Slog AM: More Than 16,000 Homeless in King County, Anonymous Donor Against Nude Beach Revealed, and UW Admin Gave Pro-Palestine Protesters Fuck-All In Negotiations

1. The Unpunished:
   
   How Extremists Took Over Israel

   After 50 years of failure
   
   to stop violence and terrorism
   
   against Palestinians by Jewish ultra-
   
   nationalists, lawlessness has become the law.

   –by Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti
   
   May 16, 2024

   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html

   four readers’ comments:

   If you’ve been wondering why the students have been protesting, here is your answer.
   
   –Annie; Minnesota

   Finally some real journalism. Thanks for this detailed account. It comes 6 months too late, but better late than never.
   
   –Insia Fatima; Brooklyn

   This is why I find American support for Israel’s current war so perplexing. People who despise right-wing strongmen like Trump and Orban seem to have bent over backwards to forget that on October 6th, Netanyahu was a right-wing extremist who’d cobbled together a coalition with even more extreme conservatives, and was in the midst of trying to dismantle the court system that might check his power.

   If you opposed the Iraq War because you didn’t trust W. Bush, why on earth would you trust Netanyahu to do the right thing?
   
   –NRW; Maine

   I’m afraid these terrorists are running things here in Israel. They have a strong hold on prime minister Netanyahu, being the most important piece of his current coalition after everyone else refused to ally with him, and as such they exploit their power in order to bring forth their delusional biblical theories into reality.

   These lawless people, these outcasts, who have been for years living in the outskirts of Israeli society, have taken an iron grip on Israel’s most fundamental institutions, and are now de facto in control.

   US readers must understand that Israel is being run by these people and by them alone. Mr. Netanyahu is nothing but a mere puppet.

   October 7th could have been avoided along with the consequential ongoing conflict we see now, if these war mongers were handled in the only effective way: imprisonment and trial on charges of treason against the Israeli state.

   They are no better then Hamas – both being terrorists seeking destruction and death in martyrdom.

   Keep that in mind when you read and listen to news about Mr. Ben Gvir, and Mr. Smotrich – both no more than mere hoodlums – they not only speak for the Israeli government – they control it.

   I hope readers can remember that these people do not represent the entirety of the Israeli public, and that there at least 50% of the Israeli public who strongly oppose their rule.

   Hopefully we can turn things around. Please, don’t give up on us.
   
   –yon; israel

   more
   
   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html#commentsContainer

   This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

   The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace.

   The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power. –nyt

   And WE, the People
   
   Of the USofA’re
   
   SUPPORTING
   
   MASSACRE

   and Some of us
   
   Much more so
   
   than others

   the “right”
   
   Never sleeps.

2. @2
   
   it’ll be a Race
   
   ‘twixt nutnyahoo’s
   
   genociders and Hamas

   Which nutty group
   
   of Terrorists will
   
   Win?

   we
   
   Already
   
   Know who’s
   
   gonna Lose. sorry,
   
   Palestinians! We’ve got
   
   WMDs to sell! NOT our Fault!

3. The Mayor of Seattle talking to rich and powerful people? What are we coming to?

   (Honestly, this level of naïveté from a journalist who is not in middle school is amazing.)

4. @1: “If you’ve been wondering why the students have been protesting, here is your answer.”

   That was answered awhile ago:

   ‘SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] wasted no time after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel to spring into action, organizing a “Day of Resistance.” Chapters of the group said the world had witnessed “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity.”’

   ‘George Washington University suspended its SJP chapter this week after three of its members projected messages on a school building that included “Glory to our Martyrs.”

   ‘And Brandeis University has also banned SJP after saying the group “openly supports Hamas,” but the school indicated that the decision was tough because it is dedicated to upholding the principles of free speech.‘

   (https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4311746-students-justice-palestine-antisemitism-free-speech-hamas-israel/amp/)

   That was in November. What took you so long?

5. @5. Like giving a Band-aid to a dismembered quadriplegic whose limbs you hacked off with a chainsaw.

