Christiane Amanpour interviewed Robi Damelin, an Israeli peace activist, about her organization’s work to replace hatred with compassion. Damelin’s teenage son was killed by a Palestinian sniper 21 years ago, and she has dedicated her life since then to building a parents group of both Israelis and Palestinians.
She advocates listening to the stories of others. She recognizes the terrible suffering of Palestinians, and she works with Palestinian friends to foster understanding.
The hope for the future of both Israelis and Palestinians lies with enlightened leadership, which neither side has now. Damelin remains steadfast in believing that change will come, built on a mutual desire to end the cycle of fear and death.
Damelin speaks for me, and I hope, for most people. She wants peace and dignity for all sides, and an end to shouting and hatred, which only breeds more shouting and hatred.
Please watch the interview. It is inspiring.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I cannot imagine peace without sacrifice and generosity. This comes to humanity with great difficulty
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My response to those overpaid university presidents: it was an easy question. You are a disgrace. Resign.
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President Biden could get a ceasefire enacted by making a single phone call, as Israel can’t militarily/economically conduct it’s “war” without U.S. support. There’s no need to censor the internet and end free speech on university campuses; instead, open discussion of the history, current events, and possible reforms regarding the conflict should be encouraged. Wage peace.
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There is no freedom to call for genocide. That’s not speech. That’s incitement to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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There are some things that are illegal to say. They are not protected speech under the 1st Amendment. I would rattle off a dozen of these off the top of my head as examples, but I don’t want to trigger any nastiness that comes of the ubiquitous surveillance we are all subject to.
“He sees you when you’re sleeping”
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Edward Snowden revealed evidence that we live in a surveillance state. Julian Assange revealed that the U.S. military commits war crimes. That’s why they’ve been sooooo vilified by empire apologists. Alas, there is very little freedom of speech in the U.S. Nobody defends slander and libel, but there are many, many American that seek to silence the voices of those speaking opinions with which they disagree. The First Amendment protects offensive speech. (Speech that isn’t offensive doesn’t need protection.) Thomas Paine said, “He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” Attempts to censor and regulate political speech are signs of weakness, not virtue.
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Phoning Israel and forcing them to call a ceasefire will not stop Hamas from continuing to follow its mission statement to destroy Israel as a nation and drive all Israelis into the sea.
There are two ways to stop a fight.
The two fighting both agree to stop
Or one destroyed the other anyway they can.
Israel told the Palestinians to move out of North Gaza where Hamas had its tunnel network in an effort to move as many out of the north as possible in a short period of time.
Hundreds of thousands fled to southern Gaza where most are now living in refugee camps.
During the last temporary cease fire, Hamas used that time as an opportunity to move some of its troops with missile launchers into those Palestinian refugee camps in South Gaza and shortly before that limited ceasefire ended, Hamas started firing missiles from out of south Gaza refugee camps, surrounded by refugee families in tents.
THE IDF returned fire and bomboed those launching positions in South Gaza and the IDF sent tanks and troops south, too.
Now, IDF troops are battling HAMA in North and South Gaza.
Hamas does not care how many Palestinians die if their deaths help them achieve their final goal. Destroy Israel.
Before Israelis and Palestinians may be able to build a lasting peace and work together as hopefully two nations, Hamas must cease to exist.
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Hamas has pledged to inflict more massacres on Israel. This madness would end if the two sides sat down and negotiated a peace settlement where Hamas pledged to accept Israel’s existence and Israel pledged to accept a free Palestinian state.
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We heard wild claims by some pro-Zionists about chants and events, without verfication. If you have a link showing the actions that the UPenn student, whom the Republicans paraded before Congress, claimed happened, please send it. The ADL debunked a claim that at UPenn students were chanting, “genocide for Jews”, when in reality the chant was, “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” Nothing to do with the smears spread by the likes of Mayim Bialik, who also spread the lie about the 40 beheaded babies on Oct. 7.
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Even if what you say were true, it is irrelevant to the idiocy and callousness of the answers these university presidents made. They were asked, point blank, whether calling for genocide of Jews would violate university policy, and they all answered with some variant of “It depends” or “If it leads to action.”
