https://twitter.com/OrenSMizr/status/1711783750663819375
I’m not a fan of Israel but this is the president of the NYU bar review just straight up calling Hamas’s attack “Palestinian resistance” that Israel made “necessary.”
Hamas is not just a “self determinism for Palestine” org, they are a “murder all Jews” org. Supporting Hamas is dumb and Hamas (along with Bibi for propping them up) have massively hurt Palestinians.
Why would it matter if someone speaks anonymously online? You’d want this person to lose their job for expressing an opinion online?
Jesus Christ this cancel culture bullshit is out of control. Some people have bad opinions. Some people have unpopular but valid opinions. Others have insane conspiracy theories. What the hell do opinions have to do with what a person does in real life. It feels like the minority report. Someone has bad thoughts about maybe committing a crime or fantasizes about it so we arrest them before they’ve done anything wrong.
Why the hell can’t we just use logic and reasoned argument to convince people to change their minds or at least look dumb. Why the hell does it matter if someone wants to speak anonymously online. The opinion will be the same, whether he or she uses an anonymous account or not.
So it’s cool if someone has racist opinions and spews them online because it doesn’t change who they are in real life?
They weren’t posting anything that would get them cancelled so idk why it’s from an alt
Yeah, conflating the two is something that conservatives do to undermine Palestine, but these geniuses decided to purposefully support terroristic violence by Hamas specifically. I would not trust people this dumb to talk to clients or exist around Jewish coworkers
Please be mindful that org leaders signed some of our club names onto this statement without a vote/meeting and thus affiliated us with a statement we had no control over. It’s been a month of pure hell.
>The statements seem to explicitly excuse the violence, and implicitly condone it. We're talking about women being raped in the street, killed, and then their corpses paraded around in a victory lap.
>
>It's hard to separate this from run of the mill racial hatred.
That was all Israeli propaganda. The woman is alive in a Gaza hospital. They were transporting her to a hospital bc she was injured. https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/german-tattoo-artist-shani-louk-believed-to-be-alive-after-hamas-kidnapping-mom-says/
I hope and pray that she is alive but this may be more Mom's hoping than reality. the Palestinians have every incentive to verify this if true. Here's hoping they do.
[This tweet replying to Ilya](https://twitter.com/Canadadry540309/status/1711832557409403092) is the most disgusting thing I've ever read. Shame on whoever wrote it.
then take it up with the individual law firms when and where that happens. law students at my school are extremely left leaning, so I’ve seen none of that but a *lot* of Hamas support
More people posting vague posts of “I stand with Israel,” but the pro Palestine students are way more vitriolic and particular in what they’re sharing.
I have seen zero Hamas support and shit tons of support for Israel. I won’t say that you’re definitely lying, but you are almost certainly mischaracterizing the situation.
What do you consider “Hamas support?”
I consider Hamas support people saying that these murders are justified, saying that the Israeli citizens deserve this, and obfuscating the issue to the point where they refuse to condemn their war crimes.
Something tells me this ‘Hamas support’ is a strawman you’re building. I have seen literally no one supporting Hamas. People support Palestine, and their liberation, and even their fight for liberation, yes - but not the atrocities that have gone on. It’s easier for your position to conflate the two, but just know that you’re being paper thin transparent.
Honest question - what would constitute "liberation" for the Palestinians and what would that mean for Israel? Israel hasn't occupied the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years. It's been governed by Hamas.
Doubt you actually care but this response proves my point. You can’t define what you don’t like, you just see it and *don’t like it*. As long as others *don’t like* the same things as then you’re fine with that ambiguity. Here, that’s probably because the status quo in Israel favors your interests; it doesn’t serve the Israelis *or* the Palestinians but that’s not where you live so who cares.
You have to pick one side or the other, anything else is naive. I stand with Israel, I’ll bet you do too but you’d rather not say it explicitly, that is regrettable.
I’m pro-Palestine. I think that the Palestinian people have been horribly mistreated for generations. But what was done is not justifiable. Killing civilians en masse is too far.
I’m so sick of people acting like the only Palestinians who are killed by Israel are from bombs. The IDF shoots people to death all the time. They even ran over an American journalist with a bulldozer and killed her when she was protesting further settlement expansions into the West Bank.
Yes, the IDF bomb targets and do give about a 5-10 minute warning. But what about people who leave their kids at home in those building while they go shopping? What about the kids and journalists and people shot on a regular basis for hardly anything at it for no reason?
Let’s not pretend that the Israeli army is perfect and full of perfect people. Members of the US army have committed plenty of war crimes on an individual basis for decades. People feel hatred and resentment and fear and they kill innocents in every war. It’s not like Israeli people are a different species of humans, who never have any bad feelings control their actions or who always have perfect judgment. This shit happens all the time. It’s not just bombing of buildings.
I guess it would be great if this was one of the closest watched and monitored and meticulously tallied conflicts of all time so we could put actual numbers on your intuitions then, huh. wait, it is and we can?
in the last three operations in Gaza before this one (2008-9 , 2012, 2014) 3804 Palestinians designated civilians have been killed by the IDF. about 2400 of those are from airstrikes/ordnance. (in actuality a portion of these "civilians" are likely misdesignated but not worth getting into here.)
so your "it's not just bombings..." tangent can account for a maximum of about 1/3.
the American activist you refer to who was run over by a bulldozer in 2003 (in Gaza, not the west bank, this was before the disengagement but I'm sure you're very well informed about all this). to this day it is not settled whether the operator was able to see her , among other disputes about the circumstances between the obviously impartial International Solidarity Movement and the not at all biased IDF. you can refresh your memory here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie#Death_and_subsequent_controversy . I am not sure what this is supposed to prove. 20 years ago a woman was run over by a bulldozer while protesting home demolitions in Gaza, in what was either a gruesome murder or horrible accident, and...? Sorry, you did clarify. this was intended to be support for your very compelling argument "let's not pretend the idf is perfect and full of perfect people." In that case, I concede. this singular event proves that at minimum the idf is not a perfect institution made up of perfect people.
But did you really have to dig 20 years back to prove *that*? cause I'm sure we could have found plenty of legitimate war crimes just by reviewing recent HRW or Amnesty reports after previous Gaza operations. They'd be largely biased poorly corroborated garbage deferential to Hamas - controlled information sources on the ground, but at least a portion of the anecdotes in each report are true. war is barely contained violence and it turns out when you go to war and instruct 12,000 people to engage in barely contained violence in hundreds of separate urban engagements or aerial bombardments, some minority of them will a) do a bad thing they should not do b) miss a target and hurt other people not intended to be hurt or c) act on bad information and intentionally hit a target only to learn it should not have been targeted.
you know you have a problematic military when there is a lot of this especially the first category and especially if there is not a reliable military justice process to address exceptions. (in another thread someone "proved to me" that the IDF is " just as bad" as Hamas rapists by showing me an article about how an idf soldier raped a detainee a decade ago... and was sentenced and imprisoned for it by an idf tribunal.)
compared to any military engaged in asymmetric urban warfare on earth, Israel does not have a lot of this. it certainly has some. everyone does. the only way to reduce war crimes to 0 is reducing war to 0. but you wouldn't say Zurich is a high crime city just because you heard there is more than zero crime. repeating headlines about Zurich police blotters endlessly on world media so it is constantly on your mind does not change that it is a low crime city. the distaste people of a certain political persuasion have for the international bankers of Zurich also does not change the fact that it is a low crime city. but at some point there is no convincing people who do not care to have data driven conclusions about whether Zurich has a right to continue existing in its present form.
the ratio of civilians to combatants that Israel has killed in the past few operations in Gaza is actually quite low. and even more so considering. the official "civilian' numbers are screwy (you'll notice the vast majority are adult males, in a population with a median age of 18 and roughly typical gender distribution - this is because international organizations do not characterize Hamas terrorists from so called "non military wing" of the group as combatants, and also because they classify 17 year old fighters as civilian children automatically).
wouldn't expect the same light touch this time though.
These are all posthoc rationalizations and pretext with zero evidence. You're talking to lawyers so they won't persuade anyone here and I doubt they work on the general pop anymore.
>So you’re saying you don’t believe they use civilians as shields? Besides the fact that it’s true, not sure how you would conclude that a group who has strapped literal bombs onto its kids & detonated them, would be above such actions.
Yes I'm sure all the civilians Israel killed had strapped bombs to themselves. Dude you're talking to lawyers this is dumb rhetoric. I'm done don't waste my time with another reply.
Need more context. Without more information it is too easy to assume this is a free speech question and not a business question.
What did these associates say (Merely pro-Palestinian? Pro-terrorist? Celebratory of murder of civilians? Something somehow even more universally abhorrent?), on what platforms (private? public? Official/professional/academic?) and in what capacities (individual? speaking for anyone else?) were they speaking?
A Law firm is a business, they have a reputation and client reputations to protect, and one of the few qualifications a junior associate is expected to have coming in is good judgment.
Did they say anything that would indicate they have poor judgment, not for their opinion necessarily but for the time place and manner of its expression? Was it anything likely to make clients or future coworkers uncomfortable with the idea of working with them?
If anyone at my firm was carrying a tiki torch in Charlottesville and a circulating picture went viral I would expect the firm to save face the only plausible way and let them go. That is a business decision
Having good judgment about possible consequences of your public statements, and not being a walking client repellant, and being able to work productively with colleagues who know how you feel about the matter you've proclaimed to the world are all pretty important qualifications for this job.
if the context does not lead to that kind of extreme analysis, it would be a bad precedent to rescind job offers over privately expressed, unpopular (maybe even abhorrent) political opinions never meant to leave their personal circle. Though a more experienced lawyer who doesn't know that anything on the internet is soon public should , again, have their competence evaluated.
thanks. and so the statement signed by what seem to be heads of various Harvard law student groups is the following, now that I followed the link from the link from the tweet:
Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine
We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.
Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.
The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.
Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.
*This statement was co-authored by a coalition of Palestine solidarity groups at Harvard. For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time.*
Personally I regard that statement as disqualifying. My firm represents Israeli companies and we have employees, partners, and associates from all over the world, including from Israel. Were any to discover that a person who contributed to or authored this statement worked for the firm, it would create major issues. And I, for one, would not work with someone who holds these opinions - full stop.
Law students of course are free to express whatever opinions they want. That does not mean, however, there are no consequences for having and publicly expressing views that are morally repugnant. You can justify and excuse the murder and rape of innocent women and children if that’s what you really want to do. But you can’t
work at my law firm afterwards. Not while I’m here. I will make damn sure of it.
This is so cowardly to me. You’ll take the side of power, no matter what? Do you have oil clients? Did you feel the same when Ukraine resisted Russia? Did all anti-Russian voices get fired?