6. Tensor is more concerned with ambiguously eliminationist rhetoric – words – than unquestionably eliminationist actions, in order to enable the latter. Which speak louder?

7. @8
   
   fucking
   
   BINGO.

   from the article, above

   ‘By the end of October, it was clear that no one was going to help the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta. A tiny Palestinian community, some 150 people perched on a windswept hill in the West Bank near Hebron, it had long faced threats from the Jewish settlers who had steadily encircled it. But occasional harassment and vandalism, in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, escalated into beatings and murder threats.

   The villagers made appeal after appeal to the Israeli police and to the ever-present Israeli military, but their calls for protection went largely unheeded, and the attacks continued with no consequences.

   So one day the villagers packed what they could, loaded their families into trucks and disappeared.

   Who bulldozed the village after that is a matter of dispute. The Israeli Army says it was the settlers; a senior Israeli police officer says it was the army.

   Either way, soon after the villagers left, little remained of Khirbet Zanuta besides the ruins of a clinic and an elementary school. One wall of the clinic, leaning sideways, bore a sign saying that it had been funded by an agency of the European Union providing “humanitarian support for Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer in the West Bank.”

   Near the school, someone had planted the flag of Israel as another kind of announcement: This is Jewish land now.

   Such violence over the decades in places like Khirbet Zanuta is well documented. But protecting the people who carry out that violence is the dark secret of Israeli justice.

   The long arc of harassment, assault and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance and abetment by Israeli officials.

   For many of those officials, it is Palestinian terrorism that most threatens Israel. But in interviews with more than 100 people — current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership — we found a different and perhaps even more destabilizing threat.

   A long history of crime without punishment, many of those officials now say, threatens not only Palestinians living in the occupied territories but also the State of Israel itself.’

   @ Wormtongue
   
   your little Genocide
   
   on Palestinians cum
   
   Land Grab ain’t Going
   
   so well. Better Get Busier
   
   with your ‘facts’ Olde man:

   you and bibi
   
   Still haven’t (yet)
   
   brought down Israel.

8. So sweeping people in circles and criminalizing addiction all while dragging feet on any kind of new affordable/accessible housing did nothing to reduce the unhoused population? Color me shocked. Bet repealing minimum wages and giving even more money to cops will help tho, just you wait.

9. It’s weird how sometimes people demand things and don’t get them.

10. @9 attributes:

    By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti
    
    May 16, 2024

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html

    apologies!

11. 11: and when they don’t get their demands met, then the other party is “not listening”.

12. “So sweeping people in circles and criminalizing addiction all while dragging feet on any kind of new affordable/accessible housing did nothing to reduce the unhoused population?” –@10

    right
    
    There’s
    
    your Problem:

    it AIN’T about
    
    Pragmatism
    
    it IS about
    
    Feelings

    and the Right
    
    NOT to be Confronted
    
    with the Symptoms of our
    
    DISEASE: to the Rich go the
    
    Spoils! ALL of ’em. great post.

13. “Stuart Sloan” is a great rich guy name.

14. Israel Says It Will
    
    Send More Troops to
    
    Rafah, Defying Global Pressure

    The announcement signaled that Israel intended to press deeper into the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering.

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/16/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas-rafah

    plus
    
    the IDF’s
    
    gotta go Back
    
    up North ‘cause
    
    wouldn’tchya Know it
    
    Hamas is Still Fucking There.

    the only ‘Plan’
    
    is the Leveling
    
    of Gaza whilst
    
    Hiding behind
    
    Hamas. & why
    
    Not? it’s worked
    
    Quite well so far.

    END THE GENOCIDE

    and stop America’s
    
    fucking Financing
    
    of Massacre, Joe.

15. @4 I don’t think it’s naïve to point out the attention a single person gets from the highest levels of our local government due to the number of zeroes in their bank account. Sure it happens all the time in this country, but we shouldn’t give it a shrug and call someone simple for pointing it out.

16. @5 The IDF was running an aid inspection checkpoint when an Israeli ship shelled a truck waiting in line. Just because the IDF is running it doesn’t mean that the IDF won’t also try to destroy it. They’re very open-minded that way.