Revolting.
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One has resigned. The other two need to follow.
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Good point. Those are fighting words. I would think it wouldn’t even pass muster under the first amendment. I don’t know why the university president didn’t respond with “if it really happened, it would violate university guidelines.“ I’m skeptical as to whether or not these claims of calls for genocide happened. I’ve been marching with Jewish Voice for Peace in several demonstrations. I never heard anything of this sort. There could be some false flag operations going on here where people are planted in the crowd to just say stuff and smear anything associated with support for Palestinians. Happens all the time. Which would mean there was no need for these meetings about a fiction that serves solely as theater/propaganda cover for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians.
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I have mixed feelings about this. Certainly they flubbed the question badly. But their statements of their university’s policies were accurate. And I don’t like the idea that changing or holding a sign that says “There is only one solution / Intifada revolution” should be either illegal or cause for disciplinary action.
I think a lot of the outrage is coming from people who know that if any other group (except of course “white people”) had been the subject of similar chants, these universities would have immediately cracked down and broadly advertised that such conduct will never be tolerated there.
I get that complaint and arguably this backlash is a kind of necessary Aufheben in whatever dialectic is happening around campus speech.
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“Chanting” not “changing”
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Their universities’ policies were to consider calling for genocide acceptable speech? That was the question that was asked.
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It is never acceptable speech to call for genocide. That’s a crime. It’s incitement to murder.
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These people are presidents of universities, for crying out loud. They make outlandishly huge salaries. They should be able to freaking figure out that it is unacceptable to call for genocide. There was no gray area in this question. It was completely clear. Would calling for genocide against the Jews be a violation of university policy?
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I think this was in the context of “From the river to the sea” signage. Are we to say that a student should be punished for saying those words?
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The question posed was not about the signage. It was not about some particular slogan or thing that happened. It was a hypothetical. It was precisely, “Does calling for genocide against Jews violate university policy?”
I am flabbergasted that we are even having a debate about this.
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Ofc, such is fanaticism in our world today that my simply taking such a stance in public, online, could lead some nutcase to harm me. Seriously.
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I object to the expression “from the river to the sea,” which appears in Hamas’ charter. It means that only Palestinians and Muslims should live on the land that is now Israel. It means that Israel should be destroyed, and no Jew should live on that land.
No one should be banned or punished for saying it. They should know what it means. It does not mean that Muslims should live wherever they want; it means that the land where Israel exists should be Muslim.
Say it if you choose. Know what it means.
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I find myself agreeing with Elaine Stefanik almost never. But she asked a simple question, and I totally relate to the expression on her face listening to their answers. That expression says, “You are the freaking president of a major university in the United States. Do you freaking speak basic English?”
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So, at any rate, the question of how to deal with particular student speech is a different one that the specific question that was asked. It is shocking that these highly educated people couldn’t grok that. It was quite clear what the question was.
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Like I said, they flubbed the question.
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-10/antisemitism-campus-speech-penn-president-liz-magill-resigns-harvard-mit
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FLERP,
Thanks for the link to a thoughtful article.
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Bob,
On incitement:
intent and likelihood of a crime being committed in that moment. Cornell law school. I think that’s why the university president explanation went over everyone’s head. I like that standard. But having said that, I think there’s a lot of propaganda going on with conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. It’s bullshit.
You got a source for this claim that Hamas will kill all the hostages? The Israeli government is known for having a problem with telling the truth. My source on that is Colonel Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff.
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Read the citation from the US Code. It’s not just about incitement. It’s insulting for you to say that those remarks “went over people’s heads.” I understood quite clearly what she was saying.
Jews finally got tired of millennia of pogroms, culminating in the attempted Final Solution. That’s what Zionism was and is about. Self-preservation is not racism. If you don’t grok that, I can’t help you.
That said, I do wish that the Jewish state had been established in, say, Nebraska, a great place with an extremely low existing population. Think of how much safer this would have been and how much the US would have benefitted!