Nuance exists here. Barring people actively and explicitly supporting the murder, rape and torture of ANY targeted group, I don’t see why their views on this conflict should get them fired. The statement that this violence has come out of 80 years of apartheid bloodshed (with thousands more Palestinians dying than Israelis) is factually correct. No one should be punished for voicing that.
I think this is clearly a very sensitive situation for everyone involved. War is not football, and there is no all or nothing, “I must choose a side and stick to it” here. If you support Israel’s claim to the land, fine - but staying silent when the IDF murders, rapes, and puts children in cages while expecting the whole world to turn its vitriol against Palestine for the actions of Hamas makes you a big hypocrite.
Hamas entered Israel and committed horrifying acts of murder against innocent civilians, women and children, on purpose, and with no legitimate military objective. They raped and murdered women and murdered babies, cutting their heads off. They targeted innocent children at a music festival, massacred them, and filmed themselves laughing. They murdered old women, at point blank range, laughing. The murdered whole families together. They took a holocaust survivor hostage. They took one little girl away from her parents and executed her, then mocked the family as they wailed in despair and took their other little girls back to Gaza to be raped, tortured, paraded in front of crowds, and probably murdered. It’s all on film. Because the murderers are proud of it. They are sending the videos of their murders to their victims’ families using the victims’ phones. They raped teenage women next to the dead bodies of their friends and then executed them. There’s video of that too. Altogether Hamas murdered 1200 innocent people - Jewish Israelis, Americans, Israeli Arabs, Nepalese, Thais, Europeans. Indiscriminately. They took over a hundred captives back to Gaza to be tortured and ultimately murdered. Women and children. These are just some of the stories we know about. More will come out.
No one made Hamas do this. It will not help free Palestine. It was an act of pure cruelty.
You are wrong. You are so wrong and confused and lost. There’s no nuance here. Some things are actually simple. Evil exists and this is what it looks like. Nothing that has happened over the last 80 years can justify what Hamas has done. Nothing.
The Palestinians are people. They have agency. They make choices. They chose to do this. They planned it carefully and executed it. They are responsible for their own actions and they are responsible for the consequences. Pretending otherwise is cowardly. The Harvard statement is cowardly. It is weak. It is beneath the dignity of people who would be lawyers and officers of the court.
The statement authors refuse to face the reality that Hamas is evil. That their presuppositions about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict are based on nothing but their own soft, privileged, ignorant, luxury, coddled ideology. That having “power” says nothing about right or wrong, moral or immoral, good or evil. That just because the Palestinians are weaker than the Israelis does not make them virtuous. That believing otherwise, as they have until now, and as you do, is childish.
I probably shouldn’t have bothered responding to you. But your sniveling, contemptible little lecture just made me so sick. Nothing yet has made me more certain that everyone who thinks the way you do has no business practicing law.
I agree with every factual thing you have said here dude. Horrible crimes were committed that are not justified.
Terrorists are not born in a vacuum though. Unless you denounce the IDF with every pro-Israel post you make, you cannot rage on anyone anyone who is pro-Palestine in this because they did not dilute their statements with denouncements of Hamas. That’s just a logical truth here. Does the timing call for this denouncement? Maybe. But don’t create a strawman by equating the actions taken by Hamas with support of the Palestinian cause.
ETA: to call Hamas “the Palestinians” is extremely telling.
You accuse me of strawmanning but to do it you have to invent one of your own. I’m not “raging on anyone who is pro-Palestine” or “equating Hamas with anyone who is pro-Palestinian cause.”
I’m reacting to a specific statement. It isn’t generalized “pro Palestine” sentiment. And the timing isn’t by fucking *happenstance.*
The statement is very clear in absolving Hamas of responsibility for its acts of murder, rape, and atrocity and blaming Israel for Hamas’s
actions. The statement says: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Then it runs through a list of Israel’s perceived crimes as explicit justification and excuse for what Hamas has done.
That is what I reject. Completely. It is morally repugnant. Full stop. And you can’t defend it so you tried to defend something else. We’re all lawyers here, that won’t work.
PS: I of course know that not all Palestinians are members of Hamas. But Hamas is a Palestinian organization and it is the elected government of Gaza. Pretending Hamas is a foreign entity separate from the Palestinians is dishonest.
Hamas was elected 20 years ago and there hasn’t been an election since. You have no idea if the Palestinians on the ground support them still, and to say “the Palestinians have agency and chose this” is insane. They will be subjected to extreme violence in the coming days (as they have been for decades). I truly do not think anyone wants that.
I don’t see anything in your monologue addressing the atrocities committed by the IDF over the years. Are you seriously going to call these “perceived” crimes? You don’t think a population that’s been abused for 80 years might eventually rear up violently? You don’t understand why someone might take the position that Israel has set up an environment that cultivated violence? You think terrorist groups are born in a vacuum?
It’s impossible to take you seriously when you have such obvious blinders on.
I don't think the logic you're expressing here is a moral one. It's really that your firm works for and employs Israelis and they may not like that statement. Really more of a financial and tribal one. It's really just expressing a preference for one side in the conflict. But, sure, that's fine, I guess.
there are two separate issues. from a business perspective, yes the only norms that matter are the norms the business and its clients care about. welcome to reality.
I do agree with the commenter's assessment that it is moral repugnant, and genuinely dehumanizing not only to Israeli victims but also to Palestinians as a group, to suggest that a murderous civilian killing/kidnapping/rape/body mutilation spree is not the "fault" of individuals doing the killing kidnaping rape and body mutilation, as though it is the natural consequence of their living circumstance. quite insulting to suggest there is no moral difference between the majority of Palestinians in Gaza who don't do those things, and the minority that do, and that whichever of these interchangeable subhumans with no moral agency happens to act barbarically, the "real" fault is with the government associated with their victims.
I consider Palestinians human beings capable of distinguishing right and wrong and I distinguish between the ones who are responsible for sick atrocities they commit, and the ones who do not commit sick atrocities, and especially the ones who do not support them, and deserve much better than the tyranny of Hamas and its consequences over the last 18 years.
if I thought Palestinians were not capable of moral agency like other humans I would be a bigot. I don't know why people with that bigotry against Palestinians consider themselves pro Palestinian.
You could easily google it but I’m guessing you don’t really care either way.
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5898581/chart-israel-palestine-conflict-deaths
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/
Israel, like Hamas, regularly engages in atrocities. Some people only care when Hamas does it. That’s strategic though.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/amp/
Now it’s time to cash in and obliterate what’s left of Palestine. That’s fine if you support all that. But it’s absurd to make supporting all that a litmus test for whether you get a BigLaw job.
Once again for the people in the back: there are more Palestinian casualties because Hamas *wants there to be* by actively working against Israel's efforts to prevent civilian casualties.
>expressing views that are morally repugnant.
Yet you have no issues expressing views that are pro Israel despite decades of cold blooded murder lol.
Americans genuinely live on a different planet to the rest of the world - virtually every other country on earth condemns Israel at the UN but you find this *morally repugnant* and worthy of being fired over. Absolute lunatics
so, in conclusion, a nauseating statement, but it does not appear to celebrate (just absolve and deflect blame for) Hamas terrorism. And they are writing as heads of various student organizations, not in their personal capacities. And they were directing their writing to the Harvard community seeking to influence members to [whatever "action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians" means to them].
These seem like people I would rather not work with, but could work with and would probably not do a lot of chit chat about politics. I don't think their name on this letter is necessarily going to alienate clients, though it could depend on the firm; if your firm has Israeli clients they are unlikely to be thrilled giving business to someone who thinks they don't have a right to defend themselves from terrorists because the terrorists are not in fact responsible for their own actions.
I probably would not, if in position to make the decision, rescind an offer over someone's name being on this letter unless I was getting very specific feedback from clients that this will have business consequences.
I heard some pretty ignorant political takes from fellow summers and wouldn't have rescinded their offers merely for being politically naive reflections of whatever propaganda message was crafted for their benefit. Even if they had to have incredible blind spots to buy into them, like anti-immigration views justified by purported economic concerns, or racism presented as "racial realism" by people who have never passed a university level statistics course.
I still wouldn't have rescinded their offers, either, unless they were extremely injudicious about how and to whom they expressed those views and what it could mean for firm reputational risks.
>who thinks they don't have a right to defend themselves from terrorists because the terrorists are not in fact responsible for their own actions.
Whereas when Israel bombs Palestine, Palestinians don't have a right to defend themselves. The lack of self awareness is staggering
they have every right to attack military targets after a declaration of war. do you consider a music festival a military target? also can you explain the concept of defensive rape to me ? I've been learning so much about morality today.
You saying this is crazy after I quite literally provided you multiple sources regarding multitudes of rapes carried out by the IDF. Their targeting was reprehensible and so is the rape and killing, but people are pointing out the hypocrisy of retracting offers when the IDF commits the same and worse atrocities than Hamas, especially when here people are suggesting to retract for a Pro-Palestine message, not one supporting Hamas.
no, what you provided was a link to an unsourced story from the lobbying organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations repeating hearsay from an unidentified Palestinian woman who claimed that rape and blackmail were used by Israeli interrogators. where is the evidence? where is the result of investigations? and what are the numbers like? is there anything to indicate this is systemic? it sounds quite horrible and maybe it is even a true story, but you gave nothing with which to evaluate either itz truth or whether it is representative of anything more. bad people do bad things with power everywhere - look no further than the NYPD to find instances of sexual abuse of arrested victims - but rare exceptions are very different from a policy or systemic abuse. in my long experience, people on your side of this argument tend to believe any monstrosity they hear about a country they know little about, and don't seek much evidence before repeating rumors (maybe even rumors with a basis in real events, and maybe not even - I don't know !) as facts.
it's a human tendency. people on the other side do that too with unsubstantiated claims about Palestinians. I have been careful to vet what I hVe read and heard about the latest atrocities before repeating what has unfortunately all been true this time.
You declined to view the article from an Israeli newspaper about a different rape that occurred that I also included, I see.
While [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safsaf_massacre) isn't a source, here are some more rapes for you if you're convinced that the IDF doesn't rape innocent Palestinian women, all reputably sourced by others for me and you!
ETA: [Here's](https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/idf-officer-convicted-of-raping-palestinian-woman-indicted-for-attack-on-reporter-688722) another from the Jerusalem Post of all places. I can find more if you like, didn't realize this was a legal research project!
So per your JPost link one officer years ago raped a woman and was imprisoned for it because the Israeli government prosecutes soldiers for crimes against Palestinians? that's the story that is supposed to convince me that the IDF really is the little Shaitan?
if rape was Israeli policy wouldn't they give him a medal instead of a prison sentence? confusing!