17. “ She probably just landed herself on 10 unique FBI watch lists.”
    
    As well she should, though I have no idea who she is.

    And the Hamas supporters at UW are learning one of the more important lessons of their academic careers: their little hissy fits and lists of demands aren’t important.

18. “from the river to the sea,” is the progressive “all lives matter” – both are steeped in the history of racist dog whistles (regardless of what their supporters claim).

19. The students are on the right side of history. The United States and all of its institutions are not.

    Now that the world is finally acknowledging that Israel is committing genocide (convenient now that Gaza is thoroughly destroyed and all Palestinians dead, dying, or displaced), will the Biden Administration follow United States law and stop arming and funding Israel? Nope.

    Biden’s putting together ONE BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF MONEY AND WEAPONS TO SEND TO ISRAEL (is he doing it with congressional approval or just going around congress again, you know, like he said Trump had no right to do, but apparently he does).

    Meanwhile, people in this country live on the streets. Imagine if we weren’t funding Israel’s psychotic, illegal, and immoral slaughter, starvation, and utter destruction of Palestine in the name of some fucked up religious insanity and to uphold apartheid and white supremacy?!

    Hundreds of billions of AMERICAN TAXPAYER DOLLARS shitted out to slaughter civilians around the world, while the people responsible for making those dollar available are left to twist in the wind.

20. I also find it humorous that far leftists are in bed with religious extremist – example demands highlighted in this Times article (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uw-president-calls-for-cease-fire-criticizes-protest-encampment/)

    “The protesters’ demands have increased, according to Cauce, now including: creating a new department to implement an “anti-Zionist” litmus test for faculty hiring; granting a student group oversight of awarding new, religion-based scholarships…”

    I do not want my public institutions supporting religion (be that vouchers for Christian private schools or student granted religion-based scholarships) – fuck that.

21. So Israel is “helping” the U.S. operate the pier that was built specifically to circumvent Israeli interference with land-based aid? Silly me, I assumed we weren’t going to let Israel anywhere near it. (Yeah, I’m sure the IDF pinky-promised Biden there’d be no sabotage.) Stupid, stupid, stupid.

22. @25

    oh so Close, dewey!
    
    ‘that’s No ‘MOON:
    
    it’s a Deathstar.’

    WE Don’t wanna
    
    Support your
    
    Genocides.

    can
    
    you Spot
    
    the Difference?

23. @13. Oh, the irony of being patronized about not grasping the basic facts by folks who can’t even grasp the basic fact that this is a genocide.

24. The NW chapter of the Anti Defamation Leage cited that at least 30 buildings on UW campus were vandalized with graffiti, and among the slogans were;
    
    “Kill your local colonizers”
    
    “Fuck Zionists”

    And, as already noted, the camp organizers are now demanding that university hires be required to be anti-Zionist. That’s right, new hires cannot support the existence of Israel.

    Time for the camp to go. Time for the FBI. Time to treat individuals who promote such odious views to be treated exactly like the KKK.

    For those of you who actually care about a durable peace, you need to separate yourselves from groups that promulgate hate, and instead, embrace the idea of 2 people’s, 2 states. 2day. From Camp David to Oslo, progress can only occur without picking a side.

25. Garb@8: Since you’re obviously not going to get there by yourself, I’ll kindly explain it to you.

    If the protesters demand disvestment from Israel, or stoppage of U.S. arms to Israel, because they do not want to contribute to the death toll in Gaza, then we can say their actions have the motivation of saving civilian lives there. (We can argue over whether disvestment or stoppage would indeed actually save any lives in Gaza, of course.)

    But the protesters have been saying — in the streets of Seattle in October, on the campus of Columbia University in New York last month, on the UW Quad now — that Israel should not exist at all, that the ‘solution’ to this conflict is to wipe Israel off of the map. Therefore, we can say they want disvestment or stoppage not to save civilian lives in Gaza, but to deny Israel the ability to defend itself. They are demanding the US abandon a pluralistic democracy to predation by the violent, theocratic, terrorist gang which is Hamas. The protesters’ position has minimal support in this country, and even if you cannot understand why it lacks broad support, the lack of that support remains the reason you are losing.

