Why are they not charged with hate crimes?

I recall that a man in NYC was charged with hate speech for harassing a middle eastern street vendor. Everybody on DU seemed to agree that the charges were deserved.

"The former official, Stuart Seldowitz, 64, faces charges that include aggravated harassment and several counts of stalking, according to the police."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/nyregion/stuart-seldowitz-harassment-charges.html#:~:text=Seldowitz%20lives%20a%20few%20blocks,he%20expressed%20support%20for%20Hamas.

There are laws that expand the penalties if the crimes charged qualify as a hate crime. Speech alone doesn't qualify as a hate crime, you have to commit some other criminal act, such as harassment or stalking for Seldowitz.

I'm quite serious, btw. You and I disagree strongly about the I/P situation, but I don't think you are a horrible person who deserves to die.

Think about it.

And protected African-American students in segregating public schools against hate focused on race/ethnicity.

Both are bad or neither's bad. You hate black Americans or you hate Jewish Americans. Or is there special, protected, sacred "hate" and hate that's condemned from first principles.

I think the former. Sometimes I feel lonely.

Not the vast majority of the students on campus protesting. The protesters (who might not even be students) that are saying vile things are the ones off campus... A detail the right fail to mention when they highlight these people as an example of "all the students" that they want "dealt with".

And even if the students on campus are speaking vile things... First Amendment, anyone? Plus, there is such a thing as proportional response. Sending in soldiers is:

1) overkill
2) going to result in the exact opposite effect that they are claiming to want.

The left went way too far in conceptualizing "safe spaces," in conceptualizing speech as harm, and in asserting speech-based "trauma." That will all come back with a right wing imprimatur. It was and is a serious conceptual, strategic, and rhetorical error. We're just seeing the beginning of it.

a very dangerous wave of anti-Semitism couched in free speech defense of the rights of Palestinians.

I do NOT oppose standing up for Palestinian civilian rights. I know that Israel has shifted farther to the right, that Netanyahu has been under criminal investigation in his own government. I have opposed the Israeli West Bank settlements since their beginning after the 6 Day War.

But, I also know that from the start of the modern Israel state, Palestinians rejected their own state and chose war and terrorism against Israel instead, in order to claim all of the former British Palestine for themselves. That terrorism has been nonstop for over 75 years. Money donated to Palestinian aid has been diverted many times to terrorist groups, causing Palestinian civilians to suffer even more.

For a few days, I've been researching some of the background on the backers of the protest marches and the current Hamas-Israel war. There is so much material to sift through that it is taking longer than I thought it would. I am trying to avoid sources that lean too far in either direction in order to get basic, verifiable facts. When I have more info and links, I want to post a thread on what I find.

But, meantime, I have learned that there are two large organizations backing the protests and that both have existed for a long time. They have numerous affiliates and that is what I am sifting through right now. Many of them are left wing advocates for civil rights. But others are, at the very least, dubious and harder to track down.

There are two aspects of the protests that concern me most. One is the blatant anti-Semitism expressed by protesters at more than one location. It makes me wonder what motivates them most -- hatred of Jews or concern for Palestinian rights.

The other concern is that ALL of the protests focus exclusively on Israel without any attention at all to the harm that Hamas (and some other terrorist groups) do to the civilian population. They deny all evidence that does not fit into their anti-Israel (and sometimes anti Jewish) narrative. But, if their major concern is the Palestinian civilian population, why do they reject the role of terrorist dictatorships like Hamas?

I hope to be able to post my findings, with links to original sources, in a few days.

It's so hard to filter out those actualities from the purposeful and emotional noise.

...if it fits whatever narrative they're trying to push.

their ant-palestinian bias does their talking for them

...destroy higher education institutions for a while.

Looks like they found it.

same way. There are no good players in this situation. Netanyahu and Hammas are both bad players and have no interest in a 2-state solution. Israelis in Israel want Netanyahu out. Plus you don't hear Netanyahu talking about the hostages.

The Vietnam war protesters were protesting America's military involvement in the war which, in the time of military draft, directly affected them. Theyb did not demand any limits for US funding to the South Vietnamese armed forces, and not any military engagements between North and South Vietnam. They did not demand cease fires, exchange of prisoners or a Vietnam "from the river to the sea", so to speak. They did not demand US economic boycott of South Vietnam. And they did not accuse the South Vietnamese, individually or as a state, of apartheid, ethnic cleansing or genocide.

When compared, the reasons and the objectives of the protesters are miles apart. Only the methods bare certain, but not quite identical, resemblance.

We have some here who need to close the yearbook.

The bottom line for both groups was and is peace.

The U.S. supports Uganda. Why no protests about their human rights violations? Nigeria? Most African and middle eastern countries?

Where were the campus protests when Trump abandoned the Kurds to genocide?

classic.

If your argument is true, there should be many more conflicts being protested on U.S. college campuses. For some reason, there's only this one conflict being protested. I think your argument is wrong.

A lot of the protests at the universities are calling on the university to divest from Israel. The US has provided about 4 billion a year since the 70's for military aid. Last year we gave Uganda 20 million. These colleges do a lot of business with our military industry as well as ones like Microsoft. Those companies do a lot of business with Israel, not so much with Uganda. So the colleges they go to help support Israel by doing business with them, some of them even have schools there and the country they live in supports Israel a whole bunch. Its important when you decide to change things to do it in an effective way and not in a way that wouldn't change much.

the Gaza war, don't you?

Because peace is so amorphous as a goal, it might as well be the bottom line for both horseshit and gunsmoke too.

And -- if you are to believe many of those demonstrating in support of Palestine -- Hamas oppresses the Palestinian people just as much as Israel does, so, where are the protests against them?

in America.

A country like the US can't spend decades on Social Justice education in elementary and secondary ed and not expect it to be manifest in the generation who recieved that education and most strongly believe in it.

This has changed American sentiment. The guaranteed safe political space Israel enjoyed, and Netanyahu took for granted, is no more.

I'm sure it feels like a huge and devastating tsunami for those who assumed US sentiment for Israeli policy was "situation normal".

Both are extreme and silly positions.

First amendment rights apparently are only for fascists, white supremacists and their allies

Violating college rules and policies, which they pledged to uphold when they applied there, is not covered by first amendment.

Neither is preventing enforcement of these rules, whether it includes hate speech, disorderly conduct or incitement to violence or not.

And expecting and demanding no consequences for their conduct is the height of privilege and entitlement.

Violence protests, breaking laws, destroying property, and taking over buildings..

And the police are the problem.

They'd be in hog heaven if only fascist whites were allowed to bear arms. That is the de-facto reality in some locales but could easily become part of the AmeriKKKan laws.

Bangs head