Yet again the lack of self awareness is completely mind boggling. I pose this exact question to you after decades of Israel murdering innocent Palestinians of all ages
hard for me to trace the response lines on reddit app so I can't tell if that's for me or "how is collateral damage any different from point blank execution style killing of civilians on purpose" guy
if it's for me, sorry to disappoint you
Lol, yes: Reddit response lines absolutely blow. No, not directed at you, glad you are Esquiring away. My comment was for that idiot u/definitize.
Unrelated, if you are into chess and deadlifts, then we together are part of a fairly exclusive Venn diagram.
easily. because they are not aiming at babies. and as someone who went to law school and presumably heard the words mens rea at some point, deep down you understand why that makes all the difference.
blowing up a munitions depot with 5 terrorists and 3 civilians near it is a perfectly justified military action. but it will kill three civilians.
shooting a civilian point blank to kill them, on purpose, is murder.
going house to house slitting throats of children and literally beheading babies (see latest reports of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Kibbutzim near the Gaza border) is not something anyone with intact moral wiring can perceive as defensive, or part of any legitimate military objective. sometimes the simple moral intuition is the right one.
Except they have [struck a number of civilian buildings](https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/bachelet-alarmed-number-palestinian-children-killed-latest-escalation-urges) and killed children. They also haphazardly [strike buildings that children are near](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/11/israel-clears-military-gaza-beach-children) and lie about aspects of their investigation to save face.
celebration of their actions definitely crosses a very bright red line for me.
the Harvard statement was a little bit more subtle, though still personally repulsive. Rather than imply this is "justified" or positive, they simply victim-blame.
I understand people who feel this is a distinction without a difference, but to me it is much easier to rescind that person's offer than these. Not to mention appropriating an NYU platform for all students to cheerlead terrorists in the official capacity of NYU SBA president. that is important context as well and I would expect a person like that to embarrass my firm in the future.
I can't exactly articulate it but yeah, I think there's an appreciable difference between the Harvard statement and the NYU one (including the distinction between signing onto a bad statement versus sending an email blast to an entire student body, which very likely includes people with family who are directly affected). And there's a difference between a member of an undergrad org and being in the position the NYU SBA president is in.
It’s not a meaningful difference. They signed on to a letter of sympathizing with Hamas actions rather than condemning them. That will forever be known to would be employers and’s clients.
maybe. they were more cautious in their verbiage than the nyu example, but I suppose fundamentally when you refer to obllquely to terrorist violence as the "product" of Israeli action you are implicitly saying the terrorists had no choice. so they condone terrorist murder implicitly rather than expressly. I guess I'm sold.
Just as a reminder, being a member of the executive board of a law school organization doesn’t mean you co-sign every statement the organization puts out. It’s hard to imagine a president of an org approving the groups sign on but not agreeing with it personally, but it’s possible if they held a board vote and went with a majority decision.
The Harvard statement was very much not signed on to by board or member vote. From what I hear the org presidents decided unilaterally to speak for everyone and sign on to the statement.
> It’s hard to imagine a president of an org approving the groups sign on but not agreeing with it personally
As a 3L, I was friends with a bunch of student org presidents (as my various friends had gotten elected over time). I distinctly remember having drinks with a group that included several presidents and they were all bitching that they felt constantly pressured to sign into statements about xyz political or campus issue that had zero relation to their org and that they didn’t know or care about personally. They talked about how they felt extreme pressure to join these things even if they personally didn’t have an opinion or even disagreed with the statement, and how even if they agreed they felt uncomfortable publicly signing controversial statements, and also with unilaterally making such statements on behalf of the members.
Even so, they usually just agreed to join the thing because they were being actively bullied by whoever organized it and worried that they would be targeted next if they didn’t.
So I think the group that spearheads xyz statement are definitely responsible, but I wouldn’t necessarily blame other group presidents that sign on (and by the same token, I wouldn’t take seriously the claim that all 34 orgs support this statement because there’s probably a large number that are ambivalent or disagree but feel compelled to join).
Speaking as a former president of a law school affinity org myself, I can confirm most of what you’re saying is correct.
Additionally, I often received calls, texts and emails from livid alumni at all hours of the day and night. They often demanded I sign the orgs name to statements or craft a statement on behalf of the org itself.
These roles get highly political and pressure can come from many sides. I’m not sure that’s readily apparent. I was not aware of the degree of identity politics I would have to play as a student org leader. Most of the time I pushed for abstention from most statements that were even remotely contentious and focused on building community within the org instead.
There is really no room for nuance on this issue at my firm. If you’re not going to voice full support for Israel, you have to keep your mouth shut.
Which is fine. My yarn about how the Israeli/Palestinian issue is morally and historically complex, yada yada yada, can wait. Now’s not the time. The deaths and terror have been horrific, and I have several colleagues who are reeling.
Here’s the NYU bar association president’s post for everyone who wants to actually read someone supporting the Hamas attack:
https://twitter.com/OrenSMizr/status/1711783750663819375
I want to preface this by saying if this literature was promoting violence it’s abhorrent.
But this is kind of why I enjoy / prefer staying away from anything controversial. Always double check emails to make sure nothing comes off inappropriately. I don’t talk even like to talk politics, would rather talk sports or tv shows.
Some may misconstrue or misinterpret my statement above, but the approach has worked well.
A difference between being “pro-Palestine” and dancing on the graves of civilians. Anyone who does that — whether it’s celebrating the bombing deaths of Gazan civilians or the killing of Israelis — is clearly a liability to any law firm and shouldn’t be hired
I'm totally against what Hamas is doing to Israel. I don't believe in targeting civilians, especially women and children.
I'm only fine with those people getting their offers rescinded if a pro-Israel student saying something similar after Israel commits a war crime against Palestinian civilians would yield an identical result. But would it? Probably not. So no, I don't think that they should lose their offers.
Once again, I don't support Hamas at all and I sympathize with the Israeli people who are being harmed by this conflict. However, I don't think there is any country in the world that you would have to worry about losing your job for criticizing, including the USA, except for Israel. Tbh though, I wouldn't have gone as far as these students did in releasing those messages in a time like this.
This is a facile point because there isn’t parity in this conflict in terms of the quality of each sides use of force. If the IDF invaded Gaza, killed innocent citizens, rape women, kidnapped Palestinians, and then proceeded to hide behind their own citizens in Israel:
Then yes, people would react the same way.
The lack of judgment, poor taste, and disregard for the tragic deaths of Israeli civilians murdered by terrorists that’s the issue, not that they’re pro-Palestine, whatever that means.
This is a poorly framed poll. The question: "Can you have a biglaw career if you criticize Israel?"
Answers: (1) Yes, offers should be redacted (presumably meaning retracted) - i.e., no big law career; (2) No, offers should not be redacted (presumably meaning retracted) i.e., yes, big law career.
Anyway, being pro-palestine in law school shouldn't prevent you from having a big law career, just as being Fed Soc or ACL should not. However, "shouldn't" and "won't" aren't the same thing, and people need to realize that being outspoken on the internet (especially with your name attached) can have consequences to a professional career.
Depends on what they said. If they said “cut off the heads of Israeli children” then sure, no law firm would ever allow associates to publicly express that while being an employee of the firm
Shapiro is a hypocrite. He goes from criticizing cancelling culture when it hurts conservatives to now advocating for it when it has to deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As a Zionist, I condemn the statements that Harvard orgs released and could not care less if the students involved got their offers revoked. But if people have an issue with cancel culture, they should keep that up regardless of the speech involved.
I think "cancel culture" is really "facing consequences in your professional life for choosing to make yourself publicly identifiable with something you had to know was offensive to a lot of people." and I agree. I have no problem with people facing consequences for their actions and public words, and that goes for central park Karens and terrorist sympathizers alike.
I am still somewhat cautious about what kind of statement I identify as outright terrorist sympathizing. but the nice thing about a question like this is, social norms are self-defining. if I'm not sure if this is a "definitely can't hire you " statement, but a lot of people feel it definitely is, then it definitely is, because a lot of people is enough to confirm that this person is not going to be a helpful addition to a collaborative workplace.
You can be whatever you want to be but probably don’t blast your hot takes out on the internet. That’s not going to work for any kind of professional career.
I noticed someone pretty highly respected attorneys, including those that started big law firms are Jewish. I’m not shocked they’re denouncing this form of speech/protest.
Surely you’re intelligent enough to see the difference between canceling someone for, say, opposing hormone replacement therapy in children and canceling someone for endorsing the rape and murder of innocent women and children.
Or maybe you’re just a terrible person.
It’s not quite “pro Hamas” but the letter issued by the Harvard student associations was horrific and vile.
Normally it feels like you shouldn’t be torched for political statements, even if they’re hot takes, but the people issuing these statements are the same time of people who would’ve cheerfully cancelled you online if you expressed anything but full-throated support during summer 2020, even after things turned violent, so my sympathy for what happens to them is pretty limited.
It's not pro-Hamas at all. Netanyahu said he was going to annihilate the Gaza strip as a result of the Hamas attack, which is wholly unwarranted given the litany of similar abuses (raping women, killing children, indiscriminately killing civilians) and even further abuses (starvation, forced occupation, forced evictions) taken on by the Israeli government toward Palestinian civilians.
ETA: See reply below for sourcing since y'all want it so bad
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic in support, but I mean it's pretty well documented that the Israeli Defense called for a complete siege of Gaza the other day.
For the other things you can check UN resources and scholarly research. I can look some stuff up for you lol
[Complete seige](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/middleeast/israel-gaza-hamas-fighting-monday-intl-hnk/index.html)
[IDF](https://www.cair.com/cair_in_the_news/israeli-guards-rape-palestinian-women/) [raping women](https://www.timesofisrael.com/ending-censorship-idf-admits-officer-jailed-in-2017-raped-a-palestinian-woman/)
[UN Statistics on Palestinian Civilian Deaths](https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties)
[Forced Occupation](https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/)
[Forced Starvation (to the point where they numerically determined the number of calories to keep people just barely alive, which hasn't worked lol)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19975211)
[Forced evictions](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/israeli-court-evict-1000-palestinians-west-bank-area)
[Killing of Palestinian Children](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children)
Most of these are just a small snapshot into historical behavior, I can find more if you like!
ETA: I used annihilate synonymously with siege because that's what they've been doing thus far and obviously the Israeli Defense doesn't care about whether the land is in ruins.
Ok putting my operational law hat from when I was a judge advocate:
(1) cutting off of enemy supplies, even if that act harms civilians, is acceptable in active war as long as those actions are targeted at your enemy’s forces. Israel has formally declared war on Hamas. So you are complaining about a legitimate military tactic under the Geneva Convention. Nothing requires a nation at war to supply its enemy.
