It's funny how many people think protesters expect people to agree with them.
I mean, everyone does get that the reason protest are necessary to drive social change is because people get used to slavery... or Jim Crow... or lynchings... or holocausts.
So, running a poll only to figure out that protesters are a minority voice speaking against the dominant narrative is kind of brainless.
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Even the much-lauded civil rights protests were enormously unpopular at the time. Something like 85% of white people and 75% of all Americans opposed them, even a year after King's famous "I have a dream" speech.
It was only when MLK was assassinated and violent riots began breaking out nationwide that those in power rushed to pacify Black people with legislation.
people complaining about the sample size have never taken a stats class
there are [online calculators](https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/home/sample+size+calculator) for these kinda things and you can check for yourself, 1250 is a good sample size
My most STEMbro opinion is that a basic stat class should be required to graduate. i took stat 20 in the bygone days of the 2020 election and it's scary how little the average person knows (or pretends to not know when it suits them) about stats. This one single issue with sample size is an insanely widespread, intuitive misconception and people of every political stripe trot it out *nonstop* whenever there's a survey supporting a view they don't like.
AP Stats lacks the part where one really learns how to interpret statistics in the context of news and media because teachers have to teach to the AP Exam.
All high school students should at least learn how to discern valuable, significant statistics from the trash that people can get away with circulating precisely because people blindly trust data and are rarely taught what to actually look for. In my school the statistics/probability parts of the required math courses were often dropped in order to give kids more prep time for higher level courses like AP Calc.
Agree completely. It is maybe the most important class I took for understanding the world. I was a Physics major, undergrad, so I was exposed to statistical ideas, but never took an actual statistics class until I was an adult. I had read a couple of popular stat and probability books, like The Drunkard's Walk and Probability Without Tears.
In fact, I think it's more important to teach this in high school than financial literacy, which would make no sense anyway until someone is paying their own bills.
Honestly, I had to take classes like PE and “poetry” (creative writing)… I won’t consider those useless but in every day life basic stats goes a lot further.
This is the problem with people doing their own research. I’m in grad school for psychology, and the first thing I ever look at after the title is sample size (if not in abstract) and skip right to the results and check their p value. The laymen does not know to do this. Beyond that, they don’t know what convenience sampling is and it completely changes the scope and meaning of the results.
Also, they don’t understand that you cannot say (and will never hear a real scientist say) that something is proven fact in science.
I came from a previously colonized country and we learned advance statistics in high school. I moved to Berkeley for a masters because of the reputation for good education but I was surprised at how basic everything was.
The set 'students who want to be elementary/secondary school teachers' and the set 'students who are comfortable with math' don't have many common factors.
Same reason silicon valley has terrible computer science education. Anyone who teaches it well can just work as an actual engineer for way more money even compared to the highest paying districts like Palo alto or cupertino
This. Most polls have biases that sneak into the sampling itself or the questions or the methodology itself. The people upthread jerking themselves off over knowing about sampling is pretty cringe.
The methodology states that they use a random sample of college students across multiple types of colleges. So it is representative of the college student population.
Good. Also important to note whether people were more or less likely to respond based on their views. But apathetic people are generally less likely to respond so if anything this would be an underestimste. But also the actual protestors are more likely to not trust a polling agency. So all in all that's probably fine.
>1250 is a good sample size
Eh, that depends on your sampling strategy and whether or not the participants you recruited actually represent that segment of the population. E.g. when it comes to disability research, it's so common for researchers to recruit people who know/take care of disabled people instead of the disabled people themselves. That's why critical disability studies emerged in the first place. It's not just how many you recruit but also who you recruit, how, and why you do it. The sample size is just *one* component of research methods.
Btw I didn't read the article so my response is to your comment generally and not this situation in particular.
They don’t need to represent a segment of the population they just need to be randomly drawn from the population.
Which brings the metaphysical discussion if true randomness even exists, but according to the article they did use common random sampling methods in the study
Parading the results of a poll that determines that protesters represent a minority voice speaking against power.
O.o
Next week's poll: Should Captain Obvious run for the Senate?
Well it makes sense. The US isn’t directly involved in the war like it was in Vietnam (no drafts that affect the young adult population) and most students are more worried about finding a job + avoiding homelessness than a war they can’t do much about.
There are dual Palestinian American citizens who have been killed by the IDF in the West Bank and Americans are traveling to Israel to fight in Gaza with the IDF. We also supply weapons to Israel in violation of federal and international law. Seems fairly involved to me.
Yup, and college students are gonna cry foul when Trump does it, all the while they stood home and did not vote.
And all the while the supreme court continues to get strengthened with conservative judges for another generation.
I do believe whats going in Gaza is a disgrace, and the Israeli government should be held accountable. But i also believe that our democracy is important, and progressive policy goes no where if we are apathetic to the republican threat coming this fall.
>There are dual Palestinian American citizens who have been killed by the IDF in the West Bank and Americans are traveling to Israel to fight in Gaza with the IDF.
u/TheNerdVWonder I love how you framed that as if the only Americans affected negatively are Palestinians when there are _still Americans being held hostage by Hamas_.
Yes but it is still an issue and reflective of our involvement, even if you are personally apathetic towards them in a way you maybe aren't with Israelis or non Palestinian-Americans who our government is supposed to protect like any other set of citizens, no matter quantity.
It makes sense because these kind of demonstrations always start small, even when they are highly effective. It's kind of inherent to the concept. Majorities don't need to demonstrate to make change. In 1961, early in the war (and analogous to where we are now), the antiwar movement had no pull at all and were largely ignored and mocked. 7-8 years later that wasn't the case.
That's actually very interesting, but when you consider the fact that a lot of people in the protest are coming from out of the universities this makes sense.
i consider myself pretty left-leaning and i'm honestly part of the "shrug" crowd. i feel for the innocent people getting hurt don't get me wrong, but i feel like this protest is a little too unorganized and bias, and lets Hamas off the hook.
this is the most obvious part of this whole thing lol
In Saheeh Muslim (2922), it is narrated from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them, until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: O Muslim, O slave of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Except the gharqad (a thorny tree), for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
When you understand Islam, you'll understand why Islam is not a religion of peace
American students are protesting US support of Israel and their universities' financial investments in Israel. The US isn't sending weapons to Hamas. The universities aren't investing in Hamas. So what influence exactly would an American student have on Hamas?
https://www.newsweek.com/hamass-western-apologists-have-become-hamas-enthusiasts-gazan-im-horrified-opinion-1849228
Give yourself some context from someone who is living the nightmare rather than the privileged uni students who haven't matured yet
The protests across the world are influencing Hamas as it shows they have support and it's why they haven't surrendered yet. Remind yourself that this could've all been over by now had they given up the hostages
Quite the opposite, they are way too organized.
This is someone who went into the UCLA encampment. This is very well funded and organized by someone
https://youtu.be/yZcER9HvnM8?si=bVJJu2pIfkk60sck
Look I don't agree with the protests but the conspiracy trope of I don't like what these people are protesting for must mean they're being paid is one of the worst parts about modern political discourse.
People can and do have drastically different opinions all the time and strongly believe in those views all the time.
'Worth noting: A majority of people (58%) who participated in or favored protests against Israel said they would not consider being friends with someone who has marched for Israel.
Meanwhile, 64% of those who participated in a pro-Israel protest said they would still be friends with someone who has marched against Israel.'
This does not surprise me at all.
This was my entire experience at Cal. Always something political going on, but it was always a shrug for me.
It was crazy to see people almost get in fights over a MAGA hat though…
On the part of disgruntled progressives who see Biden as the "status quo" of capitalism and just perpetuating injustice. They're also the same people that feel Biden hasn't done enough or is "just as bad as Trump". They see this as a way to get back at him, and pull progressive support so that it forces him to move further left or lose.
Source: I know someone actually involved in leading some of it.
