With anti-Gaza genocide protests still roiling and, in some cases, spreading across America, the president strode into the political and social storm. The real core and point of his message were approval of crackdowns on students, which he wrapped in a thin layer of support for dissent.
But President Biden wants convenient dissent, submissive dissent, obedient dissent that doesn’t break rules or violate the sensibilities or plans of the Israeli government, Jewish groups or Zionists determined to stop U.S. citizens from expressing to colleges, universities and their government disgust over the slaughter of Palestinians by Israel’s bloody handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his war cabinet and their military.
This slaughter is Biden-backed. His administration has given billions to Israel for weapons, opposed international efforts to charge Mr. Netanyahu with human rights crimes, ignored misuse of U.S. arms by the Israeli Defense Force, and blocked United Nations efforts to somehow broker a ceasefire. The president declared May 2 the protests would not change his stance.
Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Mr. Biden told the country dissent was an American right and tradition but must stay within the law and remain peaceful.
“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest,” he said. “It is against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations, none of this is a peaceful protest.”
Despite National Guardsmen, state troopers and police officers invading campuses in different parts of the country, Mr. Biden said, “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how people respond to consequential issues. But neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society and order must prevail.”
He added, “There should be no place on any campus, no place in America, for anti-semitism or threats of violence against Jewish students” and “no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s anti-semitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.”
Bravo on those two points.
Still, you could have called for greater tolerance among Americans with strong passions. You could have spoken of strength found in restraint and dialogue aimed at reaching truth. You could have called on police and protesters to exercise discipline and control as each perform their respective roles.
Instead, Mr. President, your “law and order” message missed some things: One, the students are the victims of violence from law enforcement and pro-Israel attackers like those who assaulted UCLA students in a protest encampment.
These students, who are standing on the right side of history, said police were on campus but did nothing. So, Mr. President, how about you call on law enforcement to treat dissent on campus as political speech that doesn’t require beating, tasing, pepper spraying and slamming people to the ground?
Two, the essence of free speech and political and social protests in this country can be expressed as civil disobedience against unjust laws. One of America’s most renowned and celebrated acts of political activity was the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773, in Massachusetts.
Dressed as Native Americans, the Sons of Liberty boarded ships and destroyed property, British tea, to express displeasure with injustice they believed were poured out against them, including unfair taxation and lack of representation before the British Crown.
Three, political protest and dissent by the aggrieved is the exercise of the highest form of political speech by physically taking to the streets. Their act says the wrong perpetrated is so outrageous that letters, phone calls, media appearances and polite behavior isn’t enough. Inevitably, the established powers declare the dissatisfied are acting illegally, must stop or be punished.
The protestors refuse because they are standing on a higher law based on what is right. That stand has led to expanded rights for Americans, which are under attack now, and changes in laws that expanded American democracy. The abuse of students and kowtowing to Jewish power by bringing in heavy law enforcement escalated things, not the actions of young people.
Mainstream, corporate media across the political spectrum repeat Zionist lines and give little airtime to pro-Palestinian voices while justifying shutting Americans up. Where are the defenders of free speech?
Whether protests against unbridled capitalism, for expanded labor rights, more women’s rights, expanded rights for the disabled, greater civil rights, more inequality, ending police brutality, war or anti-Blackness, those who stood up were labeled criminals and troublemakers. The trouble they made pushed America closer to her promises.
Mr. President, please listen to your citizens. Don’t be led by Jewish forces who have their own agenda, which may not be the best agenda for America. Can’t you hear millions, including many who put you in office, saying, “Stop the slaughter!”
Don’t you see the world saying to Israel, “Stop the killing!” Have you considered scripture which warns those who live by sword shall die by the sword because God Himself will judge and destroy them?
As PressTV, an Iranian news service noted, “Israel, which currently faces genocidal crimes at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has killed 34,488 Palestinians since last October when it waged a bloody war on the Gaza Strip. Over 77,643 other Palestinians have also been injured, and around 8,400 may be trapped under rubble.”
Mr. President, may we remind you of history that you and others are ignoring, hiding and distorting? “Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, or fully one fifth of the population of West Bank and Gaza, have been incarcerated in Israeli jails.
Organizations such as Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and several other groups say that Israel has routinely used physical and psychological torture against incarcerated Arabs and Palestinians, including the use of prolonged beatings, electric shocks, hanging by the wrists, and sexual assaults—in short, everything America has been doing in Iraq.
At this time there are nearly five million Palestinians living in a desperate state of oppression under Israeli rule,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He was speaking in 2007.
How much have Palestinians suffered in the last 17 years and how much more, Mr. President do you expect they will suffer? And how much will the American people suffer, how much division must they endure for the sake of Israel, lying, murder and injustice?
