Before anyone jumps all over me for this one, my point is this:
The post says "All purchases for the chip to gaza collaboration will be donated to ship to gaza."
That's pretty vague.
A while back a group of NYU students "occupied" the Kimmel Student Center (after students at the New School and Hunter College had done the same - of course, Columbia did it first in 68, when it REALLY meant something.) I went to the center to investigate. Although I couldn't sneak into the center itself to meet the students and ask them questions, I did talk to a few of the kids outside, including one who had been talking to someone who he claimed was inside the building on his cell phone.
Sadly, it was the usual confusion that passes for activism. Nobody was quite sure what their cause was, but it seemed vaguely defined as what calls itself the Left today: white men are responsible for all the crimes of the world, George W. Bush is more dangerous than Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined, Hamas and Hezbollah are fighting for the freedom of their people, and the answer lies somewhere in pacifism, organic vegetables, dressing like a bum, and driving a hybrid car. Stereotypes? Yeah, fair enough, I'll admit it. I'm generalizing too much here. But the point is: they didn't seem to really know what they were protesting. Their demands were all over the place, and it was a bit difficult to see exactly what crimes they thought NYU had anything to do with. This is aside from the fact that their methods of protest included breakdancing to the beastie boys while wearing a "Free Gaza" t-shirt and generally just being rather loud and ineloquent. Hardly the Communards movingly singing le Marsellaise from the rooftops.
One of their demands happened to be that they wanted NYU to donate money to the "University of Gaza," which had recently been bombed after it was confirmed that weapons were being stockpiled in one of its buildings. That was conveniently not mentioned. Nor was the fact that the school's full name is "The Islamic University of Gaza," offers courses in Sharia law, and was founded by one of the original leaders of Hamas who had put his signature to the group's openly anti-semitic charter which cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and demands nothing short of the total destruction of Israel.
Don't get me wrong: Israel is guilty of many crimes against the Palestinian people (as is Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and many arab countries who refuse to take them in as refugees or give them any material support but prefer to use them as symbols of Jewish agression.) But Hamas is a cancer and probably the worst thing to happen to the Palestinian people's cause. And any kind of aid or benefit for Palestine should be accompanied by a 100% guarantee that not one red cent will be getting into the hands of Islamist fanatics.
Just saying. I guess I was bored and hadn't argued for a nuanced perspective on the issue for a long time.
tl;dr
Last edited by Natty (Jun 25, 2010 1:33 pm)
