By David Glenn Cox
Protests on college campuses, oh man does that bring back memories. Elite students on elite campuses discovering iniquity loose in the world. Any references to the past may look the same, but only superficially. Back in the good days of moon walks and amateur pharmacology. The college protests were designed to bring OUR soldiers home from an illegal foreign war.
The current protests are designed to… To what? To tell a foreign government their actions are unpopular with Ivy League college students in New York? Maybe so the students can express their anger and tell their own government of their displeasure, with a friendly foreign government? How does that work exactly?
In the 1960s the prevailing opinion was that the US should refrain from interfering in the domestic affairs of foreign peoples. Why oh why, are they so virulent only protesting Israeli atrocities and so mum to Palestinian and Russian atrocities? Because they’ve been motivated to defend an alleged Palestinian victim, with victim Inc.. To right the wrongs of a cold and unfair world, with the highest emotion possible and the lowest possible basic fact base.
Thousands of children have been taken by Russian authorities from their Ukrainian families and placed with Russian families. That is a war crime and a form of genocide. But Ukraine doesn’t have advocates stirring the pot on American college campuses. They don’t have the budget or structure for it. Elite college campuses with a tuition higher than most American families of four live on for a year.
The Russians have specifically and intentionally targeted Ukrainian infrastructure which is also a war crime. The boundaries of Ukraine had been a settled issue for over twenty years before Russia changed their mind. They invaded a peaceful country unprovoked. Israel invaded a violent country after being provoked.
How soon we forget. December 7th or September 11th. Other countries actions seem so extreme (why don’t they control themselves?) but when it is our turn, anything goes. Other governments should show restraint when their innocent citizens are slaughtered in the street or in their homes, raped or taken hostage. Just like during the Crusades! Bringing the ninth century back to your life! History just like they teach in schools.
The students have no memory of the six-day War or the Yom Kippur War. No memory of hijacked airliners or murdered Olympic athletes. No memory of Jimmy Carter winning the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace between Israel and their first Arab neighbor. No memory of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat being gunned down specifically for making peace with Israel. No memory of Yasser Arafat and the long running PLO negotiations.
No memory of the Ottoman or British Empire. That Palestine has been under the rule of a foreign power since the time of Rome. Under the rule of the Ottomans, if the citizens gave their government grief, they would disappear and never be heard from again. Under the rule of the British, the pound sterling was the coin of the realm. Legal disputes were settled by a crown court.
Nobody argued who Palestine land rightfully belonged to. Nobody argued if the British had a legal right to do with Palestine whatever they wished. Don’t blame me; I didn’t make the world. But the idea that one hundred years after the fact, we’re going to change things is absurd. Maybe the US could sell the Louisiana Purchase back to France or sell Alaska back to the Russians.
A card laid is a card played. No givebacks or do overs. Such is the way of the world. Spain can’t have Florida back even though the thought of making the sale does sounds appealing. Or as Mark Twain once noted, there isn’t an acre of land in the possession of its rightful owner anywhere on the planet.
Of course, the Palestinian people have rights. But currently those rights are being abridged by an aspiring nation state perpetually at war. An eternal war that goes on forever seeking a goal that’s never ever going to happen. Maybe Arizona will give the state back to Mexico or the Apache’s? But what about the Anasazi? What about their ancient ancestral Real Estate claims?
How can we ever end this? Either we dismantle Israel and send millions of people packing or we make an accommodation. But the Palestinians won’t accept any accommodation, except for the total elimination of Israel, which isn’t going to happen.
There is a religious/political industry of discontent at work here. Be the first one on your block to raise your boy up to be a martyr for Allah! Raise your fist in anger as you carry his young coffin to the graveyard. In an event preordained since his childhood. Next! Bring in the next martyr!
Military headquarters built underneath civilian hospitals, how peaceful. Nothing wrong with putting civilians in harm’s way is there? Nothing wrong with firing missiles from civilian neighborhoods? Nothing wrong with using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields, is there? Because then you can decry their martyrdom, rinse and repeat.
Do you know why the innocent civilians don’t complain much? Because they will kill them. Not arrest them and take them to court, but two in the back of the head. There is no free press in Gaza. If you write something about Palestine Authority they don’t like, you might not make it back to the hotel.
It’s hard for college students to understand the world’s gross brutality. Especially when living in a privileged and elite world. “If you don’t tell Israel to do what we want, we’ll vote for Donald Trump!” I dare you! I double dog dare you! [Throat cutting 101]
How does Israel deal with a hostile neighbor refusing any accommodation? A neighbor with war as guiding principle and national agenda. Like Prussia, rather than a state with a military, a military with a state. Rather than a state with a grievance, a grievance as a state. With a budget and a structural bureaucracy complete with controlled media and propaganda operations. Why Columbia? Because it’s in New York and the news media is in New York. Giving it the press coverage, the same event wouldn’t receive in Tuscaloosa.
It’s all a bit too obvious, contrived and predictable for my taste.
“If the Arabs would put down their guns there would be no more fighting. If the Israelis put down theirs there would be no more Israel.” – Golda Meir
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