r/moderatepolitics • u/awaythrowawaying • 2d ago

News Article US Justice Department sues UCLA alleging antisemitic educational environment

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-justice-department-sues-ucla-alleging-antisemitic-educational-environment-2026-05-26/
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u/oath2order Maximum Malarkey 2d ago

Yeah okay.

We'll see what happens. It is okay to be pro-Palestine. It is not okay to be pro-Hamas. This seems like an easy case, but as we've seen with this DOJ's inability to indict a sub sandwich, I have the feeling it will be bungled.

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u/awaythrowawaying 2d ago

The question of how to differentiate pro-Palestinian sentiment with pro-Hamas sentiment is a central one in the ongoing debate within progressives. Many left wing advocacy groups and demonstrations openly stand with Hamas as the legitimate elected government of Palestine and therefore qualified to speak for them. However, other progressives and most moderates warn against this with the argument that Hamas is widely considered a sponsor of terrorism and an illegitimate political organization by the leading world authorities. Supporting Hamas is wrong on a moral as well as political level as doing so would probably lead to backlash from voters. The trouble arises because Hamas is the most visible and far reaching representation of the Palestinian people as a group - far more so than other competitors (ie. PLO). The Hamas flag is also considered to be essentially interchangeable with the Palestinian flag. How would a future Democratic Party president engage with Palestine politically without also engaging with Hamas, which has total domestic and foreign policy control over Palestine? Or should they readdress whether to legitimize Hamas on the world stage?

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u/knign 2d ago

The question of how to differentiate pro-Palestinian sentiment with pro-Hamas sentiment is a central one in the ongoing debate within progressives.

I think the question should be how any of that is related to universities and education.

If some students want to support Hamas, IRGC, RSF, or any other "resistance", they can do it as much as they want. Just not on campus and without interfering in the education process, and of course without harassing other students.

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u/Hyndis 2d ago

Supporting designated foreign terrorist organizations can carry severe legal penalties. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization since the Clinton admin, in 1997: https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations

People have the right to free speech, yes, but material aid is something else entirely, and the line gets really blurry when those protest groups start doing fundraising for their cause.

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u/roylennigan pragmatic progressive 1d ago

Sure, but it's a little hard to take seriously when the US government still sends money to the country that funded the terrorists who committed 9/11.

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u/PreviousCurrentThing 1d ago

What money are we sending KSA? They pay for all their weapons.

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u/roylennigan pragmatic progressive 1d ago

My bad, we're actually making money by sending tanks and guns to terrorist countries while labeling American citizens using their right to free speech as terrorists.

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u/Hyndis 1d ago

That a citizen of a country does something terrible doesn't mean that country's government is part of the acts. Citizens can do things independent of their government, especially if they have lots of resources.

Osama bin Laden was personally very wealthy, and the 9/11 attacks were extremely cheap to carry out. Boxcutters and airplane tickets were all they used.

The Saudi government does not benefit from attacking one of its best customers, and at the time the US was importing a lot of Saudi oil.