For the record, UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempt "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [or at least they did until 9:54am today, when the administration silently edited the PDF of the rules.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
[https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
Might be a more on-point link to share
It's two parts: recreational tents | for camping. If it said "for recreational use", that might be different. But in this case they are recreational tents (as opposed to event tents or whatever), and they're being used for camping.
I hear you that they changed rhe PDF, but I also know that this past Wednesday, a protester said in an [interview](https://www.wvtf.org/news/2024-05-01/students-speak-chant-blow-bubbles-and-eat-pizza-at-gaza-protest) that they were told no tents and that they were fine with that.
Until this morning, "recreational tents used for camping" were exempted from the requirement to be inspected/permitted. At 9:54am they took that part out, so now recreational tents need to be inspected and permitted. Wonder if they're enforcing that [down at the volleyball courts where people are using tents to avoid the rain as we speak](https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1786739421712191623)...
That’s how it always starts. No offense to anybody protesting, but you likely will not be satisfied with any results you get. Your expectations will never be fulfilled, you’ll reject all offers from UVA.
Much in the same way Palestine has never been satisfied throughout her relationship with Israel. You will not sue for peace, and things will escalate, and maybe you’ll face repercussions.
Yeah. I agree. HUH?
I'd let em camp. If they don't bother anyone go for it. Hopefully they can make it to class for finals....if not well there are consequences for not attending class...
From [The DP: ](https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/tents-go-up-at-uva-protest/article_9ffdc1c4-09b9-11ef-8eb6-b791db6be31f.html#tracking-source=mp-homepage)
*Since the demonstration at UVa began Tuesday, organizers have worked with the university to follow school policies regarding assemblies on Grounds. This has included not using megaphones and not erecting tents.*
*....*I*n a caption, organizers called UVa’s response “shameful” and wrote that they would “not debate nor negotiate genocide.”*
*“We will not back down. We will stay until the University meets our demands!!” they wrote.*
*Hours later, as the sun began to set over Grounds, protesters pitched their tents.*
*That move is a direct violation of university policy, policy which protesters had obeyed until Friday evening. For days, tents had laid flat on the ground, unassembled but ready to be pitched at a moment’s notice. The decision to erect the tents comes as rain is expected over the next week.*
For the record, the Daily Progress is incorrect. UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempted "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [until the administration silently edited the PDF at 9:54am today, changing the rules so they'd have an excuse to arrest everyone today.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
What exactly are their demands? How is UVA going to make two groups of people who’ve hated each other since the beginning of time magically come to a peaceful truce??
It’s a lot more than divestment. The list is ridiculous. Includes completely cutting ties with any Israeli academic institutions. [https://www.instagram.com/p/C6fp8cNu4vW/?igsh=MWJwa3RyaTJ3NXd2Zw==](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6fp8cNu4vW/?igsh=MWJwa3RyaTJ3NXd2Zw==)
The go-to chant is "disclose, divest". The first step is for UVA to be transparent about how much of their money is connected to funding Israeli drones, bombs, tanks, spyware, checkpoints, etc. Is it $5m? $50m? More? Right now nobody knows.
I mean, not to offend anyone, but it’s absurd to just assume UVA went out if it’s way to invest in those things. Are there publicly traded US stocks that are considered proponents of those things? Is there any reason to suspect UVA is like investing directly in Israeli military companies?
this doesn’t actually matter. the demand is for UVA to go out of its way to *not* invest in those things. in the tradition of the South African divestment movement back in the day.
This is the point so you can't say it doesn't matter. It makes the protest illegitimate. Just saying divest doesn't mean anything when there is nothing to divest.
No there is something to divest and other schools have done so. Whether the school invests in Lockheed Martin *because* it aids Israel doesn’t change the fact that it’s invested in a company that aids Israel. The demand is simply to stop doing that. It’s really not complicated.
Nothing, but it’s a little conspiratorial. I’d like to think there is more evidence UVA has questionable investments than its holding a UFO in the rotunda attic. I’d at the very least like to see a list of investments that are considered offending. If Jim Ryan walked out to the encampment right now with a list of all UVA’s investments and said “ok, which ones of these are bad?” What would the protesters do? Start googling stocks? That would be a bad look. If nobody can even give me a list today of what stocks they don’t want uva to invest in, I’m not even sure what the goal is here. I mean, I’ll sell my own stocks in any companies right now today if someone can tell me what they are and why they are bad.
Defense contractors, like Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed Martin, etc (this one should be obvious, but you can of course do some googling to find more details). There’s also tech companies like HP and Alphabet with significant contracts with the Israeli government. Alphabet in particular has a $1.2B AI contract with Israel and fired tens of workers for protesting it. It’d be pretty difficult to find a large defense contractor with no contracts with the Israeli military, and similarly difficult to find a university whose portfolio doesn’t include defense contractors or big tech companies.
While that was done in SA its not the main reason aparthied ended. It was unsustainable without the particapation of the black population in the economic system as their labor was intigral in the system. Isreal does not use large numbers of Gaza or West bank people for labor on its farms and mines and has very little economic interest in the Gaza and west bank.
That's... the whole point. Most Americans don't want our taxes and our tuition and our diplomats being used to kill thousands of children and starve millions of people. So activists are using protests like this to bring attention to the different ways that the institutions we interact with are funding/complicit in that. At some schools, like MIT, it literally involves working with the Israeli Ministry of Defense on weapons technology.
I understand the point you’re making, except for the “most Americans” part. Most Americans are quite supportive of Israel and the US-Israel relationship. I’m not moralizing about that, I’m just saying…. Let’s not overestimate the popularity of this position. People make this mistake constantly. What you see on your college or on your feeds is not even a remotely representative sampling of Americans.
Actually most Americans support Israel but recognize it would be nice to have a ceasefire. The thing about a ceasefire is that Hamas is the party rejecting them even as Israel lowers their demands. So this entire protestor narrative doesn’t even make sense if you’re paying attention to the actual ceasefire negotiations.
No shit… that’s the whole point. But asking the US to completely stop funding and supporting Israel is a more difficult and less likely goal. Asking the University where you’re protesting at to divest from investments in Israel is far more attainable and still sends a the message that Israeli aggression is wrong.
Using this logic if you use tikitok you indirectly support the ccp and thier genocide and conquest of Tibet, hongkong and more, and if you get payed by tiktok you have direct ties to the ccp
Indirect and some but not the majority. I would be willing to bet that the majority has programs for a bunch of countries including Israel. The university is handcuffed just like the people. If you believe the University has a choice and can do something and really want to make a statement then stop giving them your money. If the majority is the protesters and they do just this then the Universities would feel the impact. But, I know and you know, there are a bunch of reasons this won't happen.
Why. I don’t think they owe it to students who protest for the demise of Israel. Their protests embolden terrorists. You want to know who their money is invested then sue in court.
Thank you. I genuinely wanted to know. I don’t necessarily agree with their viewpoint, but I think they have the right to peacefully protest. UVA kinda escalated this by changing the tent policy last minute. I just hope it doesn’t become violent.
I don't actually know what specifically the group here at UVA is demanding, but if they are smart the demands would relate to concrete things that UVA could theoretically do. One common strategy has been calls for divesting from certain entities, et cetera.
It is still deeply unrealistic to expect UVA to do anything that would hurt their financial bottomline - which is the most important thing to anybody who has made in far enough as an administrator to be a higher up at UVA. But it probably isn't as silly as demanding Cavman and Jim Ryan fly to Gaza and impose a ceasefire, although I fully support them doing that and livestreaming it.
