This is Democracy – Episode 262: Campus Protests

[00:00:00] Intro: This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you, a podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:25] Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy.

Today we are going to discuss the campus protests that are all around us. Uh, it seems as if most universities around the United States and even a few abroad now have major protests on their campuses. In some cases this has resulted in, uh, long term encampments of students. In some places, um, altercations with the police and other authorities.

In There have been a diversity of experiences across campuses, but one thing that seems common from Yale to Columbia to the University of Texas to USC and many other places is that a, uh, significant number of students have, uh, joined protest movements against their universities and against policies that they, um, oppose by the U S government.

A significant number of counter protesters have organized as well. And many students seem. in between or uncertain. Um, and university administrators, uh, any of them who one talks to today, uh, they seem at a loss for what to do. Most university administrators do not want to call the police onto their campuses, but many of them feel that they have to now to clear spaces.

that are being occupied by students. We are going to discuss these events. We’re going to focus in particular on two campuses that we know well, Yale University, where Zachary is a student and the University of Texas at Austin, where I am a professor. Uh, we’re going to focus on these two campuses because they’ve been in the news quite a bit because they are in some ways representative of many other campuses and because they’re important stories to tell about these campuses.

We’re going to explore the struggles over democracy on these campuses today. And, uh, Zachary is not only going to read his poem, he’s going to, uh, be our expert on, uh, the events at Yale University and the perspectives in particular of students, uh, that he is, uh, deeply involved with at the university. So Zachary, without any further ado, uh, what is the title of your poem today?

For Lisa. For

[00:02:28] Zachary: Lisa. Okay, let’s hear it. I spoke with you yesterday as we crossed your dark encampment. You did not want us there. You did not ask us why. You did not stop to think we wanted just to speak to someone after months of chants and bloody signs. We sat on the bench across the walk from where your tent said you were free.

You told us this freedom wasn’t for us, that you weren’t there for conversation, you were there for confrontation. But we told you how it felt to be screamed at and looked upon like beasts, to be told our lives don’t matter, and you said how it feels so much the same, how you’re in pain, how you are hurting just the same, and we said we understood, and we did, and you said you understood.

And maybe you

[00:03:17] Jeremi: did. Zachary, I’m very moved by that poem. You’ve personalized this and given us a real moment of both disconnect and connection in this swirl of activity. Can you describe the scene that you set here and what brought you to this poem?

[00:03:36] Zachary: Yes, well, so from Sunday morning, or early afternoon on April 28th here, until this morning, April 30th, at around 6.

30 a. m., there was an encampment at the center of campus on the main quad, we call it Cross Campus, and a group of protesters from what they called Occupy Yale set up an 40, 45 tents that blocked off most of the quad, and At least until Sunday night, they were asking people who crossed through to agree to a set of what they called community guidelines, but which basically were an ideological litmus test.

One had to agree to liberate Palestine, that you weren’t going to engage or confront protesters if you wanted to walk through, and if you didn’t agree to these terms, they insisted on escorting you. through what is one of the main thoroughfares of campus. And there have been a number of reactions to this.

There was a previous protest the weekend before, Beinecke Plaza, which is another one of the main parts of campus that was much larger. There were some 600 people there at the height, at its height. There were maybe around the same number, though, who were camping overnight. And those protesters were arrested on Monday morning, same time, around 6.

30 a. m. and released almost immediately after they were arrested, but removed. Both areas are now pretty much blocked off for students. They’re empty. They’ve cleared everything. But Jewish students in the community, and in the Jewish community in particular, of which I’m a very active member, have been Sort of very disturbed by a lot of these protests.

And this conversation that I described happened yesterday evening. Some friends and I were coming from synagogue for Passover and we were walking through and. Some friends had tried earlier, the friends I was with had tried earlier to engage with the protesters and had been met with complete resistance.

They had tried to ask them about some of the chants that they had used at an earlier protest in the center of New Haven on Sunday, which included Intifada, revolution, resistance by any means necessary, from the river to the sea, things that we interpret as very anti Semitic, and at the very least as disregarding Jewish lives.

