Do the people who do this realize that the vast majority of other people don’t care?
The College Fix reports:
UC Berkeley lecturer on ‘starvation diet’ in ‘solidarity with Palestine’A University of California Berkeley lecturer recently began a “starvation diet” to demonstrate his “solidarity” with the Palestinians against Israel in their ongoing war.The Daily Californian reports Peyrin Kao, who teaches courses in electrical engineering and computer science, will only ingest 250 calories a day, which allegedly is the “average amount of nourishment available to Palestinians in Gaza,” according to the organization Oxfam.Kao’s semester course page currently reads “Apologies in advance if I’m in poor health during lectures. I’m currently undergoing a starvation diet in support of …” followed by a link to the Berkeley EECS [Electrical Engineering Computer Science] 4 Palestine Instagram page.So far, Kao’s meals have consisted of “plain pasta.” As of Thursday, he said he was feeling “fatigued,” but noted “his experience so far is ‘nothing’ in comparison to the conditions Palestinians in Gaza are facing.”Kao added “I don’t have to worry about being displaced at a moment’s notice; I don’t have to watch my family and community starve.”According to a statement on the Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine Instagram, Kao will maintain his minimal caloric intake until the university agrees to
- “acknowledge Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,”
- acknowledge UC Berkeley’s role “in the development of war technologies that have expanded Zionist cloud services, AI-powered surveillance,” and more,
- pledge to dismantle “relationships” with the “military industrial complex,” and
- “institutionalize ethical standards and practices for collaborations and funding to align with the international community’s framing of international humanitarian law.”
Kao recently posted a video featuring “his friend and colleague” Dave from the lecturers union who joined him in his “hunger strike” for a whopping 24 hours.Dave requested “ethics to be introduced in EECS instruction, and […] more engagement among union members and other university employees on moral issues tied to their labor.”
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