Anonymous OP 3w

I didn’t even know what happened but figured I’d Google and read and it’s exactly what you would’ve guessed

1

Anonymous OP 3w

So first off there is video of them entering the synagogue. They smashed glass vases. And it’s not a misrepresentation of facts. It’s two communities having a meeting on protecting themselves from hate.

1

Anonymous #2 3w

ok so they registered for the event with the intent to do stuff like this

6

Anonymous #2 3w

Good. Participants in genocide should not be met with open arms, especially not in schools, and especially not in places of worship

5

Anonymous OP 3w

Well they could try talking to him

-1

Anonymous #1 3w

Weirdo genocide denier

12

Anonymous #1 3w

Using new technologies that have been use to kill marginalized people in the Gaza Strip doesn’t make Jews safer and

2

Anonymous #2 3w

Somehow I don’t think talking to a stranger who makes weapons of war isn’t gonna do very much, like do you think he doesn’t already know what his weapons are used for?

2

Anonymous #1 3w

One person smashed a vase, often in protests there’s a rowdy person who does something stupid

1

Anonymous #4 3w

Exactly what did this accomplish

0

Anonymous #2 3w

Making people uncomfortable for platforming and working with evil people who are responsible for genocide.

1

Anonymous OP 3w

which did what? helped who? changed anyone’s mind? caused any action to be taken? it’s stupid. it’s like the people who threw soup on the mona lisa to protest climate change. stuff like this is not just unproductive, it’s counterproductive. it turns people off the cause

6

Anonymous #2 3w

Makes them less likely to do it again. Makes people think a bit about what’s happening. The argument of this doesn’t change anything so why bother is fucking stupid. “Oh he’s spouting racial slurs but he’s so convinced of his racism what’s even the point of saying anything? What’s the point of punishing a person or calling their job about it they’re just gonna keep being racist anyway.” That kind of thinking is bad. There should be consequences when you do bad things.

2

Anonymous OP 3w

There should be consequences for doing bad things but that’s not what protest is for. Protest is supposed to be about change. And I didn’t say do nothing, just that this specific thing was counterproductive. It won’t make people think twice, it will make them feel victimized and push them deeper into their convictions

0

Anonymous #2 3w

Its more disruptive to the speaker and their message. That is change that was caused

4

Anonymous #2 2w

The point of protest isn’t to change the hearts and minds of those being protested, it’s to make it more difficult for them to continue doing what they’re doing

4

Anonymous OP 2w

His message was about safety in LA and he did fully deliver it

1

Anonymous #4 2w

The point of protest very much is to influence public opinion and government decisions. That is what protest is

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Sometimes they are about public opinion, but not the opinion of the people who you are protesting But often the purpose of protest—like when there is a protest of an oil pipeline that will poison a community’s water supply, for example—is to cause enough disruption and make it more difficult and expensive enough for the company behind it that they’ll cut their losses and abandon the project The same dynamic is true of many other forms of protest, make it too costly to do what they’re doing

3

Anonymous #2 2w

Protests shape government opinion not by changing the hearts and minds of the government officials, but by demonstrating and utilizing the power to push them to by making their day to day lives, job, media appearances, or re-election campaign too difficult Protests are about disruption

3

Anonymous #4 2w

In some ways yes in some ways no. There’s a line between protest and sabotage and it has a lot to do with methods. When there’s an oil pipeline that will poison a community’s water, if you organize groups to go to town meetings and keep bringing it up or hold weekly marches or something that’s a protest. If you peacefully stand in the road that the trucks have to go down to build the pipeline that’s protest. If you try to blow up the pipeline that’s sabotage

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Sabotage is a useful strategy in some situations but once you do it you can’t expect the rest of the public to respond the way they would to a protest— that’s the trade off

1

Anonymous #2 2w

The very best and most successful protests involve protesters (often at great risk) putting themselves in a position by which they clearly demonstrate the absurdity of injustice to the public— for instance, sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Yes, but peacefully standing in the road makes the pipeline more costly to operate, and protesting at the town meeting makes it more difficult for them to do their jobs if they don’t address the pipeline and if the town does block the pipeline that also adds more cost for the company. The purpose is to disrupt and draw attention Public opinion is nice, but these protests aren’t about moral victories, they’re about tangible ones