We tried to engage with them, not in a confrontational way. We had nothing that was visibly Israeli. We had no Israeli flags. We weren’t chanting anything. We were just walking through as visibly Jewish students. And we were sort of, you know, we were, shocked we were putting up little stickers that said we all need peace and we were shocked at the reaction we got which was essentially people crowding around us with cameras trying to videotape us even though they hadn’t read what we were putting up what we’re putting up was pretty innocuous it was we need peace and rape is not resistance And they started mobbing us, not in a way that made us feel physically threatened or anything, but in a way that just felt so impossible to have a conversation or anything.

And then when we tried to engage with them, we tried to have conversations, most of them just left, went away. They immediately assumed we were Zionists, even though we were just visibly Jewish students putting up these things that I think all of them would have agreed was true. Many of them took issue with the rape is not resistance sticker, said that they thought it was provocational, We’re antagonistic, which maybe they weren’t entirely wrong about, but they, it seems very uncomfortable with the concept of express, which was very, um, disturbing for me.

And then we tried to have serious conversations with them. And then one by one, they just left, except for one woman, Lisa, who was not a student. She was in her fifties, I think, who claimed to be a Yale affiliate. And insisted on us leaving the area around the encampment directly and going to a nearby bench to discuss.

So we did. And we went over there and we started talking to her about why we were putting up these stickers, whatever. And we shared a lot of the pain that we were feeling as students when we see these protests, um, which have verged on violent rhetoric at times, but have remained mostly peaceful overall.

And we talked about the pain that we were feeling, the disregard that the protests seem to have for the hostages who remain in Gaza, for the horrors of October 7th, and for the harm they’re causing to the Jewish community on campus. And she was mostly completely unreceptive to this, It was, it was like talking to a brick wall, and whenever we brought up these issues, she would say something about, Oh, but don’t you care about this?

Don’t you care about that? Like, uh, aren’t you concerned about the thousands of Palestinians who are dying? And of course, we said, yes, we are. And just to be clear, we don’t necessarily disagree with, like, even the vast majority of their aims of the protest, but the fact that they’re willing to condone this anti Semitic rhetoric, that they’re willing to, to chant along or chant back when people shout things like intifada revolution.

It makes it very hard for us to engage with them, but we tried last night and I think we were on our best behavior, so to speak. We were very gracious and conciliatory. We apologized for things we probably didn’t even need to apologize for, you know, like just being there. And we were just having this conversation and, and there was just sort of like an unwillingness to sympathize with us, even when we showed a lot of empathy for her.

And that was really frustrating. But at the same time, it does feel to me that like, This kind of conversation, as uncomfortable as it is, as frustrating as it is, is what we need. And what bothered me the most about these protests, and what even Lisa was willing to admit to us, was that the protests were not about conversation.

They were about confrontation. And they didn’t want us there. They didn’t want to talk to us. They wanted to be in a little echo chamber where everyone agreed with them, and just us being Jewish students. and visibly Jewish, made them come to us, question us, videotape us, made them feel threatened, and made it impossible to have a conversation with them.

And that, It’s not just one experience. It’s sort of an experience I’ve had for the past few months, even the conversations I’m able to have that are more productive than this, there always have to be like with close friends of mine who I knew well before these protests began or before they started participating in them, but beyond that, it’s near impossible to have conversations because it’s not about conversation.

It’s about confrontation.

[00:09:53] Jeremi: And is there some of that on the counter protest side as well?

[00:09:56] Zachary: No, I don’t think so. I mean, there are, there are individuals who, who are, are trying to provoke or trying to escalate, but they’re not using violence or anything. There’s no violent rhetoric, certainly. Um, and I mean, I personally don’t think running into a crowd with an Israeli flag or, or trying to videotape counter protesters and sort of get them to say offensive things on video.

It’s like the best response. I think it’s escalatory. I think it makes those conversations harder, too. I don’t think there’s any equivalency, no. And the reality is that we have these conversations within the Jewish community, and we don’t just mourn our own who have been lost, but we talk about those who are lost.

are hurting in Gaza and all the Palestinians who have been killed. And we have very biting critiques of Israel that we can express in our community and outside our community. But the protests don’t want to hear it. Uh, there’s a sort of sense that, um, there are like good Jews and bad Jews that, like, you’re either like a Jew for ceasefire and then you’re okay.

But you, you have to begin any of these conversations by sort of, you know, Agreeing to denounce Zionism, you have to agree to denounce all of these, like, aspects of Jewish identity, which are, you know, centuries old, and you have to begin by agreeing with them, or the assumption is that you’re not one of them, and that you can be, that you can have this hateful rhetoric directed at you, or that you’re a threat, or that you’re somehow suspicious, or guilty, or worthy of scorn.