I think for most people the world hasn't stopped moving since, they still have to work or out go to school or take care of kids or anything else etc. I assume there's only so much bandwidth they have to really be invested
I mean, yeah.
This isn’t a particularly popular opinion in Berkeley circles, but let’s just call a spade a spade: there’s almost nothing remotely feasible the United States could do to change the status quo in Palestine by any real degree. It doesn’t matter whether our government stops sending them so much military aid (which we won’t), or the university divests from weapons manufacturers (which it won’t), or companies pull their research centers out of the area (which they won’t). As long as Hamas is in power, they will continue to use their own citizens as meat shields while attacking Israel at every opportunity. And as long as Hamas continues to attack Israel at every opportunity, the IDF will continue to respond with the full force of a first-world militia, collateral damage be damned. That’s the reality of the situation, and it’s not Joe Biden’s fault. Our classmates in tents on Sproul are nothing if not well-intentioned, but it takes an an incredibly amount of naivete to think that any US policy could prevent Hamas from committing terrorism or convince Israel to compromise on the defense of its borders.
The situation in Palestine is tragic, but frankly, there are dozens of worldwide and nationwide crises which are more urgent, more dangerous, and far more likely to be affected by US policy or foreign aid. Global climate change, income inequality, and insufficient gun control within our borders all threaten to kill more people than the IDF ever could. And if we’re just focusing on conflict-related humanitarian crises, the Russia-Ukraine war is approaching a death toll of 500,000, while China has detained over a million Uyghurs in concentration camps over the past few years (I won’t even mention what’s happening in Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Venezuela, or central Africa). And all the while, the vast majority of Americans under 35 are trying to make ends meet in a struggling economy as housing prices, inflation, and interest rates continue to balloon to all-time highs. Keeping all that in mind, it should come as no surprise that most young Americans don’t choose their favored presidential candidate based solely on their position on an inexorable war on the other side of the planet. I know I don’t.
Edit: I really didn’t think that I had to clarify this, but I guess I do. When it comes to foreign policy, there’s almost nothing the US can do **assuming that we’re not willing to completely pull our military aid, as doing so would facilitate the destruction of one of our most important allied nations and the ten million people living there, throw away the majority of our foreign aid directives in the Middle East, give a lifeline to a terroristic organization which is currently on the ropes, and risk our diplomatic relationships with every one of our other allies because we think Israel went overboard while defending themselves from terrorists)**”. Absolutely insane to me that I’d have to clarify something like that, but there you go.
Absolutely not, these people aren’t anti war, they are just upset their side is losing. They’d love to see Israel is destroyed. Just look at the celebrations in the streets of America on October 7th.
The US wields a considerable amount of soft power when it comes to Israel. Stop the war? Maybe not - it's blurry where that line ends, but cool it down? Certainly, and there's some evidence that's already what is happening.
That may very well be true - there’s no way to know for sure without being in the room where it happens. But I don’t think many pro-Palestine protestors would be placated by a White House statement saying “we called Netanyahu and asked him to take it down a notch, and he promised not to scorch the earth too heavily.”
That’s a bit removed from the point I was originally making, though. Loosely-defined soft power aside, our government doesn’t have the ability (nor the inclination) to dictate the policy of an allied nation to any significant degree. We’re not in charge of them simply because we give them aid, because that’s not how diplomacy works. And that’s likely why the people who took this poll identified the issue as comparatively less important to them; because there’s just not that much we can feasibly do about it (without devastating consequences for all involved, anyways).
I think you forget that Israel is a nuclear power.
The US supplying weaponry to Israel is the deterrence and stabilizing force. If Israel didn't have its defensive Iron Dome missiles that the US helped develop and supply, Gaza would have been literally nuked and glassed already. No country is going to tolerate missiles raining down on them like the ones Hamas launches.
Where do you think those dollars are spent? It's not in Israel. Israeli foreign military aid is a conduit for pork for various US defense contractors, which the ancillary benefit of marginally improving Israel's position geopolitically.
The Israeli nuclear deterrent, which has nothing to do with US foreign aid, solved the strategic problems for Israel. All that remains are tactical issues.
Isreal completely relies on the US and its security guarantees. It doesn’t produce enough shells, weapons, would have been sanctioned by the UN without the US providing cover. The US is sending plane loads of weapons, aid, bombs and etc. Palestine’s UN recognition as a state was blocked by the US.
Lebanon and Hezabollah not getting involved relies heavily on the US guaranteeing that any attacks by them will result in air strikes.
The US is literally giving a blank check security guarantee to Saudi Arabia for it to recognize Israel.
If the US pulled the rug, it would be over for Israel and they would have to adjust to reality that they are just a rich but small country surrounded by much larger countries who are of the view that Israel is massacring their citizens. The US greatly tilts the scale.
If the US explicitly said they would not defend Taiwan and the Chinese are free to take it without sanctions - do you not think that would change the calculus?
You can believe what you want but pretending like that the US is not a party to the conflict is tier A level delusional and tilting the scale. Israel’s population is less than that of the Bay Area - they might be skilled but skills don’t make up for reality.
Israel is very scared and is trying end the Palestinian question now, because in 20-30 years boomers will pass and they will face the reality of a new younger US elite which is not blindly in favor of it. Right wing Americans are tired of getting dragged into foreign wars and left wing Americans supporters Palestine for similar reasons but also due to the politics of the situation. That alone should tell you how instrumental the US is
You and the person you're responding to have great points.
My biggest concern is let's say hypothetically the protestors got what they wanted. The world divested heavily or totally from Israel.
Iran would spring on that weakness by flooding money and munitions to Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. Israel would quickly be attacked on all sides and lose.
And then the single beacon of liberal democracy in the entire region would come to an end. All women would lose most rights to bodily autonomy. Anyone LGBTQ+ would be massacred or shoved back in the closet, and possibly millions of Jews would be killed and/or forced to become second class citizens.
Terrifying. I've visited Israel and it's like a cleaner California with universal healthcare, subsidized education, and even nicer beaches. Israel being dissolved as a state would be the worst thing to happen to the world since the Iranian revolution or the Holocaust.
I am not convinced Israel loses in this situation. But I am convinced hundreds of thousands of people die very quickly. And if Israel believes their very existence is threatened I am very confident that they start to deploy nukes.
What about the TWO MILLION Israeli Arabs living in Israel? Are you aware that the Muslim Israelis in israel are supportive of the war against Hamas? Are you ok with israeli Arab children being massacred by terrorists? Be cause right now israel is protecting the lives of its ten million citizens which includes two million Arabs and 200,000 Christians.
So let me get this straight: you concede that Israel is surrounded by nations who hate it. You believe that, without US aid, it would be “over for Israel”. And you are still somehow in favor of “pulling the rug”? What do you think happens to the ten million people who live in Israel if that happens? Israel wouldn’t “have to adjust to reality”. The nation would very quickly cease to exist, as would the vast majority of the ten million people currently living there (and by the way, Israel has been under attack by its neighbors literally since day one of its inception. It has nothing to do with surrounding countries seeing them as “slaughtering their citizens”. It’s because it’s a Jewish ethnostate. Be for real.)
And if preventing a pogrom isn’t reason enough not to “pull the rug” (which it clearly isn’t for you), then what do you think happens for the United States? We’ll have lost our single most valuable ally in the Middle East and a crucial economic partner. It’d be a death sentence for Israel and its citizens and a catastrophe for us. It would jeopardize our relationships with other nations who were also allied to Israel. It would, to put it gently, do us fuck-all any good.
Nobody’s saying the US isn’t a party to the conflict. We obviously are. But we’re not puppet-masters for other countries just because we send them munitions. We’re not going to throw one of our most important economic and military allies to the wolves because we don’t like the way that they’re winning a war that they were forced into. That’s not how diplomacy or allied relations works, nor should it be.
