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Nine arrested in protest outside Cambridge offices of Israeli defense contractor after attacking building and cops, police say
By adamg on Mon, 10/30/2023 - 9:11pm
Cambridge Police report arresting pro-Palestinian protesters outside the offices of Elbit Systems on Bishop Allen Drive in Central Square this morning.
Police say a protest by about 200 people was initially peaceful - and that officers shut a nearby road to ensure none got hit by cars, but that:
Around 11:15am, some of the crowd broke through metal barricades and began vandalizing the business. Some of the people in the crowd began throwing “smoke pellets”, eggs and other projectiles at the officers and the building. As officers attempted to place numerous people under arrest for defacing the building, the group became hostile and assaulted the officers. One officer was knocked to the ground. Another officer was hit in the chest with a “smoke pellet”. One officer had to deploy pepper spray as some of the crowd became more combative.
The nine arrested protesters, from Revere, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Housatonic, were all charged with disorderly conduct, police say, adding some were also charged with additional offenses. Eliza Sathler, 26, of Revere, was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, possession of and throwing an incendiary device and resisting arrest.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Do they really think this video makes them look good?
It actually makes me more sympathetic to the police than I would have been initially. The protesters came very close to breaking the plate glass window of the optician, who had done nothing to deserve that.
Supporting terrorists is
Supporting terrorists is never a good look. Are all Palestinians Hamas? of course not. But Hamas took over governance of the Gaza Strip by election in 2007. The core message of Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement) is to annihilate Israel.
The raid on Israel was an act of war by a duly elected government and the repercussions of that were obvious. Start a war and fighting will ensue until one side wins or loses. Acting as if Hamas didn't start this war is ridiculous.
If you argue that Israel started the war by its treatment of Palestinians you might as well be saying that the US started the war with Japan by cutting off trade relations.
Studying wars, and the causes of wars is a long strange rabbit hole to fall into. No one ever agrees.
Wrong On All Counts
Hamas is bad and the attacks of October 7th were heinous war crimes. THAT BEING SAID:
Israel's open air prison camp of Gaza is not a democracy. Oh yeah, in a rushed and suspect election in 2006 Hamas won 44% of the vote. There have been zero elections since then, and the large majority of people who now live in Gaza were either not alive or not old enough to vote in those elections. Imagine if Donald Trump had been successful at overturning the election in 2020 and sat in power for 14 more years, would we still call the US a democracy in 2034? https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-elected-to-govern-...
Since then Netanyahu has intentionally propped up Hamas in order to keep Palestinians from even a chance of creating their own state. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-i...
People protesting Israeli's treatment of Gaza are not supporting terrorists. People protesting Israelis' policy of apartheid state-wide and land-theft in the west bank are not anti-semites. People violently protesting an office building are just not being smart. Rinse/repeat.
Fun facts
Yes, they sure did. They won 44% of the votes in the 2006 election, held throughout the Palestinian territories. Israel tried various tactics to suppress pro-Hamas votes and sometimes simply remove the Hamas candidates: their hand on the scales was obvious, and I would guess probably had the opposite of the intended effect. The result gave Hamas a rather slim majority of seats overall, but significantly more than their closest rival. There was a lot of bungling involved, on the part of Fatah, Israel, the US and others, which combined to increase support for Hamas both before and after the election.
Now let's do some basic math. It is now 2023, nearly 18 years after the January 2006 election that brought Hamas to power. Nearly half of Gaza's population is -- wait for it -- under the age of 18. None of them would have voted in the 2006 election. Of the remaining population, a substantial percentage, about half is under the age of 36, meaning that they also would not have voted in the 2006 election.
You say that supporting terrorists is not a good look. But I would say it's also not a good look to burden all those people with a decision that they had no hand in.
Peace in the middle east is so easy
All that needs to happen is for millions of people to change their strongly held, religiously informed beliefs.
Worse than that
This sort of behavior will be used as an excuse by others to attack Palestinian-owned businesses and Palestinians.
Elbit Systems
Their website indicates they are entirely devoted to military applications.
They have factories in Merrimack, NH and Roanoke, VA. An office in Rosslyn, VA, which is where you want to be if making sales to the US military.
Why in Cambridge?
Very close to Draper Labs, MIT and their associated US contractors, which do basic research related to Elbit's lines of business (electronic warfare, C4I, robotics, aeronautics) for the US Department of Defense.
Amazing.
Or maybe it's just the hummus and tabouli at the Middle East?
A prison camp armed to the
A prison camp armed to the hilt with missiles. How did they get so many in if it's a prison camp? Doesn't a prison, you know, control the number of missiles the inmates can carry in?
What makes you think...
...that the inmates are simply walking through border control and declaring the missiles they're carrying? "Hi bud, welcome back to your prison, you don't have any contraband do you?" "Why yes, I HAVE THIS MISSILE HERE."
(you might also want to learn more about contraband in prisons in general)
You can’t fit a missile up
You can’t fit a missile up yer arse.
That thing that just flew over your head...
...was not a missile.
Contraband
never ever makes it inside prisons...
I Wonder
How you would feel about being trapped in a tiny area of land with 2 million people with no job prospects, no say in your future, and no way to leave. Would you feel...imprisoned?
That is the life of most people globally
They never leave the area in which they were born, they have no access to advanced education, no say in their future, no way to leave, and no job prospects apart from subsistence farming or unskilled labor.
Ok?
Thank you for pointing out that other people also suffer under different circumstances. Very empathetic.
ANYway good for them for
ANYway good for them for protesting. I get the impression in the comments here that many of you don't really understand protest.
They are generally not planned in a ton of detail, people are showing up to express strong emotion, yeah they can get a little out of control, it's as American as Boston in 1773.
No one cares what y'all sitting in your Barcaloungers watching CNN think of their tactics.
If you think this protest was as American as Boston in 1773
Then you'd obviously feel the same about the events of January 6, 2021, right? Just the nature of protesting.
OT: This is an example of
Godwin's law, although in this current blogosphere we have a new subject for the analogy.
https://youtu.be/Rh_TZwqVP_o?t=167 ; Just skip the ads.