Um, I was just talking to the rabbi at lunch today. And he says something that really resonated with me, which is that there’s actually something like almost very, like, Christian in, um, this setup in the sense that it’s like you’re either one of the elected or you’re one of the damned. Like, there’s this sort of, like, they have their token Jews who agree with them, many of whom have very, for, and many of whom I know very well and are very good friends, who have very serious, critiques of the state of Israel that I sympathize with and I agree with, many of whom are like, very serious about Palestinian liberation, as I think most of us are in the community.

They’ve been asked, and even the ones who were most hardcore about this movement after October 7th, have basically been asked now to compromise their values. They’ve been asked to condone these chants that they, for months, were able to try and contain, and they’ve been, they’ve been put in a place where they’re very disillusioned.

And I don’t really think it has to do with the Jewish community. There are, I mean, complications about sort of how, how do you include people who, who participate in these protests? I think their voices should be heard more among Jews on campus, certainly. But I, I think if, even if you talk to, to these students, um, who are involved in the protests or were involved in the protests, uh, more likely, and now are no longer involved in the protests because of this rhetoric.

I think they would, I think they would probably agree with me on that.

[00:12:58] Jeremi: So why do you think, Zachary, that so many fellow students of yours at Yale and elsewhere, and perhaps a similar story can be told on many, many campuses, perhaps including University of Texas, why have all of these, so many, Um, fellow students all of a sudden become, as you’ve described it, so doctrinaire in their views of Palestine and Israel.

Most of these students months ago knew very little about these issues. In fact, many of them still know very little about these issues. So, so where has this arisen? Most of them are not Palestinian. Most of them are not from the Middle East. What, what, what drives this? I think,

[00:13:36] Zachary: I think what drives it is, I think that there’s a sort of very core group of, I’d like to think, only 10 or 15 people on campus who are, like, genuinely anti Semitic in the sense that they, like, genuinely, like, celebrated October 7th.

There was a big protest in New Haven, uh, right by campus, right after the attacks on October 7th, that celebrated them as this, uh, amazing act of liberation before Israel had even responded in any significant way. Um, that I think there’s, I like to think there’s only 10 to 15 people in that group. And they, I think, are sort of genuinely ignorant and hateful.

And then there’s a whole bunch of people who are attracted to the ethos of the protest movement and are enamored with these simple solutions who are willing to condone that. Um, I don’t think every protester is anti Semitic. I don’t think even the vast majority of them are, but they’re willing to buy into an ideological framework, which is or which condones that kind of rhetoric.

Uh, and condones a lot of the violence against Jews, and that’s very problematic. I also do think there’s a, sort of, this false idea that as long as one has Jewish friends, or as long as one has a few token Jews who agree with you, then you’re fine, right? Then you can hate the other Jews as much as you want.

Um, and there’s this sort of, Um, failure to recognize the difference between what I like to call like sort of being anti Zionist and being anti Zionists in the sense that like one can as a Jew or as a non Jew have serious critiques of Zionism as a political ideology, um, and as a sort of framework of Jewish sovereignty that, you know, is a modern creation and, and has like genuine issues and, and, and problems.

And I would echo a lot of those critiques depending on the day. But, um, there’s also a serious issue with anti Zionists, uh, with, sorry, with anti Zionist rhetoric or rhetoric that’s anti Zionists in the sense that sort of a blind hatred of all Zionists, uh, and a blind hatred, um, of anyone who professes any support.

for the State of Israel, or any support for the State of Israel’s right to defend itself, or any concern about October 7th. Um, we’ve seen this less directly on campus here, but from what I’ve heard at Columbia, it’s been pretty explicit, sort of, the sense that, like, whenever visibly Jewish students, not visibly, you know, Israeli, but visibly Jewish students show up, um, They’ll shout like, Zionists have infiltrated the encampment, or, and you know, it gets to this point where they’re justifying killing Zionists, or killing Israelis, and they’re justifying killing them for just being Zionists, or just being Israelis, and they think that that’s, there’s no overlap between that and antisemitism, but there is.