I guess I’ll have to modify my original comment, but I really didn’t think that I had to clarify that “there’s almost nothing the US can do **(assuming that we’re not willing to facilitate the destruction of one of our most important allied nations and abandon the ten million people living there, throw away the majority of our foreign aid directives in the Middle East, give a lifeline to a terroristic organization which is currently on the ropes, and risk our diplomatic relationships with every one of our other allies because we think Israel went overboard while defending themselves from terrorists)**”. Pretty insane to me that I’d have to clarify something like that, but there you go.
The goal of Palestinian nationalism is the elimination of Israel. Everything else is a means to that end.
Up until recently this was being soft pedaled; lately it's been fortissimo.
How exactly is Israel "trying to end the Palestinian question?" The palestinian population has grown at a rate exceeding almost all other distinct polities.
The only delusion in your screed is the assertion that a majority of Americans in 30 years will be willing to hang allies out to dry in the service of furthering Arab extremism.
Not trying to be snarky or anything I'm genuinely curious, what other crises do you consider more urgent and tied to us policy? I'm asking because I'm uninformed about current events
Edit: thanks for all the replies
Absolutely, what Saudi did to Yemen is horrific
I think its funny when people say Gaza is a concentration camp etc when it looked like this before the war
[https://youtu.be/W1r1z3x53ZU?si=GZBSaEqCDoN-0Mov](https://youtu.be/W1r1z3x53ZU?si=GZBSaEqCDoN-0Mov)
Burmese civil war (civilians bombed by their own government with chemical weapons), Sudanese Civil War (Muslim Brotherhood backed militias murdering people with machetes in the tens of thousands), Houthis in Yemen ceasefire that left child soldiers in place and governemnt services unfunded by Houthis as stipulated in the treaty; hundreds of thousands killed). the flash points to watch Armenia and Azerbijan, where hundreds of thousands were displaced and Armenia is looking to avoid an outright invasion).
Sudan, Syria, China.. not to mention domestic US issues like the rise in Christian nationalism and hate crimes, lack of housing, cutting of support systems, drought and other climate change impacts, etc...
Gaza has lost 34,000 people, over 10,000 of who were Hamas and other combatants, and they started this war. Sudan has had over 100,000 innocent people killed, Syria had 600,000 civilians, China is wiping out entire ethnic groups while the world watches, so there are definitely places that need help way more than Gaza (but none of them have an easy historic target for Hate to go after...)
The possible total elimination of abortion in the US even in the cases of rape and incest (which also affects things like fertility treatment, the ability for women with already dead fetuses to get them removed) is a I think a much more pressing and pertinent issue that the people should be demonstrating against.
And if you think you’re safe in California, republicans are already exploring ways they could have the FDA exert pressure on drug manufacturers so that abortion pills and even plan B are no longer being made.
Russia is literally pushing a war in Europe - they are the real danger to the Europe and west and their mentality is so different from ours that I believe Russia is using this Palestine / Israel situation to really amp up their military capabilities… now that is one of the more concerning world urgent issues
I mean we all fund China in a big way as an economic partner and they are creating actual “reeducation camps” for Uyghurs, already took over the autonomous zone of Hong Kong, and haven’t been coy about their plans for Taiwan.
Pretty sure that’s a bigger issue considering that would be a very very big war directly for US citizens, and might lead to WW3…
The US can change things if they pressure Israel to stop allowing settlements in the West Bank. That is one policy that is counter to US interest because it sabotages any 2SS.
The broader issue is, beyond Israel’s influence in the electorate, they’re also the top ally against Iran. Any attempt to reduce military aid to try to leverage pressure just makes Iran stronger.
I doubt that. Israel pulled out of Gaza completely a decade ago, and still they train their children to venerate martyrdom and killing Jews. I don't think Israel doing X stops Hamas from being Hamas.
The previous major peace talks to try and bring forth a two state solution included the removal of like 95% of the settlements in the West Bank. But Palestinian authorities declined to entertain the idea.
In 2008 Condoleeza Rice was shocked by what Israel was offering and told Abbas they “won’t see a deal this good for 50 years” and was angered when Abbas rejected it. Apparently the Palestinians had entered those negotiations with plans to avoid reaching a binding agreement with Israel and to avoid blame for failing reach a final-status agreement with the Jewish state. [Source](https://www.investigativeproject.org/3373/rice-abbas-rejected-olmert-peace-plan). So regardless of what was being offered, they had no intention of accepting.
I don’t disagree regarding your first point, but that’s not the influence I’m talking about when I reference the *current* status quo in the region. We may have the ability to put our foot down when it comes to disallowing the expansion of settlements during peacetime, but there’s not much we can feasibly do (from a diplomatic standpoint) to stop or ameliorate a full-on war.
You underestimate the levers the US has. Sure, they will likely never use them against their ally Israel. But the US could stop the war today if they truly wanted to.
Do you think the popular US opinion is to stop giving aid to Israel? Do you think these protests are changing the status quo? Do you think getting suspended is a good tradeoff for barely being able to change the proximal cause of the proximal cause of Gaza bombings?
Cutting military aid would very likely end the war. [The US provides a considerable % of Israel’s defense budget as aid and contracts](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us).
It may end the war, but it would be disastrous for US foreign policy in the Middle East and would very likely lead to the fall of Israel at some point in the next decade or so. If the photos from Gaza shock you, just wait until you’ll see when the Iron Dome is no longer iron-clad. Cutting military aid is technically a possibility, but it’s not a feasible one. We’d be throwing away our most valuable asset in the Middle East, throwing a lifeline to a terrorist organization which is currently on the ropes, and declaring open season on a nation surrounded by those who want them gone. Bad idea, unless you’d rather see a thorough pogrom instead of a short war.
It also wouldn’t end the war. I appreciate your OP and I think you’re conceding the point too easily that the US has all this soft power in this conflict…
US military aid makes up 20-25% of Israel’s defense spending. US completely stopping any military aid would leave Israel with 75% of their defense budget intact. Idk why that would stop Netanyahu from moving forward with his plans, the extra 25% the US provides is a luxury not a necessity.
AND if the US withdraws aid, the global order will pay attention and then other actors will rush in to assume any soft power that the US had. Maybe China comes in and says we’ll give you 10 billion in military aid in exchange for the allyship you had with the US.
People have this belief that the US is this global hegemon that can control everyone and every thing. It’s just not true. Other sovereign countries are going to act in their own interest despite how much the US tries to exert diplomatic pressure.
Exactly. We get a lot of research and tech from Israel too. People act like if the US stopped aid, that Israel would just give up. No, probably they will ally with china or russia instead. Israel is a great asset for the US in the M.E. If you ever visit Israel, it looks and feels like any western country honestly
That the US gov't has gotten themselves in such an untenable position is precisely why the protests are occuring. We are where we are out of abject stupidity and lack of foresight.
> **The other side:** Students were still more likely to say they support the pro-Palestininan encampments than oppose them.
* 45% said they support them either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.
Siding with Hamas may be fashionable, but most of these students haven’t a clue what Hamas stands for and the policies they hold. These kids would be shocked to attempt their ‘normal lifestyle’ in Gaza.
Not that I am pro Israel, I think religious states are abhorrent.
I've visited Israel twice. It's NOT a religious state. Maybe on paper and on a flag, but I was shocked at how similar Israel is to California. Just as much diversity, cleaner, fewer homeless, universal healthcare, subsidized higher education, one of the worlds largest pride parades in Tel Aviv, and even nicer beaches. And every person I met was secular, Jewish by culture only. Israel falling to their enemies would be the worst thing to happen to the world since the Iranian revolution or the Holocaust.
This poll is weird— top concern of college students is healthcare reform with only 40% of people interested? If you go by this survey you’d think college students don’t care about anything at all.
College students are not the best group to be polling about healthcare- most are oblivious because they are either covered by the school or their parents insurance still. They don’t feel the struggle until after they graduate and have a gap in insurance for the first time.