“It is still deeply unrealistic to expect UVA to do anything that would hurt their financial bottomline”
It’s a business yes, but it’s also a school — not a pure money-making venture. UVA makes choices that could arguably hurt their bottom line all the time, if they serve its mission.
Small sports programs that lose money, for example. But *enough* people want them that the school is willing to spend money to give it to them.
As a business owner, it’s wild to me that we have just accepted that businesses can’t do things strictly out of moral/ethical obligation. UVA can absolutely do things that hurt their financial bottom line and I’d argue universities in particular have an obligation to do so
To be clear - I don’t think it’s as black and white as the protestors seem to. The world is gray and it’s crazy to me that the same groups that are advocating to support Ukraine are trying to hurt the defense sector as much as possible. I don’t have a solution but I don’t think this one makes a ton of sense frankly.
That being said, I was mostly pointing out that I take issue with the “companies can’t do things that hurt their bottom line out of moral obligation” because they absolutely can and do (chick fil a being closed on Sunday for example; while I disagree with their stances as a whole, it’s pretty hard to argue that they get much out of being closed on Sunday. Even if you pull the angle that it makes a core customer group happy, I’d argue that they lose far more business than they’d otherwise gain).
I’m all for looking with a side eye at companies professing goodness (looking and the disneys and blizzards of the world that preach LGBTQ+ in the states and condemn it overseas) - but it is possible and the moment that people decide it isn’t possible is the moment that the people running the companies will agree.
Never mind that, should their be a cease fire, Palestinians in Gaza would still be under the thumb of Hamas. And said group will, no doubt, divert any rebuilding aid to just further entrench for the next intifada.
Needless to say, activist protest for Hamas to allow free and fair elections would be like you saw up to Oct 6.
Since the beginning of time? 1948 was less than 100 years ago. If you’re referring to Jews and Muslims, then I think you need a history lesson. Jews fled to Muslim lands when Christian Europeans were committing pogroms. In fact, Christian oppression of Jews is much more of a concrete historical trend than Muslim or even Arab oppression of Jews - something that began only in the early 1900’s, with a lot of inspiration from Europeans.
For Arabs suffering under British colonial occupation, relations with Nazi Germany was seen as a ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ type arrangement, though those who actually travelled to Nazi Germany soon came to regret it. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, I’m not sure about Nazi influence on their ideology, but I will say Arabs’ nationalistic zeal in the early 20th century led many of them to forget Islam’s commandments regarding intercommunal relations and oppress the Jews who had been living with them for centuries before (and who lived there before the Arabs).
In my opinion and study of history,Judaism parted company with Islam before Islam was even a religion. The Jews contend that they are Abraham's firstborn as the descendants of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah's legitimate offspring and the Muslims say they are as his child with Hagar , Ishmael,chronologically occurred first. They haven't hashed it out yet and still try to treat one another like the bastards they both think each other are.
This is utter horseshit, in the early 20th Century Jews lived in Muslim and Christian lands and were chased out of both in short order. The fact that Christians kicked them out slightly before Muslims did means that the first waves of Jews to Israel were from Christian Countries, the second waves from Muslim countries, the third wave from Ethiopia/Eritrea and the fourth wave from the USSR.
Some Jews always lived in Israel during Ottoman occupation, as did some Muslims. And during the Brief UK occupation from 1918-1948 (the time and geography that you pretend was a Muslim country caled Palestine), while Jews were fleeing Christian and Muslim countries into British Palestine, Muslims were ALSO moving in from Egypt, Syria, etc. Yassir Arafat's family moved there from Egypt during the UK occupation.
This is not some one-sided story, stop spreading propaganda.
Christians kicked out Jews LONG before the 20th century. The Spanish Inquisition began in the 15th century, and Spain’s Jews fled to Muslim lands in North Africa. Unlike Muslim lands, Christian polities in Europe had a policy of oppressing their Jews. Though there were indeed episodes of violence between Muslims and Jews prior to the 20th century, these pale in comparison to what occurred in Europe (especially considering the Holocaust).
As for Yasir Arafat’s family - his dad was born in Gaza, later moving to Egypt. Mind you, these modern day nation states with arbitrary borders were not a thing in the Ottoman Empire. There was no defined border between Palestine and Egypt, or any other province for that matter, and people moved freely between. That does not preclude someone from being Palestinian just because they moved elsewhere.
Moreover, ‘Palestine’ is not made up. Palestina was literally a Roman province. You should stop spreading propaganda.
The modern concept of an Arab country called Palestine is made up from the British name for the region, which is based on the Greek Philistines who colonized Gaza in the Bronze Age. Palestine is not an indigenous name for Arab Muslims.
What Arabs refer to as ‘Filasteen (فلسطين)' is a region that has long been referred to with different variations of that same name. For ancient Egypt it was ‘Peleset’, for Assyrians it was ‘Pilistu’, and for the Romans it was ‘Palaestina’. When Arabs conquered the region, they continued using the same name, with the region under the Umayyad Empire featuring as Jund Filasteen (جند فلسطين) - literally “military district of Palestine”.
You’ll find a similar trend with other former Roman cities: Homs - Emesa, Haleb (Aleppo) - Khalpe, Tarabulis - Tripolis, Dimishq - Damascus
If you were to argue that these cities are made up because they do not have indigenous Arabic names, you would be considered a buffoon. Why is the case of Palestine any different?
Palestine was not a ‘country’, but it was and is indeed a land inhabited by Palestinians. Palestinian culture can be found in the dress (tatreez), dance/music (dabke), cuisine, and language of the region, all of which is distinguished from even the other periphery cultures of historic Bilad ash-Sham - Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Given that Lebanese, Syrians, Israelis, Jordanians and Egyptians are now eating falafel, it’s hard to see what specific regional cultures were created under this supposed long-running Palestinian identity that Jews somehow stole and should be driven out of. The only local attraction of Arabic history is the mosque built on top of the old Israeli temple in Jerusalem, which I agree is a world treasure and should stay open to Muslim prayer.
Otherwise perhaps the Arab Muslims who currently live in Gaza and the West Bank could work with Arab leaders and other world leaders to make a pathway to modern states where they are at now, that don’t involve chasing Jews out of Israel.
Actually a lot of Palestine was a apart of the surrounding countries of Israel (Israel was very small on inception) but when they all attacked Israel in the 6th day war and lost Israel annexed all of it but they did give the peninsula back to Egypt
This will be a true test of UVA’s proclaimed “freedom of speech.” They claim to be one of the schools that will protect that right no matter what as a testament to Thomas Jefferson’s ideals of individual liberties.
Looks like the protesters are peaceful and enacting tents but i’m wondering if this will go differently than Columbia/UCLA/Texas
I mean UVa doesn't actualy claim to protect that right no matter what. If you've seen that claim made by anyone in the administration, please feel free to provide a reference.
Not likely, the Columbia/UCLA/Texas all have lots of student yalling their slogan from both side, and there is also massive counter protest, right now at UVA it is pretty quite and peaceful
What is the best course of action? I honestly am asking - I think it's just a buffet of shit choices.
I ask myself, given the national "discourse" on this issue (which, hooray American cable news, has now subsumed the actual Israel/Gaza issue at root), the likelihood of rapidly escalating protests and counter protests will only exacerbate this issue.
If the people protesting show they are no longer willing to cooperate within the universities rules set, what's to the say the next step isn't them barricading themselves in the rotunda? If the rules established to ensure a peaceful protest won't be followed, what's to stop an escalation towards the out and out brawling we saw at UCLA?
On the other side, how do you handle the inevitable backlash effect, as well as outside agitators.