26. speaking of Strikes
    
    and the UAW:

    In Southern California, police raided an encampment at University of California, Irvine, arresting at least a dozen demonstrators. This comes as unionized student workers across the UC system have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike in response to the use of force in dismantling student encampments and violation of their labor rights. The UAW Local 4811 represents some 48,000 members.

    Meanwhile, the Harvard Graduate Students Union filed a federal complaint against Harvard for surveillance and retaliation against their protest.

    And a judge in Rhode Island has rejected trespassing charges against 41 Brown University protesters. The judge said, “I think this is a reflection of what nonviolent and peaceful resistance, frankly, is supposed to look like.”

    more on the Genocide
    
    that Neocons wish’d
    
    just Disappear – just
    
    like their wish for
    
    Palestinians:

    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/16/headlines/gazans_flee_israeli_attacks_across_the_territory_as_chaos_reigns_in_besieged_territory

27. @31. It isnt about winning and losing numbnuts, it’s about stopping a genocide from continuing.

    “But the protesters have been saying — in the streets of Seattle in October, on the campus of Columbia University in New York last month, on the UW Quad now — that Israel should not exist at all, that the ‘solution’ to this conflict is to wipe Israel off of the map. Therefore, we can say they want disvestment or stoppage not to save civilian lives in Gaza, but to deny Israel the ability to defend itself.”

    Which protestors are saying this? All of them? Some of them? A few of them? The majority of them? Are they saying anything else besides that? Were you there to listen to them yourself? Citations please. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

    Does forcefully displacing 300,000 people and counting not count as a war crime to you? You can be safely ignored as a bad faith whataboutist who never evaluates anything but your own point of view and always changes the subject when held to account.

    And you’re doing the same thing now by deflecting attention from the ongoing actual genocide backed up by actions taken by your favorite can do no wrong regime to ever take hold in Israel, because protestors are saying bad things and being brutally assaulted for it.

28. @5 — “@3: lol, Middle Eastern
    
    politics fail on your part. The Israelis
    
    aren’t blowing up the humanitarian aid pier,
    
    they’re helping run it.” @teddycommitsauce

    from our Journalistic
    
    HEROES at Democ-
    
    racy Now:

    Israeli Human
    
    Rights Lawyer Attack-
    
    ed While Documenting
    
    Settler Raid on Gaza Aid Convoy

    Aid agencies are running out of food in southern Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing offensive in Rafah and the shutdown of the two main border crossings in the south.

    Some 1.1 million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations, while a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north.

    Meanwhile, some Israelis have been blocking aid from reaching the Gaza border, including a violent attack on trucks carrying humanitarian relief through the occupied West Bank earlier this week, when settlers threw food packages on the ground and set fire to the vehicles at the Tarqumiyah checkpoint near Hebron.

    “They did whatever they want,” says Israeli lawyer and peace activist Sapir Sluzker Amran, who documented the attack on the aid convoy. She says Israeli soldiers appeared to be working with the settlers, refusing to intervene.

    “They were just standing aside like there is nothing that they can do, like it’s normal, what’s happening.”

    tonnes More, Disturbingly
    
    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/16/israelis_attack_gaza_aid

    is Our ‘bridge to Nowhere’
    
    Safe? as Safe as a Gazan,
    
    Friendo. As safe as a
    
    Gazan.

29. @30. Not every war, but this one is. Explain to me again why it’s not a genocide at this point again?

30. “The protesters’
    
    position has minimal
    
    support in this country… “

    Oh, wormmy
    
    No One lies and
    
    Malinforms quite
    
    like el Wormtongue.

    protets are spreading
    
    Planet-wide whilst
    
    You justify bibi’s
    
    Genocide. your
    
    lies cannot be
    
    Believed for-
    
    Ever tho the
    
    World is for
    
    Once see-
    
    ing Thru
    
    them.
    
    Fina-
    
    lly.

