I just went to the UCLA Palestinian encampment, but couldn’t get very close.

@LordShadowfire A lot of Gaza residents are pissed because their homes got bombed and they are starving.

@Burnley123 Well, trashing the PSU library will surely show Israel.

@LordShadowfire #FirstWorldProblems.

Quite literally.

@Burnley123 It's the same situation as environmentalists blocking roads and pìssing off commoners (and alienating the masses from their cause, paradoxically), while those that are responsible of the problems they're protesting against will happily take the helicopter and ignore them altogether.

@Burnley123 Okay. I'll tell all the soon-to-be dropouts their careers were ruined in a useless gesture that doesn't actually do any good for the people of Palestine.

@LordShadowfire If it was a useless gesture, they wouldn't be getting so much media criticism.

Similar gestures actually did play a role in ending the Vietnam War.

@Burnley123 The media is covering it purely because this thing has a chance of threatening Biden's reelection, nothing less. They couldn't care less about Palestine, or the protests themselves, or the students, or anything else.

@LordShadowfire It's more that they are ruining their own careers. They will get punished and perhaps even blacklisted for speaking out..Truth to power, unfortunately, has a cost.

The whole point of protest is to cause disruption and I'm sure non protesting students will get extensions and all of that.

@Elessar I can't speak for American TV media and I'm not sure you can However, if that is the strand that dominates us cable news then it might pressurise Biden to change his position.

@Elessar @Burnley123 I think the war may cost Biden the election, as it did Humphrey. After Biden’s initial strong support and the Israeli funding bill signed, I don’t think he can reverse course, or would. His current efforts to slow Bibi down are not appreciated much.

While Nixon dragged out the war much longer than it should have been, he began reducing US troops. The anti-war movement began to decline in the early 70s.

It’s seems unlikely Trump will condition US aid, and it’s also possible military operations will slow down by January, 2025.

As for the media, the images are compelling, and the issues so divisive, I don’t think they can stay away from the story.

@Burnley123 I'm sure you know better than me how for-profit private-owned media controlled by a handful of wealthy families will align themselves on the issue..

It's not on the executive that pressure needs to be applied, but Congress. Biden could withdraw the money tomorrow the same way Trump did for Ukraine in 2019, and he would just get impeached - exactly like Trump was impeached for it too. With the difference that 1) Biden doesn't have a Berlusconian-like control of the senators and the voters to remain in power through it, and 2) it would absolutely tank his re-election, and we both know that if he loses to Trump you can very well kiss both Palestine and Ukraine goodbye as early as Jan 2025.

@Bumbles It's my speculation since day 1, this war began *purposefully* with the intent of dividing the public and threatening Biden's reelection.

Everyone that is involved has to win from it: Netanyahu getting carte blanche from Trump, Russia getting heat taken off from itself once Ukraine is left to perish, Iran getting security guarantees (nukes?) from Russia in return for all the drones and artillery they've sent thus far to them, when Russia is less burdened. Iranian proxies in Gaza and those narrow-sighted left-wingers in the west who'll get Trump elected with their non-vote (see also 2016) just to see things getting 1000x worse from their very own POV are the ones taking the biggest L, eventually, I would guess.

@Elessar Would Bibi need to be involved starting it? Or do you think he just is being an opportunist?

@Elessar You do realise that the US is not the centre of the world. Other countries have issues with each other and don't care two hoots about US politics.

@Zeusdelight Geopolitically and militarily it is, whether we like it or not; recent history has proven that without the US the rest of the free world can't defend its very own existential interests *domestically*, let alone projecting force abroad or standing up against a potential Russian-Iranian-Chinese-(North-)Korean alliance.

Besides, the sabotaging effort isn't targeting only the US but Europe as well.

@Elessar The US can hardly manage its Domestic Politics. All it does internationally is protect its interests. Do you really think they would defend anyone not in their interests? In many ways, and scarily, Trump is simply echoing the reality of the US real foreign policy.

@Zeusdelight Europe can't arguably manage even those. I'm also perfectly aware of that and it's not what I'm discussing.

My point is that the US is a key player in International politics, and if sabotaged, things will get ugly for *everyone* no matter where you sit on the globe.

@Elessar My point is that Netanyahu had an imminent election and was in electoral trouble.
He needed to create some way to get more support, so he decided on a traditional approach.

Now that it has gone so long, it may backfire on him, but I don't see anything but local politics at play.

@Burnley123 The Vietnam War ended because those kids' parents called their representatives and told them that they'd be voting for someone else if the war didn't end.

@Zeusdelight One thing doesn't exclude the other. And no, there's definitely international interests behind it as well.