Why This and Not That: The Selectivity of Protesting Injustice
American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the second year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.
May 15, 2024
I spent the first half of 2023 in Tbilisi, the Capital of the Republic of Georgia. Georgia was one of the 15 Republics that were part of the former Soviet Union and is located on Russia’s southern border. Often, I walked past the Ukrainian Embassy which is located diagonally across from the Russian Embassy. On the metal bars out front of the Ukrainian Embassy were pictures of children, some of whom had been killed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late 2022, others, I was told, were pictures of children who were taken to Russia. I met a woman who told me that one of the children taken to Russia was a member of her family—she was not the child’s mother but a relative. She expressed her anguish in pleading with the Ukrainian Embassy to help in the return of the child.
Protests on some university campuses against Israel attempting to eliminate Hamas from Gaza are in reaction to initial numbers of 12,300 children killed, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) which developed these numbers between October 2023 and February of this year. Recently while the overall number of 35,000 dead Gazans have been kept, the number of dead children has been reduced to 7,797. I have to wonder whether revisions in the number of dead children might lead to more opposition to Israeli actions in Gaza. The United Nations says that the revised numbers come from changing which organization in Gaza they rely upon to help them determine numbers. A sudden drop and a significant one at that, might highlight the children killed and that might become more of a problem for Israel as more military action against eliminating Hamas continues.
I think there are better ways to show opposition to Israeli actions: Silent marches are one. The purpose of opposing how Israel is conducting operations to eliminate Hamas in Gaza should be done in ways to not alienate a public that you want to support what you are doing: Concerns about the killing of civilians—and children in particular on a massive scale. I have seen billboards in Kansas City that raise awareness of the number of civilians killed as Israel attempts to wipe out Hamas. Student protesters who behave in ridiculous, childish, and repulsive ways need to be criticized, listening to a Missouri Republican state legislator, however, on a talk radio show relate the protests to a crisis of Western civilization is simply exploitation and nonsense. This foolish gentleman simply saw an opportunity to play to the base. One of my articles (“Is It Possible to Support Something Better for Palestinians and Support the Elimination of Hamas”), as Israel was beginning its attack on Hamas positions in Gaza, addressed the dilemma of what to support exactly—and what to oppose.
There is a complicated situation within the protests: Does support for Palestinians mean support for Hamas? Among some of the protesters are groups such as the Jewish Voice for Peace. Organizers have criticized any violence associated with the protests, but it is difficult to believe they are heard above the visuals of what is seen on television. Students for Justice in Palestine is being pegged as a major driver of organizing protests on university campuses. A 2016 report issued by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University saw antisemitism associated with the organization. Part of the report stated, “one of the strongest predictors [of a chapter of this organization on a campus is] a hostile climate toward Israel and Jews.” Yet, one of the members of the national steering committee is Jewish. The report also states, “There are many schools where antisemitism and hostility to Israel are negligible.” I could find nothing in the report that indicated any reference to Hamas. One group of students at Harvard University issued a statement in January that blamed Israel for all of the violence. Their statement, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” received a great deal of publicity. Understandably, this set the tone for how to see all protests across the country. These students may be at Harvard, with the assumption that brains, wisdom, and maturity go with where they attend, but stupidity stepped forward and it has affected how to judge all protests. Furthermore, a lawsuit has been filed at a United States District Court in Virginia claiming a link between Hamas and Students for Justice in Palestine. As the lawsuit states this student organization is tied to American Muslims for Palestine which is “Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.” How this case proceeds might influence future student demonstrations.
This is a difficult situation. The notion, however, that any criticism of Israel automatically makes protesters antisemitic is nonsense. Sure, that is part of the way to attack politically—paint the entire opposition in the worst way possible. Republicans are doing their part to make campuses look like hotbeds of antisemitism. This is political theater, and they are using this unrest as an opportunity to reach voters. Reading of Jewish students who say they suddenly feel threatened or made to feel unwanted on their campuses is probably true for some, but I also believe some of that is hype to use antisemitism to attack these protests. Somehow this war will need to end. More killing will continue, and it is difficult to understand when it will stop. Vague Israeli government statements about their goal to continue until Hamas is eliminated is an understandable reaction to the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel that led to the killing of 1,200 Israelis, but with military action aimed at achieving that goal will come the killing of more children. Aaron David Miller, a Mideast authority at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “It’s a strategic Cul de sac with no way out right now.” Expect more dead children. Am I supposed to believe that Jewish students who feel the rise of antisemitism are oblivious to the rising death toll in Gaza and somehow only care about antisemitism and nothing more: No more antisemitism and nothing else matters. I doubt that many Jewish students are that self-centered as to see issues in such a narrow-minded way.
But the more I see these protests, I wonder about another situation involving children in mass numbers.
Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Children’s Commissioner, stated in July 2023 that more than 700,000 children came (or were taken) to Russia. Lvova-Belova stated that many came with parents or relatives. In a report, she wrote:
In late summer - autumn 2022, due to the situation on the front line, parents from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv regions, [and] other territories voluntarily sent their children on vacation, to protect themselves from hostilities. They, together with accompanying persons, by proxy from their parents, were accepted by sanatoriums and organizations of recreation and health improvement in the Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory.
Her job is to make what the Russians are doing sound as humanitarian as possible. The expression, You Can put Lipstick on a Pig, But It’s Still a Pig, applies to her report.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague indicted both Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, and Lvova-Belova as war criminals because of the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. A lead investigator stated:
I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine.
A report released in February 2023 by the Yale School of Public Health, stated:
Yale [Humanitarian Research Lab] has collected information about at least 6,000 children from Ukraine ages four months to 17 years who have been held at camps and other facilities since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Arrivals to these facilities began in February 2022; the most recent transfers occurred in January 2023. The total number of children is not known and is likely significantly higher than 6,000.
Elsewhere in this Yale report, 14,700 children are cited as having been “deported” to Russia. The information for this statement within this report is footnoted as “Source CO0045 has been withheld due to protection concerns.” This indicates that someone with first-hand knowledge was the source of this number. The number 19,000 is now being used to address the number of children taken but as one report states, “the real number is believed to be much higher.”
A 15-year-old girl stated that “Uncle Yuri,” a Russian soldier took her and her sister and as she put it, “hundreds of thousands of children in Mariupol,” back to Russia soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. Mariupol is a city that came under heavy attack as the war began. Assuming her reference to “hundreds of thousands,” is off the mark, nevertheless, it indicates that she saw many children taken beginning as this war started.
An Associated Press report stated regarding the taking of children:
Russia claims that these children don’t have parents or guardians to look after them, or that they can’t be reached. But the AP found that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they weren’t wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda, and given them Russian families and citizenship.
A 15-year-old boy who was taken to Russia and returned to Ukraine described some of what happened to him. His mother arrived at the military camp where he was being held and he left with her. He described soldiers arriving at his school and they took him and his classmates away on minibuses. As he stated, “We were forced to wear a Russian uniform. It was light green camouflage.” Children who returned to Ukraine and were interviewed described being placed in camps. One child who was returned stated of these camps:
The main purpose is to erase our national identity by this ideological, political, cultural and sometimes even military reeducation. Russians tried to discourage us, and obviously they want us to lose our identity and obey to their narratives.
Added to the abduction of children are the children killed by this war. I looked at many pictures of children killed placed on the bars in front of the Ukrainian Embassy. Many of these pictures were of children with wings as if they were angels. A United Nations agency report addressed the increase in children killed as 40 percent higher in 2024 so far over the number killed in 2023. As a UNICEF regional director stated:
Every attack sets back recovery and rebuilding efforts, prolonging the deterioration in children’s quality of life. I am troubled to see that attacks across the country continue, destroying schools, health facilities, and residential buildings. Nowhere is safe for children.
The number of Ukrainian children killed is placed at approximately 2,000 by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) but how does that matter? Why has Gaza received the attention that humanitarian suffering in Ukraine has not received? In graduate school one question seemed to perpetually be raised regardless of the Politics class I was taking: When does something become political?
Republicans in Congress held up funding for the Ukraine War for months. In February, 22 Republicans joined Democrats in the Senate to push through military aid for Ukraine as well as Israel. Donald Trump was critical of this vote. Is it possible to show open contempt for the actions of Russia and their abduction and killing of children and still oppose United States military aid to support Ukraine?
Representative Mike Johnson (R, LA), Speaker of the House of Representatives, recently appeared at Columbia University and criticized the protests against Israeli actions in Gaza. He stated that Hamas backed the protests, even though there is no indication that that is true. Johnson stated:
[The protesters] deny that women and children were brutally raped and murdered, that infants were placed into ovens and cooked alive. The things that happened there are unspeakable and yet they’re out there waving flags for the very people who committed those atrocities. That is not who we are.
He saw an opportunity to use an event to make a highly questionable statement. He showed that he could use political theater with his presence at Columbia University. The Hamas attack of October 7th on Israel that left 1,200 dead and 240 hostages taken was horrendous, but “infants placed in ovens and cooked alive,” probably did not happen. But in his remarks where he states, “That is not who we are,” he demonstrated a selective reference to injustice during wartime: Hamas and its actions in Israel were to be condemned, Israeli actions in Gaza supported, but Russia and its actions in Ukraine can be approached carefully.
As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Johnson can be praised for pushing the House to support the $95 billion in military aid that is for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. In his statement supporting this aid package, he said, “History judges us for what we do.” A nice general statement, but nothing specific about condemning Russia and its abduction of children.
When your political party’s candidate for President is willing to let Ukraine come under Russian control as Donald Trump has indicated he would support, the actions of Russia during this war cannot receive too much scrutiny. Standing for what is morally right, runs into political expediency: Condemning Hamas is politically safe, Russian actions, on the other hand, are another matter entirely.
Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel might soon have something in common: Indictments by the International Criminal Court. There are indications that the court might issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and several members of his government, based on actions in Gaza. Leaders of Hamas might also have arrest warrants issued against them. Netanyahu has asked for help from the Biden Administration to help prevent the ICC from issuing warrants. The United States, Israel, and Russia do not recognize the ICC but if arrest warrants are issued, it could complicate the travel plans of any Israeli government officials listed in the indictments. Technically, the 124 countries that recognize the ICC are obligated to arrest anyone who enters their countries who is under indictment. European countries are among those 124 countries so how would international travel affect any Israeli government official listed in an indictment? An odd side effect of any indictments against Israeli officials is that it might bring attention to Putin’s indictment: Would a Netanyahu indictment raise awareness of Putin’s abduction of Ukrainian children? Who will support protests in the United States against Putin? Republicans, knowing the position of their party’s Presidential candidate, might think twice.
Notes
Aya Batraway, “Why the U.N. revised the numbers of women and children killed in Gaza,” NPR May 15, 2024): https://www.npr.org/2024/05/15/1251265727/un-gaza-death-toll-women-children
Alan Blinder, “Inside the Pro-Palestinian Group Protesting Across College Campuses,” New York Times (November 17, 2023): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/us/students-justice-palestine-campus-protests.html
Julian Borger, “ICC prosecutor to investigate possible war crimes in Ukraine,” The Guardian (February 28, 2022): https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/28/ukraine-russia-belarus-war-crimes-investigation-the-hague
“Children of Ukraine,” PBS Frontline (April 16, 2024): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/children-of-ukraine/transcript/
Matt Egan, “Harvard student groups issued an anti-Israel statement. CEOs want them blacklisted,” CNN Business (January 10, 2024): https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas-ceos-students/index.html
Sarah El Deeb, Anastasiia Shvets and Elizaveta Tilna, “How Moscow grabs Ukrainian and makes them Russian,” AP (March 17, 2023): https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6
Christian Oliver, “Mike Johnson Gives Impassioned Ukraine Speech as He Defies MAGA,” Newsweek (April 18, 2024): https://www.newsweek.com/mike-johnson-impassioned-ukraine-speech-defies-maga-1891569
Maya Parizer Adin Gess, Noach Newman, Natalie Sanandaji, Yoni Diller, David Bromberg, Lior Bar Or, Ariel Ein-Gal, and Hagar Almog v. AJP Educational Foundation, Inc a/k/a American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, Complaint for Damages and Jury Trial Demand, In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division (Filed May 1, 2024): https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24655997-amp-sjp-suit
“Nearly 2,000 children Killed in Ukraine War: UNICEF,” United Nations, UN News Global Perspective Human stories (May 13, 2024): https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149661
PBS NewsHour full episode (May 6, 2024): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/may-6-2024-pbs-newshour-full-episode
Russia’s Systematic Program For The Re-Education & Adoption of Ukraine’s Children, A Conflict Observatory Report, Yale School of Public Health, Humanitarian Research Lab (February 14, 2023): https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8/data
“Russian ombudsman Lvova-Belova: since the beginning of the war, more than 700 thousand Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia,” Current Time TV Channel (July 31, 2023): https://www.currenttime.tv/a/v-rossiyu-vyvezli-bolee-700-tysyach-ukrainskih-detey/32527102.html. This is a Russian channel.
Leonard Saxe, Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht, Michelle Shain, Theodore Sasson, Fern Chertok, Hotspots of Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Sentiment on US Campuses, Brandeis University, Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (October 2016): https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/outputs/9924088244301921
David Smith, “House speaker condemned for remarks on pro-Palestine student protests,” The Guardian (April 25, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/mike-johnson-columbia-gaza-protests
“”Staggering’ number of children killed in Gaza. Here’s what to know,” CNN (March 14, 2024): https:// edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-03-14-24/h_3645cd87d7f6618e2207c2728d17e1f7
“Ukrainian children, abducted by Russia and then returned, are speaking out,” NPR (February 5, 2024): https//www.npr.org/2024/02/05/1229117422/ukrainian-children-abducted-by-russia-and-then-returned-are-speaking-out
“Significant increase in number of children killed across Ukraine this year, as deadly attacks continue,” UNICEF for every child (April 26, 2024): https//www.unicef.org/press-releases/significant-increase-number-children-killed-across-ukraine-year-deadly-attacks
Rachel Faulkner White, Mallory Yu, Mary Louise Kelly, “What it means if the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu,” NPR (April 29, 2024): https://www.npr.org/2024/04/29/1247936335/what-it-means-if-the-international-criminal-court-issues-arrest-warrant-for-neta
“What is behind US college protests over Israel-Gaza War?” Reuters (April 25, 2024): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-behind-pro-palestinian-protests-us-universities-2024-04-23/
Lauren Wolfe, “The Children Russia Kidnapped,” The Atlantic (July 1, 2023): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/07/russia-kidnapping-abducting-ukrainian-children/674535/