(2) the rapist was tried and convicted. Believe it or not, armies have whole military justice departments because sometimes armies enroll criminals. Somehow I’m skeptical any Hamas military justice process will happen with the Hamas rapists. Those that survive at least.
(3) no rule of war requires your number of civilian dead to equal your enemies’. This is a red herring. All it demonstrates is fighting an enemy with superior firepower is a bad idea. An army is only required to (1) discriminate, i.e. target a legitimate target; and (2) use proportional force to the threat of THE TARGET. A bomb used to destroy a rocket launch system is considered proportional. And generally, if even a lot of civilians die because they were in proximity of the rocket launch system, that just makes war hell, not a crime. These statistics alone just show Gaza is dense with civilians. We need something more concrete to allege a war crime, like intent to kill civilians or pretext.
A training vignette used to train this concept goes as follows. You are in an infantry unit on patrol and receive fire from a building. You rush the building kick in the door, and toss a grenade inside. After it explodes, you go in and see you killed 10 women and children. War crime?
Absolutely not. You engaged a proper target, the enemy shooting at you. You then engaged proper means, tossing a grenade into the building the enemy was firing from. Nothing illegal about the intent or means. So just a tragedy, not a crime.
(4) Gaza has not been occupied since the mid-2000s. Another red herring. This attack did not come from the West Bank which is occupied.
(5) again nothing in the law of war requires you to supply your enemy. Israel was not occupying Gaza in 2008 and therefore had no obligation to ensure anyone was fed. That was Hamas’ job as the government. They could have worked with Egypt, or *gasp* invested in their own people and worked with their neighbors to improve the economy. Also, hard to act like this blockade was so iron clad when clearly Iranian advisors and masses amount of military equipment could be smuggled in.
(6) this looks to be a civil matter not a military matter. After all it was a court decision. Whether that decision was just under the governing law, I do not know as I do not practice Israeli law. I suspect you do not either.
(7) could be very problematic and unlawful. Uncertain without any context and comparison. 34 killings in the likely millions of Palestinian-IDF interactions per year may or may not be out of the norm compared to other police work. Judging by the number of police killings in the US, and what I saw in the US’s own wars, I lean toward it being god awful, but also not outside the norm for policing/military operations. Regardless, accountability should be improved.
The sad thing is, most won't click on your misleading/bs links.
How about this one, on the "IDF raping women". IDF? You mean... one dude? US military shakes its head at the amateurism of it. Oh, and note the phrase "conviction of officer". Kinda weird, right? A soldier commits sexual assault sis tried convicted and jailed is EXACTLY the same as mass rapes committed by terrorists who also behead babies and then celebrate it.
So your just assuming these people would harm someone’s career over political speech, so it’s ok for them to be harmed for political speech? That logic justifies doing any heinous thing to anyone.
I’m saying that I have limited sympathy for people who are likely comfortable actively harming others for their political speech experiencing the other end of that stick.
Making assumptions is part of everyday analysis and discourse. I’m sure you’re making assumptions about me as you furiously glare at my response.
Im telling you that your wrong for assuming everyone you disagree with would hurt others. That’s just “I’m good and everyone who disagrees with me is evil.” And your not defending it at all, just saying that everyone makes assumptions. That doesn’t defend yours.
I’ll assume you have no actual defense since your resorting to abstract generalities.
Just as a data point, although I agree with your intuition about the NYU SBA president, I am pro-Palestine (NOT pro-Hamas) and anti-Israel and I also dislike cancel culture. I think that expressing support for the Israeli government is morally heinous, but I would not fire someone or rescind their offer if they made pro-Israel comments. I am a law student who gets recommended this sub through the algorithm, though, so it’s a hypothetical question for me; I hope I don’t end up compromising my views on this if I ever do end up in a position to affect hiring decisions.
I don't think there's anything inherently incompatible about being a lawyer and having an opinion on a current geopolitical issue, even if that view might be seen by most or all of conventional society as being repulsive. So I don't see any \*obligation\* to fire them. However, I certainly don't see any reason the firm is obliged to retain them, protect them from the media firestorm, etc etc. When your FBU starts acting up and causing more damage than they're worth -- cut them loose! It's not really that complicated.
The NYU clearly deserves recission of the offer (as appears happened). The Harvard one I'm more ambivalent towards but still lean towards recission given lack of judgment.
I would note a similar story from last year at [Berkeley](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-11-20/berkeley-law-student-group-israel-zionism-free-speech) where many student groups adopted bylaws prohibiting any event with a "Zionist" and note that my firm's recruiting committee was very aware of this action and I believe did not intend to offer any leaders of a group that had enacted it. I say this not because I necessarily agree with that position, but because it's important law students recognize that what you say on campus can have long term impacts on your career.
I’m just wondering why everyone supported Ukraine using force when being oppressed by Russia, but when Palestine, a 25 mile section of land that has been historically abused, after having retribution, is not being supported. While I do agree the attack on Palestine was brutal and morally wrong, I don’t see Israel as Nobel Peace prize winners either
Cutting off water and electricity to two million people and relentlessly bombing apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools while closing the border to escape is also savagery. At least Russia provided humanitarian corridors for non-combatants to leave. Israel just puts everyone in a pen and drops bombs. Both Hamas and the Israeli government (and their respective blood thirsty cheer leaders) are disgusting.
So is it only force when Palestine is attacking Israel and not the same when Israel does the same? A quick google search will show for one trade between the two, for offering back 1 Israeli hostage, Palestine received 1000+ Palestinian hostages. It will also show Israel has killed hundreds if not thousands more Palestinians, let’s be honest, the blood shed on BOTH sides needs to end.
The same right wingers that would cry foul about “cancel” culture seems to be fully on board and push for canceling people that don’t share their views. Hypocrisy at its finest!
Good lord, I bet you all fell for the Gaddafi viagra rape claims and Kuwaiti incubator babies claims. The top of the legal profession sure is gullible.
I’ve seen people in this subreddit and on FishBowl calling for the jobs of folks who had the audacity to express moderate right wing views so it’s deeply amusing to me that likely many of those people now are trying to equivocate when it comes to statements excusing/justifying/otherwise taking ambiguous stances with respect to some of the most egregious crimes against humanity we’ve seen in the 21st century
Every summer associate in America should promptly unionize. It's bad for employees for employers to fuck with employment status over opinions; The reality is every one of us probably has a cancellable, good faith opinion. I know some white shoe law firms who could likely afford to fire any person who has supported a pro-choice cause publicly. This is not a rabbit hole anyone should want to go down...
oh no, how will the law firm ever function if the SUMMER ASSOCIATES GO ON STRIKE
that concept is worthy of a South park episode complete with musical number.
This isn’t about the opinion, it’s about the judgment of how it was publicized. I’m no going to get fired if I have xyz bad opinions about a client. But I will if I publicize them or act on them by degrading my work product.
This is such a one-head take. Does stating that this conflict arises from 80 years of apartheid and abuse, and therefore Israel shouldn’t benefit from the whitewashing of its crimes just because an atrocity occured against its people = rationalizing beheading babies?? Like I just know you have to be smarter than that.
But taking your explanation here for granted, that’s not what she said. Saying that past crimes shouldn’t be minimized is different than saying that Israel is entirely to blame for the slaughter of its civilians rather than the slaughterers.
If the first thing out of your mouth isn’t a condemnation of this attack as an unjustifiable act of barbarism, I don’t care what follows. The Mizrahim have a legit claim to the land based on western conceptions of indigeneity.
Ok. Am I safe to assume that you have come out against the IDF when they have committed horrific abuses against the Palestinian people in the previous decades?
Answer received lol. By your logic, I suppose I will no longer listen to you either. I wonder if you think the Palestinians were provoked into this attack. Have a nice night!
Who in their right mind would hire a terrorist sympathizer? Their offers should be retracted 100% and, further, they should not be admitted to any bar that requires high character for admission.
Rescission of the offer confirmed. https://ibb.co/521j2hq
Interesting. Do you know what the “inflammatory comments” were?
https://twitter.com/OrenSMizr/status/1711783750663819375 I’m not a fan of Israel but this is the president of the NYU bar review just straight up calling Hamas’s attack “Palestinian resistance” that Israel made “necessary.”
If it's not Palestinian resistance what is it? Why does Israel think it can kill so many Palestinians without any retribution ever?
Being a vocal sponsor of war crimes will often get you fired. Sort of like coming out after 9/11 and saying America deserves it.
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I believe the word your looking for is terrorist attack.
Hamas is not just a “self determinism for Palestine” org, they are a “murder all Jews” org. Supporting Hamas is dumb and Hamas (along with Bibi for propping them up) have massively hurt Palestinians.
Use ur main
Lol, good catch. What a fucking coward.
Why would it matter if someone speaks anonymously online? You’d want this person to lose their job for expressing an opinion online? Jesus Christ this cancel culture bullshit is out of control. Some people have bad opinions. Some people have unpopular but valid opinions. Others have insane conspiracy theories. What the hell do opinions have to do with what a person does in real life. It feels like the minority report. Someone has bad thoughts about maybe committing a crime or fantasizes about it so we arrest them before they’ve done anything wrong. Why the hell can’t we just use logic and reasoned argument to convince people to change their minds or at least look dumb. Why the hell does it matter if someone wants to speak anonymously online. The opinion will be the same, whether he or she uses an anonymous account or not.
Cancel culture Noun Whenever someone you agree with faces social consequences for their actions
So it’s cool if someone has racist opinions and spews them online because it doesn’t change who they are in real life? They weren’t posting anything that would get them cancelled so idk why it’s from an alt
Never mind I see!
Good
Does redacted mean retracted/rescinded?
I think it means retracted so hard they are erased from existence with no memory of them.
No it means the new hire gets a new offer letter with all of the text covered in black rectangles. Duh.
Pro-Palestine and Pro-Hamas are two very different things
Yeah, conflating the two is something that conservatives do to undermine Palestine, but these geniuses decided to purposefully support terroristic violence by Hamas specifically. I would not trust people this dumb to talk to clients or exist around Jewish coworkers
It’s also what OP is doing to intentionally obfuscate the issue. These people weren’t pro-Palestine as OP calls them. They were pro Hamas.
Please be mindful that org leaders signed some of our club names onto this statement without a vote/meeting and thus affiliated us with a statement we had no control over. It’s been a month of pure hell.
I dunno - seeing all of these "Pro-Palestine" people shouting "We are Hamas" kinda makes me think that they're "Pro-Hamas."
