I was on campus yesterday in Southern California at Cal State University San Marcos’ “Free Palestine” protest interviewing students and Pro Palestine sympathizers.
Similar to what is being reported throughout the nation, the guy heading up the “protest“ was in his 40s, not faculty or staff, not affiliated with the school and is a part of an activist group in Southern California.
My interview with this organizer, Pat Hartley, was painful; he couldn’t answer any of my specific questions on the ultimate goal of the “BDS“ strategy as it relates to foreign politics nor could he engage on the nuance of foreign wars like Russia and Ukraine versus Israel and the Palestinian people. Pat stated that October 7 was a reflection of “pent up” aggression but recoiled when I asked him if it was then justified; he stumbled through any coherent answer:
This is not unique as we are now finding out through reports coming in across the nation that the heads of the snakes causing mayhem on college campuses are not in fact students, but are non-affiliated activist actors.
I also interviewed Brandon, a Jewish university student. He was clear, thoughtful, knew factual history and answered my questions directly:
Colleges would be wise to put up boundaries that embrace student-lead peaceful protests, but safeguard against outside agitators who hijack campuses and use students as pawns.
Make civil dialogue great again.
My full reporting from the @CSUSM protest led by an outside activist here:
Historical fact: Gaza became a center of political activism during the First Intifada, and under the Oslo Accords of 1993, it was assigned to be under the direct control of the newly established Palestinian Authority. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. By 2007, Hamas emerged both as the victor in Palestinian elections and in factional fighting with rival Fatah in the city and in the wider Gaza Strip and has since been the sole governing authority.
It would have been nice to see this level of outrage and intolerance during the never-ending George Floyd riots.
I have noticed that republican media talking points on Fox, radio and media are suddenly completely in lockstep with the message. Israel and the U.S. are massacring ordinary citizens with a forced agenda- and strategized attack to begin with— to annihilate and entire culture and community consistent with the US/Israel agenda to destroy the Arab state. They are indeed cherry picking examples (who knows if they are “real” either) of “paid” protestors. The elephant in the room is that not one journalist- on any conservative radio or cable show—is presenting the other side. They are throwing around "Soros/Antifa funded" and old dudes leading the protests as if 20 years olds couldn't possibly know what they are doing.
Support for innocent Palestinian folk has been deemed ILLEGITIMATE. Support Israel or be cancelled, period. Support mass murder or else! Every time we see this kind of organized and relentless propaganda, like we did with “Covid” it should raise our antenna. I listen to KABC talk radio and the discussion has pivoted- nothing BUT “protestors bad” from every show, back to back.
Exact same talking points, exact same level of outrage. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
Maybe the parents of the young people attending these colleges need to send in a strongly worded letter explaining how their children will be pulled along with their tuition payments if this continues. I still find it interesting how these "protests" coincide with the House passing this "antisemitism" bill though. There are no coincidences.