InMD: We either live in a world where people can deal with these kinds of questions, including when they’re asked in ways many may deem offensive, or we can’t.

The human brain is a patter matching device. There is a temptation to draw a line between something we don't like and something else we don't like and claim they're connected.

That kind of reasoning often says more about the person talking than the event. So when Jerry Falwell claimed 911 was the fault of the US because we tolerate gay rights, I don't feel the need to respond in a logical way.

If we're trying to draw a line between 911 and US foreign policy, then let's link to what OBL claimed the motives were.

In no specific order, we have...
1) US support for Israel
2) OBL's strategy to expand his group.
3) Sanctions against Iraq
4) US troops in Saudi Arabia
5) Global warming.
6) Tolerance for Homosexuality.
7) Tolerance of Alcohol
8) Charging Interest rates.
9) Tolerance of Gambling
10) Tolerance of Drugs
11) Tolerance of Sex
12) Conflict in Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Lebanon and the Philippines
13-16) American cultural imperialism (Hollywood, Women's rights, Media Companies, and having a larger GDP than Muslim nations).

His culture and worldview were very different. He didn't have a rational outlook from our point of view. He was a Jihadist and wanted to make more Jihadists and was deeply offended by people who weren't.

Should we be offended by a question that says we're to blame for us being terrorized? Yes we should. It's not like we will give up everything on that list to make OBL happy.

We're not going to remake our culture so it's not offensive to him. That's not an excuse for him to murder thousands of civilians. Nor is it an excuse for some asshat to claim the dead weren't civilians because he personally doesn't like our foreign policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks

We've gone from "student speech codes can prevent the n-word because we don't tolerate racism" to "protesters can call for Jews' extermination because free speech".

If University Presidents had longer terms then we might be able have the same person say both of those things.

The problem is racism is supposed to be a political club only used against the Right. It's not supposed to be a Left v Left issue.

Interesting.

"Targeting Civilians" would be "shooting Civilians because you know they're civilians".

Hamas routinely uses ambulances as troop carriers (see link). If you light one up because it's getting close to you and might have solders, then that's a different issue.

It might still be a war crime (Ianal) but it also showcases why urban warfare is so nasty and why it's expected to have a lot more civilians than soldiers get killed.

https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/hamas-admits-using-ambulances-to-transport-weapons-terrorist-in-leaked-phone-call-palestine-israel-war-strike-fighting-gaza-strip-middle-east-humanitarian-crisis-israel-defense-forces

Chris: We know civilians are being targeted...

We don't even know how many civilians are dead. If Israel is targeting civilians then it's weird that the death rate is lower than the birth rate.

Israel kills it's own soldiers, that is not proof that it's targeting it's own soldiers.

Chris: ...as an occupied and/or besieged populace, it is legal for them to strike out at the people occupying besieging them.

The purpose of 10-7 was to attack civilians. So no, it was not "legal". Hamas killed every Jew they could get their hands on, so the word we should be using is "genocide".

Trying to argue that the Jews are responsible for their own genocide is antisemitic.

Chris: Many throughout the world see their actions as part of the resistance movement...

And what are they resisting? Hamas' charter explains that they're resisting the idea of Jews in the Middle East. That this is popular doesn't change that it's antisemitic on the face of it.

Chris: Who, then, gets to decide which attacks on civilians are terrorism, and which aren’t?

This is an effort to claim everyone is morally equal.

If Hamas had Israel's ethics, Hamas would have broken out of Gaza and only killed the Israel soldiers guarding the place. If Israel had Hamas' ethics, then all of Gaza would be lifeless.

Hamas is an openly genocidal organization and they live up to their charter attacking all Jews they can.

Israel either doesn't attack civilians at all (their claim) or it does so rarely it doesn't show up in the numbers.

Big picture the Palestinians are dialed up to eleven by the existence of Jews and a Jewish state. They "resist" through terrorism. The conflict comes down to antisemitism.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that it's challenging to avoid antisemitism and/or supporting terrorism when supporting the Palestinian cause. The big way to do that is to claim that everyone is a terrorist and everyone is genocidal, but this is an abuse of language.

Given that we deport immigrants for supporting terrorism, we should expect that people supporting Hamas are F-ing around with their immigration status.

The Jewish equivalent of Hamas would be plans to kill everyone in Gaza. If we had faculty arguing for this I'd expect the administration would treat them like they'd treat someone arguing for a return of slavery, i.e. they'd find a way to fire them.

Where the challenge comes for College administrators is whether or not they're going to put up with antisemitism.

One way for College administrators to deal with all this is to bite the bullet and admit their college isn't going to be welcoming to Jews, that they do support anti-Jewish terrorism, and then deal with the consequences.

If that's not what they're going to do, then they should confront the problem that Hamas is both popular in certain groups but supporting it is massively antisemitic on the face of it.

Chris: How would we classify Israel’s killing of citizens in Gaza?

I would call it a war. It's expected that civilians are going to die in an urban war.