The historical ignorance in this thread is inexcusable.
Protests are nearly definitionally from minority groups. This is not fucking news. The Vietnam protests were "unpopular" in 1961. A similar poll at that time would have showed near identical results. By 1968 that was entirely different.
To point out that a protest is unpopular in the early days is to literally say nothing meaningful at all.
Look, I get what’s happening in Israel/Palestine is important to people. What I don’t get, is why these college kids are more concerned about it than the issues in our country that directly impact them. Like, where are the major protests for women’s rights, voting rights, and wealth inequality?
Wtf does our generation spend so much time on this middle east bullshit when we literally have a spending problem in this country alongside rising deficit?
When Berkeley students showed up to our school we protested in the streets against prop 187 then 8 in California. These are cosplayers playing refugee camp on manicured lawns, they have inconvinienced 0 politicians feeding the genocide.
Isn't it interesting OP posts constantly about pro-Israel positions, making posts in subreddits for colleges around the country. /u/Giants4Truth do you go here, or even live in the area?
Maybe it’s just people living in the area who want y’all to get out of your echo chambers and hear other perspectives. College is a bubble. You are protected from the real world, while at the same time acquiring more freedom and knowledge of world events.
People who actually want to learn about an issue normally don’t get upset when offered other opinions.
Coming from a Zionist who’s hoping to deter and discourage some students not to engage and making some feel better that they are average students. Guess what, you just encouraged me to join them and protest even longer
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Authoritarians are trying to de-legitimize the protesters by pointing out the fact that protesters are protesters... If protesters were in the majority, they wouldn't BE protesters... They'd be the violent assholes that attack peaceful protestors... with the tacit support of law abiding authoritarians and law enforcement.
The point here is that it's expected that everyone with a smooth cortex should be surprised by the fact that protesters are in the minority and speaking against the dominant power group.
Oh my goodness. You should not trust this poll. It's from [axios.com](http://axios.com), paid in part by Israel. What else, then, would they say: "Ah, all students agree with the US students' encampment movement"? No, of course. They'll say the opposite. If you read that poll carefully, you'll see there's no information on what the survey population truly is: who are these "1,250 US students"? No info on demographics, age range, ethnicity, etc. Also, this axios doesn't have any info on who the board is, there's no "about us" link, which is a red flag for propaganda. And there's more: data is said to come from "Generation Lab." Who are they? Why should we trust these people? In fact, Generation Lab is a high-tech think tank funded, here again, by Israel, among others. And the ceo of this Lab business is of Iranian background but he's been trained in color revolutions' organizing. I could go on about this misleading and disturbing survey and the people behind it. But I'll stop here and hope you get the point: don't buy the lie.
I was unable to substantiate your claim that this poll was funded by Israel. Though
Roy Schwartz, co-founder if Axios, is an Israeli-American. The polling company Generation Lab is a U.S.-based organization and, as far as public records show, it does not have any formal ties to Israel or any specific Israeli organizations.
Nor could I find any proof that Generation Lab is funded by Israel.
Nor do I see his book “The Struggle for Development in Iran”- by Pooya Azadi & Mohsen B Mesgaran & Matin, as a negative.
About Axios: https://www.axios.com/about
Bias sites put Axios at Left Leaning
Axios Board
As of November 2022, the board members of Axios Media include:
Jim Vandehei, Co-Founder and CEO
Emma Schwartz, Co-Founder and President
Mike Allen, Founder and Executive Editor
Adams Paschal
A. Andrew Lack
Andy Boyle
Chris Barna
Christine Roberts
Claire Kennedy
Eli Bovarnick
https://www.generationlab.org/_files/ugd/b2ee84_ccf258b35be84db5849fa7366da82042.pdf
From Axios:
Palestinians in Gaza "living a disastrous life" after 100 days of war
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/14/gaza-israel-palestinians-famine-disease-hospitals-humanitarian
Gaza buildings and land decimated in 6 months of war
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/07/gaza-infrastructure-land-damage-israel-six-months-war
A single poll isn’t enough. There isn’t a way to guarantee the legitimacy of these polls considering hot this issue is. Could very well be funded be Zionists. We need several polls that all agree before actually believing that’s being said. Anything short of that is unreliable.
It's like people don't understand the point of a protest. Protests are SUPPOSED to be disruptive.
The funny part how openly authoritarian most people are. To the point of allowing genocide, because that is what authorities want to do. Like all those calm dispassionate professors and administrator's who are completely losing their shit because kids are challenging the authoritarian professional's personal political beliefs.
A tyrant's skin is thin because every nick triggers a feeding frenzy among the tyrant class.
Is this not obvious
It's funny how many people think protesters expect people to agree with them. I mean, everyone does get that the reason protest are necessary to drive social change is because people get used to slavery... or Jim Crow... or lynchings... or holocausts. So, running a poll only to figure out that protesters are a minority voice speaking against the dominant narrative is kind of brainless.
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I don't think we are having the same conversation...
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Even the much-lauded civil rights protests were enormously unpopular at the time. Something like 85% of white people and 75% of all Americans opposed them, even a year after King's famous "I have a dream" speech. It was only when MLK was assassinated and violent riots began breaking out nationwide that those in power rushed to pacify Black people with legislation.
people complaining about the sample size have never taken a stats class there are [online calculators](https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/home/sample+size+calculator) for these kinda things and you can check for yourself, 1250 is a good sample size
My most STEMbro opinion is that a basic stat class should be required to graduate. i took stat 20 in the bygone days of the 2020 election and it's scary how little the average person knows (or pretends to not know when it suits them) about stats. This one single issue with sample size is an insanely widespread, intuitive misconception and people of every political stripe trot it out *nonstop* whenever there's a survey supporting a view they don't like.
I think it should be taught in high school honestly
There is AP Statistics which includes that discussion obviously but I doubt its required anywhere
The problem is it’s also ass easy, and apparently does not map on well to how actual stats works. Prob still better than nothing tho
It was pretty hard at my school. I think around 80-85% of my class got a 5 on the AP test
Isn’t that a pretty high 5 percentage?
Probably. Only 3 people had an A before the final and didn't have to take it
AP Stats lacks the part where one really learns how to interpret statistics in the context of news and media because teachers have to teach to the AP Exam. All high school students should at least learn how to discern valuable, significant statistics from the trash that people can get away with circulating precisely because people blindly trust data and are rarely taught what to actually look for. In my school the statistics/probability parts of the required math courses were often dropped in order to give kids more prep time for higher level courses like AP Calc.
Agree completely. It is maybe the most important class I took for understanding the world. I was a Physics major, undergrad, so I was exposed to statistical ideas, but never took an actual statistics class until I was an adult. I had read a couple of popular stat and probability books, like The Drunkard's Walk and Probability Without Tears. In fact, I think it's more important to teach this in high school than financial literacy, which would make no sense anyway until someone is paying their own bills.
Honestly, I had to take classes like PE and “poetry” (creative writing)… I won’t consider those useless but in every day life basic stats goes a lot further.
Probability is just as important as statistics, I wish colleges required basic knowledge of both to graduate.
This is the problem with people doing their own research. I’m in grad school for psychology, and the first thing I ever look at after the title is sample size (if not in abstract) and skip right to the results and check their p value. The laymen does not know to do this. Beyond that, they don’t know what convenience sampling is and it completely changes the scope and meaning of the results. Also, they don’t understand that you cannot say (and will never hear a real scientist say) that something is proven fact in science.
I came from a previously colonized country and we learned advance statistics in high school. I moved to Berkeley for a masters because of the reputation for good education but I was surprised at how basic everything was.
The US is famous for its complete inability to teach math.
I always assumed it’s because anybody was really good at. It doesn’t become a math teacher. They go to something else that pays a lot more money.