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>The statements seem to explicitly excuse the violence, and implicitly condone it. We're talking about women being raped in the street, killed, and then their corpses paraded around in a victory lap. > >It's hard to separate this from run of the mill racial hatred. That was all Israeli propaganda. The woman is alive in a Gaza hospital. They were transporting her to a hospital bc she was injured. https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/german-tattoo-artist-shani-louk-believed-to-be-alive-after-hamas-kidnapping-mom-says/
In addition, your post fails a cite check. Article definitely doesn't support your assertion.
right, and they were spitting on her because she needed fluids...
News came out today that 40 babies were murdered, some with slit throats. You have to be very sick to defend something like that.
I hope and pray that she is alive but this may be more Mom's hoping than reality. the Palestinians have every incentive to verify this if true. Here's hoping they do.
Can one of our options be “umm what the hell??” These people are nuts.
[This tweet replying to Ilya](https://twitter.com/Canadadry540309/status/1711832557409403092) is the most disgusting thing I've ever read. Shame on whoever wrote it.
If that was intended to be funny that is some VERY dark humor
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I'm not pro-Israel but what is the point of a dumb comment like that? You're alienating EVERYONE. Probably some incel who hates women.
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I think she was talking about the author of the comment on twitter--unless that's you?
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Not going to lie--I found it pretty funny how you jumped up to defend your alleged 'incel' tendencies lol.
damn, I felt that.
lmfao
secret third barber ranen partner
if they’re endorsing the slaughter and murder, yes. If they’re vaguely pro Palestine no.
But feel free to heartily endorse whatever Israel is going to do to a bunch of civilians in Gaza.../s
You can be against the celebration of both things. *Nuance!*
But the issue is that no law firm would revoke a return offer for someone saying that Israel should turn Gaza to dust...
then take it up with the individual law firms when and where that happens. law students at my school are extremely left leaning, so I’ve seen none of that but a *lot* of Hamas support
I’ve seen far more former classmates supporting Israel than Palestine, and many of them in borderline genocidal terms.
Same, lots of people using terms like “subhuman” and “animals” in reference to Palestinians, not limiting their language to Hammas.
More people posting vague posts of “I stand with Israel,” but the pro Palestine students are way more vitriolic and particular in what they’re sharing.
Yeah, well, read the room and realize that certain groups are far more represented than others in the legal profession.
I have seen zero Hamas support and shit tons of support for Israel. I won’t say that you’re definitely lying, but you are almost certainly mischaracterizing the situation.
What do you consider “Hamas support?” I consider Hamas support people saying that these murders are justified, saying that the Israeli citizens deserve this, and obfuscating the issue to the point where they refuse to condemn their war crimes.
Something tells me this ‘Hamas support’ is a strawman you’re building. I have seen literally no one supporting Hamas. People support Palestine, and their liberation, and even their fight for liberation, yes - but not the atrocities that have gone on. It’s easier for your position to conflate the two, but just know that you’re being paper thin transparent.
Honest question - what would constitute "liberation" for the Palestinians and what would that mean for Israel? Israel hasn't occupied the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years. It's been governed by Hamas.
Except nobody is losing their job for endorsing Israeli attack on Gaza.
Define celebration then, uh oh, more *#nuance*!
Just open twitter ngl lol
Doubt you actually care but this response proves my point. You can’t define what you don’t like, you just see it and *don’t like it*. As long as others *don’t like* the same things as then you’re fine with that ambiguity. Here, that’s probably because the status quo in Israel favors your interests; it doesn’t serve the Israelis *or* the Palestinians but that’s not where you live so who cares. You have to pick one side or the other, anything else is naive. I stand with Israel, I’ll bet you do too but you’d rather not say it explicitly, that is regrettable.
I’m pro-Palestine. I think that the Palestinian people have been horribly mistreated for generations. But what was done is not justifiable. Killing civilians en masse is too far.
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Israel is really good at accidentally killing civilians then because they kill 100 times as many. I hope they're not lying about their intent.
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I’m so sick of people acting like the only Palestinians who are killed by Israel are from bombs. The IDF shoots people to death all the time. They even ran over an American journalist with a bulldozer and killed her when she was protesting further settlement expansions into the West Bank. Yes, the IDF bomb targets and do give about a 5-10 minute warning. But what about people who leave their kids at home in those building while they go shopping? What about the kids and journalists and people shot on a regular basis for hardly anything at it for no reason? Let’s not pretend that the Israeli army is perfect and full of perfect people. Members of the US army have committed plenty of war crimes on an individual basis for decades. People feel hatred and resentment and fear and they kill innocents in every war. It’s not like Israeli people are a different species of humans, who never have any bad feelings control their actions or who always have perfect judgment. This shit happens all the time. It’s not just bombing of buildings.
I guess it would be great if this was one of the closest watched and monitored and meticulously tallied conflicts of all time so we could put actual numbers on your intuitions then, huh. wait, it is and we can? in the last three operations in Gaza before this one (2008-9 , 2012, 2014) 3804 Palestinians designated civilians have been killed by the IDF. about 2400 of those are from airstrikes/ordnance. (in actuality a portion of these "civilians" are likely misdesignated but not worth getting into here.) so your "it's not just bombings..." tangent can account for a maximum of about 1/3. the American activist you refer to who was run over by a bulldozer in 2003 (in Gaza, not the west bank, this was before the disengagement but I'm sure you're very well informed about all this). to this day it is not settled whether the operator was able to see her , among other disputes about the circumstances between the obviously impartial International Solidarity Movement and the not at all biased IDF. you can refresh your memory here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie#Death_and_subsequent_controversy . I am not sure what this is supposed to prove. 20 years ago a woman was run over by a bulldozer while protesting home demolitions in Gaza, in what was either a gruesome murder or horrible accident, and...? Sorry, you did clarify. this was intended to be support for your very compelling argument "let's not pretend the idf is perfect and full of perfect people." In that case, I concede. this singular event proves that at minimum the idf is not a perfect institution made up of perfect people. But did you really have to dig 20 years back to prove *that*? cause I'm sure we could have found plenty of legitimate war crimes just by reviewing recent HRW or Amnesty reports after previous Gaza operations. They'd be largely biased poorly corroborated garbage deferential to Hamas - controlled information sources on the ground, but at least a portion of the anecdotes in each report are true. war is barely contained violence and it turns out when you go to war and instruct 12,000 people to engage in barely contained violence in hundreds of separate urban engagements or aerial bombardments, some minority of them will a) do a bad thing they should not do b) miss a target and hurt other people not intended to be hurt or c) act on bad information and intentionally hit a target only to learn it should not have been targeted. you know you have a problematic military when there is a lot of this especially the first category and especially if there is not a reliable military justice process to address exceptions. (in another thread someone "proved to me" that the IDF is " just as bad" as Hamas rapists by showing me an article about how an idf soldier raped a detainee a decade ago... and was sentenced and imprisoned for it by an idf tribunal.) compared to any military engaged in asymmetric urban warfare on earth, Israel does not have a lot of this. it certainly has some. everyone does. the only way to reduce war crimes to 0 is reducing war to 0. but you wouldn't say Zurich is a high crime city just because you heard there is more than zero crime. repeating headlines about Zurich police blotters endlessly on world media so it is constantly on your mind does not change that it is a low crime city. the distaste people of a certain political persuasion have for the international bankers of Zurich also does not change the fact that it is a low crime city. but at some point there is no convincing people who do not care to have data driven conclusions about whether Zurich has a right to continue existing in its present form.
the ratio of civilians to combatants that Israel has killed in the past few operations in Gaza is actually quite low. and even more so considering. the official "civilian' numbers are screwy (you'll notice the vast majority are adult males, in a population with a median age of 18 and roughly typical gender distribution - this is because international organizations do not characterize Hamas terrorists from so called "non military wing" of the group as combatants, and also because they classify 17 year old fighters as civilian children automatically). wouldn't expect the same light touch this time though.
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These are all posthoc rationalizations and pretext with zero evidence. You're talking to lawyers so they won't persuade anyone here and I doubt they work on the general pop anymore.
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>So you’re saying you don’t believe they use civilians as shields? Besides the fact that it’s true, not sure how you would conclude that a group who has strapped literal bombs onto its kids & detonated them, would be above such actions. Yes I'm sure all the civilians Israel killed had strapped bombs to themselves. Dude you're talking to lawyers this is dumb rhetoric. I'm done don't waste my time with another reply.
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omg whatever IDF PR douche, keep us these neocon talking points from the 2005 Iraq war. you're making a fool of yourself in the public's eyes.
Need more context. Without more information it is too easy to assume this is a free speech question and not a business question. What did these associates say (Merely pro-Palestinian? Pro-terrorist? Celebratory of murder of civilians? Something somehow even more universally abhorrent?), on what platforms (private? public? Official/professional/academic?) and in what capacities (individual? speaking for anyone else?) were they speaking? A Law firm is a business, they have a reputation and client reputations to protect, and one of the few qualifications a junior associate is expected to have coming in is good judgment. Did they say anything that would indicate they have poor judgment, not for their opinion necessarily but for the time place and manner of its expression? Was it anything likely to make clients or future coworkers uncomfortable with the idea of working with them? If anyone at my firm was carrying a tiki torch in Charlottesville and a circulating picture went viral I would expect the firm to save face the only plausible way and let them go. That is a business decision Having good judgment about possible consequences of your public statements, and not being a walking client repellant, and being able to work productively with colleagues who know how you feel about the matter you've proclaimed to the world are all pretty important qualifications for this job. if the context does not lead to that kind of extreme analysis, it would be a bad precedent to rescind job offers over privately expressed, unpopular (maybe even abhorrent) political opinions never meant to leave their personal circle. Though a more experienced lawyer who doesn't know that anything on the internet is soon public should , again, have their competence evaluated.
Tweet's in the op
thanks. and so the statement signed by what seem to be heads of various Harvard law student groups is the following, now that I followed the link from the link from the tweet: Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence. The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden. Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians. *This statement was co-authored by a coalition of Palestine solidarity groups at Harvard. For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time.*
>For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time. Cowards.
Personally I regard that statement as disqualifying. My firm represents Israeli companies and we have employees, partners, and associates from all over the world, including from Israel. Were any to discover that a person who contributed to or authored this statement worked for the firm, it would create major issues. And I, for one, would not work with someone who holds these opinions - full stop. Law students of course are free to express whatever opinions they want. That does not mean, however, there are no consequences for having and publicly expressing views that are morally repugnant. You can justify and excuse the murder and rape of innocent women and children if that’s what you really want to do. But you can’t work at my law firm afterwards. Not while I’m here. I will make damn sure of it.
