Global
Well friends, the verdict is in! If you are opposed to Israel’s slaughter of something like forty thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, or the clearly enunciated plans by that nation’s government to ethnically cleanse the rest of historic Palestine, making the developing Eretz or Greater Israel a legally Jewish state, and are prepared to protest or speak up about it, then you are an antisemite Jew-hater and probably even a holocaust denier. If you are a student demonstrating against the slaughter you are increasingly being referred to by talking heads and the media as a pro-Hamas terrorist. That you must be condemned and sanctioned or even criminalized as a consequence of the labels is only fair in a country that apparently has come to believe that Jews and Israel, uniquely, cannot be criticized due to their cited ad nauseam victimhood and their anointment by God no matter what the First Amendment to the US Constitution relating to freedom of speech might say.
“Biden Biden, Whattaya Say? How Many Kids You Kill Today?”
This was one of the militant chants of hundreds of students on May 1 at UCLA. I went to the university after covering the May Day rally in Hollywood, arriving around 4:00 p.m., and this is what I witnessed at the frontlines of the class struggle in Westwood:
I made my way on foot across the sprawling campus towards the epicenter of the unfolding action, the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA. The first thing I noticed was the sound of helicopters hovering overhead and a heavy security presence. The latter included the LAPD, the LA County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol, UCPD and CSC, a private firm specializing in crowd management. Upon reaching Dickson Plaza, the rather large area was cordoned off with metal barricades.