From my perspective, there has been a set back just watching some of the voices that used to be more reasonable on this issue kind of retracted a bit more tribal tendencies and being a little bit more shut off and standoffish.

And you have kind of centers organizations like J street with J street, they were set up as the counterweight to a pack, they identify themselves as pro Israel, but also pro piece.

And so even though they're pro Israel, they want to make sure the Palestinians have human rights that they get a state and they're kind of critical of some of these really excesses, the settlement extension and some of the human rights violations and so on.

And when this happened, J street is applying pressure on members of Congress saying you have to support Israel's war on Gaza as a necessity, or else you won't get our endorsement.

J street is what do they even mean? What are the limits of Israel's war on Gaza?

That is an excellent question because since they've put out that call, they have been putting out some communications about concern about Palestinian civilians in Gaza and so on.

So it's clear that it's something that they're struggling with as well, but the initial reaction was to say,

this is a moment for Israel to defend itself and that's the end of that conversation. It shut down many, many conversations and I will say one thing and obviously there's a huge disparity here.

This entire conversation that we're having is so unbalanced because Israel is never on the receiving end of any of these conversations. Nobody's ever talking about Israel may be not committing so many horrible war crimes so that they can get more international support.

That's not the conversation that the pro Israel camp has at all. And it's the same with the on campus debates and nonsense that we've seen.

Literally not a single pro Israel organization has put out a condemnation of Israel's war crimes that have killed tons and tons of civilians in Gaza, not just this week, but throughout many, many years before.

That is not grounds for controversy on conversation because Israel is always held to a different standard as a country that is above the law and above any rules.

So with all of that said, from my personal perspective, and I've been one of these student groups on the left that I've put out statements that in my view were a little bit misguided, I do think it's a little tone deaf to look at an event like this one to see that a lot of civilians had been killed to just honestly, even if you don't even feel sympathy deep in your heart to look at the media coverage and understand have some appreciation for what this moment is that in a moment in which the entire country.

Is hyper focused on one set of victims of violence who happen to be civilians. This is a moment in which you should acknowledge that this happened and that it's not okay.

From my perspective, that's kind of a necessity and missing it is missing.

Perhaps a moral stance that you should take, but certainly a strategic opportunity to read the room and to know what you need to say in a moment where it was important to say it.

But again, it's the same to the article just it's the same to that article about how a master behave differently or how people should react differently to these events to increase solidarity that conversation is completely one sided and is never had on the Israeli side about what it means for us to work together against Israeli apartheid if there's never any expectation set for how the apartheid regime is going to behave and the immensely greater war crimes that they commit on a daily basis and that's just never part of the conversation.

I agree and I said this to Cornell West last week, you know, one unqualified statements about something is 100% metanyahu's fault or 100% Israel's fault kind of drives with people's basic understanding of or doesn't die with people's basic understanding of free will and personal agency using words that are too absolute like that. I think weren't wise in those kinds of statements because it's just so easily challenged.

I do think a failure to acknowledge the loss of Israeli lives is also wrong.

I am really intrigued by what feels to me movement where the immediate wake of the tragedy of that scale.

I think at a different time in a different world, you would not have seen those kind of statements from a lot of groups across the country because they would have been I think too fearful to make them, you know, if you think they're cured of the failures that we've just described of the flaws and that we've just described.

But you wouldn't see any effort to say, well, I stand with I disagree, I condemn these terrorist attacks, but I stand with Palestine, I still stand for the in ending the occupation of Palestine.

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