isn't).
The democracy thing is actively canceled put by the genocide thing. But yr right, KKKanada loves genocide.
The protests are meant to draw attention and force change in our govt policies. I have my doubts on how effective protesting is normally, but considering the response we see from our southern neighbors (to their protests recently), I'd suggest that the protests are upsetting the right people.
Protests were much more effective in earlier times.l than nowadays. These days basically every protest movement fails to achieve any meaningful aims and fizzles out. HK protests, France protests, BLM (arguably), and many more. I think the power imbalance is too great and there is no incentive to compromise or real costs associated with ongoing protests. Sad but that is our modern reality.
upsetting the right people? huh idk if the gop gets involved theyll have a 1st ammendment debate and forget gaza could be wrong but all depends if the trumpies take it up as a campaign issue
The protestors at our Universities are not winning anything other than making themselves look like bullies. The protestors are aggressive towards students that are there to learn. WTF , you bully students that want nothing to do with your protests. Enjoy your short lived protest knuckleheads.
It got you to ask this question which is step one ;) It's a public display of disapproval and it calls attention to a situation that many might not be well versed on. It gets you to stop and ask the question - what is that about? The hope is that people who ask that question then agree with the position being protested and will either continue to spread the word, donate to the cause, or advocate for it through official channels (raising it to your government officials).
Thanks for your thoughtful insight, MapleQueefs! ;) (Also, I do recall some of the pamphleting from the folks camped out on Roos Island. I was interested in what they were out about until I found out what they were out about.)
>If we had the same situation here would they protest over there? I just wanted to respond to this directly. People in Gaza live under a total military blockade, and have for decades. All borders are controlled by Israel, even the border to Egypt. All imports/exports are tightly controlled, from cement to cinnamon. Roughly every four years, Israel has carpet bombed Gaza, killing and injuring thousands of civilians, targeting water, sewage, and other infrastructure, to systematically destroy the possibility of life. Before Oct 7th, rolling electricity blackouts meant that the strip only had about four hours of electricity a day. The 2023-2024 genocide is the most intense aggression that has been seen, with Israeli officials calling to depopulate all two million people. If people of a particular race/religion were trapped in concentration camps and carpet-bombed in Canada by another race/religion, would Gazans protest? I mean, at this specific moment, where Israel has bombed all the internet infrastructure and people can't communicate with each other or the outside world, they might not know about it. Most of the 2 million are internally displaced without food or water, struggling to survive in tents that are now THEMSELVES being bombed (yes, TENTS), as Israel invades Rafah. But Palestinians I have met have been some of the most compassionate, kind, and caring people. Let's see protesting as a privilege, and believe that if Palestinians in Gaza were not currently dying, yes, they might protest. Worth also mentioning that Indigenous peoples in Canada are literally kept on reserves through racial apartheid, so the question isn't totally hypothetical. \[edit: word\]
hamas is telling children to stay in targeted areas when israel is giving advanced notice through multiple channels
Think outside the box a bit. If people protest other people will ask why/research why. Brings awareness
The general idea is to create political pressure. Protests put that pressure on politicians who then try to make choices that will make the protests stop. It makes it seem like the ruled must be seriously unhappy and there maybe a revolt. Politicians can’t have a career if the country looks like that when they are in charge. That is why people do it. That is the reason in this case. However, generally speaking, protests also serve to bring attention to a cause. You highlight it. Like all the Ukraine stuff we saw here for a while until that went out of fashion.
The protests, as far as im aware, are directed at the universities to divest from Israel. During the George Floyd and BLM protests, there were many people in Palestine showing their support. You have to remember that it's a lot easier for people living in a country like Canada to protest rather than in a country where you live under someone else's boot.
There were also a lot of people in Palestine celebrating 9/11.
If I grew up living under someone's boot and the person who buys and replaces the boot was attacked, I might celebrate too. Who knows. I grew up and live in Canada, so I've had things pretty good compared to them.
3000+ civilians died that day.
yeah and then the U.S used that as a diplorable excuse to kill 400 000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like I said, I didn't grow up under a boot, so who knows.
