How SUNY New Paltz Commemorated the Kent State

Letter to the Editor: How SUNY New Paltz Commemorated the Kent State Massacre

Like many, I am absolutely appalled that, on the eve of the anniversary of the Kent State massacre, Darrell Wheeler, President of SUNY New Paltz, called in, at great waste of tax dollars, State and Town police and the County Sheriff’s office, who then committed felonies against students peacefully assembled to protest college investment in the genocidal regime of Israel. Tents had been removed, and students were quietly sitting on a quad on their own campus, which they and their families have paid for them to attend.

This corruption, of police committing crimes, is untenable. I hope that these students who were the targets of these police crimes will press criminal charges and also sue the pants off every official who was involved in that travesty. I’m also greatly troubled by Mayor Tim Rogers making clear to WAMC news that members of SUNY New Paltz get to have academic freedom solely restricted to mouthing the half-baked disinformation that Mayor Rogers evidently has in his head about US foreign policy and world affairs.

All this indicates how terribly mistaken voters are when they vote Dem/WF  thinking that such candidates will support citizens’ unalienable rights. Nope, Dem office-holders, be they Rogers or Biden, are fully capable of gaslighting and using/excusing physical violence, to deny human rights and, being insidious, are often more effective than their GOP counterparts in so doing. Citizens who care about human and planet rights would be wise to ditch such politicians.

Barbara Kidney

Students and community members who took a stand last night

 Dear friends,

Last night peaceful, non-violent SUNY New Paltz students were brutally set upon and violently assaulted by the NY State Police.  This attack by the troopers  began around 11pm and was led by a snarling, ferocious German Shepherd who was  lunging towards students while the trooper handler tried to hold him back. There were at least three drones hovering above and a police helicopter shining a spotlight on the assembled students and community members.  A phalanx of police  carrying riot clubs approached the students who were sitting peacefully on the ground  in a large circle.  

As the German Shepherd barked and snarled next to the demonstrators, the police attacked the students and began brutally ripping them from the circle and dragging them to the side where two or three officers would violently hold them down and cuff them.  (will try to  send video seperately)  It was a nightmare!  There were screams and shouts as students were assaulted.  While the circle was being assaulted the police had formed a line across Parker Quad and would not permit anyone to pass (including students who lived in the dorm next to the Quad).  

Throughout this encampment the students have been peaceful and non-violent and actually complied with the  college’s one demand which was to take down the tents.  I have been involved in protests like this  for over fifty years and have never witnessed the kind of enthusiasm and intensity displayed by   the police when  attacking and brutalizing the students.  It was horrifying.  For days the students were so optimistic and committed to their demands for divestment and accountability by the college.  Their peaceful encampment and demands were all focused on ending the occupation and genocide being committed by Israel on Palestine.  

Witnessing the attack of innocent students by  militarized, state sponsored thugs draws clear parallels with the encampment known as Gaza and the West Bank - where Palestinians for seventy-five years have been subjected to violent militarized attacks sponsored by the Zionist State of Israel and paid for with your tax dollars.   My prayers go out to those courageous students and community members who took a stand last night and I pray that their injuries are not permanent.  I am including numbers and emails of SUNY New Paltz administrators.   Please call and write them.  Also consider joining New Paltz Women In Black tomorrow from 12:30-1:30 in front of the Elting Library in New Paltz.  

with love,

Eli

I am an alumnus of NYU

Dear President:

I am an alumnus of NYU (Masters of Public Health 1984). I am appalled at the decision to arrest students who are peacefully protesting the mass killing in Gaza and the West Bank.

There is a genocide taking place in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing and murder is taking place in the West Bank. In Gaza, over 34,000 people (mostly women and children) have been killed, and over 8,000 are missing--likely buried under rubble. Almost 80,000 people--again, mostly women and children--have been wounded. Bombs and weapons paid for by US taxpayers and tuition money from your students are facilitating this genocide.

As a Jew whose relatives were murdered in the holocaust I cannot stand by while genocide is committed. Students who cannot be silent should be commended, not arrested.

As an alumnus subject to fundraising calls from NYU, I demand an answer to the following questions:

1. How much money does NYU invest in Israel?

2. How much money does NYU invest in arms manufacturers whose weapons go to Israel?

3. Why is NYU Tel Aviv allowed to continue while it uses racial criteria for attendees (no Palestinians from Gaza and elsewhere in the Arab world)?

Sincerely,

Marcy London

I happen to be a Jew and a veteran and I have traveled to the West Bank

As far as Columbia student occupations and others like it around the country, what Biden said below and what you repeat in your CNN’s 5 Things  newsletter is abject bullshit. I happen to be a Jew and a veteran and I have traveled to the West Bank. I have seen the brutal apartheid and occupation personally. What  is going on in Gaza is genocide and there is no excuse for it or denial. CNN is part of the problem, not the students! The Zionist rabbi you  quote is betraying all that is decent in Judaism. All this blown-up hype about antisemitism is to cover up and obscure the crime of occupation and genocide that Biden and Israel, with the support of unfortunately a large percentage of their population are committing. CNN is aiding and abetting that crime. The students, many of who are Jewish have awakened and seen through the lies and are calling for an end to the slaughter! They are not anti-semitic. And neither am I. I well know that what I say will not change the corporate money addicted minds at CNN. As I said, CNN is part of the problem and we know that. Just want you to know that many see through the bullshit and that eventually the truth will assert itself. Then CNN and a system that is fueled by and perpetrates itself by genocide, war and violence will collapse, as it should.