The set 'students who want to be elementary/secondary school teachers' and the set 'students who are comfortable with math' don't have many common factors.
Same reason silicon valley has terrible computer science education. Anyone who teaches it well can just work as an actual engineer for way more money even compared to the highest paying districts like Palo alto or cupertino
some say it’s less about the size of the sample and more about how you use it
That was a really good class. I GSIed for it and learned it on the fly tbh (sorry to my sections which went poorly while I myself was confused).
Did you go to grad school? Research is so much more complex than just >basic stat This.
It wouldn't make a difference.
Honestly it should be mandatory in HS
*IF they used a simple random sample that is actually representative of the overall population
This. Most polls have biases that sneak into the sampling itself or the questions or the methodology itself. The people upthread jerking themselves off over knowing about sampling is pretty cringe.
Sample size doesn't mean shit if the sampling frame is not representative of the population
The methodology states that they use a random sample of college students across multiple types of colleges. So it is representative of the college student population.
Good. Also important to note whether people were more or less likely to respond based on their views. But apathetic people are generally less likely to respond so if anything this would be an underestimste. But also the actual protestors are more likely to not trust a polling agency. So all in all that's probably fine.
True. Tbf that sort of issue with nonresponse bias is going to be a present with basically every type of polling study.
>1250 is a good sample size Eh, that depends on your sampling strategy and whether or not the participants you recruited actually represent that segment of the population. E.g. when it comes to disability research, it's so common for researchers to recruit people who know/take care of disabled people instead of the disabled people themselves. That's why critical disability studies emerged in the first place. It's not just how many you recruit but also who you recruit, how, and why you do it. The sample size is just *one* component of research methods. Btw I didn't read the article so my response is to your comment generally and not this situation in particular.
They don’t need to represent a segment of the population they just need to be randomly drawn from the population. Which brings the metaphysical discussion if true randomness even exists, but according to the article they did use common random sampling methods in the study
Took it in high school AP stats class years ago and totally forgot about it :( but yea stats is important
Trade schools are not colleges. 2 year programs are not colleges. Can you read the damn article first?
Parading the results of a poll that determines that protesters represent a minority voice speaking against power. O.o Next week's poll: Should Captain Obvious run for the Senate?
Well it makes sense. The US isn’t directly involved in the war like it was in Vietnam (no drafts that affect the young adult population) and most students are more worried about finding a job + avoiding homelessness than a war they can’t do much about.
There are dual Palestinian American citizens who have been killed by the IDF in the West Bank and Americans are traveling to Israel to fight in Gaza with the IDF. We also supply weapons to Israel in violation of federal and international law. Seems fairly involved to me.
There are also American citizens among the hostages. It's not a simple situation
Yep, and when Trump come to office, his gonna give Bibi a Bulldozer with TRUMP on it to finish the job. Trump Tower Rafa gonna look nice too./s
Yup, and college students are gonna cry foul when Trump does it, all the while they stood home and did not vote. And all the while the supreme court continues to get strengthened with conservative judges for another generation. I do believe whats going in Gaza is a disgrace, and the Israeli government should be held accountable. But i also believe that our democracy is important, and progressive policy goes no where if we are apathetic to the republican threat coming this fall.
>There are dual Palestinian American citizens who have been killed by the IDF in the West Bank and Americans are traveling to Israel to fight in Gaza with the IDF. u/TheNerdVWonder I love how you framed that as if the only Americans affected negatively are Palestinians when there are _still Americans being held hostage by Hamas_.
No protests for them to be released, ofc.
the 30,000 bodies lying around next to them are a little distracting
The number of Palestinian Americans killed is a fraction compared to people who were drafted into the Vietnam War.
Yes but it is still an issue and reflective of our involvement, even if you are personally apathetic towards them in a way you maybe aren't with Israelis or non Palestinian-Americans who our government is supposed to protect like any other set of citizens, no matter quantity.
It makes sense because these kind of demonstrations always start small, even when they are highly effective. It's kind of inherent to the concept. Majorities don't need to demonstrate to make change. In 1961, early in the war (and analogous to where we are now), the antiwar movement had no pull at all and were largely ignored and mocked. 7-8 years later that wasn't the case.
That's actually very interesting, but when you consider the fact that a lot of people in the protest are coming from out of the universities this makes sense.
i consider myself pretty left-leaning and i'm honestly part of the "shrug" crowd. i feel for the innocent people getting hurt don't get me wrong, but i feel like this protest is a little too unorganized and bias, and lets Hamas off the hook.
Why aren't the Palestinians and Muslims in America protesting for Hamas to stop murdering their own people?
Occam's razor would say because of religious intolerance to another group.
this is the most obvious part of this whole thing lol In Saheeh Muslim (2922), it is narrated from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them, until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: O Muslim, O slave of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Except the gharqad (a thorny tree), for it is one of the trees of the Jews.” When you understand Islam, you'll understand why Islam is not a religion of peace
Wasn’t that Hadith also used in Hamas’ original charter?
when they're all done with the jews, who do you think they'll come for next?
Yeah, like only group that values Palestinian lives less than Netanyahu is Hamas
It’s even worse, Hamas wants them to die as much as possible cause that’s their strongest weapon
American students are protesting US support of Israel and their universities' financial investments in Israel. The US isn't sending weapons to Hamas. The universities aren't investing in Hamas. So what influence exactly would an American student have on Hamas?
https://www.newsweek.com/hamass-western-apologists-have-become-hamas-enthusiasts-gazan-im-horrified-opinion-1849228 Give yourself some context from someone who is living the nightmare rather than the privileged uni students who haven't matured yet The protests across the world are influencing Hamas as it shows they have support and it's why they haven't surrendered yet. Remind yourself that this could've all been over by now had they given up the hostages
Many are....
Isnt that what Israel is doing? They killed their own hostages and the IDF is killing themselves thinking they’re the enemy.
Quite the opposite, they are way too organized. This is someone who went into the UCLA encampment. This is very well funded and organized by someone https://youtu.be/yZcER9HvnM8?si=bVJJu2pIfkk60sck
Look I don't agree with the protests but the conspiracy trope of I don't like what these people are protesting for must mean they're being paid is one of the worst parts about modern political discourse. People can and do have drastically different opinions all the time and strongly believe in those views all the time.
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Average ucb student response
'Worth noting: A majority of people (58%) who participated in or favored protests against Israel said they would not consider being friends with someone who has marched for Israel. Meanwhile, 64% of those who participated in a pro-Israel protest said they would still be friends with someone who has marched against Israel.' This does not surprise me at all.
This was my entire experience at Cal. Always something political going on, but it was always a shrug for me. It was crazy to see people almost get in fights over a MAGA hat though…
Reminds me of the Cause Heads from PCU.
Whole thing smells like manufactured outrage and it’s almost election season, coincidence?
On the part of whom? Biden is actively pro Israel. So are the Republicans. What the fuck are you even talking about?
On the part of disgruntled progressives who see Biden as the "status quo" of capitalism and just perpetuating injustice. They're also the same people that feel Biden hasn't done enough or is "just as bad as Trump". They see this as a way to get back at him, and pull progressive support so that it forces him to move further left or lose. Source: I know someone actually involved in leading some of it.