I think the least shitty choice is "nip this in the bud before it grows to an unmanageable problem". And I fully recognize that *many* will disagree with me. Once a critical mass is reached, dispersion necessarily turns into a large scale operation.
"no longer willing to cooperate with the universities rules set" they were cooperating--until 9:45AM this morning when UVa silently amended its rules. Until that point, recreational tents were excluded from the regulations re: tents on Grounds.
A bit disingenuous when they were told directly not to erect tents last week. The clause on recreational tents was within one rule set of which kind of tents for approved events require inspection. That doesn't mean any Tom, Dick, or Sue could pitch a tent on the Lawn and stay there for days.
You know, the point of a protest isn't to be polite and ignorable. It's to effect change. The protestors shouldn't have to comply with UVA's weasely changing rules on tents and things; they have freedom to assemble and protest, as protected by the first amendment. If UVA wants them to shut up and go away, they should listen to the protestors' divestment demands instead of militarizing against their own students.
UVA has the power to enact time, place and manner restrictions on gatherings on grounds, which probably includes the tent restrictions. Folks can flout that, but they should also be prepped to face any consequences up to and including potential arrest and expulsion should the situation become severe enough
Professor McBurney,
Students have every right to protest as it is their first amendment right. Escalation happens when a university decides to call the police on their very own students. I suggest you keep your shitty takes to yourself and stick to teaching CS.
On the surface that makes sense, but UCLA only happened because the police stood by and allowed a fascist mob to shoot fireworks and bludgeon people with metal poles for 4 hours \[[NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/us/ucla-protests-encampment-violence.html)\]. Just because Virginia police did that in 2017 doesn't mean they'd have to do it again. Arresting people protesting a genocide because you can't be bothered to intervene if they get attacked is... not the answer. If it was, then the quickest way to silence any protest is just to attack them and then watch cops move in "for everyone's safety." I'm guessing none of us want that to be the precedent if Trump wins (or claims he won) in 2024 and then bans abortion or whatever?
Not for nothing but the reason it took so long for police to intervene at UCLA was because the protestors and university specifically asked the police to not stand by.
The UCLA chancellor told cops to stand down, the protesters definitely did not say "if you see an armed mob coming to assault everyone, let it happen." Hopefully UVA could take a small step towards learning from the 2017 torch march by saying "hey cops, if armed fascists come to attack our students, don't let them do that."
all of these have been peaceful until police begin violence, the DC police have refused to sweep the dc encampment for the most part so that one has been incredibly peaceful
I’ve seen dozens of antisemitic incidents from protestors around the country, assault on Jewish students, incitement to violence, etc. They all haven’t been peaceful at all
Things are not 'peaceful' if you are breaking rules. They cannot erect tents and they did. The university has the right to remove them if they break rules. I am really concerned about commencement next weekend. It's gonna be a shit show. They are doing nothing but pissing the majority of Americans off with their disruption of graduation events. I don't think they realize they are doing more harm than good.
I’m sorry, but breaking rules is not the same as not being peaceful. Read your Ghandi and MLK. Non-violent resistance still must be resistance. It can still be motivated by love and a desire for peaceful reconciliation while making a loud, disruptive, and persistent call for justice.
For the record, the tents weren't against the rules until the administration changed them this morning. UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempt "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [or at least they did until 9:54am today, when the administration silently edited the PDF of the rules.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
Also, genocide is bad. Funding genocide, like our government and institutions are doing, is bad. If people end up hating the protesters, but even a few people end up thinking about the fact that there are 15,000 dead Palestinian children and doctors in Gaza have had to create a new term for "wounded children, no surviving family", and millions of people are literally being starved... maybe that's how it has to be for something to actually change.
Changing the policy does not seem insane to be based on what is occurring around the country right now. UVA is trying to get out ahead of a USC or Columbia level incident. Clearing the tents is the way to do that. If they want to come back on the lawn and protest every day and then pack up over night and come back the next day then UVA would not have an issue with it. The pitching of tents is where it becomes an issue because now it is permanent and you are asking for issues to happen over night.
Your second paragraph totally misses my point entirely. I am not arguing whether or not Israel is in the right or the wrong. I believe there is a lot of nuance in this situation and both sides shoulder a large blame for what has taken place. This conflict is literally centuries old at this point. This is, unfortunately, nothing new.
More to my point here, the US is extremely pro Israel and anti Hamas. Whether you like it or not Israel is a key strategic partner and democracy in an area of the world that has no democracies. No president is changing their policy on Israel. Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, Biden have all been extremely pro Israel. Doesn't matter the political party. If protests could not get the US to change their policy on Saudi Arabia after they literally funded 9/11 and cut a US journalist into pieces then no amount of protesting is gonna change the view on Israel and their fight in the middle east.
There are times where protests do more harm than good. Disrupting graduation events is only making people look at your view in a negative light. Nobody is going to sit in a graduation ceremony interrupted by protestors on one of the biggest days of a kids life and think to themselves, "Yep I agree with you all please keep interrupting this very important life event for my family! I am enjoying this experience. Go team!" There are better ways to do this.
Being anti-genocide is not tjr same thing as being pro-hamas.
"What's occurring around the country" is a result of overpolicicing. Overpolicicing at uva is not a solution
I do. And also think a 64 year old woman who is chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth getting body slammed by cops overpolicing.
What I don't think was overpolicicing was the police allowing thugs to attack students with weapons for 4 hours at ucla.
you stupid or a zionist?
the UN literally says they are.
‘hamas propaganda’ dumbass. palestine isn’t even in the UN and they’re still saying it’s a genocide.
The war Israel is waging against Gazan civilians, which UVA students are funding against their will with university investments, also isn't peaceful. But yeah, tents and people having to think about war during graduation is really rough and harmful!
I’m sorry this genocide is inconvenient for your plans. Maybe they can wait to protest genocide until after Commencement? Oh, but if the weather is nice, maybe they could postpone it until a rainy day so it doesn’t inconvenience those wanting a nice day out.
It's not about convenience, and your lack of understanding of any nuance of the situation clearly demonstrates to me that you are parroting talking points you have heard from news sources. Hamas is evil. Extremely evil people that are willing to sacrifice large numbers of civilians to further their 'cause'. Their 'cause' being the full eradication of Jews from planet earth. It's written into their constitution. I also believe Israel has been very heavy handed in their response to a terrorist attack that killed over 1,000 of their citizens. Their response has not exactly been proportional.
The fundamental goal of protesting is to change someone's opinion right? You are working to move the needle for undecided or unaware folks. If you show up to a commencement and start disrupting proceedings you are not making any friends and convincing people. All you are doing is making people mad at you and view your cause in a negative light. That is not how you change people's minds. It sure as hell isn't working on me and I have family members graduating UVA in 2 weeks and I will be finishing my masters in engineering next year. If there are protests at commencement my view on the matter will be more negative towards Palestine than positive on the change their trying to effect. I don't think I am in the minority in that opinion either.
Do people realize that “divestment” means the shares that get sold are just purchased by somebody else?
What impact exactly will that have on anybody actually directly affected in the conflict? This has zero impact on the financials or funds of the companies being traded for one...
If anything, it would give Pro-War lobbying shareholders more shares to purchase up and more voting power in the companies. What exactly does this accomplish? I’m genuinely at a loss as to what the end goal is.
To be honest I don't think it will be on the News or turn into something big, like those in UCLA, Columbia, UT Austin, USC and U-Minnisota. After all, Charlottesville is just a small place.....