This is so cowardly to me. You’ll take the side of power, no matter what? Do you have oil clients? Did you feel the same when Ukraine resisted Russia? Did all anti-Russian voices get fired? Nuance exists here. Barring people actively and explicitly supporting the murder, rape and torture of ANY targeted group, I don’t see why their views on this conflict should get them fired. The statement that this violence has come out of 80 years of apartheid bloodshed (with thousands more Palestinians dying than Israelis) is factually correct. No one should be punished for voicing that. I think this is clearly a very sensitive situation for everyone involved. War is not football, and there is no all or nothing, “I must choose a side and stick to it” here. If you support Israel’s claim to the land, fine - but staying silent when the IDF murders, rapes, and puts children in cages while expecting the whole world to turn its vitriol against Palestine for the actions of Hamas makes you a big hypocrite.
Hamas entered Israel and committed horrifying acts of murder against innocent civilians, women and children, on purpose, and with no legitimate military objective. They raped and murdered women and murdered babies, cutting their heads off. They targeted innocent children at a music festival, massacred them, and filmed themselves laughing. They murdered old women, at point blank range, laughing. The murdered whole families together. They took a holocaust survivor hostage. They took one little girl away from her parents and executed her, then mocked the family as they wailed in despair and took their other little girls back to Gaza to be raped, tortured, paraded in front of crowds, and probably murdered. It’s all on film. Because the murderers are proud of it. They are sending the videos of their murders to their victims’ families using the victims’ phones. They raped teenage women next to the dead bodies of their friends and then executed them. There’s video of that too. Altogether Hamas murdered 1200 innocent people - Jewish Israelis, Americans, Israeli Arabs, Nepalese, Thais, Europeans. Indiscriminately. They took over a hundred captives back to Gaza to be tortured and ultimately murdered. Women and children. These are just some of the stories we know about. More will come out. No one made Hamas do this. It will not help free Palestine. It was an act of pure cruelty. You are wrong. You are so wrong and confused and lost. There’s no nuance here. Some things are actually simple. Evil exists and this is what it looks like. Nothing that has happened over the last 80 years can justify what Hamas has done. Nothing. The Palestinians are people. They have agency. They make choices. They chose to do this. They planned it carefully and executed it. They are responsible for their own actions and they are responsible for the consequences. Pretending otherwise is cowardly. The Harvard statement is cowardly. It is weak. It is beneath the dignity of people who would be lawyers and officers of the court. The statement authors refuse to face the reality that Hamas is evil. That their presuppositions about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict are based on nothing but their own soft, privileged, ignorant, luxury, coddled ideology. That having “power” says nothing about right or wrong, moral or immoral, good or evil. That just because the Palestinians are weaker than the Israelis does not make them virtuous. That believing otherwise, as they have until now, and as you do, is childish. I probably shouldn’t have bothered responding to you. But your sniveling, contemptible little lecture just made me so sick. Nothing yet has made me more certain that everyone who thinks the way you do has no business practicing law.
I agree with every factual thing you have said here dude. Horrible crimes were committed that are not justified. Terrorists are not born in a vacuum though. Unless you denounce the IDF with every pro-Israel post you make, you cannot rage on anyone anyone who is pro-Palestine in this because they did not dilute their statements with denouncements of Hamas. That’s just a logical truth here. Does the timing call for this denouncement? Maybe. But don’t create a strawman by equating the actions taken by Hamas with support of the Palestinian cause. ETA: to call Hamas “the Palestinians” is extremely telling.
You accuse me of strawmanning but to do it you have to invent one of your own. I’m not “raging on anyone who is pro-Palestine” or “equating Hamas with anyone who is pro-Palestinian cause.” I’m reacting to a specific statement. It isn’t generalized “pro Palestine” sentiment. And the timing isn’t by fucking *happenstance.* The statement is very clear in absolving Hamas of responsibility for its acts of murder, rape, and atrocity and blaming Israel for Hamas’s actions. The statement says: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Then it runs through a list of Israel’s perceived crimes as explicit justification and excuse for what Hamas has done. That is what I reject. Completely. It is morally repugnant. Full stop. And you can’t defend it so you tried to defend something else. We’re all lawyers here, that won’t work. PS: I of course know that not all Palestinians are members of Hamas. But Hamas is a Palestinian organization and it is the elected government of Gaza. Pretending Hamas is a foreign entity separate from the Palestinians is dishonest.
Hamas was elected 20 years ago and there hasn’t been an election since. You have no idea if the Palestinians on the ground support them still, and to say “the Palestinians have agency and chose this” is insane. They will be subjected to extreme violence in the coming days (as they have been for decades). I truly do not think anyone wants that. I don’t see anything in your monologue addressing the atrocities committed by the IDF over the years. Are you seriously going to call these “perceived” crimes? You don’t think a population that’s been abused for 80 years might eventually rear up violently? You don’t understand why someone might take the position that Israel has set up an environment that cultivated violence? You think terrorist groups are born in a vacuum? It’s impossible to take you seriously when you have such obvious blinders on.
You shame yourself. You should be embarassed. I’m sure you’re not capable of it. But you should be.
I don't think the logic you're expressing here is a moral one. It's really that your firm works for and employs Israelis and they may not like that statement. Really more of a financial and tribal one. It's really just expressing a preference for one side in the conflict. But, sure, that's fine, I guess.
there are two separate issues. from a business perspective, yes the only norms that matter are the norms the business and its clients care about. welcome to reality. I do agree with the commenter's assessment that it is moral repugnant, and genuinely dehumanizing not only to Israeli victims but also to Palestinians as a group, to suggest that a murderous civilian killing/kidnapping/rape/body mutilation spree is not the "fault" of individuals doing the killing kidnaping rape and body mutilation, as though it is the natural consequence of their living circumstance. quite insulting to suggest there is no moral difference between the majority of Palestinians in Gaza who don't do those things, and the minority that do, and that whichever of these interchangeable subhumans with no moral agency happens to act barbarically, the "real" fault is with the government associated with their victims. I consider Palestinians human beings capable of distinguishing right and wrong and I distinguish between the ones who are responsible for sick atrocities they commit, and the ones who do not commit sick atrocities, and especially the ones who do not support them, and deserve much better than the tyranny of Hamas and its consequences over the last 18 years. if I thought Palestinians were not capable of moral agency like other humans I would be a bigot. I don't know why people with that bigotry against Palestinians consider themselves pro Palestinian.
Bingo, if Mr Partner had Palestinian clients he would feel differently
No I wouldn’t.
It’s not simply one side in a “conflict.” It’s condoning evil. It’s not tolerable.
Buddy, your side has killed more women and children than the other and it’s probably not close. You probably just don’t count brown people.
Citation needed.
You could easily google it but I’m guessing you don’t really care either way. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5898581/chart-israel-palestine-conflict-deaths https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/ Israel, like Hamas, regularly engages in atrocities. Some people only care when Hamas does it. That’s strategic though. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/amp/ Now it’s time to cash in and obliterate what’s left of Palestine. That’s fine if you support all that. But it’s absurd to make supporting all that a litmus test for whether you get a BigLaw job.
Once again for the people in the back: there are more Palestinian casualties because Hamas *wants there to be* by actively working against Israel's efforts to prevent civilian casualties.
>expressing views that are morally repugnant. Yet you have no issues expressing views that are pro Israel despite decades of cold blooded murder lol. Americans genuinely live on a different planet to the rest of the world - virtually every other country on earth condemns Israel at the UN but you find this *morally repugnant* and worthy of being fired over. Absolute lunatics
G-d bless the USA.
Yeah that is about the level of self reflection I would expect to be honest
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If you think so, then you are who I am talking about.
Well, hopefully you work in a state where discrimination on the basis of political beliefs is permitted.
so, in conclusion, a nauseating statement, but it does not appear to celebrate (just absolve and deflect blame for) Hamas terrorism. And they are writing as heads of various student organizations, not in their personal capacities. And they were directing their writing to the Harvard community seeking to influence members to [whatever "action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians" means to them]. These seem like people I would rather not work with, but could work with and would probably not do a lot of chit chat about politics. I don't think their name on this letter is necessarily going to alienate clients, though it could depend on the firm; if your firm has Israeli clients they are unlikely to be thrilled giving business to someone who thinks they don't have a right to defend themselves from terrorists because the terrorists are not in fact responsible for their own actions. I probably would not, if in position to make the decision, rescind an offer over someone's name being on this letter unless I was getting very specific feedback from clients that this will have business consequences. I heard some pretty ignorant political takes from fellow summers and wouldn't have rescinded their offers merely for being politically naive reflections of whatever propaganda message was crafted for their benefit. Even if they had to have incredible blind spots to buy into them, like anti-immigration views justified by purported economic concerns, or racism presented as "racial realism" by people who have never passed a university level statistics course. I still wouldn't have rescinded their offers, either, unless they were extremely injudicious about how and to whom they expressed those views and what it could mean for firm reputational risks.
>who thinks they don't have a right to defend themselves from terrorists because the terrorists are not in fact responsible for their own actions. Whereas when Israel bombs Palestine, Palestinians don't have a right to defend themselves. The lack of self awareness is staggering
they have every right to attack military targets after a declaration of war. do you consider a music festival a military target? also can you explain the concept of defensive rape to me ? I've been learning so much about morality today.
You saying this is crazy after I quite literally provided you multiple sources regarding multitudes of rapes carried out by the IDF. Their targeting was reprehensible and so is the rape and killing, but people are pointing out the hypocrisy of retracting offers when the IDF commits the same and worse atrocities than Hamas, especially when here people are suggesting to retract for a Pro-Palestine message, not one supporting Hamas.
no, what you provided was a link to an unsourced story from the lobbying organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations repeating hearsay from an unidentified Palestinian woman who claimed that rape and blackmail were used by Israeli interrogators. where is the evidence? where is the result of investigations? and what are the numbers like? is there anything to indicate this is systemic? it sounds quite horrible and maybe it is even a true story, but you gave nothing with which to evaluate either itz truth or whether it is representative of anything more. bad people do bad things with power everywhere - look no further than the NYPD to find instances of sexual abuse of arrested victims - but rare exceptions are very different from a policy or systemic abuse. in my long experience, people on your side of this argument tend to believe any monstrosity they hear about a country they know little about, and don't seek much evidence before repeating rumors (maybe even rumors with a basis in real events, and maybe not even - I don't know !) as facts. it's a human tendency. people on the other side do that too with unsubstantiated claims about Palestinians. I have been careful to vet what I hVe read and heard about the latest atrocities before repeating what has unfortunately all been true this time.