31. @35 According to tensorna, if it was a genocide Israel would have killed everyone in Gaza by now. The fact that only 1% of the population has been killed indicates that Israel doesn’t intend to commit genocide. I wish I was making that up.

32. 1%? That’s only 3.33 million in America numbers! With 3.33 times that amount in wounded! Or only 2.3 million women and children! ¡Que ganga!

33. i haven’t seen the word zionist this much since the last time i logged into stormfront 2024 is a hoot

34. it’s nice to see that people can actually put their differences aside and cooperate when they share a common goal

35. speaking of Cancel Culture:
    
    Mother Jones:

    Trump
    
    Wants to
    
    Deport Pro-Palestine
    
    Protesters—and GOP Law-
    
    makers Are Filing Bills to Make It Happen

    Republicans continue their push to punish dissent.
    
    –by Juilianne McShane

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/trump-protesters-gop-marco-rubio-palestine-college-deport/

    Land of the Free?
    
    Obviously! for
    
    all Right-
    
    Thinking
    
    citizens

    @41:
    
    agreed!

36. @41: Even back in the days of the Weimar Republic it was the one point that Bolsheviks and National Socialists agreed on.

37. “I truly loathe these fuckers, and no amount soyjack millennial humor will absolve them of their sins.”

    On the one hand you can do everything in your power to keep Donald Trump — who would be worse on all the issues you profess to be concerned about — from being elected President. On the other hand, you can write completely nihilistic bullshit like the quote from Hannah above.

    What a bunch of completely privileged horseshit writers The Stranger has.

38. @5, 6, 29, 31 et al
    
    speaking of History:

    Palestinians and allies marked the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, May 15th – the day after the state of Israel was formally declared. “Nakba” is Arabic for “catastrophe,” and is used to describe the murder, dispossession and forced displacement Palestinians suffered in the years up to and including 1948.

    As many as 900,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. Thousands were killed, massacred by Israeli militias like the Irgun and the Stern Gang or while fleeing on foot with no food or water, and some while engaged in armed resistance.

    What has followed since 1948 has been one of the most violent, costly and protracted conflicts in the modern era.

    Israel’s assault on Gaza has been termed a genocide by an increasing number of United Nations member states and international legal experts.

    Egypt joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where an emergency hearing was called this week, following Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah.

    In Gaza, the official death toll is now over 35,000 Palestinians. Israel’s siege is also responsible for widening famine in Gaza.

    “What we are seeing now, what unfolds in front of our eyes, is a genocidal situation, by which people are targeted, whether they are children, babies, in hospital or in schools.

    This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, who as an Israeli soldier fought in the 1973 war, said on the Democracy Now! news hour.

    “The Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians, so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians are suffering.”

    Professor Takriti assigned historical blame on the United Nations, the United States, and Britain:

    “You had a very aggressive settler-colonial movement develop in Palestine under British rule. It was armed under British rule. It was trained under British rule.”

    Professor Takriti continued, “The Israeli project is very much intertwined with American foreign policy towards the Palestinian people.

    They don’t see us as human beings.

    They want to destroy us.

    But they know that they have to present it in self-defense terms so that it’s palatable to the broader public…this is just a racist, criminal project that is leading and causing immense pain and suffering.”

    By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

    etc:
    
    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/16/the_palestinian_nakba_from_1948_to

    oh!
    
    but
    
    Hamas.

    fuck That:

    let the
    
    Nuremberg
    
    Trials Begin.

39. “Israel’s assault on Gaza has been termed a genocide by an increasing number of United Nations member states and international legal experts.”

    Psssh!
    
    how’s that
    
    even Possible?!

    wormmy!
    
    throw the Book
    
    at ’em! Your 35lb Dictionary

    oughtta be Enough.
    
    if not, grab
    
    Two.

40. @48 If intent is the issue, how do you square the “not a genocide” stance with the genocidal rhetoric coming out of the Israeli War Cabinet?

    @45 Typical Ahab Steakhouse. No rules, just might. In the real world, armies in the civilized world are expected to draw lines around humanitarian missions and not bomb/shell inside them without a significant amount of command approval for situations where, say, Hamas is operating inside a hospital. On the other hand, Russia routinely shells hospitals and civilian evacuation routes. Israel saw that and instead of being horrified like the rest of the civilized world, said “Sign me up!”

