Violence erupted at the University of California, Los Angeles after pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators attacked a pro-Palestinian campus encampment. Bubbling tensions on the campus boiled over following the alleged breach of a “buffer zone” between the rival groups.

  • CaptainEffort
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    7 months ago

    “Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help,” UC Divest at LA, a group involved in the encampment, said in a statement.

    Fucking disgusting

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      7 months ago

      Well trained by the IDF, they act exactly the same as when settlers attack Palestinians. They’ll only intervene if you fight back.

    • Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I guess since the police have shown they are not willing to protect the people, the people must take the responsibility of their safety and security upon themselves.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      But we mustn’t have evil guns!! The police will protect us, I’m certain of it!

      Liberals will never, ever prevail against the fascists unless they pull their collective head out of their collective ass. News flash kids: The fascists are perfectly willing to use violence. And they know you are not.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        So let me make sure I understand your point: the pro-Palestinian protestors should have opened fire and killed the counter-protestors?

          • Rinox@feddit.it
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            7 months ago

            Yeah, what’s wrong with killing people? As long as you have an excuse that’s good enough for you, you should always be able to kill as many people as you can. /s

          • Eol
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            7 months ago

            It’s going to happen eventually. Regardless of what the current protested issue is. It’s probably a natural inevitable next step. Hope things unfuck themselves before that though.

            • Որբունի@jlai.lu
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              7 months ago

              I also find it very sad that it is turning sour but I find comfort in the fact that most of the fascist thugs I’ve seen are cowards who only find the courage to be violent in overwhelming force and numbers imbalances. Peaceful students who are known to not own guns are easy targets.

      • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Guns being present would have only resulted in many MANY deaths. That’s what you want?

        • irreticent@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I have seen a lot of shalafi’s comments in the past and I think the answer to that question is “yes.”

        • Liz@midwest.social
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          7 months ago

          Nah. You have to do it right, that’s all. Everyone mudt show up in plate armor open carrying fighting rifles. This is what the right has done, and more importantly it also has worked for the left (see: protecting drag queens from right wing protests). You don’t instigate shit. Just stand there. If you’re heavily armed, out in the open, and peaceful, the cops and counter protests can’t make up an excuse to start shit, and they are extremely unmotivated to do so.

        • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          If it’s the attackers, then yeah, thats the point. Guns are a deterrent.

      • sudo@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        This is an uninstructive conversation. We do not need this sort of shit stirring about this topic because it is important.

        Do not show up to a protest with a gun either alone or unannounced. Thats just Rittenhouse behaviour. Be a part of a militia or with some group, and contact the event organizers before arriving. They’ll probably tell your group to wait in a near by location and to be called when needed.

        Also getting beat up is the point of these protests. Columbia unreasonably responded with violence against their own students and faculty. It was a total blunder that they made habitually. Making them fascists drop their masks for everyone to see is the goal here.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        7 months ago

        Michael Reinoehl killed a fash, then the police executed him in a suburban neighborhood. There’s no scenario where a leftwing person kills a fascist in self defense and their police buddies say it was a good shooting.

  • birthday_attack@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Jewish Federation Los Angeles meanwhile blamed the university’s chancellor for allowing “an environment to be created over many months that has made students feel unsafe”.

    The group demanded that the encampment be cleared and that UCLA meet leaders of the Jewish community.

    Fucking hell, this is such a callous response. In any other situation, the group representing the side that just had masked vigilantes attack peaceful demonstrators would make amends. “These people don’t represent our movement. We disavow them and what they stand for.” And so on.

    I see they’re taking a page from Israel’s book: refuse to apologize, defend unprovoked violence, and blame the victims on top of everything else.

    • DrDominate@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Your school’s protests against violence is making the school unsafe and therefore it’s the schools fault for the violence that falls upon it. That’s basically what they said.

      • mriormro@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Lol, it’s not my fault I’m beating you in the face. It’s the school’s fault I’m beating you in the face.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      meet leaders of the Jewish community.

      Never leaders of the palestinian community…

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    All these police attacks on Pro-Palestine rallies are just bringing more attention that would have faded away.

    And the unprovoked violent attacks will cause more people to start to question the Israel war and the US support of it. People will start to wonder why supporting normal Palestine people is an idea to attack peaceful rallies and to take away the right to protest.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      7 months ago

      All these police attacks on Pro-Palestine rallies

      In this case they weren’t attacked by Police.

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          7 months ago

          I’m willing to accept that as a possibility but I’ve seen it argued the other way too. That since the Pro-Palestinian side hasn’t been getting pushed down at UCLA like other places “something” needed to happen in order to increase visibility.

          In fairness the various University of California campuses have been pretty laid back with these protests to the point that they’d refused to call in Law Enforcement at all on the LA campus until things got out of hand last night. Even then it seems that Law Enforcement slow rolled their response.

          At this point who the hell knows; could be some of Column A and a little of Column B.