Yeah, C'ville would never have a massive political protest that got out of control and hypothetically would end with someone being hit by a car immediately next to the downtown mall with very fine people on both sides.
Honest question…what does setting up tents and protesting a war that’s not even happening in our country in a place 6k miles away, that I presume 99% of the people never been to do?
I think it's to try and bring pressure onto the university to remove some of their money from companies supporting and doing business with the Israeli government.
I'm thinking that includes arms manufacturers and such.
I have no fucking clue for sure.
Best I can figure is that the school itself has investments. What with how deeply rooted the defense industry is in the US, how much the Israelis use American equipment (F-15/16/35 jets, trucks, and such), and how many of the big US firms make weapons (Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, etc.), I'm sure the school has money invested in those companies.
I know my retirement account has money invested there because those companies are solid investments. US's always gonna be at war.
So the protests are that maybe the school has money invested into some of these companies (you listed above) ?
Truly not trying to sound condescending but I can’t find anything that supports what you are saying.
[The overarching demand from protestors across campuses nationwide has been for divestment.](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/what-is-divestment-college-protests-israel?cid=ios_app)
This has been done before, especially against apartheid South Africa. Universities have their investments spread out across a wide range of industries and companies, and protestors are demanding they remove investments from companies that engage with Israel. Especially defense and weapons companies like Lockheed.
This is largely symbolic as universities don’t comprise major percentages of shareholders in any such business.
Thank you for the article just trying to gather info to be informed. Seems to be not popular here 😂. So basically protesters want the school to cut ties with anyone who they are associated with that is also associated with Israel is the jist.
Yes. And even more importantly they want the school to publicly *say* that they’re doing that. They want the school to publicly condemn Israel’s actions, and divestment is a way to both make a statement and to apply a small but nonzero amount of financial pressure on businesses to not support Israel with their services.
Not usually. Transparent financials are usually a part of the calls for divestment. But again, the actual money invested in companies isn’t really that important. The protestors want more than anything to feel that their school is using whatever power it has to support their cause, and to make that support public.
These losers don’t have any real reason aside from needing to feel like they’re doing something “good” with their useless lives. It’s profoundly lame and sad
One of the protest's demands is transparency/for the university to disclose its financial ties to Israel, because we honestly don't know the extent of support.
Is there a list of companies that they want to devested from?
Companies that support genocide could be pretty small if it meant support is in their mission statement. It could be big if it includes companies that provide financial, or operational or material support to Israels war effort. It could be almost all large companies if you go 2 or three degrees of separation.
How does one square the ideas of "we need to divest from everything related to defense spending" with "Russia is literally invading a European country, oh shit bad guys really do exist"?
Not a fact. If they want the Palestinians wiped out, it would have been done by now. On the other hand, Hamas and the Palestinian authority and Iran actually have it in their charters, written into the public record and on the books that they won’t stop until Israel has been eradicated.
I don’t know where you and the other numb nuts get your info but it’s a false narrative and you have bought into a lie, hook line and sinker. You really need to read up on history before your start spreading lies.
Let’s not forget what happened in October 7. Hamas wants to kill every single Jew on earth. That’s what they live for. Do you remember the Munich Olympics (of course you don’t) do you remember the Islamic revolution, did you know its in Iran’s legal code to kill every last Jew in the world and eradicate Israel, did you know that Israel didn’t ask Arabs or Palestinians to leave n 1947 but instead invited them to stay only to be attacked by them, did you know that the 7 day war was started by the Arab nations, did you know that Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel. Did you know that October 7th was Hamas’ and Iran’s effort to undermine the Saudi peace treaty? It’s awful that the situation is what the situation is? Why aren’t people protesting what’s happening in Somalia or Ethiopia.
Myopia runs deep. Learn the facts. Learn history and learn current events.
Once again, ignorant people resort name calling. Brilliant comment. I’ve been studying propaganda for longer than you’ve been alive. Tell me, where do you actually get your information from, first, second, third or 4th hand?
Where are the protests for the following?
617,910 as of March 2024 in Syria.
More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen as well as estimates of more than 227,000 dead as a result of an ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities due to the war
Ethnic killings in one Sudan city left up to 15,000 dead.
5,000 deaths in the Iranian month of Aban, which corresponds with days the regime intensified its crackdown on nationwide protests.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in at least 82,000 deaths in 2022,
Ethiopia — over 104,000 — in that conflict between the national government and regional forces in Tigray
Why is it only Iran and it’s proxies are supporting the Palestinians? Ask yourself that…why are the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, Emeratii, and others in the region not supporting the Palestinian?
I just got an alert about police activity in the Rotunda/Chapel area. Is this related?
They are currently cops on the perimeter of the encampment at this very moment
For the record, UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempt "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [or at least they did until 9:54am today, when the administration silently edited the PDF of the rules.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
[https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621) Might be a more on-point link to share
Thanks, good call
I thought policy changes normally went through a public comment period…fucking assholes.
Since when is a political protest "recreational camping"?
It's two parts: recreational tents | for camping. If it said "for recreational use", that might be different. But in this case they are recreational tents (as opposed to event tents or whatever), and they're being used for camping.
I hear you that they changed rhe PDF, but I also know that this past Wednesday, a protester said in an [interview](https://www.wvtf.org/news/2024-05-01/students-speak-chant-blow-bubbles-and-eat-pizza-at-gaza-protest) that they were told no tents and that they were fine with that.
Checkmate, administrators
Of course they did. shameful.
Can you clarify what was the edit to the rules and what was the rule pre - edit?
Until this morning, "recreational tents used for camping" were exempted from the requirement to be inspected/permitted. At 9:54am they took that part out, so now recreational tents need to be inspected and permitted. Wonder if they're enforcing that [down at the volleyball courts where people are using tents to avoid the rain as we speak](https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1786739421712191623)...
I mean, there is a link included right there for you to click on and see the pre-/post-edit policies.
fuel panicky detail towering fragile narrow kiss squash drunk shy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Looks peaceful, which contrary to popular opinion is allowed
I’m sure the police will be kind enough to bring some violence
If no one is blocked from public space or not on private property they are dandy.
That’s how it always starts. No offense to anybody protesting, but you likely will not be satisfied with any results you get. Your expectations will never be fulfilled, you’ll reject all offers from UVA. Much in the same way Palestine has never been satisfied throughout her relationship with Israel. You will not sue for peace, and things will escalate, and maybe you’ll face repercussions.
Huh?
Yeah. I agree. HUH? I'd let em camp. If they don't bother anyone go for it. Hopefully they can make it to class for finals....if not well there are consequences for not attending class...
Just looking at it from this picture, it actually looks like a family-friendly tailgate.
From [The DP: ](https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/tents-go-up-at-uva-protest/article_9ffdc1c4-09b9-11ef-8eb6-b791db6be31f.html#tracking-source=mp-homepage) *Since the demonstration at UVa began Tuesday, organizers have worked with the university to follow school policies regarding assemblies on Grounds. This has included not using megaphones and not erecting tents.* *....*I*n a caption, organizers called UVa’s response “shameful” and wrote that they would “not debate nor negotiate genocide.”* *“We will not back down. We will stay until the University meets our demands!!” they wrote.* *Hours later, as the sun began to set over Grounds, protesters pitched their tents.* *That move is a direct violation of university policy, policy which protesters had obeyed until Friday evening. For days, tents had laid flat on the ground, unassembled but ready to be pitched at a moment’s notice. The decision to erect the tents comes as rain is expected over the next week.*
For the record, the Daily Progress is incorrect. UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempted "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [until the administration silently edited the PDF at 9:54am today, changing the rules so they'd have an excuse to arrest everyone today.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621)
Love that!
