to start off with, i think my opinion on the frontpagemag site at the time was influenced by my having just finished reading posts on the rightnation.us forums. i'm also sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians which is why i was so dismissive of everything that was said.
"Let me ask you, do you think it's possible that everything happened exactly as the article alleges? And, if so, would that be okay?"
i think it may have been possible that it happened as the article said. nevertheless, i'm not about to go believing everything that was said, because some of the quotes and accounts of events sounded a bit suss. such as:
'Lee Wolf, another College Republicans member, described one of the women on Monday as shouting, “The only way we can defeat you is to kill as many as possible! I’d rather die a suicide bomber’s death than to call myself an American!” He continued, “In my opinion, these were terrorist threats.”
That sounds a bit too convenient considering what the goals of a College Republicans member and the author appear to be. For example, the author attempts to liken the Palestinian contingent to someone whom the readers of his newspaper would describe as being a terrorist, Yasser Arafat, by making a point of how they were wearing keffiyahs. ('“They were all around us wearing black and white keffiyahs like Arafat wears,” said Finarelli.') (A few articles describing Arafat as a terrorist have been written recently on that site.) (the wearing of the keffiyah has become a symbol of rebellion against the oppressors, pretty much. just because some terrorists wear it doesn't mean everyone who wears it is a terrorist, e.g. italian university students have been known to wear keffiyahs which they called "arafiti's" when protesting.)
so, to answer your question, i can't really say whether i think it would be OK if the events did in fact unfold as reported -- disregarding any probable taunting by the Republican members. if any of the protestors assaulted the Republicans members then i'm not about to condone that, but i would also take into account some of the experiences that the Palestinian protestors (as these are the only people mentioned to have allegedly committed assault) might have gone through before branding them as terrorists, as the article, in my opinion, attempted to do. for example, whether they are in america as refugees / political asylum seekers (or whatever the term is) or are born in the US, some may have experienced firsthand the violence in their homeland, or had relatives that were victims of it, which explains where this anger while protesting stems from.
"I read it a couple times and didn't find any "stupidly repeated... sarcastic quotations". Nor any accusations toward "all the world's muslims for the actions of a few radicalists"."
the sarcastic quotes i was referring to were present on the opening page of the site where overviews of the articles are given. (i don't know if 'sarcastic quotes' is what i'm trying to say. i'm referring to something like "'mourning' arafat", which i found to be distasteful.)
and the "accusations toward all the world's Muslims", i felt, were part of the general theme of the opening page of the site. the section i was looking at was under the heading "The War at Home and Abroad" (which is positioned on the page in such a way that it appears to be the main features of the paper). Every article, even today, listed in this section is related to Muslims in some way. This makes sense considering that's who your Government is at war with, Muslims in general (due to their support of Israel, the war in iraq/afghanistan, occupations of muslim countries in the past), which is why these protesting Palestinians and others were protesting so passionately. (Various other groups were reported to have been present even though the article focused mainly on the Palestinians. It's therefore possible that other people who are not members of the GUPS (General Union of Palestinian Students) were behaving badly.)
But, I have heard of how much of the media in the US (perhaps also due in part to your Government's "Homeland Security Threat" thing) has been reporting the news in such a way as to evoke fear so I suppose by now you guys are pretty used to this kind of stuff.
But yeh, i don't read partisan newspapers and i stop reading or listening to articles in the news if what i see is in my eyes, biased bullshit, which is why i probably couldn't help myself but to unleash on this author. i like to hear the facts from both sides, which i dont think is unreasonable, but this was not delivered in this jihad article -- which probably sounds naive as i realise media ilke this exists, but this is what got me started on my rant in the first place.
Peace, Love, and Understanding
