PALESTINIAN BDS NATIONAL COMMITTEE (BNC) – People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s #GazaGenocide. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is a result of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians?
Overcoming despair and apathy to win democracy
GEORGE LAKEY – Lessons on movement building from one of the founders of the Serbian student movement that brought down dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
What conflict resolution experts wish universities knew about conflict
MELINDA BURRELL – The protests roiling our campuses reveal a great deal about us as a country. Emotions are easily triggered, many of us are comfortable being angry, and most of us need help to handle conflict constructively. And these emotions are likely to keep running high as we head towards the November election. Understanding the importance of creating forums to listen – and of reaching for help in navigating conflict – are good bets.
What Biden Could/Should Be Saying…
WINSLOW MYERS – Imagine what a U.S. president might say to the nation if he or she were willing to break ironclad political taboos and admit some self-evident truths . . .
UMass Arrests: What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?
CHRISTIAN APPY – What would Daniel Ellsberg do in the face of the Israel-Hamas war? We can’t know with complete certainty because he died last June at the age of 92. We do know that in the 50 years after he released the Pentagon Papers, he devoted his life to principled nonviolent activism and was arrested more than 80 times for acts of civil disobedience in the struggle for peace and nuclear disarmament. When Christian Appy saw UMass students protest Israel’s way of retaliating against Hamas for Hamas’ October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, he took up with the students after asking, “What would Daniel Ellsberg do?”
Despite High-Level Encouragement, US-China Student Exchanges Are Diminishing
MEL GURTOV – The tit-for-tat warnings between the U.S. and China reflect the politics of their relations today: the “China threat” being pushed in Congress, and American public opinion now very unfavorable toward China; and Chinese upset with the US “Cold War mentality” and strategic containment of China. Sadly, students and researchers in both countries suffer from this negative dialogue.