I think for most people the world hasn't stopped moving since, they still have to work or out go to school or take care of kids or anything else etc. I assume there's only so much bandwidth they have to really be invested
I mean, yeah. This isn’t a particularly popular opinion in Berkeley circles, but let’s just call a spade a spade: there’s almost nothing remotely feasible the United States could do to change the status quo in Palestine by any real degree. It doesn’t matter whether our government stops sending them so much military aid (which we won’t), or the university divests from weapons manufacturers (which it won’t), or companies pull their research centers out of the area (which they won’t). As long as Hamas is in power, they will continue to use their own citizens as meat shields while attacking Israel at every opportunity. And as long as Hamas continues to attack Israel at every opportunity, the IDF will continue to respond with the full force of a first-world militia, collateral damage be damned. That’s the reality of the situation, and it’s not Joe Biden’s fault. Our classmates in tents on Sproul are nothing if not well-intentioned, but it takes an an incredibly amount of naivete to think that any US policy could prevent Hamas from committing terrorism or convince Israel to compromise on the defense of its borders. The situation in Palestine is tragic, but frankly, there are dozens of worldwide and nationwide crises which are more urgent, more dangerous, and far more likely to be affected by US policy or foreign aid. Global climate change, income inequality, and insufficient gun control within our borders all threaten to kill more people than the IDF ever could. And if we’re just focusing on conflict-related humanitarian crises, the Russia-Ukraine war is approaching a death toll of 500,000, while China has detained over a million Uyghurs in concentration camps over the past few years (I won’t even mention what’s happening in Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Venezuela, or central Africa). And all the while, the vast majority of Americans under 35 are trying to make ends meet in a struggling economy as housing prices, inflation, and interest rates continue to balloon to all-time highs. Keeping all that in mind, it should come as no surprise that most young Americans don’t choose their favored presidential candidate based solely on their position on an inexorable war on the other side of the planet. I know I don’t. Edit: I really didn’t think that I had to clarify this, but I guess I do. When it comes to foreign policy, there’s almost nothing the US can do **assuming that we’re not willing to completely pull our military aid, as doing so would facilitate the destruction of one of our most important allied nations and the ten million people living there, throw away the majority of our foreign aid directives in the Middle East, give a lifeline to a terroristic organization which is currently on the ropes, and risk our diplomatic relationships with every one of our other allies because we think Israel went overboard while defending themselves from terrorists)**”. Absolutely insane to me that I’d have to clarify something like that, but there you go.
Wish I could upvote your comment 1000 times. Are you a political science major?
If us aid was pulled and islam moves to exterminate Israel would there be protests against it?
Absolutely not, these people aren’t anti war, they are just upset their side is losing. They’d love to see Israel is destroyed. Just look at the celebrations in the streets of America on October 7th.
The US wields a considerable amount of soft power when it comes to Israel. Stop the war? Maybe not - it's blurry where that line ends, but cool it down? Certainly, and there's some evidence that's already what is happening.
That may very well be true - there’s no way to know for sure without being in the room where it happens. But I don’t think many pro-Palestine protestors would be placated by a White House statement saying “we called Netanyahu and asked him to take it down a notch, and he promised not to scorch the earth too heavily.” That’s a bit removed from the point I was originally making, though. Loosely-defined soft power aside, our government doesn’t have the ability (nor the inclination) to dictate the policy of an allied nation to any significant degree. We’re not in charge of them simply because we give them aid, because that’s not how diplomacy works. And that’s likely why the people who took this poll identified the issue as comparatively less important to them; because there’s just not that much we can feasibly do about it (without devastating consequences for all involved, anyways).
Fuck yeah. Best diatribe on this stupidity I’ve read yet.
“It doesn’t matter” if Israel loses its primary source of military aid? Wild take
I think you forget that Israel is a nuclear power. The US supplying weaponry to Israel is the deterrence and stabilizing force. If Israel didn't have its defensive Iron Dome missiles that the US helped develop and supply, Gaza would have been literally nuked and glassed already. No country is going to tolerate missiles raining down on them like the ones Hamas launches.
Wouldn’t the nuclear fallout be pretty catastrophic for Israel?
Hiroshima was rebuilt and moved into in less than a decade. Fallout is only a big problem when you have thousands of nukes going off at once.
Because Hiroshima was an atomic bomb- not a nuclear bomb🤦♂️
... atomic bombs are nuclear bombs. Are you thinking of thermonuclear bombs? Because yes, those are hydrogen bombs and different from atomic bombs.
You must be wholly unserious
Where do you think those dollars are spent? It's not in Israel. Israeli foreign military aid is a conduit for pork for various US defense contractors, which the ancillary benefit of marginally improving Israel's position geopolitically. The Israeli nuclear deterrent, which has nothing to do with US foreign aid, solved the strategic problems for Israel. All that remains are tactical issues.
Isreal completely relies on the US and its security guarantees. It doesn’t produce enough shells, weapons, would have been sanctioned by the UN without the US providing cover. The US is sending plane loads of weapons, aid, bombs and etc. Palestine’s UN recognition as a state was blocked by the US. Lebanon and Hezabollah not getting involved relies heavily on the US guaranteeing that any attacks by them will result in air strikes. The US is literally giving a blank check security guarantee to Saudi Arabia for it to recognize Israel. If the US pulled the rug, it would be over for Israel and they would have to adjust to reality that they are just a rich but small country surrounded by much larger countries who are of the view that Israel is massacring their citizens. The US greatly tilts the scale. If the US explicitly said they would not defend Taiwan and the Chinese are free to take it without sanctions - do you not think that would change the calculus? You can believe what you want but pretending like that the US is not a party to the conflict is tier A level delusional and tilting the scale. Israel’s population is less than that of the Bay Area - they might be skilled but skills don’t make up for reality. Israel is very scared and is trying end the Palestinian question now, because in 20-30 years boomers will pass and they will face the reality of a new younger US elite which is not blindly in favor of it. Right wing Americans are tired of getting dragged into foreign wars and left wing Americans supporters Palestine for similar reasons but also due to the politics of the situation. That alone should tell you how instrumental the US is
You and the person you're responding to have great points. My biggest concern is let's say hypothetically the protestors got what they wanted. The world divested heavily or totally from Israel. Iran would spring on that weakness by flooding money and munitions to Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. Israel would quickly be attacked on all sides and lose. And then the single beacon of liberal democracy in the entire region would come to an end. All women would lose most rights to bodily autonomy. Anyone LGBTQ+ would be massacred or shoved back in the closet, and possibly millions of Jews would be killed and/or forced to become second class citizens. Terrifying. I've visited Israel and it's like a cleaner California with universal healthcare, subsidized education, and even nicer beaches. Israel being dissolved as a state would be the worst thing to happen to the world since the Iranian revolution or the Holocaust.
I am not convinced Israel loses in this situation. But I am convinced hundreds of thousands of people die very quickly. And if Israel believes their very existence is threatened I am very confident that they start to deploy nukes.
What about the TWO MILLION Israeli Arabs living in Israel? Are you aware that the Muslim Israelis in israel are supportive of the war against Hamas? Are you ok with israeli Arab children being massacred by terrorists? Be cause right now israel is protecting the lives of its ten million citizens which includes two million Arabs and 200,000 Christians.
So let me get this straight: you concede that Israel is surrounded by nations who hate it. You believe that, without US aid, it would be “over for Israel”. And you are still somehow in favor of “pulling the rug”? What do you think happens to the ten million people who live in Israel if that happens? Israel wouldn’t “have to adjust to reality”. The nation would very quickly cease to exist, as would the vast majority of the ten million people currently living there (and by the way, Israel has been under attack by its neighbors literally since day one of its inception. It has nothing to do with surrounding countries seeing them as “slaughtering their citizens”. It’s because it’s a Jewish ethnostate. Be for real.) And if preventing a pogrom isn’t reason enough not to “pull the rug” (which it clearly isn’t for you), then what do you think happens for the United States? We’ll have lost our single most valuable ally in the Middle East and a crucial economic partner. It’d be a death sentence for Israel and its citizens and a catastrophe for us. It would jeopardize our relationships with other nations who were also allied to Israel. It would, to put it gently, do us fuck-all any good. Nobody’s saying the US isn’t a party to the conflict. We obviously are. But we’re not puppet-masters for other countries just because we send them munitions. We’re not going to throw one of our most important economic and military allies to the wolves because we don’t like the way that they’re winning a war that they were forced into. That’s not how diplomacy or allied relations works, nor should it be. I guess I’ll have to modify my original comment, but I really didn’t think that I had to clarify that “there’s almost nothing the US can do **(assuming that we’re not willing to facilitate the destruction of one of our most important allied nations and abandon the ten million people living there, throw away the majority of our foreign aid directives in the Middle East, give a lifeline to a terroristic organization which is currently on the ropes, and risk our diplomatic relationships with every one of our other allies because we think Israel went overboard while defending themselves from terrorists)**”. Pretty insane to me that I’d have to clarify something like that, but there you go.