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Theador Herzl realized he needed the religious Jews to join the movement- hence Palestine. They were looking at Uganda and Argentina. But then you have many orthodox Jews, who say Judaism is religion. That Zionism is a perversion making it a nationality. Herzl was an atheist. Even Einstein said that Judaism resists the idea of a nation state with borders and a military. He was all about the diaspora. You can read it in his autobiography, “out of my later years.“ It’s international in character. I don’t think Israel has made Jewish people more secure in the world. Far from it. Israel’s own human rights organization B’Tselem has said Israel is an apartheid state- Jewish supremacy, “from the river to the sea..“ So has human rights watch and Amnesty international. I guess they’re all anti-Semites? Surely her Israel nation state law. It was passed under Netanyahu that says basically Israel’s first and foremost for Jewish self-determination only. He can’t call that a democracy. Also, while you’re updating, you should read Benny Morris on the concept of “transfer” as being central to the Zionist plans way back before 1948. You can read transfer as ethnic cleansing. Benny Morris regrets that they didn’t finish the job. He’s professor of history at Ben-Gurion University. The foremost expert on matters 1948.
All my sources are Jewish scholars, historians and journalists.
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Calling for violence is itself a crime, even when it is not incitement that leads to a likelihood of a crime being committed in that moment. Here’s the relevant law:
18 U.S. Code § 373(a) – Solicitation to commit a crime of violence
Whoever, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States, and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct, shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half of the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the crime solicited, or both; or if the crime solicited is punishable by life imprisonment or death, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years.
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As it should be
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Calling for violence is itself a crime, even when it is not incitement that leads to immediate action:
18 U.S. Code § 373(a) – Solicitation to commit a crime of violence
Whoever, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States, and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct, shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half of the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the crime solicited, or both; or if the crime solicited is punishable by life imprisonment or death, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years.
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The fact that Israel banned the compassion group at schools means they must have been doing something right.
But, peace requires justice. Israeli Apartheid must end. Boycotting, divesting and sanctioning are non-violent approaches. Compassion won’t work for everyone. Never did.
Disclaimer: I denounce the killing of the innocent by Hamas and Israel. Also, the conflict started in 1948 between ZIONISTS and Palestinians, not Oct. 7, 2023.
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The UN in 1948 passed a resolution for two states: Israel and Palestine. On the day Israel was created, it was invaded by all its neighboring Arab-Muslim states. For 75 years, it has sought recognition of its right to exist. Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel. In 1971, Jordan expelled the PLO.
for the past 20 years, Israel has had terrible leadership. The NY Times has an article today about how Israel worked with Qatar to funnel billions to Hamas, hoping to buy its silence and splitting its relationship with the PLO in the West Bank. This was Netanyahu’s plan to prevent a Palestinian state.
Israel needs leadership that seeks peace and supports a fully independent Palestinian state. The Palestinians need leadership that seeks a state and abandons its goal of eliminating Israel.
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All true. Embedded in the Zionist movement, according to Benny Morris, the Israeli historian at Ben-Gurion University on matters 1948, the doctrine of “transfer” (ethnic cleansing) of the Palestinians was the goal from the start. The Arab states probably knew this. But, their reaction would be what most any other cluster of nations would have been to the insertion, against their will of a state in their region. Just like native Americans attacked White settlers here. Especially, as they suspected the doctrine of transfer.
What I’m getting at is that the evidence shows the two-state solution was always a scam by Israel to buy time to flood the West Bank with settlements. No real proposals were offered that would yield a tenable Palestinian state connecting Gaza and the West Bank. Shlomo BenAmi, Israeli Foreign Minister, once said if he were Palestinian, he’d have rejected the Camp David peace proposal in 2000.
As far as compassion goes, it’s an exercise to think of how White abolitionists would not condemn John Brown or Nat Turner. The evil of slavery was far greater than the evil they brought in their massacres. Just as those events might look differently to slaves, the events of Oct. 7 (which we still don’t know exactly what happened) might look differently to Palestinians, who probably have a different understanding of what happened.
Jimmy Carter called Israel an Apartheid state decades ago. Israel’s own human rights organizations, B’Tselem, plus Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International refer to it as “Jewish Supremacy” from the river to the sea. Why not one democratic state for Jews and Arabs from the River to the Sea?