Tarak Kauff

Whose future careers are being threatened, whose relatives are being murdered

What strikes me about these cries of anti-semitism, and the way campuses, and governments (US, State, and Local) are dutifully investigating this "phenomenon", (with an eye to banning speech and activity) is the power imbalance. The imbalance in financial clout and political power to influence these organs. I am Jewish, so I am especially anguished that my name is being used for these campaigns.

Jews are one of the the most affluent ethnic groups in the US. Along with earnings and wealth greater than the average American, Jews represent 35% or more of billionaires in the US. Pro-Israel Jewish organizations such as ADL, AIPAC, Hillel, and others, have enormous financial resources at their fingertips. Jewish donors to universities do not hesitate to wield the power of the purse.

And, yet, what I'm seeing and hearing is Jews describing themselves as if they are a powerless besieged minority, who are being oppressed by Black and Brown and Palestinian and Muslim students. 

This is so far from reality that it astonishes those of us who can see clearly.

At UC Berkeley, a Jewish Law Professor publishes an Op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying "don't hire my students". Don't hire students who belong to SJP. Many law firms link the article (or cut and paste it in whole or part) on their websites.

The Dean of Berkeley law defends the Professor and pens his own paean to the terrible anti-semitism at UC Berkeley, although all the examples he gives are evidence of anti-zionism. At a UC funded dinner at his home, his wife wraps her arm around the neck of a student trying to give a speech about Ramadan and Palestine, while the Dean shouts at her to get out. He threatens the students who walk out with her, saying he'll report them to the State Bar. The next day, in interviews, he paints himself as the victim of the terrible anti-semitism at this dinner, while threatening to report to the state bar any student who again tries to speak up.

Who holds the power? What will happen to law students reported to the State Bar? Which students will easily get employment after graduating from UC Berkeley Law? Is it Jewish students who will have trouble seeking employment, or hijab wearing women with Arabic names, and Black and Brown students?

And so, when these organizations decide that anti-Israel sentiment is equivalent to anti-semitism, money talks.
 

There are no multi-million dollar organizations crying out for investigations of Islamophobia and anti-Palesinianism on campus. These students do not have powerful, well funded organizations fighting for them. They don't have multi-million dollar donors threatening to withdraw donations unless the universities crack down on discrimination. These are the students whose voices are being silenced, whose future careers are being threatened, whose relatives are being murdered.

Marcy

Will it burst one day, exposing all the myriad crimes

Antisemitism is the marvel of the twenty first century. It can cover up 75 years of racist apartheid. It can hide thousands of demolished homes in the West Bank. It can disguise the arrest and mistreatment of Palestinian children. And now, antisemitism is being asked to do the inconceivable, the obscuring of the genocide in Gaza and the slaughter of 12,000 children. And it is not just the slaughter by bombs and missiles. Israel is purposefully starving two million Palestinians to death. Quick, grab that magic veil and stretch it over Israel's crimes against humanity before the whole world can see!

Isn't there any consideration of how this has cheapened and degraded the charge itself? Is anyone going to believe genuine antisemitism when it has so obviously been used as a get out of jail card for all manner of crimes and criminal acts?  

On campuses, the charge is being used to punish and throw student groups off campus. Normally, the often well deserved criticism of Israel would be part of freedom of speech on campus. Now it is something else: antisemitism. It's even being used to ruin student careers, by charging human rights activists with hating Jews because they criticize Israel.

Even college presidents are made to grovel as they give up all pretense of academic freedom. Just how elastic can the charge of antisemitism be? Will it burst one day, exposing all the myriad crimes of the pariah state, as well as the lies of its well paid apologists?

Fred Nagel

Not really a war

The war goes on. Not really a war, of course. This is a widely admitted genocide, and its targets have been tens of thousands of civilians, almost half of them children.

The genocide has links to the one country still sending weapons and financial aid to Israel, our very own land of the free, home of the brave. The US is the accomplice to the worst slaughter of the twenty first century.

We can talk about the Israel Lobby, as well as the Christian Zionists, two groups that put Old Testament ravings above their basic humanity. "Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

But the butchery in Gaza can't all be blamed on religious psychopaths. There is something disturbing about our two war parties. Congress and our main presidential candidates are stumbling over each other for more bloodshed. 13,000 children aren't enough. Who could their God be?

Maybe it is Allen Ginsberg's Molech, the God that destroys children though materialism and war. Molech in the twenty first century is wearing an IDF uniform as he shoots starving Palestinians. He is also Congressman Pat Ryan, whose "Top Contributor" for 2024 is AIPAC at $39,900, and "Top Industry" is Pro-Israel at $159,000 (data from OpenSecrets.org). He talks about ceasefires, but always votes to send more bombs and bullets to Israel.

And will this carnage we watch every night eventually be called the American Genocide? We know that it will.

Fred Nagel