Gaza protest at the university in Oxford, Mississippi

I posted something very like this on Facebook a couple of days ago. The algorithm probably buried it deeply, but anyway… At least a couple of people saw it, though.

I see there was a protest at UM in Oxford Mississippi, (the university formerly known as “Ole Miss”) against US aid to Netanyahu's war-and-starvation campaign against civilians in Gaza. And presumably also against the wider Middle East war "Bibi" has been trying so hard to start and drag the US into. There are mass protests going on in Israel, too, demanding the government accept a deal to bring back the hostages.

Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister who was not any kind of "dove," is also calling for Israelis to hold mass protests to block a military attack on Rafah, where most Gazans are now concentrated:

It's time to stop Netanyahu and the government of [Security Chief] Ben-Gvir and [the overtly genocidal Finance Minister] Smotrich. It's time to flood the streets with millions of resolute opponents to surround the group of outlaws leading Israel to a crash and stop them, before it's too late.¹

Did he say "flood the streets"? I believe he did. Our President Joe “dissent-should-never-lead-to-disorder” Biden won’t be pleased to hear that.

There seems to have been a notable group of young white guys in Oxford doing a counter-demonstration. Can someone please explain to me what their sign in the picture below is supposed to mean? "Come and Take It," with "it" apparently being a 19th-century cannon (18th century?) with a single star above it.

The Mississippi Free Press reported²:

Ole Miss senior Lauren Flood only came to observe, but said she stands with Palestine. “I understand having opposing opinions, but anyone who can come and chant the school chant in the face of women and children being killed and starved and seeing hospitals being bombed—it’s very disheartening and eerie,” she told the Mississippi Free Press.

Some of the things Flood heard from counter protestors disturbed her. “I didn’t speak to these boys, but they were talking about following some of the protesters and wanting to harm them,” she said. “I’m still shaken a little at how violent some of the comments were. There was a sexual-assault comment by one of them directed toward the women in the protest with head coverings.”

Is the star on that banner supposed to be a reference to the "Bonnie Blue Flag" that was one of the Confederate flags? Or did they just say, hey, we need some kind of banner, and one of them had a trophy from a visit to the Alamo (in the "lone star state")? Or is it just some weird kind of Islamophobic symbol I've never noticed before? But it sounds like Mississippi’s Gov. Tater Tot was impressed with the whole thing.

A helpful hint to the counter-protesters: You know that guy who will now be seen in online videos for the next century making monkey hoots at a Black woman protester? Y'all might want to have a talk with that pore fool.

Also, it’s worth remembering that the counter-protesters being praised by Gov. Tater Tot and other senior state Republican officials, the folks with the weird cannon-flag banner, the ones chanting “Trump Trump Trump”, the monkey-hooting white guy: they were all demonstrating in favor of Democratic President Joe Biden’s Gaza policy.

1. Olmert, Ehud (2024): Israelis Must Flood the Streets to Keep the IDF Out of Rafah. Haaretz 2024-03-05. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israelis-must-flood-the-streets-to-keep-the-idf-out-of-rafah/0000018f-3aac-d516-afbf-feeea9ff0000> (Accessed: 2024-06-05).

2. Spiehler, Stacey & Judin, Nick (2024): As Students Protest For Palestine, The Ghosts Of UM’s Past Rise Again. Mississippi Free Press 05/03/2024. <https://www.mississippifreepress.org/41910/as-students-protest-for-palestine-the-ghosts-of-ums-past-rise-again> (Accessed: 2024-06-05).