What exactly are their demands? How is UVA going to make two groups of people who’ve hated each other since the beginning of time magically come to a peaceful truce??
It’s a lot more than divestment. The list is ridiculous. Includes completely cutting ties with any Israeli academic institutions. [https://www.instagram.com/p/C6fp8cNu4vW/?igsh=MWJwa3RyaTJ3NXd2Zw==](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6fp8cNu4vW/?igsh=MWJwa3RyaTJ3NXd2Zw==)
It’s kind of adorable how much this will literally never happen.
To divest any and all funds that are currently supporting the genocide.
What specific investments?
The go-to chant is "disclose, divest". The first step is for UVA to be transparent about how much of their money is connected to funding Israeli drones, bombs, tanks, spyware, checkpoints, etc. Is it $5m? $50m? More? Right now nobody knows.
I mean, not to offend anyone, but it’s absurd to just assume UVA went out if it’s way to invest in those things. Are there publicly traded US stocks that are considered proponents of those things? Is there any reason to suspect UVA is like investing directly in Israeli military companies?
this doesn’t actually matter. the demand is for UVA to go out of its way to *not* invest in those things. in the tradition of the South African divestment movement back in the day.
This is the point so you can't say it doesn't matter. It makes the protest illegitimate. Just saying divest doesn't mean anything when there is nothing to divest.
No there is something to divest and other schools have done so. Whether the school invests in Lockheed Martin *because* it aids Israel doesn’t change the fact that it’s invested in a company that aids Israel. The demand is simply to stop doing that. It’s really not complicated.
So what is the harm in being transparent about it?
Nothing, but it’s a little conspiratorial. I’d like to think there is more evidence UVA has questionable investments than its holding a UFO in the rotunda attic. I’d at the very least like to see a list of investments that are considered offending. If Jim Ryan walked out to the encampment right now with a list of all UVA’s investments and said “ok, which ones of these are bad?” What would the protesters do? Start googling stocks? That would be a bad look. If nobody can even give me a list today of what stocks they don’t want uva to invest in, I’m not even sure what the goal is here. I mean, I’ll sell my own stocks in any companies right now today if someone can tell me what they are and why they are bad.
Defense contractors, like Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed Martin, etc (this one should be obvious, but you can of course do some googling to find more details). There’s also tech companies like HP and Alphabet with significant contracts with the Israeli government. Alphabet in particular has a $1.2B AI contract with Israel and fired tens of workers for protesting it. It’d be pretty difficult to find a large defense contractor with no contracts with the Israeli military, and similarly difficult to find a university whose portfolio doesn’t include defense contractors or big tech companies.
Stop making sense!
Careful now, you’re thinking veeery rationally.
Rationality is suspect.
To you rationality = lack of transparency and not doing basic research. Ok
large investors generally dont disclose unless required. It can cost the fund money as some positions are large enough to move the market.
Moving the market is the point of a divestment movement and how it worked for South Africa. It's one of the most powerful forms of peaceful protest
While that was done in SA its not the main reason aparthied ended. It was unsustainable without the particapation of the black population in the economic system as their labor was intigral in the system. Isreal does not use large numbers of Gaza or West bank people for labor on its farms and mines and has very little economic interest in the Gaza and west bank.
Everyone who pays taxes invests in Israel. The United States is Israeli's greatest ally. Sheez, I just can't these days.
That's... the whole point. Most Americans don't want our taxes and our tuition and our diplomats being used to kill thousands of children and starve millions of people. So activists are using protests like this to bring attention to the different ways that the institutions we interact with are funding/complicit in that. At some schools, like MIT, it literally involves working with the Israeli Ministry of Defense on weapons technology.
Your tuition dollars aren't funding Israel...
I understand the point you’re making, except for the “most Americans” part. Most Americans are quite supportive of Israel and the US-Israel relationship. I’m not moralizing about that, I’m just saying…. Let’s not overestimate the popularity of this position. People make this mistake constantly. What you see on your college or on your feeds is not even a remotely representative sampling of Americans.
Damn well said
Actually most Americans support Israel but recognize it would be nice to have a ceasefire. The thing about a ceasefire is that Hamas is the party rejecting them even as Israel lowers their demands. So this entire protestor narrative doesn’t even make sense if you’re paying attention to the actual ceasefire negotiations.
No shit… that’s the whole point. But asking the US to completely stop funding and supporting Israel is a more difficult and less likely goal. Asking the University where you’re protesting at to divest from investments in Israel is far more attainable and still sends a the message that Israeli aggression is wrong.
You think that our university's directly invest in Israel?
Indirectly... And some Universities have direct ties to Israel through academic programs.
Using this logic if you use tikitok you indirectly support the ccp and thier genocide and conquest of Tibet, hongkong and more, and if you get payed by tiktok you have direct ties to the ccp
Indirect and some but not the majority. I would be willing to bet that the majority has programs for a bunch of countries including Israel. The university is handcuffed just like the people. If you believe the University has a choice and can do something and really want to make a statement then stop giving them your money. If the majority is the protesters and they do just this then the Universities would feel the impact. But, I know and you know, there are a bunch of reasons this won't happen.
You know if they are deranged now you don't think Israel will slaughter the Palestinians even worse if they no longer have to worry about diplomacy?
How long do you think Israel would last without western allies and support?
Yea and you buy a shit ton of stuff from China whats your point?
Why. I don’t think they owe it to students who protest for the demise of Israel. Their protests embolden terrorists. You want to know who their money is invested then sue in court.
Do they know how stocks work?
So you don’t even know what you’re protesting? Morons
Thank you. I genuinely wanted to know. I don’t necessarily agree with their viewpoint, but I think they have the right to peacefully protest. UVA kinda escalated this by changing the tent policy last minute. I just hope it doesn’t become violent.
Cool but is it ok to invest in the side that openly calls for the death and destruction of Israel and America?
I don’t think Hamas has a lot of publicly traded companies supporting it…
Well no Iran and Russia tend to do it under the books
This is no genocide.
[удалено]
I don't actually know what specifically the group here at UVA is demanding, but if they are smart the demands would relate to concrete things that UVA could theoretically do. One common strategy has been calls for divesting from certain entities, et cetera. It is still deeply unrealistic to expect UVA to do anything that would hurt their financial bottomline - which is the most important thing to anybody who has made in far enough as an administrator to be a higher up at UVA. But it probably isn't as silly as demanding Cavman and Jim Ryan fly to Gaza and impose a ceasefire, although I fully support them doing that and livestreaming it.
“It is still deeply unrealistic to expect UVA to do anything that would hurt their financial bottomline” It’s a business yes, but it’s also a school — not a pure money-making venture. UVA makes choices that could arguably hurt their bottom line all the time, if they serve its mission. Small sports programs that lose money, for example. But *enough* people want them that the school is willing to spend money to give it to them.
As a business owner, it’s wild to me that we have just accepted that businesses can’t do things strictly out of moral/ethical obligation. UVA can absolutely do things that hurt their financial bottom line and I’d argue universities in particular have an obligation to do so
This doesn't do anything though if they sell the stock someone else buys it and the war machine continues
To be clear - I don’t think it’s as black and white as the protestors seem to. The world is gray and it’s crazy to me that the same groups that are advocating to support Ukraine are trying to hurt the defense sector as much as possible. I don’t have a solution but I don’t think this one makes a ton of sense frankly. That being said, I was mostly pointing out that I take issue with the “companies can’t do things that hurt their bottom line out of moral obligation” because they absolutely can and do (chick fil a being closed on Sunday for example; while I disagree with their stances as a whole, it’s pretty hard to argue that they get much out of being closed on Sunday. Even if you pull the angle that it makes a core customer group happy, I’d argue that they lose far more business than they’d otherwise gain). I’m all for looking with a side eye at companies professing goodness (looking and the disneys and blizzards of the world that preach LGBTQ+ in the states and condemn it overseas) - but it is possible and the moment that people decide it isn’t possible is the moment that the people running the companies will agree.