Do you think civilians are being targeted by Israel? If so, then why?

DavidTC: You think being undone by the courts means the Trump Administration isn’t fascism?

We're a few steps short. I think we have a lot of chaos, incompetence, & fringe people. I also think there is a general lack of respect for the law and/or ignorance of the law.

I doubt this will end well, but I also doubt it will end with the US giving up elections.

DavidTC: Why do you think supporting terrorism via _speech_ is illegal...

It is not "illegal". However as a condition to entering this country we make immigrants sign legal docs saying they don't support terrorism.

DavidTC: would you like to explain exactly how that is defined in such a way that the government cannot simply declare anything it wants as terrorism?

This is also arguing for "there are grey lines" while ignoring that killing hundreds of civilians because they're Jews isn't even close.

DavidTC: He pointed out that 9/11 was basically a logical outcome of US foreign policy,

What he argued was the people who died in 9/11 shouldn't be considered innocent civilians, so killing them is fair game. Arguing that the terrorists are correct for killing civilians is crossing lines.

If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.[5]

Chris: Should the university allow debate about who is a terrorist...

You are pointing out that there are grey lines. You are correct, so the technical answer to your question is "yes".

However killing hundreds of Jewish civilians because they're Jews isn't even slightly close to a grey line, nor is that disputed.

Churchill was fired because of his academic work.

True. And if he hadn't been an American citizen, he would have been deported for supporting terrorism.

The university realized they had a terror supporting lunatic in their staff and they did a deep dive (well, just looked at) his work and bounced him. That they didn't technically bounce him for his views is besides the point.

When you select for those views you're also selecting for substandard work in fields affected by those views. Further the U was looking for a reason to fire him because of his views.

The current situation has had the University tolerate this set of terrorism supporters for years. Because Jews. Trump shouldn't need to get involved because the University has had more than enough time to clean house themselves.

Instead we've had their administration testify to Congress that they don't need to clean house and advocating genocide/terrorism is protected speech. So apparently supporting Hamas and arguing that Jews need to put up with terrorism doesn't break any codes of conduct and behavior that would in other situations be illegal should be shielded from the authorities by the administration. Because the First Amendment, and Jews.

My expectation is this example, assuming that op-ed is the limit of her involvement, will be undone by the courts.

CJColucci: There are normal, well-understood ways of dealing with actual threats and forcible obstruction.

Absolutely. However the problem on the table is the people who are responsible for doing those things have failed to do those things.

Both of the following can be true at the same time.

1) Trump is a blunt tool and bully.

2) The University is deliberately ignoring breathtaking levels of antisemitism which would never be tolerated against other groups.

This is similar to the U looking the other way when one of their employees is committing sex crimes (Michigan State). The institution doesn't want to do it's job so the institution needs to be punished as an institution.

If they want that then they need to have police prevent the Protesters from shutting the U down and/or threatening Jews.

At least then when they have discussions on whether advocating for genocide is a good thing, the U will be able to say they're only debating things.

If they don't want politics to matter, then they shouldn't be threatening Jews and insisting that everyone's politics need to match theirs or they'll shut down the University.

There is a vast difference between "a single narrative" and "a crack down on the idea that 'No Israel, No Jews' is acceptable." Advocating for genocide shouldn't be funded by US tax dollars.

I have little respect for "process" arguments because we wouldn't apply them in other situations.

Example: A professor who was openly a white supremist who publicly made an argument for bringing back slavery as a "solution" to various race issues would instantly be fired without the Feds needing to threaten budgets.

We wouldn't have University Presidents claim "it depends" on whether the code of conduct is being broken, nor argue for the first AM and so on. Protesters backing him and his issues would be handled by the police and they wouldn't be allowed to shut down the university much less threaten black students.

All of this would, correctly, be handled by the U calling in the cops if need be to enforce things that are normally illegal.

"Disagreements" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there in the face of published department support for 10-7.

Presumably there is supposed to be a carful review process where we prove someone who openly supports Hamas is unfit to teach ME politics and history. Clearly that hasn't happened.

But this is a process argument where we pretend we don't know what we know. Same with those protests.

Calling for Jews to be killed is deep into antisemitism. That's still true if it's rephrased into "No Israel, No Jews" or any of it's equivalents.

That's in addition to whether protesters have the "right" to shut down various things to force people to respond to their arguments and do other things that are normally illegal.

I think the next question is,

Is Columbia and Trump's crackdown of the pro-Palestinians the ‘Canary in the coalmine' (link at bottom, their answer is "yes") or is it a lot more reasonable?

Some of the claims are concerning; Trump is forcing Columbia's Middle East department to be seriously redone, ergo academic freedom is a problem. However (normally not mentioned) is a prof in this department, one day after 10-7, made posts referring to scenes from the attacks as “awesome” and “stunning” (same link).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/columbia-middle-east-department-trump-edward-said

Really well written and well done. Good work DavidTC.