And I, I think that that’s a very real issue, and I think in some ways it’s a failure of education. Because again, I don’t think the majority of people who fall into that trap are necessarily purely hateful, but I think there’s a degree of ignorance about the place of Zionism in the Jewish tradition, the place of Uh, of Israel in Jewish, in modern Jewish history, uh, and that failure to understand that failure to learn and the failure to even want to learn about these issues allows them to very easily fall into what I think is an anti, sort of anti Semitism that makes Jewish life on campus very difficult.

[00:17:06] Jeremi: Um, And, and, and why do you think they are focusing on the university as an evil actor? Why do they occupy a university, I mean, Yale, University of Texas at Austin, any of our universities, they don’t make U. S. foreign policy. Um, so, so why the targeting of the university?

[00:17:25] Zachary: It’s a very good question. Um, I, I don’t think there’s really a good answer.

I mean, I think, for example, we don’t even know that Yale really invests in weapon manufacturers to any significant degree. There’s some evidence, the only evidence they have, because not all of it’s disclosed, as is the case with most, you know, investment, uh, firms or, uh, family investments. Um, they have some index funds that they hold that hold a few shares of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and that’s it.

The reality is that universities are not responsible for these decisions that are being made in any degree And to me, as one of my friends likes to say, it’s very solipsistic, this idea that, like, if they can just get Yale, or if they can just get UT to, you know, not hold index funds that hold Lockheed Martin, then, you know, the problem will be solved.

And I think it shows a certain degree of selfishness, which is that, like, they feel guilty, they feel complicit. because they recognize how powerless we are in this situation and they see the horrors going on in Gaza. And their solution to their own feelings of guilt is not actually to do things that impact the lives of those in Gaza.

It’s not to donate to humanitarian work. It’s not to engage in humanitarian work. It’s not to, you know, even call their congressmen, right? It’s to like, it’s to Make themselves feel less guilty by telling everyone else how guilty and complicit they are, and in particular the institution that they directly benefit from.

And to me, that’s, that’s a pretty terrible calculus, and I think it shows the sort of cravenness of the protests. I, I also think that, In a lot of places, and I actually don’t know as well as you do, what happened at UT, the universities have reacted really badly to this as well. I mean, the violence at UT seems pretty unconscionable, and I think most Jews, at least in the community here, like, think that, are able to recognize that horror, but I think it’s very different, and it doesn’t mean that the protesters shouldn’t be arrested.

I mean, here there’s been two sort of rounds of arrests, uh, only one really major one, And in both cases, it seems pretty justified. They gave the real, the university here offered to let the protesters talk with the trustees who make decisions about investment, which is what one of their demands from the very beginning.

And they refused, they categorically refused to negotiate Or they categorically refused to take this deal, which was the biggest concession that one could possibly imagine extracting from a university in this regard. They refused to take that deal and instead chose to continue protesting, and so they were removed.

I mean, they can’t block campus forever. That, to me, seems very reasonable. The other thing that, here, which really struck me was that the protest began almost exactly at the same time. As we have our sort of admit week here when young students come and in particular, it’s very important for Jewish students and for observant Jewish students to get a sense of like Jewish life on campus and whether it’s, you know, a good community for them.

And I was, as a first year attended those events last year and they were packed this year with the protests going on right near where our Jewish. Center is, there’s almost no one there. And to me, it’s hard for me to imagine this wasn’t to some degree intentional. And I think that it really had an impact on recruitment of, of Jewish students.

And I, I, I, sorry, I think I may have lost the question in this answer, but my point is just, I think there’s, there’s a lot of a real impact there, and that even when universities respond poorly, it doesn’t take away from the fact that these protests are having, causing real harm. Right, right, right. In the communities that are there.

[00:21:01] Jeremi: I think a lot of what you said is certainly what I’ve heard from, uh, in less eloquent terms, uh, from, uh, university administrators, uh, and it’s, first of all, a very tough job to be Uh, running a university now and what university administrators have been saying in places like University of Texas at Austin is, um, they believe in free speech, but, um, these protest activities are infringing on just as you described with, uh, at midweek bulldog days at Yale that they’re infringing at UT and elsewhere.

On the basic functioning of the university. And so as a consequence, because they violate the rules, most universities do not allow you just to camp at camp out wherever you want. And because, um, they’re interfering, uh, with university classes, with exams, with student life, uh, at Harvard yard. I think some of the students are right near the residences.

here as

[00:22:00] Zachary: well. The ones who were removed yesterday were right near residences during finals week.