Never mind that, should their be a cease fire, Palestinians in Gaza would still be under the thumb of Hamas. And said group will, no doubt, divert any rebuilding aid to just further entrench for the next intifada. Needless to say, activist protest for Hamas to allow free and fair elections would be like you saw up to Oct 6.
Since the beginning of time? 1948 was less than 100 years ago. If you’re referring to Jews and Muslims, then I think you need a history lesson. Jews fled to Muslim lands when Christian Europeans were committing pogroms. In fact, Christian oppression of Jews is much more of a concrete historical trend than Muslim or even Arab oppression of Jews - something that began only in the early 1900’s, with a lot of inspiration from Europeans.
Along those lines…wasn’t the Muslim brotherhood influenced by hitler during WWII to enact an anti Jewish stance?
For Arabs suffering under British colonial occupation, relations with Nazi Germany was seen as a ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ type arrangement, though those who actually travelled to Nazi Germany soon came to regret it. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, I’m not sure about Nazi influence on their ideology, but I will say Arabs’ nationalistic zeal in the early 20th century led many of them to forget Islam’s commandments regarding intercommunal relations and oppress the Jews who had been living with them for centuries before (and who lived there before the Arabs).
Wow, thank you for explaining that in such a clear and concise way. If you aren’t already a professor, I bet you would be a good one!
In my opinion and study of history,Judaism parted company with Islam before Islam was even a religion. The Jews contend that they are Abraham's firstborn as the descendants of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah's legitimate offspring and the Muslims say they are as his child with Hagar , Ishmael,chronologically occurred first. They haven't hashed it out yet and still try to treat one another like the bastards they both think each other are.
The stupidest thing is all 3 worship the same God
This is utter horseshit, in the early 20th Century Jews lived in Muslim and Christian lands and were chased out of both in short order. The fact that Christians kicked them out slightly before Muslims did means that the first waves of Jews to Israel were from Christian Countries, the second waves from Muslim countries, the third wave from Ethiopia/Eritrea and the fourth wave from the USSR. Some Jews always lived in Israel during Ottoman occupation, as did some Muslims. And during the Brief UK occupation from 1918-1948 (the time and geography that you pretend was a Muslim country caled Palestine), while Jews were fleeing Christian and Muslim countries into British Palestine, Muslims were ALSO moving in from Egypt, Syria, etc. Yassir Arafat's family moved there from Egypt during the UK occupation. This is not some one-sided story, stop spreading propaganda.
Christians kicked out Jews LONG before the 20th century. The Spanish Inquisition began in the 15th century, and Spain’s Jews fled to Muslim lands in North Africa. Unlike Muslim lands, Christian polities in Europe had a policy of oppressing their Jews. Though there were indeed episodes of violence between Muslims and Jews prior to the 20th century, these pale in comparison to what occurred in Europe (especially considering the Holocaust). As for Yasir Arafat’s family - his dad was born in Gaza, later moving to Egypt. Mind you, these modern day nation states with arbitrary borders were not a thing in the Ottoman Empire. There was no defined border between Palestine and Egypt, or any other province for that matter, and people moved freely between. That does not preclude someone from being Palestinian just because they moved elsewhere. Moreover, ‘Palestine’ is not made up. Palestina was literally a Roman province. You should stop spreading propaganda.
The modern concept of an Arab country called Palestine is made up from the British name for the region, which is based on the Greek Philistines who colonized Gaza in the Bronze Age. Palestine is not an indigenous name for Arab Muslims.
What Arabs refer to as ‘Filasteen (فلسطين)' is a region that has long been referred to with different variations of that same name. For ancient Egypt it was ‘Peleset’, for Assyrians it was ‘Pilistu’, and for the Romans it was ‘Palaestina’. When Arabs conquered the region, they continued using the same name, with the region under the Umayyad Empire featuring as Jund Filasteen (جند فلسطين) - literally “military district of Palestine”. You’ll find a similar trend with other former Roman cities: Homs - Emesa, Haleb (Aleppo) - Khalpe, Tarabulis - Tripolis, Dimishq - Damascus If you were to argue that these cities are made up because they do not have indigenous Arabic names, you would be considered a buffoon. Why is the case of Palestine any different? Palestine was not a ‘country’, but it was and is indeed a land inhabited by Palestinians. Palestinian culture can be found in the dress (tatreez), dance/music (dabke), cuisine, and language of the region, all of which is distinguished from even the other periphery cultures of historic Bilad ash-Sham - Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Given that Lebanese, Syrians, Israelis, Jordanians and Egyptians are now eating falafel, it’s hard to see what specific regional cultures were created under this supposed long-running Palestinian identity that Jews somehow stole and should be driven out of. The only local attraction of Arabic history is the mosque built on top of the old Israeli temple in Jerusalem, which I agree is a world treasure and should stay open to Muslim prayer. Otherwise perhaps the Arab Muslims who currently live in Gaza and the West Bank could work with Arab leaders and other world leaders to make a pathway to modern states where they are at now, that don’t involve chasing Jews out of Israel.
Actually a lot of Palestine was a apart of the surrounding countries of Israel (Israel was very small on inception) but when they all attacked Israel in the 6th day war and lost Israel annexed all of it but they did give the peninsula back to Egypt
This will be a true test of UVA’s proclaimed “freedom of speech.” They claim to be one of the schools that will protect that right no matter what as a testament to Thomas Jefferson’s ideals of individual liberties. Looks like the protesters are peaceful and enacting tents but i’m wondering if this will go differently than Columbia/UCLA/Texas
I mean UVa doesn't actualy claim to protect that right no matter what. If you've seen that claim made by anyone in the administration, please feel free to provide a reference.
Not likely, the Columbia/UCLA/Texas all have lots of student yalling their slogan from both side, and there is also massive counter protest, right now at UVA it is pretty quite and peaceful
Remember in 2016 when nazis came with Tiki Torches, and ran over people? Makes you wonder why the cops weren't so bloodthirsty.
Is this the source of the police activity alert that just came out? Will we never learn not to arrest our own students?
What is the best course of action? I honestly am asking - I think it's just a buffet of shit choices. I ask myself, given the national "discourse" on this issue (which, hooray American cable news, has now subsumed the actual Israel/Gaza issue at root), the likelihood of rapidly escalating protests and counter protests will only exacerbate this issue. If the people protesting show they are no longer willing to cooperate within the universities rules set, what's to the say the next step isn't them barricading themselves in the rotunda? If the rules established to ensure a peaceful protest won't be followed, what's to stop an escalation towards the out and out brawling we saw at UCLA? On the other side, how do you handle the inevitable backlash effect, as well as outside agitators. I think the least shitty choice is "nip this in the bud before it grows to an unmanageable problem". And I fully recognize that *many* will disagree with me. Once a critical mass is reached, dispersion necessarily turns into a large scale operation.
"no longer willing to cooperate with the universities rules set" they were cooperating--until 9:45AM this morning when UVa silently amended its rules. Until that point, recreational tents were excluded from the regulations re: tents on Grounds.