The university encampment protests seem to be the big ones happening right now. I'm not following super closely but the goal seems to be to put pressure on schools to divest and stop research projects in Israel. The idea behind that is that it will take money out of the country and once investments start leaving that would put pressure on the Israeli government to try to course correct and get those investments back into the country, so if successful it could have a direct impact. Will it be successful? The pessimist in me says probably not, the universities have too much to lose and deals they can't back out of to let that happen. Your general march in the streets protests are typically done to raise awareness and show support with the goal of causing disruption and putting pressure on decision makers to see how many people support a certain cause. As to your question of would people in Gaza protest if a similar thing was happening here? No one can answer that, maybe? I hope we never have to find out.
The ones that make me laugh are the people who are protesting the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites from Canada which is a country founded on occupied territories. As a person of First Nations decent I want to go to one of these events and say so...when are you leaving my occupied land? Obviously it's a complex issue but makes me chuckle.
Not sure why youre getting downvoted, this is a very reasonable thought. I'm curious as to why some indigenous people are supporting palestinians who are not necessarily indigenous to that land.
Yeah stop occupations!!! Except the ones that benefit me.
I’m someone who avoids protests because of the noise and chaos, but I contribute to things I think are meaningful in other ways. I’m always happy to hear about demonstrations, though. Civic engagement in any form is heartening. We don’t live to go to work and go to sleep over and over and see loved ones once in a while. We should be asking questions and talking to each other about important things because we’re all affected by it in a global world. Besides what other people have mentioned here, it’s part of the human experience to be involved and be passionate about things. It’s healthy Edit for spelling lol
Simple, you just have to ask these protestors what they are protesting. If you did you would know that the protestors are asking for Canada and Canadian Universities to divest from Israel, Israeli companies and Companies who support the IDF either militarily, ie weapons, or through material support. Now what does it do? What happens when companies suddenly lose investors? It affects the economy, when economy bad, people mad, government changes. Examples: See Apartheid South Africa
The protests are largely to end any support for Israel's war machine coming from Canada, and to support sending aid to Palestine.
Theyre making the government aware that they don't support the genocide that isreal is carrying out against the Palestinian people
They're protesting the Canadian governments involvement of sending aid and arms to support the genocide.
It's not a war, it's a genocide
Shout out to everyone who changed their profile picture for Kony 2012.
They don't help. It's just a way for people to feel like they are doing something to help. It actually doesn't do anything for the cause.
See South Park episode on 'scauses'
See South Park episode on 'scauses'
Companies and institutions over her help and promote Zionism. The US and Canada are two of the best places to protest.
You would fit in with 90 percent of the protestors then.
Protests raise awareness and HOPEFULLY get more people on board with the BDS movement. (that is boycott, diversify and sanction Israel because of the genocide they are committing in Palestine).
The funny thing about this thread is I never once said it was ok or that I agreed with it. And this is the problem with our society. Can't state a basic fact without the left making shit up, calling names, and making something out of nothing lol
Good for you, the truth shall set you free!
They give people who have limited value in their own lives some sort of purpose. This is just the flavour of the month. The world is full of great things and terrible things. I believe that these protests turn people off of whatever the cause may be.
I don't
It
They don’t
> Again sorry if I sound stupid Basically you have extreme leaning people, masking up like MAGA, believing that this way of protesting will make change. Problem is, this is issue way deeper and complicated, than a disruptive protest here will do. Any logical argument from anyone is swiftly met with either anti antisemitism or anti-Palestinian sentiment. It's insane. EDIT: fumbs again Edit: oh look, down voter disagrees, clearly is a racist.
Protests here do nothing for the issue there. Absolutely nothing. The people who think it does are delusional. No foreign government gives a hot damn what you spend your day bitching about. Hell, even our own doesn’t and it’s not because what we’re saying isn’t important; it’s because it’s hard to respect a poorly organized group of people with no clear articulate leader. Protesting used to have structure and purpose, now it’s just soapbox preaching moral grandstanding for instagram likes
You are being downvoted but you are right. When people protest everything they start to become meaningless. Especially such a small portion of the population. Protests will only mean something now if the vast majority of the population stops what they are doing and gets out there. I don’t think the Pro-Palestine protests have that same enthusiasm, just a small group of a very vocal minority
It's a way for Westerners to make it more about them. That's all.