[00:22:04] Jeremi: Right. So the argument has been made by administrators that that justifies removing them. And in the case of the University of Texas, this has involved at least two instances where armies of police were brought onto campus in midday, armies of police from the state and from the city, as well as the campus police.

And police who quite violently surged into what were relatively small crowds of protesters and physically remove them, arrested them, took them away in paddy wagons. Um, at one of these, um, instances, um, the temperature was actually quite low. Hi, when the police surrounded the student encampment, it raised the temperature significantly.

And there were there was at least one student who had a major health incident as a consequence of of of of the process of being arrested. And in each instance, the police violence, um, Really radicalized other students, um, who were not really paying attention, and perhaps other faculty who were not paying attention.

And, uh, in my case, uh, certainly led me to be quite concerned about the health and welfare of our students. Um, many of whom were the initial protesters, but many more of whom, We’re drawn to the event because the police were there and we’re now shouting at the police to depart off our campus was often what was what was said to me that seemed even in light of everything you describe about various pathologies within the protest Zachary, to me, that seemed and still seems a disproportionate response, a dangerous response and an ineffective response because it makes things worse.

You can clear the space for a day, but if you create more. angry, radicalized students, you have a bigger problem. It’s the same problem we have. Terrorism. Yeah. So, so I, I, so how do you respond to that?

[00:24:05] Zachary: Well, my sense is that the university barely allowed the students to, you know, say anything that there was a sort of assumption that the protests would fall into these pathologies and no real sort of chance for them to express what they actually believed, and this particular protest of these particular people.

Whereas here at Yale, they had a few hours, a few days in, in some cases, where they were allowed to, you know, have their say, but they can’t throw a sort of hissy fit for, you know, days and days and days when people on campus are trying to study and go about the sort of ordinary business of the university.

And those students are supposed to be doing the same as well. And they were here, they were arrested and, you know, Maybe they can be described in similar ways if one chooses. They were, you know, physically removed from the premises and taken away in, in, in shuttles to a very nearby holding facility where they were immediately released after being booked.

I mean, uh, it doesn’t seem to me like that’s really a disproportionate response. They had been there for three days. They were, uh, removed peacefully. There was no police violence. They just arrested them and, and led them away from the place that they were not supposed to be. And my guess is the university will drop charges as UT has already dropped charges against the first group of protesters that was arrested.

[00:25:26] Jeremi: Well, just to clarify, the, uh, district attorney, uh, did not actually charge them, said that for the first group, those who were arrested on the first Day. The district attorney determined that there was not probable cause to charge them. The second group that was arrested on the second day, which is the Monday, April 29th.

As we record this, I don’t think we know yet if they’re being charged or how many are being charged.

[00:25:50] Zachary: Yes, yeah, but my point is that I think that the the actual sort of the idea that the protesters are somehow At UT I think it’s a different story. I think there is clear evidence of police brutality But at Yale and at Columbia and a lot of these other campuses the idea that that sort of protesters are somehow endangered or are being handle or are being treated in unsafe or inhumane ways.

It’s not what I’ve seen. And my impression has been that the university has sort of used here, and I think the opposite is the case in UT, and that’s a serious problem. But here the university has used arrests as the last resort, right? Students can’t. camp on campus forever, and they can’t just take over large parts of campus.

If I put a tent on cross campus tomorrow, I would be arrested if I refused to move. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s not a, it’s not like they are breaking, like, subtle, like, tiny laws that have been on the books since, like, the 1700s. Like, there are actually real ordinary laws that govern student life, um, and that we all sort of agree to.

Um, and they know they’re doing this, and they, they, they know they’re going to get arrested. They want to get arrested. They’re arrested. But they’re removed from the place where they’re causing harm and where they’re breaking the rules. And to me that doesn’t seem like a disproportionate response. I guess my point is just, I think what’s happening at UT is terrible.

I think it’s clear evidence of a lot of the pathologies within the state police in particular. I don’t think it’s representative of the police. the responses, uh, at least certainly not here at Yale, but the responses nationwide to student protests. And I don’t think it makes the sort of risk, the police response to student protests and student occupations any less important.

Invalid. It just makes this particular police response invalid.

[00:27:36] Jeremi: That’s fair. And there certainly is a, um, a different dynamic on different campuses. What do you think is the appropriate way to respond? And how, if at all, Zachary, is it possible to create dialogue? Even the most appropriate response is not the ideal circumstance.