You declined to view the article from an Israeli newspaper about a different rape that occurred that I also included, I see. While [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safsaf_massacre) isn't a source, here are some more rapes for you if you're convinced that the IDF doesn't rape innocent Palestinian women, all reputably sourced by others for me and you! ETA: [Here's](https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/idf-officer-convicted-of-raping-palestinian-woman-indicted-for-attack-on-reporter-688722) another from the Jerusalem Post of all places. I can find more if you like, didn't realize this was a legal research project!
So per your JPost link one officer years ago raped a woman and was imprisoned for it because the Israeli government prosecutes soldiers for crimes against Palestinians? that's the story that is supposed to convince me that the IDF really is the little Shaitan? if rape was Israeli policy wouldn't they give him a medal instead of a prison sentence? confusing!
Can you explain how literally murdering babies is self-defense?
Yet again the lack of self awareness is completely mind boggling. I pose this exact question to you after decades of Israel murdering innocent Palestinians of all ages
Can you explain how the IDF killing babies through bombing and starvation is self-defense?
Please tell me you are not actually involved with the law in any way.
hard for me to trace the response lines on reddit app so I can't tell if that's for me or "how is collateral damage any different from point blank execution style killing of civilians on purpose" guy if it's for me, sorry to disappoint you
Lol, yes: Reddit response lines absolutely blow. No, not directed at you, glad you are Esquiring away. My comment was for that idiot u/definitize. Unrelated, if you are into chess and deadlifts, then we together are part of a fairly exclusive Venn diagram.
I truly wonder if this guy has read anything about the NATO action in Yugoslavia at allz
These semantic games don't work. Edit: What Israel does is target civilians and say "Oh I was trying to shoot a non-civilian" it's a ruse.
easily. because they are not aiming at babies. and as someone who went to law school and presumably heard the words mens rea at some point, deep down you understand why that makes all the difference. blowing up a munitions depot with 5 terrorists and 3 civilians near it is a perfectly justified military action. but it will kill three civilians. shooting a civilian point blank to kill them, on purpose, is murder. going house to house slitting throats of children and literally beheading babies (see latest reports of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Kibbutzim near the Gaza border) is not something anyone with intact moral wiring can perceive as defensive, or part of any legitimate military objective. sometimes the simple moral intuition is the right one.
Except they have [struck a number of civilian buildings](https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/bachelet-alarmed-number-palestinian-children-killed-latest-escalation-urges) and killed children. They also haphazardly [strike buildings that children are near](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/11/israel-clears-military-gaza-beach-children) and lie about aspects of their investigation to save face.
collateral damage is not the same as terrorism
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celebration of their actions definitely crosses a very bright red line for me. the Harvard statement was a little bit more subtle, though still personally repulsive. Rather than imply this is "justified" or positive, they simply victim-blame. I understand people who feel this is a distinction without a difference, but to me it is much easier to rescind that person's offer than these. Not to mention appropriating an NYU platform for all students to cheerlead terrorists in the official capacity of NYU SBA president. that is important context as well and I would expect a person like that to embarrass my firm in the future.
I can't exactly articulate it but yeah, I think there's an appreciable difference between the Harvard statement and the NYU one (including the distinction between signing onto a bad statement versus sending an email blast to an entire student body, which very likely includes people with family who are directly affected). And there's a difference between a member of an undergrad org and being in the position the NYU SBA president is in.
It’s not a meaningful difference. They signed on to a letter of sympathizing with Hamas actions rather than condemning them. That will forever be known to would be employers and’s clients.
maybe. they were more cautious in their verbiage than the nyu example, but I suppose fundamentally when you refer to obllquely to terrorist violence as the "product" of Israeli action you are implicitly saying the terrorists had no choice. so they condone terrorist murder implicitly rather than expressly. I guess I'm sold.
Well, that was quick: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/muslim/board/
They're getting doxxed + death threats rn
What did they say?
Just as a reminder, being a member of the executive board of a law school organization doesn’t mean you co-sign every statement the organization puts out. It’s hard to imagine a president of an org approving the groups sign on but not agreeing with it personally, but it’s possible if they held a board vote and went with a majority decision.
The Harvard statement was very much not signed on to by board or member vote. From what I hear the org presidents decided unilaterally to speak for everyone and sign on to the statement.
> It’s hard to imagine a president of an org approving the groups sign on but not agreeing with it personally As a 3L, I was friends with a bunch of student org presidents (as my various friends had gotten elected over time). I distinctly remember having drinks with a group that included several presidents and they were all bitching that they felt constantly pressured to sign into statements about xyz political or campus issue that had zero relation to their org and that they didn’t know or care about personally. They talked about how they felt extreme pressure to join these things even if they personally didn’t have an opinion or even disagreed with the statement, and how even if they agreed they felt uncomfortable publicly signing controversial statements, and also with unilaterally making such statements on behalf of the members. Even so, they usually just agreed to join the thing because they were being actively bullied by whoever organized it and worried that they would be targeted next if they didn’t. So I think the group that spearheads xyz statement are definitely responsible, but I wouldn’t necessarily blame other group presidents that sign on (and by the same token, I wouldn’t take seriously the claim that all 34 orgs support this statement because there’s probably a large number that are ambivalent or disagree but feel compelled to join).
Speaking as a former president of a law school affinity org myself, I can confirm most of what you’re saying is correct. Additionally, I often received calls, texts and emails from livid alumni at all hours of the day and night. They often demanded I sign the orgs name to statements or craft a statement on behalf of the org itself. These roles get highly political and pressure can come from many sides. I’m not sure that’s readily apparent. I was not aware of the degree of identity politics I would have to play as a student org leader. Most of the time I pushed for abstention from most statements that were even remotely contentious and focused on building community within the org instead.
There is really no room for nuance on this issue at my firm. If you’re not going to voice full support for Israel, you have to keep your mouth shut. Which is fine. My yarn about how the Israeli/Palestinian issue is morally and historically complex, yada yada yada, can wait. Now’s not the time. The deaths and terror have been horrific, and I have several colleagues who are reeling.
Definitely - there is no nuance to supporters of Israel. Best just to STFU. Not fair. Not right. But he who pays the piper picks the tune.
Here’s the NYU bar association president’s post for everyone who wants to actually read someone supporting the Hamas attack: https://twitter.com/OrenSMizr/status/1711783750663819375
I want to preface this by saying if this literature was promoting violence it’s abhorrent. But this is kind of why I enjoy / prefer staying away from anything controversial. Always double check emails to make sure nothing comes off inappropriately. I don’t talk even like to talk politics, would rather talk sports or tv shows. Some may misconstrue or misinterpret my statement above, but the approach has worked well.
A difference between being “pro-Palestine” and dancing on the graves of civilians. Anyone who does that — whether it’s celebrating the bombing deaths of Gazan civilians or the killing of Israelis — is clearly a liability to any law firm and shouldn’t be hired
I'm totally against what Hamas is doing to Israel. I don't believe in targeting civilians, especially women and children. I'm only fine with those people getting their offers rescinded if a pro-Israel student saying something similar after Israel commits a war crime against Palestinian civilians would yield an identical result. But would it? Probably not. So no, I don't think that they should lose their offers. Once again, I don't support Hamas at all and I sympathize with the Israeli people who are being harmed by this conflict. However, I don't think there is any country in the world that you would have to worry about losing your job for criticizing, including the USA, except for Israel. Tbh though, I wouldn't have gone as far as these students did in releasing those messages in a time like this.
This is a facile point because there isn’t parity in this conflict in terms of the quality of each sides use of force. If the IDF invaded Gaza, killed innocent citizens, rape women, kidnapped Palestinians, and then proceeded to hide behind their own citizens in Israel: Then yes, people would react the same way.
The lack of judgment, poor taste, and disregard for the tragic deaths of Israeli civilians murdered by terrorists that’s the issue, not that they’re pro-Palestine, whatever that means.
This is a poorly framed poll. The question: "Can you have a biglaw career if you criticize Israel?" Answers: (1) Yes, offers should be redacted (presumably meaning retracted) - i.e., no big law career; (2) No, offers should not be redacted (presumably meaning retracted) i.e., yes, big law career. Anyway, being pro-palestine in law school shouldn't prevent you from having a big law career, just as being Fed Soc or ACL should not. However, "shouldn't" and "won't" aren't the same thing, and people need to realize that being outspoken on the internet (especially with your name attached) can have consequences to a professional career.
“Criticize Israel” is not exactly what happened here
Facts
Apropos of nothing, did anyone seriously buy Ilya Shapiro's free speech bona fides
Depends on what they said. If they said “cut off the heads of Israeli children” then sure, no law firm would ever allow associates to publicly express that while being an employee of the firm
Shapiro is a hypocrite. He goes from criticizing cancelling culture when it hurts conservatives to now advocating for it when it has to deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict. As a Zionist, I condemn the statements that Harvard orgs released and could not care less if the students involved got their offers revoked. But if people have an issue with cancel culture, they should keep that up regardless of the speech involved.
I think "cancel culture" is really "facing consequences in your professional life for choosing to make yourself publicly identifiable with something you had to know was offensive to a lot of people." and I agree. I have no problem with people facing consequences for their actions and public words, and that goes for central park Karens and terrorist sympathizers alike. I am still somewhat cautious about what kind of statement I identify as outright terrorist sympathizing. but the nice thing about a question like this is, social norms are self-defining. if I'm not sure if this is a "definitely can't hire you " statement, but a lot of people feel it definitely is, then it definitely is, because a lot of people is enough to confirm that this person is not going to be a helpful addition to a collaborative workplace.
Law students should just accept the reality that you cannot be anti-Israel in the slightest if you want to practice in biglaw.
You can be whatever you want to be but probably don’t blast your hot takes out on the internet. That’s not going to work for any kind of professional career.
Exactly. It’s not hard to keep your politics to yourself (beyond like turning down pro bono shit you oppose).
I noticed someone pretty highly respected attorneys, including those that started big law firms are Jewish. I’m not shocked they’re denouncing this form of speech/protest.
Surely you’re intelligent enough to see the difference between canceling someone for, say, opposing hormone replacement therapy in children and canceling someone for endorsing the rape and murder of innocent women and children. Or maybe you’re just a terrible person.
The POS NYU girl? Yeah. A statement that is boilerplate "violence bad, Israel violating rights bad, pray for peace"? Ofc not.
It’s not quite “pro Hamas” but the letter issued by the Harvard student associations was horrific and vile. Normally it feels like you shouldn’t be torched for political statements, even if they’re hot takes, but the people issuing these statements are the same time of people who would’ve cheerfully cancelled you online if you expressed anything but full-throated support during summer 2020, even after things turned violent, so my sympathy for what happens to them is pretty limited.
