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SvennoJ on 11 June 2024
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Pro-Palestine protesters clash with police outside Nova exhibit

Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with New York City police outside an exhibit in Manhattan commemorating the Nova music festival massacre.

Some 364 civilians were killed in an attack on the festival on October 7, as part of a wider Hamas-led assault on southern Israel that day.

In footage of the protest, demonstrators can be seen waving flairs and Palestinian flags, and can be heard chanting slogans including, “Long live the intifada” and “Resistance is justified where people are occupied”.

The massacre at the Nova Music Festival is a war crime, no way to justify it. This demonstration goes one step too far imo. Yes resistance is justified, and if it was an exhibit commemorating the attack on the military border outposts part of the assault, then you could say it was justified. Yet the spill over into the Nova Music Festival was horrific. It's also a question that Israel needs to answer, why hold a music festival next to a contested military border wall with clear intelligence Hamas was planning to breach the wall.

But I do get the sentiment. Who organized the exhibit in Manhattan along the ongoing genocide, knowing full well it would attract this kind of attention. It feels very much like a "Remember the 7th of October" kind of provocation. Too soon, wrong place, wrong time.

I'm sure Fox will get a kick out of this to paint pro Palestinian protesters as Hamas supporters.


California university academics end Gaza protest strike under court order

Thousands of academic workers at the University of California (UC) have ended their strike over the university’s response to pro-Palestine protesters and returned to work following a court order from a state judge.

United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 graduate students working as teaching assistants, researchers, tutors and other academic employees, started its strike on May 20 in Santa Cruz.

The union alleged that the free speech rights of its members were violated during police and university crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests on six UC campuses last month.

But on Friday, an Orange County Superior Court judge granted a temporary restraining order sought by the university asserting that the walkout was in violation of a no-strike clause in the union’s contract as it stemmed from non-labour issues.

The judge also ruled that the walkout was causing “damage to students’ education” ahead of their final exams. Following the decision, United Auto Workers Local 4811 has said that it is planning protests on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Angry scenes as Israeli parliament votes to move ahead with Orthodox conscription law

Israel’s parliament opted to move ahead with a controversial proposed conscription law for ultra-Orthodox Jewish people in a late-night vote on Monday.

The conscription bill is still required to pass further readings and committee hearings but if approved, it would see the gradual entry of some ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli military.

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis can currently claim the right to study in seminaries instead of serving in uniform for the standard three years. But as the war rages on in Gaza and Israeli troops serve on the northern border with Lebanon, many resent their fellow citizens being spared their share of the risk.

But if approved, the bill would also lower the current age of exemption from mandatory service for ultra-Orthodox students from 26 to 21, and would only “very slowly” increase the rate of conscription, the Times of Israel reports.

Opposition leader Benny Gantz originally put forward the measure in 2022, but he now opposes it, saying it’s inadequate for meeting the Israel military’s personnel needs. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also broke ranks with his Likud party and voted against the bill.

There were angry scenes outside Israel’s parliament amid voting on the bill, as families of some of the captives still held in Gaza protested outside the Knesset demanding more be done to get them home.


Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men protest after Israel’s Supreme Court convened to discuss petitions to change government policy that grants ultra-Orthodox Jews exemptions from military conscription on June 2

Parents of Israeli soldiers accuse gov’t of ‘betraying citizens’

Parents of hundreds of Israeli soldiers have penned an angry letter to Israel’s defence minister, complaining that a new conscription law does not do enough to force ultra-Orthodox Israelis, traditionally exempt from the military, to serve.

While the new law does end exemption on military conscription for some ultra-Orthodox Israelis, it also lowers the age of exemption for others, thus limiting how many in the community could be called up.

Frustrated parents of soldiers wrote to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, saying “it is unthinkable that such a law is passed at a time when the brave warriors are giving their lives on the other side”.

“The government is betraying its citizens, giving away the lives of our sons,” they wrote. “We inform our fighting sons that they must stop fighting right now, lay down their weapons and return home immediately.”