Mysterious Disappearance

The ignorance or, more likely, dishonesty of the far left on the matter of the Israel-Hamas war rivals the ignorance or dishonesty that the right exhibits on so many issues.

Sorry, Emma V, but Elissa Slotkin is clearly, obviously, and demonstrably correct.

It's hard to pick the most satisfying moment of this interview, but this part where Slotkin tries, and fails, to insinuate that the pro-Palestine protestors are soft on Trump might take the cake. pic.twitter.com/3n3kZvjHr0

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) July 30, 2025

Senator Slotkin is seen stating "I just think it's interesting, right, that there was a ton of protests when Democrats were in charge." Co-host Krystal Ball responds "there was a protest in Manhattan yesterday."

Imagine! A protest in New York City! The heartland has spoken!

To be fair, the interchange appears to have taken place on July 29 and there was a protest in Manhattan on July 28, in front of a building at 26 Federal Plaza, at which many ICE detainees (and others) are held. The previous day, eight rabbis were arrested in NYC while protesting restriction of aid to Gazans.  By contrast, this from May 2, 2024:

An organization which tracks USA political protest activity reported on 5/30/24 that since October 7, 2023, there had been encampments on more than 130 campuses.  Nonetheless, the 1639 pro-Palestinian encampment days accounted for only 44% of the 3704 total days of protest activities on 625 campuses overall.  Although particularly prevalent on the coasts, there were protests throughout the USA, and a lot of them, as the Michigan senator recognizes.

The pro-Palestinian protestors- wherever they are now- are soft on Trump, for whatever reason(s).  Continuing the theme of useful idiocy on the far left, there Peter Daou:

I'm old enough to remember when students protesting the Gaza genocide were smeared, expelled, arrested, and brutalized under the Biden-Harris administration. In just about every way, Trump has continued Biden's policy on Israel. Dems laid the groundwork for 14+ months. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/uJXmTCuvN5

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) July 28, 2025

The "Biden-Harris administration" was so mean that, as The Guardian explained

In March, the Trump administration listed Swarthmore College as one of 60 schools at risk of losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars for allowing what it considered antisemitic harassment on campus. Colleges and universities across the country were already quashing pro-Palestinian protests by suspending and arresting students, and several revised their policies to ban encampments prior to Trump’s inauguration. But some have gone even further to penalize students in light of the government’s threats to pull their funding.

The federal government- under President Donald J. Trump- has taken punitive action. Before his inauguration- but apparently after his election- numerous colleges began to suppress "pro-Palestinian" protests.

The Mideast policy also changed. As Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic writes. in January 2021

Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to the region and assured America’s Arab allies that it opposed forced displacement. “Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” he said at a press conference in Doha, Qatar. “They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza.” Blinken then traveled to Israel, where he apparently delivered the same message to Netanyahu. The next day, the Israeli leader posted a video in which he declared, “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.” A member of Netanyahu’s party told the press that the prime minister’s stance had shifted because of American pressure. For the moment, maximalism had been shoved back into the box.

Then Donald Trump won reelection, and everything changed. The same day Trump defeated Kamala Harris, Netanyahu fired Yoav Gallant, his defense minister, who had opposed the resettlement of Gaza and publicly criticized the prime minister for refusing to commit to returning the territory to Palestinian control. In one fell swoop, the chief external (Biden) and internal (Gallant) obstacles to conquering Gaza were removed. The only pressure exerted on Netanyahu now was from the hard right. And then Trump himself seemingly joined its cause.

 On February 4, sitting next to a surprised Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Trump dramatically undid all of Biden’s efforts, promising to take over Gaza, relocate its residents, and turn the area into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The president may have conceived of this vision out of some misdirected sense of compassion, believing it would provide better lives for Palestinians now stuck in what he correctly termed a “demolition site.” But whatever Trump’s intentions, his proposal was immediately taken as affirmation of the maximalist dream of many Israelis, and an explicit warrant for ethnic cleansing by the Israeli far right. Once that prospect turned from a pipe dream into a president’s plan, it quickly became an obstruction to concluding the conflict.

At a press conference in May, Netanyahu declared that implementing Trump’s vision was now a condition for ending the war. Last week, the director of the Mossad reportedly visited Washington to discuss the “voluntary” relocation of “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians” to third-party countries. All the while, Gaza’s hunger crisis has dramatically worsened, while hostages continue to languish in Hamas dungeons. Far from expediting the conflict’s end, Trump’s proposal has been marshaled to prolong it. And as long as the president does not explicitly reject the goal of removing the Gazan population, it will continue to bedevil his plans for the region.

Most recently, President Trump said of Israel's campaign against Hamas "they're gonna have to fight and they're gonna have to clean it up. You're gonna have to get rid of 'em."Yet, Peter Daou claims "in just about every way, Trump has continued Biden's policy on Israel."  Krystal Ball and Emma Vigeland suggest that pro-Palestinian activism has not abated. Blindness seems to be contagious as the anti-Israel activists, once so very militant, have turned into sheep. And as Senator Slotkin implied, one has to wonder why that is.

Share |