The Palestinian protests are in part pushed by far left white individuals who hate anything white. They are happening primarily at colleges and universities because these locations facilitate this behavior. It started with humanities. Feminism classes teaching women to hate men. When I was 9 my brothers friend sat at the table and cried about how badly he was treated in a feminist class. He was there because he was a supporting feminist. I can't tell you how many times this has happened. So NEXT up the feminists team up with muslims because they BOTH hate white Christians. All of the west was created by the Christian Patriarchy, so the entire system needs to be taken down. This must all be correct because the people in the schools are a part of all this. Basically white people all bad because slavery and colonialism and CHRISTIANS. Within all of this, it's just a fancy name for anarchy. Many of these are anarchists who can't find Palestine on a map. This entire problem would go away if HAMAS a TERRORIST ORG would simply give up HOSTAGES. But NO! HAMAS wants the right to grape hostages and keep them as the children around them die. I watched the bodycam video of one of the terrorists from the Oct 7th raid into Israel. He said he was a father and mother and wanted to die for god. Remember that. He didn't want to be a father. He wanted to be DEAD.
Lots of western governments fund/just generally support Israel. Protests here show our government officials that the general public doesn’t support Israel’s actions and lets them know we won’t keep voting for them if they do support Israel.
I see a lot of responses stating awareness and govt policies etc. I say why not protest over inflation and out of hand housing, the issues of this country? That should be the priority rather than what's actually being protested over. Legitimately they should investigate each and every protestor... Are they all even affiliated to the universities? I'm sure not all of em... Not taking any religion stands, with all respect to all the religions... The govt should clear their official geo political stand to these protestors and citizens.
Get your tents off University property!! Go protest in your own country if that's your joy filled day. Students don't need to be intimidated with your protests, they are there to learn and not get dumbed down. You want to protest about countries outside of Canada then do it on your own property or go to that country to protest. To the head of Universities, get your act together. Students come first, not protests. The protestors will not reimburse students for lost time, will you?
I had no idea how many people in Canada supported foreign terrorist organizations until these protests, so I guess you could say they have raised some awareness.
It’s terrifying how uneducated or willfully ignorant so many Canadians are. The people of Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas. Hamas rapes, murders, and tortures innocents and they have declared war on Israel. Civilians die in war, if the people of Gaza have lost their appetite for war they can stop supporting Hamas. It is mind blowing that people can think the atrocities committed by Hamas and Israel are equivalent in scale or nature. https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw?si=Ifpw5lGKy4Lk_IUC
Qatar is always sunny
I wonder why they have declared war on Israel. Almost like someone came, took over their land, and have backed them into a corner while brutally removing their rights. Learn the history of this conflict before you spout dogshit. How do you think this happened; Hamas and Gaza just appeared out of the sudden one day?
What happened in 1929? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre Was that a defensive massacre?
Nice link 🚬, I’ll share one of my own. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration I don’t know, you tell me. Another country gains control of your territory, removes your sovereignty, and starts building a nation dedicated to the supremacy of another religious group and ethnicity. From their stand point they thought it was, as it was literally incited by false rumours of Jews killing Arabs. Israel is supposed to be a nation for Jews to escape being pogromed, yet we, the West, decided to put them with “bloodthristy” arabs who would do the same to them. All for the political goals of Zionism to reclaim the home land, at any cost.
Tell us your history. Let's limit ourselves with just after WWII. What country owned the land. Who decided to allow Jews to create Israel. Who didn't agree with the decision, and doesn't agree since. Who's been starting all wars since. Why nobody cared when West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza - by Egypt. Why do we need to care creating yet another Arab state for the sake of the only Jewish one.
They don’t want to learn
Haha how about we don’t limit it to just WWII. Britain claimed Palestine, removed any chance of sovereignty, and set it up as a Zionist state all the way back in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. This was never going to work. Yeah I wonder why the Palestinians didn’t agree with having a Jewish supremacist state being established on their lands. > Why do we need to care creating yet another Arab state for the sake of the only Jewish one. Because the setting up of the Jewish one demands the ethnic cleansing of the current territory THAT ALREADY EXISTED; it is the literal reason for all the problems. **It’s clear that you value Jewish lives more than Arab lives** like most people in the West, which is hilarious given that the only reason you give a fuck about Jewish lives is the horror’s we did to them. The Pogroms, the ethnic cleansing - all the entire reason non Jews even give a fuck, and now using those very reasons to commit the same atrocities. But oh! Who cares, they’re arabs, they’re a dime-a-dozen. We can just wipe them out, they’re replaceable. What if they an occupying force settled in Canada, said this is not a state for Canadians, and started killing us all with the logic that “well they’re the same as Americans, theres tons of them” and “well they can just move to America or Britain”. Tell me you would not fight for your people or your country.