41. @50. It’s actually an easy argument to make if you replace Buttigieg with fire by tweet Trump.

42. stjerome dear, my beef in the whole thing is that while KUOW, as a legitimate news source, is going to predictably and appropriately be cautious, our indie weekly spent most of the coverage of this issue wondering who the meanie was when they could have done some very basic investigation into who owned the adjacent properties, and from that point speculated on who was behind this.

    In any event, the real story here is that Seattleites responded to this proposal, and because of that it was tabled.

    While it’s interesting who the mayor talked to, at the end of the day it didn’t matter.

43. @53. Anything goes in war only if we lower our standards and expectations as such. Hold yourself and the world to higher standards than the worst atrocities mankind has committed in our history, or keep repeating the same mistakes and doom us all to your nihilist nonsense. It’s rare to dissect the savage pathology of a true sociopath, but Ahab shines like the sun in all its glory.

44. The Anti-Defamation League has made it clear they are a Zionist front and they do not care about hate, just listen to the shit that comes spewing out of Jonathan Greenblatt’s mouth, even against any Jew who doesn’t support Israel’s genocide. The ADL DNGAF that American Jews are facing an increase in antisemitism. Jonathan Greenblatt has made it far more likely that American Jews will be harassed or worse. He’s a Zionist terrorist just like Biden. Israel hides behind the victims of the Holocaust to justify their slaughter and starvation of Palestinians and their destruction of Gaza. Greenblatt hides behind American Jews, using them like Israeli soldiers use children to hide behind while they wage their psychotic violence on everyone they believe is their enemy. And all the while Americans pay for it. When Israel ceases to exist it, it will have only its so-called leaders to blame. And when the United States is finally thoroughly destroyed, the Democrats will blame Trump and the Republicans when in reality it will be their doing – they are the ones finishing the job by any means necessary. The only unknown is who they will anger enough to instigate WW3.

45. Garb@33: “Which protestors are saying this? All of them? Some of them? A few of them? The majority of them? Are they saying anything else besides that? Were you there to listen to them yourself? Citations please.”

    You really want to go there? OK, let’s review:

    Seattle, October:

    ‘The protesters made their demands clear in their rallying chants: … “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and, “We don’t want two states, we want 1948,”’

    (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2023/10/16/79212000/as-a-ground-invasion-looms-thousands-in-seattle-protest-for-a-free-palestine)

    Columbia University, April:

    ‘The day before the police shut down the protests [at Columbia University], pro-Palestinian students led marches around the heart of the campus chanting “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall” and “We don’t want no two state, we will take all of it”. Others led with a variation on the popular but contentious “river to the sea” slogan: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab.”‘

    (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/college-gaza-protests-antisemitism)

    UW Quad, now:

    ‘…media liaison Zho Ragen wrote in a message to The Stranger, hold a peaceful rally “centered on the reality in the ground in Gaza, where the Zionist entity…”’

    (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/05/08/79505311/uw-did-not-sicc-cops-on-their-students-but-they-did-not-divest-from-genocide-either)

    ‘The protesters’ demands have increased, according to Cauce, now including: creating a new department to implement an “anti-Zionist” litmus test for faculty hiring; granting a student group oversight of awarding new, religion-based scholarships; and blanket amnesty for all violations of the law and student code, including not solely camping, Cauce said in her statement.’

    (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uw-president-calls-for-cease-fire-criticizes-protest-encampment/)

    Isolated incidents, right?

    ‘The main national umbrella group for campus pro-Palestinian protests is Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP takes a violent eliminationist stance toward Israel. In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks, it issued a celebratory statement instructing its affiliates that all Jewish Israelis are legitimate targets:

    “Liberation is not an abstract concept. It is not a moment circumscribed to a revolutionary past as it is often characterized. Rather, liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary. In essence, decolonization is a call to action, a commitment to the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty. It calls upon us to engage in meaningful actions that go beyond symbolism and rhetoric. Resistance comes in all forms — armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.”

