Michael Hobbes: Students who were pro-Apartheid in the 1980s probably also had trouble making friends in college, who gives a shit www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/s...

Students who were pro-Apartheid in the 1980s probably also had trouble making friends in college, who gives a shit www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/s...

On Campus, a New Social Litmus Test: Zionist or Not?www.nytimes.com Some Jewish students say they’ve been dropped by old roommates and sorority sisters and ostracized from campus clubs and teams because of their views — which are sometimes assumed.

It's just incredible to be willing to put yourself out there because two of your friends think you're being an asshole:

It's also just so demented that they put out this whole story without ever really asking her what she posted that alienated her old roommate, and that her 'big' in the sorority is in here just for like...freezing her out and supporting Palestine. Maybe it's something else!

OH GOOD LORD one of the people interviewed demands anonymity because he got in a big fight with his ultimate frisbee team over a presentation that he refused to attend and made up shit about.

"a freshman named Michael Busch said he felt unwelcome at a campus L.G.B.T.Q. group, after he was heckled in an associated group chat" Heckled in the group chat: the Michael Busch story.

Do group chats even serve non-heckling functions? All ours are just roast battles half the time.

If your group chat isn’t named “The Return of Gilgamesh: Brad’s Downfall” what are you even doing

If I'm not being heckled in my main group chat then my friends are either dead or angry at me.

I am in a group chat with old friends from 10 years ago that is like 70% calling this one guy Hitler and 20% BoJack Horseman references

The NYT filling the gap left behind by the mass closure of small town papers by still putting the most local, petty crap imaginable in print.

They’ve always done this! Famously, the “Weddings” page but also a lot of other lifestyle reporting is basically the local paper for these Manhattanites who might as well live on the moon. It was amusing hate-reading until the rage-clicks economy came along and now it’s just everything everywhere.

Exactly. There are always two sides of stories like this. Maybe she is just generally annoying. Instead, lets put this in the NYT with identifying markers for the people being labeled anti-semites without comment from them.

Meanwhile, 600 paragraphs in, something kind of fucked up is discussed and they just breeze on past it:

Seems like that's what the article should have been about?

Every accusation is a confession.

With alt text

“Oh u want a healing center of community and religion affirmation but you want don’t want thousands to die???”

Wow

Damn

My "I'm with Slobodan" T-shirt, etc...

The number of times I’ve thought about Bosnia during this thing … 😮‍💨 it’s such a farce but also maybe the biggest tragedy of my lifetime

THIS is worthy of an article in NYT? I ended friendship over first Iraq war when young. Never thought I’d get written up in paper of record for not hanging with pro war gal.

I dont know Sophie and im pretty sure i dont want to either

My unpopular opinion made me unpopular; unfair!

With a personality like hers, 2 is probably proportionally significant

Always nice to be reminded that media in general is purposely designed to amplify white grievance no matter how petty

Parents are supposed to help their children avoid the internet.

....wow

you laugh, but that little boy who couldn't make friends in college for pro-apatheid views? he's now the chief of staff for every gop senator.

From the 1980s. Members of FCS from that era ended up in jobs including owner of one of the most influential Conservative-supporting blogs, Speaker of the House of Commons, and more.

No He’s the ceo of Tesla and some other media company he bought last year can’t remember the new name

every senator*

Boy howdy I'm glad that that nobody ever wanted to put my difficulties making friends in the newspaper.

i'm not lonely. don't put it in the newspaper that i'm lonely.

Mr Lonely and Proud

Seriously Why are ordinary people’s personal relationship issues treated like news? Go report on people working in food pantries or something else useful if you want a human interest story

The conflation of "I support the existence of a Jewish homeland" and "I'm cool with the mass civilian death Netanyahu's government is inflicting on Palestinians" is really troubling and absolutely intentional by the Israeli right

I don’t know much about much, but it seems like a convenient narrative for Hamas as well.

Hamas rejects the narrative

Out of my wheelhouse, but my understanding is that while they've tried cleaning up their statements of principles over time, they do not explicitly accept the idea of a Jewish homeland (in the Middle East or anywhere) but would consider a two-state solution as a negotiating position.

And regardless of what Hamas statements themselves say, it is a convenient external narrative for them to point to as what they are up against.

Also, for whatever it is worth, modern incarnations of terrorist groups like the KKK are very insistent that they bear minorities no ill will, they’re just affirming that America is a white Christian nation and that their movement is one of love, not hate. Of course not hate! So, grain of salt…

Not surprisingly as Hamas and the Israeli gov have cooperated in the past and share similar goals.

Among others. www.dutchnews.nl/2024/05/mps-...

MPs vote to criminalise "from the river to the sea" slogan - DutchNews.nlwww.dutchnews.nl Dutch MPs have backed a move to make chanting the Pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea” a criminal offence after voting for a motion by the far-right PVV party. The motion, which says the...

This is the thing, though -- Netanyahu doesn't get to dictate what Zionism means. A lot of Jews, both in and out of Israel, disagree with that conflation. And if even Jews can't agree on the definition of Zionism, it's a problem when non-Jews decide to impose a definition.

It's always been a contested term, but I've been struck by the degree to which left protestors and right wing Israeli factions have embraced it as all encompassing. Support for a ceasefire and a two-state solution, for instance, is still categorically "Zionism" but a minority position in Israel.

it benefits their goals to use that definition, so that doesn't seem too surprising to me.

It’s pretty much all they’ve got in terms of creating the illusion of broad support

The ADL as well, truly bad for Americans concerned about antisemitism

This is also reinforced by the fact that the letter signed by hundreds of Jews claimed that Judaism/Jewishness can't be seperated from Israel, which is a massively unhealthy move as it raises the stakes immediately, which is very negative in such a severe conflict like I/P.

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