  • anticurrent
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    7 months ago

    You wont hear mainstream media question why the police retracted a short moment before pro-Israeli thugs stormed in the encampment and attack the peaceful protesters, they came back in to only arrest the pro-palestine protesters. the establishment has payed to end the protests and establishment media are only parading the side of the story the have been paid for to.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The descriptions suggest the counter protesters are not students but people whipped up from outside the school by media.

    We know why students wouldn’t have jobs but who the fuck are these people attacking the kids?

  • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Isn’t it interesting how Israel and pro-Israel people apply the exact same tactic?! Let’s attack innocent people. Whether it’s bombing innocent civilians or violently attacking peaceful protestors. It’s so telling. They are rotten to their core.

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      That’s what 80 years of cultural righteousness gets you. You start to think you can do no wrong.

      Cue up the “I learned it from you” meme because the USA showed Israel how it’s done.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s just plain old Fascism.

        Etnic/nationalistic/cultural righteousness (aka nationalistic racism) is one of the foundational blocks of it along with violence.

        Unlike Europe, Israel hasn’t realy evolved in social and political terms from the kind of thinking so prevalent in the early XX century.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    You can have violence from the police, or you can have counter-protest violence. The police have proven time and again they will stand back and do nothing while the people protesting for any liberal idea (sad that the left seems to be the only one interested in things like peace, equality, and justice) get beaten by the right.

      • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        True, but being anti genocide, anti colonialism, and anti war often are. Just so happens that these ideas and Palestinian statehood are simpatico at the moment.

    • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      I mean you could have protestor violence, but for some reason that’s just outright dismissed as lunacy.

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Nonviolent protest works when the violence against the nonviolent becomes the impetus for change. That whole Jesus taking the beating to point out the problems in the system has a long history whether you believe in religion on not. Probably why we still talk about non-violent protesters like Gandhi or MLK, too.

            That’s not to say that violence doesn’t have its place, like the French Revolution. But that’s the shortcut. You forcefully break the system and rebuild it right now, rather than the long game of changing the system from within.

            Checking out the author, he seems much more French Revolution type (even though being an anarchist really puts him at odds with any resulting government), looks like he’s spent a bit of time in jail for some protests, none of them violent.

            • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Pacifism did not work for Ghandi or MLK. They were both murdered by conservatives and the problems they championed persisted long after their deaths.

              Conservatives see pacifism as a weakness to exploit and an invitation to attack. In fact, never in history has pacifism defeated conservatism. Action is always needed to cure an infection of conservatism.

            • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 months ago

              While both only directly participated in non-violent protest themselves, Gandhi and MLK both participated in overarching struggles that were most definitely supported by a diversity of tactics, including violent protest.

              In my opinion the reason we still talk about these individuals today, without any focus given to the violent action also employed in support of their same cause, is because there is no material difference between complacency and exclusively non-violent protest in the ability of either to manifest actual change.

  • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    I think this is a good example of how vigilantes often work to support the state’s goals when it can’t legally/easily complete their goals.

    For every fascistic government still bound by laws, there will be fascists willing to ignore them to support it. See this. See the KKK carrying out lynchings on people who are barely escaping the grasp of the state. See the settlers illegally settling on Palestinian land to carry out the state’s goals of ethnic cleansing.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Hate is a powerful tool used by fascists to rally people to violence. Every one of these attackers should be arrested and thrown in prison.

      • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        Hate is a strong motivator but it uses up too much fuel and burns itself out. To see it only as hate is a bit reductionist. You can only use hate to motivate yourself for so long.

        Fear, envy, and uncertainty/fear of the future are much more longstanding motivators used to continue fascist creep.

        Regardless, fascists align themselves with the state. The police often can’t get away with crushing protesters without suffering bad PR, and risking strengthening popular support when images of police brutality evoke memories of past brutalities.

        Fascist vigilantes don’t care about PR, and they might get the support of the police (or they get the police’s non-support of their enemies) or even the government

      • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Vigilante porn is too useful as propaganda. Americans, especially, love the imagery of a tough person who steps up and does “the right thing,” where traditional tools of enforcement are weakened by corruption, incompetence, or policy. Doesn’t matter if it’s Dirty Harry, Batman, or some Christian Nationalist with a sharpened flagpole.

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      In situations like this, it’s common that the vigilantes are not actually rogue. They’re working together with the police. They might be friends, they might be off duty cops, and they could easily be messaging each other about what ought to be done when.

      I don’t have any specific evidence that this situation is as described above, but we know that many others have been and will be.

  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    “Counter-protesters”?

    This is an example of a news organization trying so hard to be neutral that they end up taking a side.

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 months ago

    Jesus Christ. All over students protesting that their university is openly supporting a regime committing genocide and crimes against humanity.

  • tearsintherain@leminal.space
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    7 months ago

    Angry and lashing out. This time the Israeli genocide was called out and the world was made more aware. And the usual cover given challenged thanks to these protests. The dehumanization of Palestinian people by supporters of Israel’s genocide is frightening.

  • john89@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    How come the only videos we can see are ones from news stations with talking heads?

    Shouldn’t there be a bunch of raw camera footage taken with people’s phones?

    I don’t need some shitty news station to curate or manufacture information for me.