    ‘SJP likewise directed its members to join the struggle directly: “This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”’

    ‘A second group that has helped organize the demonstrations at Columbia is called Within Our Lifetime. Like SJP, WOL takes an uncompromising eliminationist stance toward Israel, even calling for “the abolition of zionism.” If you suspect it would be difficult to exterminate an idea peacefully, you are correct. WOL, like SJP, endorses all violent attacks on Israeli Jews: “We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary.”’

    (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-protest-anti-semitism-campus-israel-jewish-students-justice-palestine.html)

    Their message resonates here, too:

    “If the world had any balls it would eliminate Israel (since it isn’t a real country, it’s an occupation of Palestine).”

    (https://www.thestranger.com/elections-2024/2024/03/15/79427944/university-of-washington-students-bemoan-choices-for-president-contemplate-not-voting/comments/21)

    That comment has yet to be deleted, and the commenter has yet to be banned. Your comments have been deleted, and you have been banned. Does that make eliminationist statements against Israel more acceptable here than your commentary?

46. re: Denny Blaine Park. Does anyone know when Sloan bought his house (next to the park). Unless he inherited it, he should have known that he was moving next to a nude beach. If he’s hoping to fund improvements to the park, and is upset about trash and how about underwriting a bathroom and regular garbage pickup.

47. @27 kristofarian +1 for the WIN!!!

48. Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, tantamount to ‘settler-colonialism’: UN expert.

    Israel’s occupation is illegal and indistinguishable from a “settler-colonial” situation, which must end, as a condition for Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination.

    https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129942

49. Israel Resists
    
    Grand Bargain as U.S.
    
    and Saudis Work on Security Pact

    President Biden
    
    is pushing for a broad deal
    
    that would get Israel to approve a Pal-
    
    estinian nation in return for Saudi recognition of Israel.

    Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders to have the kingdom establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Israel-Hamas war began last October, the talks withered.

    American and Saudi officials have tried to revive prospects for a deal by demanding more from Israel — a cease-fire in Gaza and irreversible steps toward the founding of a Palestinian nation.

    Now those officials say they are close to a final agreement on the main elements of what the Saudis want from the deal: a U.S.-Saudi mutual defense pact and cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in the kingdom.

    Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, about these matters in private on his visit last month to Riyadh, according to the State Department. And Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, is expected to follow up when he goes to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend.

    But there are no signs that Israeli leaders are moving to join them, despite the symbolic importance for Israel of establishing ties with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab nation.

    Before the war, U.S. and Saudi officials planned to ask the Israelis for modest concessions for the Palestinians, U.S. officials say. But now Mr. Biden sees a deal involving a Palestinian nation as a critical component of the conflict’s endgame.

    That resistance, along with a potential full-scale assault by the Israeli military on the Palestinian city of Rafah, puts in jeopardy a potential three-way grand bargain that Mr. Biden envisions as the foundation to a long-term solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rebuffed calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, saying that it would become a “terror haven.” Most Israelis also oppose it, according to polls.

    Mr. Netanyahu has not proposed a governance system for Gaza, and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, criticized him on Wednesday for the lack of such a plan.

    Since Mr. Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia, American and Saudi officials have begun challenging Mr. Netanyahu by publicly saying they are getting closer to agreement on a package that they will offer Israel.

    Mr. Netanyahu can either take the megadeal and move toward regional peace and potential security cooperation with Saudi Arabia that could counter Iran, their shared adversary — or reject it and perpetuate the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and Israel’s isolation in the region, they say.

    –by Edward Wong and Vivian Nereim
    
    May 17, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET

    more:
    
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/us/politics/israel-saudi-arabia-gaza.html

    way to Go
    
    smoulderin’ Joe!
    
    there is (temporarily?)
    
    Hope for this Planet yet

50. @65

    *Crown Prince
    
    Mohammed
    
    bin Salman

    speaking of Terrorists
    
    wielding Bonesaws

    @63:
    
    Thanks
    
    auntie Gee!

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