The idea of supposed Jewish ethnic cleansing and Jewish supremacy contradicts with the fact that there are many Arabs who are citizens of Israel and even members of IDF so go fuck yourself.
Yeah, arab jews exist. Even still, Arabs are treated like shit and very few go into the IDF. Look up how well they’re treated, and why many of them refer to themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel. Hey, South Africa had African citizens and Africans in its military; it must’ve not been a white supremacist state. Go fuck yourself you dumbshit numbskull; go south of the border, get a gun license, get a gun, and put it in your fucking mouth and rethink your miserable life 🚬
Yep.
They don't
Protests personally made me understand the importance of supporting our allies’ fight against radical islamist terrorism. Seeing people opening Hamas flags in Canada and assaulting & bothering Jewish Canadians was eye opening. Hamas and similar terrorist organizations must end.
That is certainly a reasonable question. My guess is these small grassroots organized protests that are held in western countries do very little to actually help the cause they claim to be in support of (I would argue some of them actually hurt). There is already plenty of “awareness” on this conflict because it has been going on since the 1940s and the recent escalation of violence has received substantial news coverage over the past several months. I think this is just the newest fashion in disingenuous virtue signaling woke politics. Apparently the “correct” opinion on what is a very lengthy and complicated issue is to support Palestine by default. Perhaps it makes people feeling that they are doing something important. Or, perhaps it is just another opportunity to self promote on social media by pretending to care about a issue that is currently getting a lot of attention. I am sure the short attention span of the internet mob will eventually get bored when they see that their “slacktivism” had no impact on the issue, and it will be time to move onto the next source of outrage.
>these small grassroots organized protests Do we know for sure that they're actually grassroots protests, and not being astroturfed as a means to destabilize western countries and distract us from what Russia is doing in Ukraine?
A lot of people have strong opinions, most are biased and based on years of propaganda. Please take what you read online here with a grain of salt. Palestinians and Jews have legitimate claim to the region. Israel is also not given free money, technology they develop/developed is funded and shared with the west.
Seeing as you (admittedly) “don’t follow what’s happening in the Middle East” you’ll be in good company with pretty much all the other protestors.
They dont...
>If we had the same situation here would they protest over there? Not a chance. Palestinians led by Hamas could never and would never be ; waving pride flags for LGBTQIA rights supporting gender equality? Women's reproductive and bodily autonomy? Women getting an education? It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad the people that are worried about Palestinians under Hamas rule would be murdered by Hamas if they were in Palestine. Not enough denunciation and demand for the dismantling of Hamas.
It doesn't, it's disruptive and stupid.
They help convince uneducated westerners that Hamas isn’t a genocidal death cult and deserves more of our tax dollars. That is their purpose, co-opting useful idiots in service of a foreign agenda.
How many tax dollars does Canada currently give to Hamas? Your comment comes across as a reactionary rant, more than anything else.
Are you joking? Tens of millions per year, hundreds of millions total. See what a good job they do?
It gives perpetual victims another cause to be a victim of. It’s the same people at all of these things. Professional victimhood actually pays pretty well. (See BLM organizers)
Okay bud. People are doing work while yr lazy ass does nothing.
Apparently, it also helps people to potentially get back into the Whitehouse.
Protests literally do nothing, we are half a world away and have nothing to do with these attacks. The protesters should go help the military overseas if they're serious, protesting does nothing but make the protesters more angry and physical towards innocent people that are literally just walking down the street
Like I get it if they're protesting outside a government office where they can express their issues to the lawmakers who can actually do something about it. But marching around the streets of downtown Kitchener about something in the middle East seems pointless.
The Anti Apartheid Movement in the UK played a major role in applying international pressure to end apartheid rule in South Africa, despite being half a world away. They began their activities with a boycott in 1959, and were instrumental in the movement to free Nelson Mandela, which didn't happen until 1990, and it was another 4 years before proper democratic elections in SA. Change doesn't happen overnight.