We want students to have differences of opinion. We want them to express them. I think we all agree on that and we want them to express them in a way that is passionate, but respectful and doesn’t lead to the kind of polarization that you’re describing.

[00:28:10] Zachary: Yeah, I think that what they did this morning here at Yale is a good example.

The police surrounded the encampment. Blocked it off and said that if the protesters didn’t leave in 30 minutes, they would be arrested and every single protester left And no one was arrested. I mean obviously that’s not gonna happen in every case The protesters might not refuse to leave they also threatened them with immediate suspension if they didn’t but everyone left Personally, I think that arresting should be the last resort I think academic penalties maybe should come first.

Academic penalties can actually be more permanent than arrest in the sense that if one is suspended or expelled or kicked off of campus, that can, you know, that’s irreversible. Whereas if the university drops charges and only uses the arrest to sort of remove the person from the circumstances in which they’re causing harm or breaking the rules, it doesn’t seem to me that it has a sort of very much, very, a sort of long afterlife in for the student.

Um, and, In that sense, I think The police can be involved in an appropriate response. Um, I also think one key aspect here was that the university did agree to talk to them. And they agreed to have the people in charge of investments talk to them. But the thing is, they didn’t want talk. They wanted a sort of immediate agreement with them, a sort of ideological conformity.

They wanted them to release every single investment the university holds and make that public, which is obviously never going to happen, um, here or for any private company, any university, any. family that invests, right? Um, and I think that has to be a part of it too. I think the university has to show that they want to have a conversation.

They have to give the protesters a chance to take that option. I think most of them won’t, but if they don’t, then at least the university will have tried to create space for dialogue. Um, and my sense is that the university here has done a really good job defending free speech. They, they talked, they sent an email out yesterday about how terrible it was that these protesters were preventing.

free speech on the quad by blocking it off and insisting that they’ll agree with it. And that I think is the appropriate response. As to how you can foster dialogue, it’s a really hard question, because we try, we try in the Jewish community really hard. I mean, we go and we try to have conversations with these people, um, many of whom are our friends, but I think there’s a sort of inherent judgment, condemnation, um, that comes from, that is being directed towards Jewish students or Jewish students who support Israel’s right to defend itself.

Um, and I think there’s also a lot of assumptions being made about Jewish students on campus that make it really hard to have those conversations. For example, I was told, I was not here, but I was told that relations between Muslim student groups and Jewish students groups on campus used to be. very positive.

The imam used to come and eat at the kosher dining hall regularly, but he, since October 7th, everything has fallen apart, and he has not been seen in the kosher dining hall since. Have you invited him? I think we have. I personally have not. I don’t know him personally, but my sense is that there, and I’ve heard some concrete examples of how the Jewish community has tried to reach out.

to our counterparts in the Muslim community, and how those, uh, Jewish political activists have tried to reach out to non Jewish political activists, or to pro Palestinian activists, and there has been a sort of unwillingness to discuss unless one sort of begins by agreeing with them, or begins by denouncing Israel, or begins by denouncing one’s Judaism.

And that, that to me is sort of, one of the real issues with these protests. And to that extent, I don’t know if there’s an immediate solution. I, I think, honestly, the fact that the semester’s almost over might be the answer. I think at some point we just need a cooling off and we need a We need a chance for students to see their peers, not as Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli or pro Palestinian or pro Israeli, but as just their friends again, and their peers, for those real conversations to happen again.

Um, and I also think we need humility. We need We need people to be willing to have conversations where they admit that they could be wrong, or where they hear another side that maybe they disagree with, or they find offensive. And, and I think that humility and time will make this healing possible. But I think those, these protests are the opposite of both of those.

They’re trying to force a rash decision, and they’re trying to Insist on being right and refusing to allow any sort of dissent.

[00:32:58] Jeremi: Will it help if there is, um, a pause or some type of evidence of progress in moving away from what has been an escalatory ladder in the Middle East and conflict between Israel and, um, Hamas and various other entities in Iran?

Will, will, will some progress toward peace in the Middle East, even if it’s minimal progress, will that help?

[00:33:23] Zachary: I would like to hope so. I’m not a hundred percent confident, but I would like to hope so. Um, I think certainly, uh, I mean, my fear is that, and I think it’s evident in some of the chants and the posters that one sees, is that the protesters take issue not with the current Israeli war or the current Israeli government, but with the very existence of Israel and of Israelis.