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I have mixed feelings about this. Certainly they flubbed the question badly. But their statements of their university’s policies were accurate. And I don’t like the idea that changing or holding a sign that says “There is only one solution / Intifada revolution” should be either illegal or cause for disciplinary action.
I think a lot of the outrage is coming from people who know that if any other group (except of course “white people”) had been the subject of similar chants, these universities would have immediately cracked down and broadly advertised that such conduct will never be tolerated there.
I get that complaint and arguably this backlash is a kind of necessary Aufheben in whatever dialectic is happening around campus speech.
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Oops wrong spot.
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I think there’s a lot of myths and conflation here. One myth is the mistaken belief that Hamas only wants the end of Israel. They know that’s not possible which is why they changed their charter in 2017 for a negotiated peace for a two-state solution along the pre-1967 border.
Also, conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is a lie. Zionism is Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea (so says B’Tselem Israel’s premier human rights organization, as well as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty). Zionism is racism.
Calling for Intifada does not necessarily mean the end of Israel. It’s an ambiguous term. It can and usually means to “rise up.”
Calling for a one-state solution (it’s already one state, but with Apartheid) a democratic state where both Jews and Arabs share equal rights is not genocide of the Jews.
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thoughtful response. i too believe we have to tolerate speech we hate if we claim to be for free speech. it’s hateful speech is put into action committing a crime then that crosses the line. but, schools have a lesser standard. in k-12 the speech can’t disrupt or distract from the educational process. we can’t go down the lunatic route Europe does with its Holocaust denial laws. that’s thought crime in the full Orwellian sense. the best defense against bad ideas is better ideas.
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sorry, “are better ideas”. why can’t we edit?
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Again, do I really have to make the LOOOOOOONG list of things that one cannot legally SAY? Freedom of speech is not absolute for damned good reason. You cannot call for someone to be murdered. You cannot incite people to riot. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre. You cannot threaten the life of a public official, and especially not that of the President.
AND YOU CANNOT FREAKING CALL FOR GENOCIDE. That’s against the law. Advocating genocide is against US law and international law. It’s criminal.
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Bob, I don’t think it’s true that standing on the street with a sign calling for genocide is illegal. And it shouldn’t be, in my view.
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Should hate speech be a crime?
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“Direct and public incitement to commit genocide” is forbidden by the Genocide Convention (1948), Article 3(c)
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Is speech incitement? But I think this is all academic, Bob, in the absence of any evidence that there was really that specific rhetoric being used. it’s probably just the result of conflating expressions like “from the river to the sea“ for political purposes. The real genocidal rhetoric we have to worry about came from Israel. Netanyahu, referencing Amalek, the call for genocide of an entire people by Moses, Saying this is the kind of situation they’re in. Israeli defense minister saying this no difference between civilians and combatants is another. Other Israeli officials, with one even calling for a nuclear strike on Gaza, have been the only genocidal characters I’ve seen.
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The language of the law, which I quoted above, does not require incitement. Read it again, more closely.
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And once again (how many freaking times do I have to say this), what was involved in this case was NOT particular speech being used in some particular place. The questioner asked a hypothetical. Does calling for genocide violate university policy? No one who cannot answer yes to that question should be in such a job. Period.
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Alas, the statue that I am referring to is below your comment, not above. The one from the Genocide Convention does deal with incitement. The US statute (which appears below, not above) does not. So, my apologies.
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18 U.S. Code § 373(a) – Solicitation to commit a crime of violence
Whoever, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States, and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct, shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half of the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the crime solicited, or both; or if the crime solicited is punishable by life imprisonment or death, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years.
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And I don’t know that there’s actually been any confirmation that that type of specific rhetoric was ever used. Or was at least being used enough to make it an issue. I think what happens is some people for political purposes, try and conflate “from the river to the sea” or “abolished Zionism” as somehow genocidal rhetoric. It’s preposterous.
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Bob, if someone holds a sign on campus that says “We should burn down the police station,” should that student be subject to discipline by the university and criminally prosecuted? Note that felony crimes against property are included in the statute you quoted.