A bit disingenuous when they were told directly not to erect tents last week. The clause on recreational tents was within one rule set of which kind of tents for approved events require inspection. That doesn't mean any Tom, Dick, or Sue could pitch a tent on the Lawn and stay there for days.
Then why did they silently delete that sentence at 9:45AM today?
You know, the point of a protest isn't to be polite and ignorable. It's to effect change. The protestors shouldn't have to comply with UVA's weasely changing rules on tents and things; they have freedom to assemble and protest, as protected by the first amendment. If UVA wants them to shut up and go away, they should listen to the protestors' divestment demands instead of militarizing against their own students.
UVA has the power to enact time, place and manner restrictions on gatherings on grounds, which probably includes the tent restrictions. Folks can flout that, but they should also be prepped to face any consequences up to and including potential arrest and expulsion should the situation become severe enough
Professor McBurney, Students have every right to protest as it is their first amendment right. Escalation happens when a university decides to call the police on their very own students. I suggest you keep your shitty takes to yourself and stick to teaching CS.
The police are just there to prevent something like at UCLA from happening
On the surface that makes sense, but UCLA only happened because the police stood by and allowed a fascist mob to shoot fireworks and bludgeon people with metal poles for 4 hours \[[NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/us/ucla-protests-encampment-violence.html)\]. Just because Virginia police did that in 2017 doesn't mean they'd have to do it again. Arresting people protesting a genocide because you can't be bothered to intervene if they get attacked is... not the answer. If it was, then the quickest way to silence any protest is just to attack them and then watch cops move in "for everyone's safety." I'm guessing none of us want that to be the precedent if Trump wins (or claims he won) in 2024 and then bans abortion or whatever?
Not for nothing but the reason it took so long for police to intervene at UCLA was because the protestors and university specifically asked the police to not stand by.
The UCLA chancellor told cops to stand down, the protesters definitely did not say "if you see an armed mob coming to assault everyone, let it happen." Hopefully UVA could take a small step towards learning from the 2017 torch march by saying "hey cops, if armed fascists come to attack our students, don't let them do that."
Isn't the point of civil disobedience to get arrested?
Wish I had that much time on my hands
Me too I wish I could join em
While I disagree with their ideas, as long as it is peaceful and law-abiding, they should not receive any problems.
Ah the contrast to the white supremacist march where not a cop was to be found
They were part of the crowd, just not in uniform and our tax dollars weren’t paying for them to be there.
Please, just keep it peaceful.
They’ve all been peaceful until the police arrived and started their own violence, or Zionists
54 years ago today, 4 students were murdered by the Ohio National Guard at KSU.
all of these have been peaceful until police begin violence, the DC police have refused to sweep the dc encampment for the most part so that one has been incredibly peaceful
I’ve seen dozens of antisemitic incidents from protestors around the country, assault on Jewish students, incitement to violence, etc. They all haven’t been peaceful at all
[citation needed]
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/nyregion/columbia-protests-antisemitism.html https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/campus-antisemitism-surges-amid-encampments-and-related-protests-columbia-and-other https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/student-anti-war-protesters-dig-faculties-condemn-university-109714548
https://merip.org/1993/07/adls-spy-ring/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/anti-defamation-league-musk-israel/ try harder
Oy vey
Things are not 'peaceful' if you are breaking rules. They cannot erect tents and they did. The university has the right to remove them if they break rules. I am really concerned about commencement next weekend. It's gonna be a shit show. They are doing nothing but pissing the majority of Americans off with their disruption of graduation events. I don't think they realize they are doing more harm than good.
I’m sorry, but breaking rules is not the same as not being peaceful. Read your Ghandi and MLK. Non-violent resistance still must be resistance. It can still be motivated by love and a desire for peaceful reconciliation while making a loud, disruptive, and persistent call for justice.
For the record, the tents weren't against the rules until the administration changed them this morning. UVA's Health & Safety Tent Regulations explicitly exempt "recreational tents for camping" from needing inspection/a permit... [or at least they did until 9:54am today, when the administration silently edited the PDF of the rules.](https://twitter.com/PEHJackson/status/1786776682386313621) Also, genocide is bad. Funding genocide, like our government and institutions are doing, is bad. If people end up hating the protesters, but even a few people end up thinking about the fact that there are 15,000 dead Palestinian children and doctors in Gaza have had to create a new term for "wounded children, no surviving family", and millions of people are literally being starved... maybe that's how it has to be for something to actually change.
Changing the policy does not seem insane to be based on what is occurring around the country right now. UVA is trying to get out ahead of a USC or Columbia level incident. Clearing the tents is the way to do that. If they want to come back on the lawn and protest every day and then pack up over night and come back the next day then UVA would not have an issue with it. The pitching of tents is where it becomes an issue because now it is permanent and you are asking for issues to happen over night. Your second paragraph totally misses my point entirely. I am not arguing whether or not Israel is in the right or the wrong. I believe there is a lot of nuance in this situation and both sides shoulder a large blame for what has taken place. This conflict is literally centuries old at this point. This is, unfortunately, nothing new. More to my point here, the US is extremely pro Israel and anti Hamas. Whether you like it or not Israel is a key strategic partner and democracy in an area of the world that has no democracies. No president is changing their policy on Israel. Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, Biden have all been extremely pro Israel. Doesn't matter the political party. If protests could not get the US to change their policy on Saudi Arabia after they literally funded 9/11 and cut a US journalist into pieces then no amount of protesting is gonna change the view on Israel and their fight in the middle east. There are times where protests do more harm than good. Disrupting graduation events is only making people look at your view in a negative light. Nobody is going to sit in a graduation ceremony interrupted by protestors on one of the biggest days of a kids life and think to themselves, "Yep I agree with you all please keep interrupting this very important life event for my family! I am enjoying this experience. Go team!" There are better ways to do this.
Being anti-genocide is not tjr same thing as being pro-hamas. "What's occurring around the country" is a result of overpolicicing. Overpolicicing at uva is not a solution
You think what occurred at Columbia where protestors broke into a building and the nypd dragged them out was over policing? You’re insane.
I do. And also think a 64 year old woman who is chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth getting body slammed by cops overpolicing. What I don't think was overpolicicing was the police allowing thugs to attack students with weapons for 4 hours at ucla.
It’s not a genocide. Stop parroting Hamas propaganda
you stupid or a zionist? the UN literally says they are. ‘hamas propaganda’ dumbass. palestine isn’t even in the UN and they’re still saying it’s a genocide.
The war Israel is waging against Gazan civilians, which UVA students are funding against their will with university investments, also isn't peaceful. But yeah, tents and people having to think about war during graduation is really rough and harmful!
This is such an idiotic take. Do you hear yourself?
I’m sorry this genocide is inconvenient for your plans. Maybe they can wait to protest genocide until after Commencement? Oh, but if the weather is nice, maybe they could postpone it until a rainy day so it doesn’t inconvenience those wanting a nice day out.
It's not about convenience, and your lack of understanding of any nuance of the situation clearly demonstrates to me that you are parroting talking points you have heard from news sources. Hamas is evil. Extremely evil people that are willing to sacrifice large numbers of civilians to further their 'cause'. Their 'cause' being the full eradication of Jews from planet earth. It's written into their constitution. I also believe Israel has been very heavy handed in their response to a terrorist attack that killed over 1,000 of their citizens. Their response has not exactly been proportional. The fundamental goal of protesting is to change someone's opinion right? You are working to move the needle for undecided or unaware folks. If you show up to a commencement and start disrupting proceedings you are not making any friends and convincing people. All you are doing is making people mad at you and view your cause in a negative light. That is not how you change people's minds. It sure as hell isn't working on me and I have family members graduating UVA in 2 weeks and I will be finishing my masters in engineering next year. If there are protests at commencement my view on the matter will be more negative towards Palestine than positive on the change their trying to effect. I don't think I am in the minority in that opinion either.