And I think it’s very hard to see how that goes away with a temporary ceasefire as seems to be very possible. Right now. Um, and it seems hard for me to imagine these protesters who have very few qualms about never discussing the hostages or ripping down posters of hostages. It’s very hard to imagine them celebrating a ceasefire resolution, which results in the release of hostages and in Hamas laying down arms.

Um, I do think that in the long run, it could have a very serious impact because it could make it a lot easier to discuss where I think we do have a lot of common ground, which is, what do we want to happen when the war is over? And I think most students, I hope, I hope, I hope, maybe not those protesting, but most students, there’s certainly, I think the university are in favor of a two state solution and how we build those bridges here.

can be a model or can reflect how we build those bridges there. And I hope that in the next school year, people are more willing to do that work and more willing to listen to and empathize with people who disagree with them.

[00:35:02] Jeremi: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Zachary, I want to praise you and your colleagues, some of whom are Jewish, some of whom are not Jewish.

And I want to praise my students, uh, because I take inspiration from so many of you for doing just what you have. talked about and what you have described, which is your effort to reach out, your effort to understand. No one is unbiased. No one is without a preference of one kind or another. Uh, but you have made a valiant effort, as have many of your colleagues, as have many of my students, to understand both sides, uh, not to think that they’re equal.

You don’t, but to understand them and to try to build bridges, to try to create dialogue and understanding. You don’t have to think the person sitting across from you is correct to believe they’re a human being, even in their incorrect behavior and, and seek to, to, to connect with them. And we would ask those on the other side to, to view us whoever we are that way too.

And, uh, these discussions can be passionate. Um, they can sometimes be uncomfortable as you’ve described, but they’re absolutely essential. Okay. Um, and we have to move beyond the beginning of a conversation where things are said that people are not comfortable with to a deeper dialogue that allows us to see and understand each other and build connections.

It’s the most basic thing, it’s the hardest thing to do, and you have described that so well, Zachary, for all of us. You’ve instructed us in that, and I really, um, praise you for that. I think, uh, we don’t have a, a solution in our conclusion to today’s episode. We rarely do. We often have some sort of question and answer that leads us with an agenda of things to do.

I think you’ve already described the best and only agenda, which is to try to reach out and talk to people with different perspectives, to move beyond the initial discomfort, to put away our phones and to actually have a longer, deeper conversation. Um, and you’ve tried that. It’s hard, but I assume

[00:36:55] Zachary: you’re

[00:36:55] Jeremi: going to keep trying.

[00:36:55] Zachary: Yes?

[00:36:56] Jeremi: Yes. Yes,

[00:36:57] Zachary: yes, and it’s not just putting away your phones. I think to some level, I think it has to also be putting away your signs and your placards and your tents and your bullhorns. I agree.

[00:37:08] Jeremi: So Zachary, I think the best way we can close is to do the unprecedented, but I think it’s necessary today.

Your poem at the start was so moving and encapsulates everything we talked about and everything you and so many of my students have been trying to do. Uh, so many things that Jews and Palestinians and others really care about that. We all care about that are essential for our democracy. Uh, so why don’t we, uh, just close with, um, your poem?

Uh, and I’m not going to say anything after that. I don’t want to take away from the attention on your poem. So I want to thank our listeners right now. I want to encourage all of our listeners to go out there as I try every day. And first of all, to examine yourself, Uh, examine your own biases and to try to, uh, reach out to other people and, and build bridges rather than encourage more division, uh, with fellow students and faculty and others.

We can all improve. I can certainly improve in that. All of us can, can improve. Um, so Zachary, why don’t you just close us out with your poem one more time.

[00:38:10] Zachary: I spoke with you yesterday as we crossed your dark encampment. You did not want us there. You did not ask us why. You did not stop to think we wanted just to speak to someone after months of chants and bloody signs.

We sat on the bench across the walk, from where your tents said you were free. You told us this freedom wasn’t for us, that you weren’t there for conversation, you were there for confrontation. But we told you how it felt to be screamed at and looked upon like beasts, to be told our lives don’t matter.

And you said how it feels so much the same, how you’re in pain and you are hurting just the same. And we said we understood, and we did. And you said you understood. And maybe you did.

 

[00:39:07] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This Is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

See you next time.