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Yes
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I believe that as a matter of basic civility, in all the senses of that word, it is entirely appropriate that it be against the law to advocate the commission of a violent crime. You will have noticed that I have an acerbic tongue, but I have never done that here (or elsewhere) and never will. That’s because I strive to be part of a civil community that abhors internecine violence.
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So, Hamas just threatened to kill all the remaining hostages. Evil _____s.
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Let me paste below the text of the LA Times opinion piece that I referenced elsewhere in the thread. I think this is about where I come down on the issue.
Opinion: The trouble with Congress or college presidents policing free speech on campuses
By Eugene Volokh and Will Creeley Dec. 10, 2023 9:59 AM PT
On Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified at a congressional hearing on “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.”
At the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) asked University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?” Stefanik was referring, among other things, to phrases such as “There’s only one solution: Intifada revolution,” which suggest mass violence against Jews in Israel.
Magill’s reply — that the answer was “context-dependent” — has prompted rare bipartisan unity and a chorus of condemnation. Indeed, it led Magill to later backtrack, then to call for reevaluating university policy to restrict more speech, and finally to resign.
Antisemitism on campus is a real problem, and in this fraught moment, many Jewish students are understandably scared. But if freedom of expression is to survive on American campuses — and for our nation’s vitality, it must — Magill’s original answer was right. Context does matter.
The categorical exceptions to the 1st Amendment are few, narrow and carefully defined by precedent. And while Penn is a private university not bound by the 1st Amendment, its policies commit the school to 1st Amendment standards.
Under the 1st Amendment, speech intended to and likely to cause imminent illegal conduct is unprotected “incitement.” Discriminatory harassment targeting particular students isn’t protected. True threats — serious expressions of an intent to engage in illegal violence against a particular person or group of people — aren’t protected. Promising to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews,” as a Cornell student allegedly did in October, is a punishable true threat.
Whether other statements are constitutionally protected does turn on context. For example, calling for “intifada” at a peaceful march is generally protected political expression. Even urging attacks on Israeli civilians, advocating in general terms for violence elsewhere at an unspecified time against a broadly defined target, remains protected speech.
But in a different context, an “intifada” chant might be a true threat — if, for instance, a speaker directed that statement at a specific Israeli American student while moving threateningly toward that student during a protest that has turned violent. And coupled with other targeted, unwelcome conduct, it might be punishable discriminatory harassment.
The 1st Amendment doesn’t have an “advocacy of genocide” exception, nor do the promises of student free speech that many private universities properly make. And for good reason: Students must be free to debate what is proper to do in war, and what wars are just.
Indeed, any new rule prohibiting “advocacy of genocide” could easily be used against pro-Israel speakers. Many argue that Israel is entitled to kill as many Hamas fighters as it can, and if Hamas hides behind civilians, then Israel is entitled to kill the civilians to get to Hamas.
But others argue the state of Israel was wrongly created on Palestinian land, and that Israeli Jews need to be expelled from it — through mass relocation if possible, or through combat. There are those who take the view that the Hamas attacks were self-defense, and the Israeli retaliation is therefore genocide.
Now, one might think these positions are sharply different morally. But whatever one’s moral views, students should be free to debate the matter by arguing varying positions, even when such calls are deeply offensive to some, many or most. None of us should want campus bureaucrats making inevitably political decisions as to what really constitutes genocide.
Focusing less on the label “genocide,” other debates on wars that result in mass killing of civilians and whether such outcomes are justified under certain circumstances could run into the same problem. Imagine a student arguing that Israel should respond to an Iranian nuclear attack by dropping a nuclear bomb on Tehran, a city of 12 million, in order to demonstrate that killing Israelis will lead to the killing of Iranians.
Such an argument seeks to justify the killing of countless civilians by relying on a hotly disputed moral claim: that killing may be justified if it deters other killing. But a broad rule against “calling for mass killing” would render this discussion subject to punishment. Indeed, it would mean students could be punished for using the same argument to defend the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Universities must keep students safe from true threats and punish targeted harassment, violence, vandalism, and other unprotected conduct. But to truly deliver on the promise of higher education, university leaders — and Penn’s next president — must do all of that without abandoning free speech standards.
Eugene Volokh is a professor at UCLA School of Law and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. Will Creeley is legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
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