Notice these protests started immediately after a Hamas attack in support of Hamas. These protests specifically blocked anyone from discussing the hostages. Their demands were things like limiting weapon shipments to Israel etc. to weaken it while it was being attacked on multiple fronts. They avoided the "Hamas" branding but look who benefits...
The Israeli right-wing was strengthened since it pointed at "these idiots" and used global anti-sematism to rally the troops. Hamas benefited since it saw this as the collapse of international support for Israel.
Moderate Palestinians saw this as "Hamas succeeding" and moved further to the more extremist side. Moderate Israelis were essentially blocked from saying anything since the issue became: "Your either with us or with them".
They even harmed Palestinians by eroding support for Biden/Harris and strengthening Trump. It's astounding how bad and stupid these protests are/were.
These protests were not just anti-Israel, they were anti-Palestinian since they egged on Palestinians in a futile direction that would just lead to more death and pain.
Literally on the same day... You're thinking about the critical mass and media attention but they started way before.
I take offense at the idea that an anti-war and/or anti-genocide protest would necessarily¹ be "100% pro Hamas," since you could make the same argument about any similar protest with a drastic imbalance of power: pro-Ukraine, anti-Vietnam-War, etc. What I'm hearing is "stop struggling, you'll only make it worse" as dozens of Palestinian civilians are blown up for each murdered Israeli. The only way not to care is if you've dehumanized these people completely.
Wherever you get your notions from, they are certainly not coming from "logical people."
¹ (Which is not to discount that there were some anti-semitic and pro-Hamas protesters as well. My sense is that they were far from the majority.)
> I also take offense at the idea that an anti-war and/or anti-genocide protest would necessarily be considered "100% pro Hamas," since you could make an identical argument about any similar protest, e.g. pro-Ukraine, anti-Vietnam-war, etc.
There are several wrong things here. First you frame this as genocide which is wrong and problematic framing. Even the ethnic cleansing framing is problematic as people went back to their homes with the deal.
No. War protests can't be framed that way. But lots of war protests do more harm than good. E.g. Nixon won his biggest election triumph in a large part thanks to the hippies.
Also you're choosing to ignore everything I said which seems inconvenient and reframe things to fit a narrative. I understand that, it's hard to see ones own biases as they are being influenced by media/foreign powers.
There's only one road that leads to a peace for the Palestinians and that's a Palestinian state. Escalating violence failed for them for the past 150+ years, these protests aren't against genocide, they're against peace.
Here are some inconvenient facts:
* A year after Oct-7th they arranged rallies in support. They knew the amount of violence/murder and the price paid yet chose to celebrate that.
* The main excuse for war is the hostages. "Protesters" don't allow hostage signage and rip out yellow ribbons. They don't want the war to end.
* From the river to the sea means death to all Jews. Yet they keep repeating that essentially escalating the violence and preventing de-escalation by supporting Israels right to exist.
A lot of the people who are part of the protests don't understand these things. They are just ignorant of the facts, history and impact. But the people pulling the strings know exactly what these protests are, and they are bad news for the Palestinians most of all.
Elon Musk today called a US Senator (Mark Kelly) a traitor for traveling to Kiev and expressing support for the government there.
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/city-news/2024/04/24/i-am-...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/30/24145737/columbia-suspend...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68923528
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/columbia-stalemate-cont...
https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/the-extremist-student-...
And if you want to have a fight about technicalities, you're both wrong. He didn't describe himself as either pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian. He described the protests as anti-Israel ...
As anti-Israel's existence, to be exact, not anti-Israel's actions in Gaza or anywhere else.
None of the links you provided substantiate the claim that Khalil spoke out in support of Hamas. Neither that he was an organizer of the protests.