2 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

One does have to account for the fact that Israel is the largest single lobby in the United States, and a fortune is spent on promoting Israel's agenda. There's also a high degree of confusion and distortion when it comes to criticism of official Israeli policy, which is quite often labeled as being anti-semitic behavior, which is total BS. 

 

Granted protests that show support for Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty ridiculous, but we're likely not talking about the same thing here. 

Wait, what? I thought the largest single lobby world was the NRA? Do they not control every aspect of American politics? 

 

Harvard hates Jews because Israel has a lobby? that makes no sense. 

On 9/5/2025 at 8:35 AM, Yellowtail said:

You spelled chump wrong. 

 

 

Maybe he intended to call him "champ".

7 minutes ago, In Full Agreement said:

 

 

Maybe he intended to call him "champ".

Or perhaps he meant "chimp" 

 

Or maybe he's a "champ for making a chimp out of a chump". 

On 9/4/2025 at 2:33 PM, BLMFem said:

Yes, we're doing our own research, thank you!

Ha! And the average American, reading at the 7th_8th grade level is fully capable of doing their own research.

 

On 9/4/2025 at 10:34 PM, spidermike007 said:

One does have to account for the fact that Israel is the largest single lobby in the United States, and a fortune is spent on promoting Israel's agenda.

 

I don't know what you consider the Israel lobby, i.e., whether you are including "informal" support by groups and individuals, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, or limiting it to formal groups which lobby Congress and other political entities.   I also don't know how you are measuring "largest single lobby,"  but by any metric that can be quantified through publicly available information, the Israel lobby is far from the largest. What is your source for stating "Israel is the largest single lobby in the United States?"

 

I hope you're not going to mention secret or hidden Jew-, oops, I mean Zionist-  conspiracies controlling or influencing Congress.  That would be taking a dive into the murky depths of traditional antisemitism.  Supporters of Israel, just like any other group in the U.S., are allowed to lobby members of Congress and the executive branch within the framework of applicable laws. There's nothing ominous or unjust about it.  Pro-Palestinian groups are free to do the same.

 

On 9/4/2025 at 10:34 PM, spidermike007 said:

There's also a high degree of confusion and distortion when it comes to criticism of official Israeli policy, which is quite often labeled as being anti-semitic behavior, which is total BS. 

 

The complaints by Jewish students at Harvard didn't concern criticism on campus of Israeli policy, but harassment of individuals.  Pro-Palestinian students, some of them from Palestine or other Arab countries, would stop Jewish students on  their way to class and ask whether they were Zionists and whether they supported  Israel.  If they answered in the affirmative, they were subjected to verbal abuse and sometimes threatened physically, alternately shunned and excluded from student-led clubs and groups.  The dormitory or apartment doors of students identified as Zionists were marked with the inverted red triangles Hamas uses for its targets.  There were numerous other incidents along these lines, including the disruption of some Jewish religious observances.

 

It was the failure of the administration to deal with this kind that fed Harvard's reputation for antisemitism. Two other incidents grabbed a lot of attention and magnified the perception of antisemitism.  In testimony before a Congressional committee, the president of Harvard refused to answer clearly a question about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated campus rules; and 33 student groups on Oct 7 in letter blamed Israel for the violence of the Palestinian attacks that day.

 

All this taken together put Harvard in a very bad light and resulted into the inquiry about antisemitism on campus.

 

On 9/4/2025 at 10:34 PM, spidermike007 said:

Granted protests that show support for Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty ridiculous, but we're likely not talking about the same thing here. 

 

They were individuals who waved Hezbollah flags and wore Hamas headbands on campus, but they weren't a significant factor.