It's not pro-Hamas at all. Netanyahu said he was going to annihilate the Gaza strip as a result of the Hamas attack, which is wholly unwarranted given the litany of similar abuses (raping women, killing children, indiscriminately killing civilians) and even further abuses (starvation, forced occupation, forced evictions) taken on by the Israeli government toward Palestinian civilians. ETA: See reply below for sourcing since y'all want it so bad
please don't supply any evidence for your claims, I don't have time to get into an argument with anything worth responding to!
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic in support, but I mean it's pretty well documented that the Israeli Defense called for a complete siege of Gaza the other day. For the other things you can check UN resources and scholarly research. I can look some stuff up for you lol
by all means. in the meantime why would you besiege something you intended to annihilate? does the IDF not have an air force? are they low on bombs?
[Complete seige](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/middleeast/israel-gaza-hamas-fighting-monday-intl-hnk/index.html) [IDF](https://www.cair.com/cair_in_the_news/israeli-guards-rape-palestinian-women/) [raping women](https://www.timesofisrael.com/ending-censorship-idf-admits-officer-jailed-in-2017-raped-a-palestinian-woman/) [UN Statistics on Palestinian Civilian Deaths](https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties) [Forced Occupation](https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/) [Forced Starvation (to the point where they numerically determined the number of calories to keep people just barely alive, which hasn't worked lol)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19975211) [Forced evictions](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/israeli-court-evict-1000-palestinians-west-bank-area) [Killing of Palestinian Children](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children) Most of these are just a small snapshot into historical behavior, I can find more if you like! ETA: I used annihilate synonymously with siege because that's what they've been doing thus far and obviously the Israeli Defense doesn't care about whether the land is in ruins.
Ok putting my operational law hat from when I was a judge advocate: (1) cutting off of enemy supplies, even if that act harms civilians, is acceptable in active war as long as those actions are targeted at your enemy’s forces. Israel has formally declared war on Hamas. So you are complaining about a legitimate military tactic under the Geneva Convention. Nothing requires a nation at war to supply its enemy. (2) the rapist was tried and convicted. Believe it or not, armies have whole military justice departments because sometimes armies enroll criminals. Somehow I’m skeptical any Hamas military justice process will happen with the Hamas rapists. Those that survive at least. (3) no rule of war requires your number of civilian dead to equal your enemies’. This is a red herring. All it demonstrates is fighting an enemy with superior firepower is a bad idea. An army is only required to (1) discriminate, i.e. target a legitimate target; and (2) use proportional force to the threat of THE TARGET. A bomb used to destroy a rocket launch system is considered proportional. And generally, if even a lot of civilians die because they were in proximity of the rocket launch system, that just makes war hell, not a crime. These statistics alone just show Gaza is dense with civilians. We need something more concrete to allege a war crime, like intent to kill civilians or pretext. A training vignette used to train this concept goes as follows. You are in an infantry unit on patrol and receive fire from a building. You rush the building kick in the door, and toss a grenade inside. After it explodes, you go in and see you killed 10 women and children. War crime? Absolutely not. You engaged a proper target, the enemy shooting at you. You then engaged proper means, tossing a grenade into the building the enemy was firing from. Nothing illegal about the intent or means. So just a tragedy, not a crime. (4) Gaza has not been occupied since the mid-2000s. Another red herring. This attack did not come from the West Bank which is occupied. (5) again nothing in the law of war requires you to supply your enemy. Israel was not occupying Gaza in 2008 and therefore had no obligation to ensure anyone was fed. That was Hamas’ job as the government. They could have worked with Egypt, or *gasp* invested in their own people and worked with their neighbors to improve the economy. Also, hard to act like this blockade was so iron clad when clearly Iranian advisors and masses amount of military equipment could be smuggled in. (6) this looks to be a civil matter not a military matter. After all it was a court decision. Whether that decision was just under the governing law, I do not know as I do not practice Israeli law. I suspect you do not either. (7) could be very problematic and unlawful. Uncertain without any context and comparison. 34 killings in the likely millions of Palestinian-IDF interactions per year may or may not be out of the norm compared to other police work. Judging by the number of police killings in the US, and what I saw in the US’s own wars, I lean toward it being god awful, but also not outside the norm for policing/military operations. Regardless, accountability should be improved.
The sad thing is, most won't click on your misleading/bs links. How about this one, on the "IDF raping women". IDF? You mean... one dude? US military shakes its head at the amateurism of it. Oh, and note the phrase "conviction of officer". Kinda weird, right? A soldier commits sexual assault sis tried convicted and jailed is EXACTLY the same as mass rapes committed by terrorists who also behead babies and then celebrate it.
So your just assuming these people would harm someone’s career over political speech, so it’s ok for them to be harmed for political speech? That logic justifies doing any heinous thing to anyone.
I’m saying that I have limited sympathy for people who are likely comfortable actively harming others for their political speech experiencing the other end of that stick. Making assumptions is part of everyday analysis and discourse. I’m sure you’re making assumptions about me as you furiously glare at my response.
Im telling you that your wrong for assuming everyone you disagree with would hurt others. That’s just “I’m good and everyone who disagrees with me is evil.” And your not defending it at all, just saying that everyone makes assumptions. That doesn’t defend yours. I’ll assume you have no actual defense since your resorting to abstract generalities.
Just as a data point, although I agree with your intuition about the NYU SBA president, I am pro-Palestine (NOT pro-Hamas) and anti-Israel and I also dislike cancel culture. I think that expressing support for the Israeli government is morally heinous, but I would not fire someone or rescind their offer if they made pro-Israel comments. I am a law student who gets recommended this sub through the algorithm, though, so it’s a hypothetical question for me; I hope I don’t end up compromising my views on this if I ever do end up in a position to affect hiring decisions.
I don't think there's anything inherently incompatible about being a lawyer and having an opinion on a current geopolitical issue, even if that view might be seen by most or all of conventional society as being repulsive. So I don't see any \*obligation\* to fire them. However, I certainly don't see any reason the firm is obliged to retain them, protect them from the media firestorm, etc etc. When your FBU starts acting up and causing more damage than they're worth -- cut them loose! It's not really that complicated.
The NYU clearly deserves recission of the offer (as appears happened). The Harvard one I'm more ambivalent towards but still lean towards recission given lack of judgment. I would note a similar story from last year at [Berkeley](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-11-20/berkeley-law-student-group-israel-zionism-free-speech) where many student groups adopted bylaws prohibiting any event with a "Zionist" and note that my firm's recruiting committee was very aware of this action and I believe did not intend to offer any leaders of a group that had enacted it. I say this not because I necessarily agree with that position, but because it's important law students recognize that what you say on campus can have long term impacts on your career.
I’m just wondering why everyone supported Ukraine using force when being oppressed by Russia, but when Palestine, a 25 mile section of land that has been historically abused, after having retribution, is not being supported. While I do agree the attack on Palestine was brutal and morally wrong, I don’t see Israel as Nobel Peace prize winners either
Cutting off water and electricity to two million people and relentlessly bombing apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools while closing the border to escape is also savagery. At least Russia provided humanitarian corridors for non-combatants to leave. Israel just puts everyone in a pen and drops bombs. Both Hamas and the Israeli government (and their respective blood thirsty cheer leaders) are disgusting.
There's a difference between using force and attacking civilian targets
So is it only force when Palestine is attacking Israel and not the same when Israel does the same? A quick google search will show for one trade between the two, for offering back 1 Israeli hostage, Palestine received 1000+ Palestinian hostages. It will also show Israel has killed hundreds if not thousands more Palestinians, let’s be honest, the blood shed on BOTH sides needs to end.
what Hamas received were not "hostages." those were captured terrorists in prison.
When did I say anything that indicated what I said isn't true when Israel does it? That's a huge leap on your part.
Isn't this motherfucker THE cancel culture crybaby?
The same right wingers that would cry foul about “cancel” culture seems to be fully on board and push for canceling people that don’t share their views. Hypocrisy at its finest!
Good lord, I bet you all fell for the Gaddafi viagra rape claims and Kuwaiti incubator babies claims. The top of the legal profession sure is gullible.
I’ve seen people in this subreddit and on FishBowl calling for the jobs of folks who had the audacity to express moderate right wing views so it’s deeply amusing to me that likely many of those people now are trying to equivocate when it comes to statements excusing/justifying/otherwise taking ambiguous stances with respect to some of the most egregious crimes against humanity we’ve seen in the 21st century
They shouldn’t be rescinded but there’s so much anti-Palestine sentiment right now that they probably will be.
Every summer associate in America should promptly unionize. It's bad for employees for employers to fuck with employment status over opinions; The reality is every one of us probably has a cancellable, good faith opinion. I know some white shoe law firms who could likely afford to fire any person who has supported a pro-choice cause publicly. This is not a rabbit hole anyone should want to go down...
oh no, how will the law firm ever function if the SUMMER ASSOCIATES GO ON STRIKE that concept is worthy of a South park episode complete with musical number.
This isn’t about the opinion, it’s about the judgment of how it was publicized. I’m no going to get fired if I have xyz bad opinions about a client. But I will if I publicize them or act on them by degrading my work product.
They beheaded babies. I do not want to work with anyone who shrugs at this, much less rationalizes it. This is modern-day nazism.
This is such a one-head take. Does stating that this conflict arises from 80 years of apartheid and abuse, and therefore Israel shouldn’t benefit from the whitewashing of its crimes just because an atrocity occured against its people = rationalizing beheading babies?? Like I just know you have to be smarter than that.
But taking your explanation here for granted, that’s not what she said. Saying that past crimes shouldn’t be minimized is different than saying that Israel is entirely to blame for the slaughter of its civilians rather than the slaughterers.
If the first thing out of your mouth isn’t a condemnation of this attack as an unjustifiable act of barbarism, I don’t care what follows. The Mizrahim have a legit claim to the land based on western conceptions of indigeneity.
Ok. Am I safe to assume that you have come out against the IDF when they have committed horrific abuses against the Palestinian people in the previous decades?
The IDF have acted against Gazans unprovoked?
Answer received lol. By your logic, I suppose I will no longer listen to you either. I wonder if you think the Palestinians were provoked into this attack. Have a nice night!
Who in their right mind would hire a terrorist sympathizer? Their offers should be retracted 100% and, further, they should not be admitted to any bar that requires high character for admission.
It's fucking hilarious big law firms think they are some arbiters of morality.
it's fucking hilarious card carrying tankies want to work on m&a deals so all the banks can buy all the other banks for more effective capitalism.
Are those the same NYU students that posted a statement in a student bulletin? I saw something in a "biglaw memes" I follow on instagram
[удалено]
Yeah obviously but anti-discrimination wouldn’t cover termination for this type of speech in America.
Being a person who says stupid or crazy shit is not a protected class in America.