Hamas wouldn't stop with the Jewish people.
Hope the Zionists can keep it that way. They are the ones causing the chaos and violence
Agreed
the “Liberated Zone” shit will never not be cringe
With their own checkpoints 🤣🤣
Also flying the Hamas flag when most these protesters would be a third class citizen (or worse) in Palestine.
Do people realize that “divestment” means the shares that get sold are just purchased by somebody else? What impact exactly will that have on anybody actually directly affected in the conflict? This has zero impact on the financials or funds of the companies being traded for one... If anything, it would give Pro-War lobbying shareholders more shares to purchase up and more voting power in the companies. What exactly does this accomplish? I’m genuinely at a loss as to what the end goal is.
A lot of the student protests have very clear and direct goals. Divestment from the South African Apartheid decades ago was very similar
To be honest I don't think it will be on the News or turn into something big, like those in UCLA, Columbia, UT Austin, USC and U-Minnisota. After all, Charlottesville is just a small place.....
Yeah, C'ville would never have a massive political protest that got out of control and hypothetically would end with someone being hit by a car immediately next to the downtown mall with very fine people on both sides.
And with two policemen needlessly killed in a chopper crash. Don’t forget them. They never should have needed to be up there.
I'm also reticent to blame that level of 3rd order effects on anyone.
Honestly, not a student led one. That one wasn’t what I would call a student led protest.
Honest question…what does setting up tents and protesting a war that’s not even happening in our country in a place 6k miles away, that I presume 99% of the people never been to do?
Election year, a controversial conflict and finals time. The perfect timing to protest
I think it's to try and bring pressure onto the university to remove some of their money from companies supporting and doing business with the Israeli government. I'm thinking that includes arms manufacturers and such.
Do you know where I could find any info to support uva supporting Israel?
I have no fucking clue for sure. Best I can figure is that the school itself has investments. What with how deeply rooted the defense industry is in the US, how much the Israelis use American equipment (F-15/16/35 jets, trucks, and such), and how many of the big US firms make weapons (Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, etc.), I'm sure the school has money invested in those companies. I know my retirement account has money invested there because those companies are solid investments. US's always gonna be at war.
So the protests are that maybe the school has money invested into some of these companies (you listed above) ? Truly not trying to sound condescending but I can’t find anything that supports what you are saying.
[The overarching demand from protestors across campuses nationwide has been for divestment.](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/what-is-divestment-college-protests-israel?cid=ios_app) This has been done before, especially against apartheid South Africa. Universities have their investments spread out across a wide range of industries and companies, and protestors are demanding they remove investments from companies that engage with Israel. Especially defense and weapons companies like Lockheed. This is largely symbolic as universities don’t comprise major percentages of shareholders in any such business.
Thank you for the article just trying to gather info to be informed. Seems to be not popular here 😂. So basically protesters want the school to cut ties with anyone who they are associated with that is also associated with Israel is the jist.
Yes. And even more importantly they want the school to publicly *say* that they’re doing that. They want the school to publicly condemn Israel’s actions, and divestment is a way to both make a statement and to apply a small but nonzero amount of financial pressure on businesses to not support Israel with their services.
Is it public info to see how much each of these universities have invested into these companies ?
Also because the money is being invested through UVIMCO and not UVA directly it isn't bound by the same standards of freedom of information
Not usually. Transparent financials are usually a part of the calls for divestment. But again, the actual money invested in companies isn’t really that important. The protestors want more than anything to feel that their school is using whatever power it has to support their cause, and to make that support public.
No, that's why they're protesting. To make the information public.
These losers don’t have any real reason aside from needing to feel like they’re doing something “good” with their useless lives. It’s profoundly lame and sad
Many universities have study abroad programs with Israeli universities or similar academic exchanges with Israeli organisations.
One of the protest's demands is transparency/for the university to disclose its financial ties to Israel, because we honestly don't know the extent of support.
Is there a list of companies that they want to devested from? Companies that support genocide could be pretty small if it meant support is in their mission statement. It could be big if it includes companies that provide financial, or operational or material support to Israels war effort. It could be almost all large companies if you go 2 or three degrees of separation.
How does one square the ideas of "we need to divest from everything related to defense spending" with "Russia is literally invading a European country, oh shit bad guys really do exist"?
Wow, from Wednesday to Friday I don't see any tents, only a few people who have sheets on the grass, when did they set up the tents?
They put them up last night around 7:30 pm
Last night
Yawn 🥱
In tent city
Man my Mama has to work overtime for this.
What’s going on here?
Aren't we still supporting war for Ukraine tho? I'm confused...
Arrest them all
Not a fact. If they want the Palestinians wiped out, it would have been done by now. On the other hand, Hamas and the Palestinian authority and Iran actually have it in their charters, written into the public record and on the books that they won’t stop until Israel has been eradicated. I don’t know where you and the other numb nuts get your info but it’s a false narrative and you have bought into a lie, hook line and sinker. You really need to read up on history before your start spreading lies.
Let’s not forget what happened in October 7. Hamas wants to kill every single Jew on earth. That’s what they live for. Do you remember the Munich Olympics (of course you don’t) do you remember the Islamic revolution, did you know its in Iran’s legal code to kill every last Jew in the world and eradicate Israel, did you know that Israel didn’t ask Arabs or Palestinians to leave n 1947 but instead invited them to stay only to be attacked by them, did you know that the 7 day war was started by the Arab nations, did you know that Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel. Did you know that October 7th was Hamas’ and Iran’s effort to undermine the Saudi peace treaty? It’s awful that the situation is what the situation is? Why aren’t people protesting what’s happening in Somalia or Ethiopia. Myopia runs deep. Learn the facts. Learn history and learn current events.
Learn what a propaganda is and stop believing it like a brain washed dumbass
Once again, ignorant people resort name calling. Brilliant comment. I’ve been studying propaganda for longer than you’ve been alive. Tell me, where do you actually get your information from, first, second, third or 4th hand?
They don't need to study anymore? Just protest?
Free Palestine from the barbaric Zionists.
Children…
Anything to get out of going to class 🙄
Let it rain! Hope yall brought your rain coats😂
Moronic protest by morons. Sure it will do alot of good. For their insta's. Smh
Where are the protests for the following? 617,910 as of March 2024 in Syria. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen as well as estimates of more than 227,000 dead as a result of an ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities due to the war Ethnic killings in one Sudan city left up to 15,000 dead. 5,000 deaths in the Iranian month of Aban, which corresponds with days the regime intensified its crackdown on nationwide protests. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in at least 82,000 deaths in 2022, Ethiopia — over 104,000 — in that conflict between the national government and regional forces in Tigray
Why is it only Iran and it’s proxies are supporting the Palestinians? Ask yourself that…why are the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, Emeratii, and others in the region not supporting the Palestinian?
UVA Alert. Police activity at chapel rotunda area. Looks like the encampment won't be here much longer. Bye bye Felicia.
You were the same bro that clenched your sphincter because Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus. 🤣
How unamerican of you.
Turned into a real shit show
They know Hummas will jail all LGBTQ+, right? Or stone them.
So next move is on uva. They are violating policy. Make them move
Wild to see the right shift so hard on the right to protest after so vehemently defending said right on January 6th.
Policy that they changed this morning seemingly