This article describes the little-reported on success that Brown University had in disbanding student protest… by conceding to let activists present a case for divestment at an upcoming hearing before the university’s investment board.
There’s a lot of interesting considerations. The university did not agree to drop charges against forty students for rule violations, but the charged students themselves voted to accept the agreement under the belief that the overall offer was worth their own sacrifices.
Overall, I personally think this shows the irresponsibly unreported fact that negotiation with a protest IS an option that can serve the interests of both sides far better than state violence.
What are you talking about? The occupation includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It predated Hamas, and continues – brutally – in regions in which Hamas doesn’t operate.
While the war in Gaza draws attention, folks in the West Bank have had homes firebombed with children inside and watched lynch mobs run whole towns off their land with military escorts. And that doesn’t even get into how Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated inside Israel. They’re legal citizens, but live with curtailed rights under a literal second-class of citizenship in a police state. They get disappeared, raped, and killed in prisons without charges over social media posts criticizing the government. What the hell does that have to do with Hamas?
We need to acknowledge that all these people are living under a military apartheid system, and demand negotiations for the formation of a democratic one-state solution. We already live in a one-state reality, just without civil rights for half the population.