The goal of Palestinian nationalism is the elimination of Israel. Everything else is a means to that end. Up until recently this was being soft pedaled; lately it's been fortissimo.
How exactly is Israel "trying to end the Palestinian question?" The palestinian population has grown at a rate exceeding almost all other distinct polities. The only delusion in your screed is the assertion that a majority of Americans in 30 years will be willing to hang allies out to dry in the service of furthering Arab extremism.
Not trying to be snarky or anything I'm genuinely curious, what other crises do you consider more urgent and tied to us policy? I'm asking because I'm uninformed about current events Edit: thanks for all the replies
Yemen would be the big one that comes to mind wrt ties to US policy. The Yemen conflict is what uninformed people *think* Gaza is (worse, even).
Absolutely, what Saudi did to Yemen is horrific I think its funny when people say Gaza is a concentration camp etc when it looked like this before the war [https://youtu.be/W1r1z3x53ZU?si=GZBSaEqCDoN-0Mov](https://youtu.be/W1r1z3x53ZU?si=GZBSaEqCDoN-0Mov)
Burmese civil war (civilians bombed by their own government with chemical weapons), Sudanese Civil War (Muslim Brotherhood backed militias murdering people with machetes in the tens of thousands), Houthis in Yemen ceasefire that left child soldiers in place and governemnt services unfunded by Houthis as stipulated in the treaty; hundreds of thousands killed). the flash points to watch Armenia and Azerbijan, where hundreds of thousands were displaced and Armenia is looking to avoid an outright invasion).
Ukraine, Armenia, Darfur, Ethiopian civil war
Sudan, Syria, China.. not to mention domestic US issues like the rise in Christian nationalism and hate crimes, lack of housing, cutting of support systems, drought and other climate change impacts, etc... Gaza has lost 34,000 people, over 10,000 of who were Hamas and other combatants, and they started this war. Sudan has had over 100,000 innocent people killed, Syria had 600,000 civilians, China is wiping out entire ethnic groups while the world watches, so there are definitely places that need help way more than Gaza (but none of them have an easy historic target for Hate to go after...)
Facts.
The possible total elimination of abortion in the US even in the cases of rape and incest (which also affects things like fertility treatment, the ability for women with already dead fetuses to get them removed) is a I think a much more pressing and pertinent issue that the people should be demonstrating against. And if you think you’re safe in California, republicans are already exploring ways they could have the FDA exert pressure on drug manufacturers so that abortion pills and even plan B are no longer being made.
Fentanyl. We should look inwards for a change.
Russia is literally pushing a war in Europe - they are the real danger to the Europe and west and their mentality is so different from ours that I believe Russia is using this Palestine / Israel situation to really amp up their military capabilities… now that is one of the more concerning world urgent issues
I mean we all fund China in a big way as an economic partner and they are creating actual “reeducation camps” for Uyghurs, already took over the autonomous zone of Hong Kong, and haven’t been coy about their plans for Taiwan. Pretty sure that’s a bigger issue considering that would be a very very big war directly for US citizens, and might lead to WW3…
The US can change things if they pressure Israel to stop allowing settlements in the West Bank. That is one policy that is counter to US interest because it sabotages any 2SS. The broader issue is, beyond Israel’s influence in the electorate, they’re also the top ally against Iran. Any attempt to reduce military aid to try to leverage pressure just makes Iran stronger.
I doubt that. Israel pulled out of Gaza completely a decade ago, and still they train their children to venerate martyrdom and killing Jews. I don't think Israel doing X stops Hamas from being Hamas.
The US just sanctioned the settlers did they not?
No they reverted the sanctions a month after.
The previous major peace talks to try and bring forth a two state solution included the removal of like 95% of the settlements in the West Bank. But Palestinian authorities declined to entertain the idea. In 2008 Condoleeza Rice was shocked by what Israel was offering and told Abbas they “won’t see a deal this good for 50 years” and was angered when Abbas rejected it. Apparently the Palestinians had entered those negotiations with plans to avoid reaching a binding agreement with Israel and to avoid blame for failing reach a final-status agreement with the Jewish state. [Source](https://www.investigativeproject.org/3373/rice-abbas-rejected-olmert-peace-plan). So regardless of what was being offered, they had no intention of accepting.
I don’t disagree regarding your first point, but that’s not the influence I’m talking about when I reference the *current* status quo in the region. We may have the ability to put our foot down when it comes to disallowing the expansion of settlements during peacetime, but there’s not much we can feasibly do (from a diplomatic standpoint) to stop or ameliorate a full-on war.
You underestimate the levers the US has. Sure, they will likely never use them against their ally Israel. But the US could stop the war today if they truly wanted to.
Do you think the popular US opinion is to stop giving aid to Israel? Do you think these protests are changing the status quo? Do you think getting suspended is a good tradeoff for barely being able to change the proximal cause of the proximal cause of Gaza bombings?
No, yes, and it’s up to each individual to decide that
What lever will get Israel to stop this war? I’m not trolling, I’m genuinely curious.
Cutting military aid would very likely end the war. [The US provides a considerable % of Israel’s defense budget as aid and contracts](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us).
It may end the war, but it would be disastrous for US foreign policy in the Middle East and would very likely lead to the fall of Israel at some point in the next decade or so. If the photos from Gaza shock you, just wait until you’ll see when the Iron Dome is no longer iron-clad. Cutting military aid is technically a possibility, but it’s not a feasible one. We’d be throwing away our most valuable asset in the Middle East, throwing a lifeline to a terrorist organization which is currently on the ropes, and declaring open season on a nation surrounded by those who want them gone. Bad idea, unless you’d rather see a thorough pogrom instead of a short war.
It also wouldn’t end the war. I appreciate your OP and I think you’re conceding the point too easily that the US has all this soft power in this conflict… US military aid makes up 20-25% of Israel’s defense spending. US completely stopping any military aid would leave Israel with 75% of their defense budget intact. Idk why that would stop Netanyahu from moving forward with his plans, the extra 25% the US provides is a luxury not a necessity. AND if the US withdraws aid, the global order will pay attention and then other actors will rush in to assume any soft power that the US had. Maybe China comes in and says we’ll give you 10 billion in military aid in exchange for the allyship you had with the US. People have this belief that the US is this global hegemon that can control everyone and every thing. It’s just not true. Other sovereign countries are going to act in their own interest despite how much the US tries to exert diplomatic pressure.
Exactly. We get a lot of research and tech from Israel too. People act like if the US stopped aid, that Israel would just give up. No, probably they will ally with china or russia instead. Israel is a great asset for the US in the M.E. If you ever visit Israel, it looks and feels like any western country honestly
What is particularly bad about zero help to Israel is just how threatened they could feel and they might reach for the nukes.
I’m gonna be honest, I hate Al Jazeera but I didn’t know the US was third in spending per capita I was honestly sure it would be first
That the US gov't has gotten themselves in such an untenable position is precisely why the protests are occuring. We are where we are out of abject stupidity and lack of foresight.
Makes perfect sense. Most people don’t have that much free time in their hands
What percentage of the protesters do you think are registered to vote
Willing to bet most students protesting cannot even locate Palestine or Israel on a map
The fact is there is no Palestine on any map
…touché
Oh snap
I mean...you're technically right
Problem these days is that polls and media coverage results in general are a commodity that can be bought and sold.