2

Anonymous #2 2w

In this case I think the most impactful form of protest would have been to organize people to bring it up during the Q&A with the goal of forcing the audience to think about it. This is especially considering we don’t know the speaker’s personal beliefs on the subject or how related his work really is, and also considering the event has no major influence on the company itself

1

Anonymous #4 2w

Yeah but it’s the WAY you do it. You try to disrupt in a way that gets public opinion on your side

1

Anonymous #2 2w

That is a tangible victory that helps sustain momentum

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Many many protests, of the very successful protests, piss a lot of the public off, Martin Luther King Jr was labeled a terrorist at the time I have known several successful and effective protest organizers this is how they work

5

Anonymous #2 2w

Often getting the public on your side is a benefit and sometimes a goal, not always And I think it’s a big assumption to assume this protest wouldn’t have the broader public on their side, weapons manufacturers aren’t exactly popular

5

Anonymous #4 2w

He was labelled a terrorist at the time BECAUSE his methods were working. It was propaganda to try to counter the effect he was having

1

Anonymous #2 2w

But I’ll concede there’s different opinions on how this works

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Yes, but it does have influence on the event, and the purpose of the protest is to dissuade others from inviting people like him as speakers to an event and disrupt attempts to normalize and whitewash people like him

6

Anonymous #4 2w

The question I’ve always asked when organizing a protest is: if someone who knows nothing about the issue saw a picture of this protest, would they be on my side? Or at least would they be inclined to hear me out? Weapons manufacturers aren’t popular but when people see this protest, they don’t see a protest against a weapons manufacturer. They see people screaming “baby killers” in a synagogue

4

Anonymous #4 2w

And you can dissuade them much more effectively by making them think instead of intimidating them

6

Anonymous #2 2w

That depends on which media you’re looking at and what they’re showing But protests like this don’t need to sway people, they just need to draw attention to what they’re protesting, because, even if it sways some against them, the general public is already on their side

5

Anonymous #2 2w

Someone who went to the synagogue or knew the organizers of it? Sure, they could maybe convince them of something or make them think. Protesters? Look, if they mass registered and disrupted the event by making the majority of questions about the war crimes than great, but the disruption is an essential part of it

4

Anonymous #4 2w

Okay I guess we just disagree. For the record though that was a video I saw of the protest not a media spin

2

Anonymous #4 2w

Yes exactly the disruption is part of it but you have to be SMART about the TYPE of disruption otherwise it won’t work

3

Anonymous #2 2w

And I don’t think people complicit in war crimes like that speaker should be able to have any event normalize them, he should not be able to be a public figure in polite society without what he is responsible for following him everywhere he goes. He can have his private life, but he should not he normalized

4

Anonymous #4 2w

So how are you going to convince everyone else to stop normalizing them?

1

Anonymous #2 2w

Yeah, evidently we disagree, look it’s not how I would’ve organized the protest if I was organizing it and I think what I would’ve done you’d have been more sympathetic towards, but I’m 100% on their side regardless

6

Anonymous #2 2w

This is also an opportunity for someone within the synagogue to play good cop to the protesters’ bad cop to try to talk to the event organizers about changing how they handle such things in the future

4

Anonymous #4 2w

Fair enough. I think our main disagreement is I think that organizing the protest the way they did is counterproductive and disrespectful to their cause

1

Anonymous #2 2w

I think there are downsides to that approach but it overall still does more good than harm

2

Anonymous #4 2w

Valid disagreement lol, thanks for the fair debate

5

Anonymous #2 2w

How do you compare this event to blowing up an oil pipeline? The speaker that was the main target of the protest was Goni Saar who is a researcher for Elbit systems which is an Israeli defense company that makes drones and other weapons and munitions. Why is there a question of if he’s worth allowing into your synagogue as a speaker?

3

Anonymous #2 2w

Seeing things at a glance and not understanding is not the point of the protest. You can protest for persuasion sure but you can also protest to be disruptive as you guys talked about. Protests generally though are supposed to make somebody uncomfortable. They absolutely succeeded in making this guy uncomfortable

3

Anonymous OP 2w

I mean making someone uncomfortable only matters if it does anything, I don’t expect someone at Elbit systems to have any shame but he shouldn’t be able to just speak at an event like this, let alone at a synagogue, it’s disgraceful

-1