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Do protests actually do anything?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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I think the best way to put it is that protests can be effective only when they present a credible threat of some sort against the people who have the power to make changes to whatever the protest is about. That threat may be direct violence, it may be electoral change, or it may be something else, but a credible threat of some sort is absolutely required.
Protesting against Israel, therefore, is of little use in most situations. The protesters pose no credible threat to Israel, so their decisions aren't going to change. And the protesters generally are not representing much of a credible threat against their own governments either, so their own governments are also not moved to change.
That said, some of the protests against Israel have involved blockades and strikes against businesses involved in shipping war materiel, and those have been very effective in terms of the costs they impose:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240202-transport-company-cuts-ties-with-israel-weapons-manufacturer-elbit/
Yeah, that's an excellent example. Those protests posed a credible threat to that specific business - indeed, to some degree they even already carried out some of the threat, just to show it was credible - which made changes to what they had the power to affect - their own actions.