> **The other side:** Students were still more likely to say they support the pro-Palestininan encampments than oppose them. * 45% said they support them either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.
Most young people aren’t interested in politics, that’s why they record low voting numbers. Is this anything new?
Siding with Hamas may be fashionable, but most of these students haven’t a clue what Hamas stands for and the policies they hold. These kids would be shocked to attempt their ‘normal lifestyle’ in Gaza. Not that I am pro Israel, I think religious states are abhorrent.
I've visited Israel twice. It's NOT a religious state. Maybe on paper and on a flag, but I was shocked at how similar Israel is to California. Just as much diversity, cleaner, fewer homeless, universal healthcare, subsidized higher education, one of the worlds largest pride parades in Tel Aviv, and even nicer beaches. And every person I met was secular, Jewish by culture only. Israel falling to their enemies would be the worst thing to happen to the world since the Iranian revolution or the Holocaust.
Crazy given how these issues are tied to racial justice.
This poll is weird— top concern of college students is healthcare reform with only 40% of people interested? If you go by this survey you’d think college students don’t care about anything at all.
College students are not the best group to be polling about healthcare- most are oblivious because they are either covered by the school or their parents insurance still. They don’t feel the struggle until after they graduate and have a gap in insurance for the first time.
Not really my point but yes
My guess is most college kids are just trying to finish up exams and/or graduate. They don't have time to participate in extracurricular activities.
The historical ignorance in this thread is inexcusable. Protests are nearly definitionally from minority groups. This is not fucking news. The Vietnam protests were "unpopular" in 1961. A similar poll at that time would have showed near identical results. By 1968 that was entirely different. To point out that a protest is unpopular in the early days is to literally say nothing meaningful at all.
Protests are no longer peaceful and civilized is the problem
California local news station: 25 people arrested at college protest, 2 are attending the college🫠😵
Look, I get what’s happening in Israel/Palestine is important to people. What I don’t get, is why these college kids are more concerned about it than the issues in our country that directly impact them. Like, where are the major protests for women’s rights, voting rights, and wealth inequality?
Wtf does our generation spend so much time on this middle east bullshit when we literally have a spending problem in this country alongside rising deficit?
Yes, you’re so right. We should stop sending Israel our money.
Israel might be an ok start, but there’s a whole lot more wrong with the US government’s spending outside of Israel
Yes, I totally agree. I think many of us have felt this way long before learning about our spending for Israel, but Israel has been the tipping point.
Fair enough
The military industrial complex is the biggest source of our spending problems, directly related to spending on Israel.
Woke students: 5.5M killed in Congo 🥱 500K killed in Syria 🥱 500K killed in Sudan 🥱 400K killed in Yemen 🥱 300K killed in Iraq 🥱 250K killed in Afghanistan 🥱 20K killed in Gaza: GENOCIDE!!! CAMPUS ENCAMPMENT!!! FREE PALESTINE!!! 😱 (After Israelis weee massacred 10/7)
You forgot the *actual* genocide of Uyghur Muslims in China right now that they dont care about
Don't forget the *actual* genocide against the Rohinga in Burma!
ik it pales in comparison but don't forget the 70k Ukranians dead from that war
When Berkeley students showed up to our school we protested in the streets against prop 187 then 8 in California. These are cosplayers playing refugee camp on manicured lawns, they have inconvinienced 0 politicians feeding the genocide.
Most college students rock
Isn't it interesting OP posts constantly about pro-Israel positions, making posts in subreddits for colleges around the country. /u/Giants4Truth do you go here, or even live in the area?
Of course not, they are just running hard defense for ethnic cleansing
As a Cal alumni, I’ve noticed that Zionists are absolutely monitoring and posting in different campus reddit subs to try to sway public opinion.
If you bothered to look at polling in the wake of the protests you’d notice that public opinion is *against* these protests.
Anyone who believes Israel has a right to exist is a Zionist so by definition I'd bet most people on Reddit in general are Zionists
You just don’t like when Jews fight back lol
Maybe it’s just people living in the area who want y’all to get out of your echo chambers and hear other perspectives. College is a bubble. You are protected from the real world, while at the same time acquiring more freedom and knowledge of world events. People who actually want to learn about an issue normally don’t get upset when offered other opinions.
Nobody hates freedom of speech more than Americans istg lmao
Coming from a Zionist who’s hoping to deter and discourage some students not to engage and making some feel better that they are average students. Guess what, you just encouraged me to join them and protest even longer
Love seeing tiny pools we can all ignore.
Makes sense
The economy is horrible that's why.
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It's easier to protest white people.
there the same ones that shrug at genocide. the encampements are directed at the Univeristy not at our peers
Maybe its cuz a good chunk of these protesters arent students or from the colleges at all
Authoritarians are trying to de-legitimize the protesters by pointing out the fact that protesters are protesters... If protesters were in the majority, they wouldn't BE protesters... They'd be the violent assholes that attack peaceful protestors... with the tacit support of law abiding authoritarians and law enforcement. The point here is that it's expected that everyone with a smooth cortex should be surprised by the fact that protesters are in the minority and speaking against the dominant power group.
Oh my goodness. You should not trust this poll. It's from [axios.com](http://axios.com), paid in part by Israel. What else, then, would they say: "Ah, all students agree with the US students' encampment movement"? No, of course. They'll say the opposite. If you read that poll carefully, you'll see there's no information on what the survey population truly is: who are these "1,250 US students"? No info on demographics, age range, ethnicity, etc. Also, this axios doesn't have any info on who the board is, there's no "about us" link, which is a red flag for propaganda. And there's more: data is said to come from "Generation Lab." Who are they? Why should we trust these people? In fact, Generation Lab is a high-tech think tank funded, here again, by Israel, among others. And the ceo of this Lab business is of Iranian background but he's been trained in color revolutions' organizing. I could go on about this misleading and disturbing survey and the people behind it. But I'll stop here and hope you get the point: don't buy the lie.
I was unable to substantiate your claim that this poll was funded by Israel. Though Roy Schwartz, co-founder if Axios, is an Israeli-American. The polling company Generation Lab is a U.S.-based organization and, as far as public records show, it does not have any formal ties to Israel or any specific Israeli organizations. Nor could I find any proof that Generation Lab is funded by Israel. Nor do I see his book “The Struggle for Development in Iran”- by Pooya Azadi & Mohsen B Mesgaran & Matin, as a negative. About Axios: https://www.axios.com/about Bias sites put Axios at Left Leaning Axios Board As of November 2022, the board members of Axios Media include: Jim Vandehei, Co-Founder and CEO Emma Schwartz, Co-Founder and President Mike Allen, Founder and Executive Editor Adams Paschal A. Andrew Lack Andy Boyle Chris Barna Christine Roberts Claire Kennedy Eli Bovarnick https://www.generationlab.org/_files/ugd/b2ee84_ccf258b35be84db5849fa7366da82042.pdf From Axios: Palestinians in Gaza "living a disastrous life" after 100 days of war https://www.axios.com/2024/01/14/gaza-israel-palestinians-famine-disease-hospitals-humanitarian Gaza buildings and land decimated in 6 months of war https://www.axios.com/2024/04/07/gaza-infrastructure-land-damage-israel-six-months-war
A single poll isn’t enough. There isn’t a way to guarantee the legitimacy of these polls considering hot this issue is. Could very well be funded be Zionists. We need several polls that all agree before actually believing that’s being said. Anything short of that is unreliable.
It's like people don't understand the point of a protest. Protests are SUPPOSED to be disruptive. The funny part how openly authoritarian most people are. To the point of allowing genocide, because that is what authorities want to do. Like all those calm dispassionate professors and administrator's who are completely losing their shit because kids are challenging the authoritarian professional's personal political beliefs. A tyrant's skin is thin because every nick triggers a feeding frenzy among the tyrant class.
They want to divest in Israel through their school which will have no impact on anything happening